Super thinking about Andy, ‘corndogs,’ and the Eagles

Just like the #Eagles a year earlier, the 49ers were unable to build onto or hold a 10-point Super Bowl LVIII lead, ultimately finding themselves having to stop a Patrick Mahomes drive to win.

Just like the Eagles a year earlier, the 49ers couldn’t do that, and they lost.

If you’re going to beat Mahomes in the Super Bowl, as only Tom Brady and the Bucs have done, you can’t put the ball in his hands in the final minutes of a close game. It’s that simple. Mahomes was 8-for-8 on the final drive Sunday, and he also ran for 27 yards.

I’m uncomfortable saying Mahomes has matched or surpassed Brady. Seven Super Bowl wins is seven Super Bowl wins. But I am comfortable saying that I don’t remember Brady winning a Super Bowl in which his offensive line got thoroughly dominated by the opponent’s defensive line, the way the 49ers’ front worked over the Chiefs’ o-line Sunday night.

The winning touchdown pass came on a variation of the “corndog” play the Chiefs used for a touchdown in the previous year’s Super Bowl victory over the Eagles, as Mahomes and others acknowledged.

The receiver goes in motion, then stops and reverses field. With Kadarious Toney last year and with Mecole Hardman this year, the defense ended up sort of halfway passing off the assignment — he’s your guy now, no wait, he’s still my guy, oh crap I need to get back over — and the receiver was basically uncovered in the end zone.

If you’re still wondering why Kellen Moore is going to be running the Eagles’ offense this year instead of Nick Sirianni, look no further. Moore understands how and when to use motion. Sirianni likes to talk about how he isn’t going to motion just to motion, and there are other ways to get the defense to declare what it’s doing (which, of course, is not the only reason to use motion, as “corndog” showed). Listening to Nick is like listening to an NBA coach who doesn’t think the three-pointer is such a big deal, there are other ways to score.

For an owner like Jeffrey Lurie, who always likes to be on the cutting edge, who is fascinated by data and analytics, Sirianni might not be the best coaching match. It seems that now Lurie has said, “OK, Nick, you keep doing all that emotional intelligence stuff that I like, and we’ll get somebody else to figure out a real 2024 NFL offense.”

Lurie was at the game Sunday, hugged Andy Reid beforehand. I’m sure Lurie is happy for Reid; their parting in 2013 was like nothing I’ve ever seen, Andy presented with an inscribed ball in the NovaCare cafeteria, while everyone gathered around and applauded. But at some level, the thought has to creep in: “A coach I fired has won three Super Bowls since then.”

In this case, I’m not one to pummel skeletal equine remains. I don’t know what would have happened if Andy had stayed. I do know his last Eagles team started out 3-1 and then lost 11 of 12, a much longer version of what fans sat through in the last seven weeks of this past season. The players had stopped listening.

More important, if Andy stays here, does he get Patrick Mahomes? Before Mahomes, KC Andy was just like Philly Andy — built a solid program, made the playoffs, didn’t win Super Bowls. It would be wrong to say Andy’s just lucky, the Chiefs only win because of Mahomes, but Mahomes is the magic ingredient that makes a good coach a great coach.

Coaching matters, too. Andy made sure he understood and his players understood the special postseason overtime rules; having the ball first is essentially meaningless, because unlike in the regular season, a first-possession touchdown doesn’t end the game. In fact, it’s likely that having the ball second is better, because you know whether you can win with a field goal, or need a TD. If the other team has scored, you know to go for it on every fourth down, as the Chiefs did successfully.

After the game, some 49ers players said they didn’t know all that stuff. It mattered. As did Andy’s emphasis on special teams — the Chiefs had a kicker, Harrison Butker, who was automatic, while the 49ers had the less dependable Jake Moody, who ended up line-driving an extra point into a forest of upraised KC hands Sunday. The miss meant the Chiefs only needed a field goal to get to OT, instead of a touchdown. The play of the game might have been the punt muff that led to the Chiefs’ first TD; the 49ers’ special teams ranked 25th overall this season.

Speaking of people who didn’t know the special OT rules, I thought Jim Nantz and Tony Romo waited way too long to explain to the audience that since the Chiefs were still on their first possession of overtime, the clock didn’t matter — had it ticked to zero, the teams would have just started another overtime, like going from the first quarter to the second.

Nantz and Romo were belatedly trying to make that clear as Mahomes was throwing the game-winning TD pass to Hardman. I think a lot of people were focusing on the play and not really listening. The NFL Network’s Maurice Jones Drew definitely wasn’t listening. Afterward, he asked both Reid and Mahomes if they were afraid time was going to run out before they scored.

Overall, I came away reminded that as good as the Super Bowl teams are, they are never perfect, or invulnerable. Forty-niners star linebacker Dre Greenlaw tore an Achilles tendon just running onto the field. (Dom DiSandro, Greenlaw’s arch nemesis, was at the game but there is no proof he was involved.) Both teams turned the ball over and took crushing penalties. There were times, especially in the first half, when Mahomes looked like 2023 Jalen Hurts, unable to find a receiver, unwilling to take off, ultimately hauled down from behind. The 49ers messed up blocking assignments on two crucial late-game plays, leading to Brock Purdy incompletions.

I still don’t know if the Niners can win a Super Bowl with Purdy, and I suspect they don’t, either.

When it counted, late, Mahomes was magnificent. Can he win seven Super Bowls? Dunno, but I’m thinking he doesn’t stop at three.