San Francsico 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan once again is on the wrong side of NFL playoff history.
49ers fans are now used to it. Still Shanahan is known for the biggest choke jobs in Super Bowl history. As offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons he blew a 28-3 to the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. As head coach of the 49ers he blew a 10 point lead in the fourth quarter Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
So what did the 49ers head coach do today? He blew another 10 point lead in the fourth quarter against the division rival Los Angeles Rams.
For the it was the biggest comeback in a conference championship game since 1970.
In the fourth quarter San Francisco needed only one yard on second down. Incredibly Shanahan went with a run play that did not work the entire game and Elijah Mitchell lost a yard on the play. This is where Shanahan being cute also gets frustrating. Instead of going to Deebo Samuel who throughout the game ran over Rams defenders, he elected to send Trent Williams in motion and hoped for confusion.
So the play instead went to fullback Kyle Juszczyk and it did not even come close to being successful, he also nearly fumbled the football. Sean McVay actually used his second challenge of the game and as a result Los Angeles was out of timeouts.
Even on fourth down the 49ers were seemingly going to go for the conversion. Yet the Rams defense did not jump. Shanahan once again went with the conservative approach and that is not what winning coaches do. He actually chose to let the play clock run down for a delay of game penalty. Mitch Wishnowsky then punted.
The biggest momentum changer though came on the next offensive series for Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford who decided to go deep and try to catch the 49ers defense napping. It did not appear to work, yet Jacquiski Tartt could not come up with an easy interception. When teams do not come up with big plays like a turnover it usually does not end well and that is what happened.
Yet Tartt is not to blame. Jimmie Ward on the ensuing play got called for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Odell Beckham Jr., which tacked on an additional 15 yards. At the time of the penalty the Rams were not yet in field goal range.
Still even with those mistakes the 49ers were in position to at least tie the game up late. The pressure from the Rams finally got Jimmy Garoppolo who seemingly played his last game with the franchise and his last pass ended in an interception on a drive that Shanahan did not look to get the ball in the hands of Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk.
Other then that rought stretch to close out the game in the fourth quarter Garoppolo played well. There was one mistake in the first half where he overthrew tight end George Kittle. Still the play in that half seemed like much of the 49ers losses in 2021.
Garoppolo did not really get anything going until the second quarter and only after the Rams took a 7-0 lead after a long 97-yard drive.
Samuel took a screen pass 44 yards for a touchdown. This was after Shanahan seemingly was not paying attention to the game or the playclock and the 49ers got called for a false start. That was immedaitely after Brandon Aiyuk nearly came up with a long touchdown reception, yet was unable to stay in-bounds.
What was absolutely inexcusable for Shanahan and the offense was not having a play ready after their biggest offensive play of the game at that point.
A timeout needed to get taken and that did not happen. With Garoppolo trying to get the play off Williams committed a false start before a delay of game was going to get called.
His next play obviously made up for that mistake.
After a missed field goal by Matt Gay, the 49ers were once again in business. Aiyuk came close to scoring a touchdown yet a shoestring tackle stopped him.
Instead of trying to take a shot at the endzone, Garoppolo took off with the football for four yards. He then drained what was left on the clock and in came Robbie Gould for a field goal and a 10-7 lead at half. The most importan thing for the 49ers was getting football back to start the second half.
As for the Rams there were several mistakes in the first half as well. Cooper Kupp dropped seemingly a big gain and a likely touchdown. Ben Skowronek dropped an easy touchdown as 49ers Ward did not have a clue where the football was.
Still when it is all said and done it comes back to Shanahan and his inability to call a play that either gets a yard, or on the two ensuing plays, two yards. This choke job is once again on him and with how the 49ers look when it comes to the draft, trading him for picks seems like the best solution.
At this point it is better to have Shananan ion another franchise’s sideline while he once again is on the wrong side of NFL postseason history.