49ers Brock Purdy won't soon forget their missed opportunities in the Super Bowl loss

LAS VEGAS — Patrick Mahomes was on the minds of the San Francisco 49ers even when they had the ball Sunday.

Facing third-and-4 from the Kansas City Chiefs' 9-yard line in overtime, Brock Purdy said he knew the 49ers couldn't settle for a field goal because it would give Mahomes a chance to counter with the kind of game winning play. drive for which he became famous.

“You just don't want to give him the opportunity to win the game with a touchdown,” Purdy said.

That's exactly what happened.

The 49ers' third-down play was good. It called for Jauan Jennings, at the time a strong contender for the game's MVP award, to start inside and then quickly move back to the nearest pylon. He did so, shaking his defender.

“It looked like Jauan killed it and won pretty well,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said afterward.

The problem is that no one was blocking Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones. He's both Kansas City's best defensive player and someone who tormented the 49ers in their last Super Bowl meeting with the Chiefs. Right tackle Colton McKivitz put a hand on Jones but moved out to block defensive end George Karlaftis.

That gave Jones a free run to Purdy, who had to rush his pass and ultimately threw too far for Jennings. The 49ers settled for a 27-yard Jake Moody field goal for a three-point lead. And that set the stage for what Purdy and the 49ers feared: a vintage Mahomes drive that lasted 13 plays, included a 19-yard Mahomes scramble and ended with a winning toss to a wide-open Mecole Hardman.

The score and resulting 25-22 victory gave Mahomes MVP honors and left the 49ers exhausted, devastated and, for the second time in four years, ruining what could have happened in a Super Bowl against the Chiefs.

“When you have a good offense like the Chiefs and what Mahomes can do, for us it's like, 'Okay, we've got to score touchdowns,'” ​​Purdy said. “And we had opportunities to do that, I think. We shot ourselves in the foot with penalties and operations and all that.”

For most of the game, the 49ers and Chiefs were virtual twins.

Both defenses were dominant early and took the opponent's best players out of the game. Defensive effort may have been an issue in the 49ers' first playoff games, but not on Sunday when players like Chase Young, Randy Gregory and Javon Kinlaw stepped up with big plays that frustrated the Chiefs and kept them within six points for nearly three quarters kept.

Mahomes' favorite target, Travis Kelce, had one catch for 1 yard at halftime. And Mahomes and Purdy had the exact same modest passing total at halftime – 123 yards.

However, the Chiefs defense was even better at crushing their opponent's star players. Receivers Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel were each held to three catches on Sunday, despite Samuel being targeted a game-high 11 times. Tight end George Kittle had a key catch on fourth down in the fourth quarter, but was held to 4 total yards. That fourth-and-3 throw in the fourth quarter was also influenced by Mahomes.

“That's probably not something we would normally do, but we thought it was the right thing to do in this situation,” Shanahan said.

The only real offensive weapons for the 49ers were Jennings, who had a passing and receiving touchdown, and Christian McCaffrey, who combined for 160 yards of offense.

Furthermore, the 49ers offense was never able to fully capitalize on Mahomes and Kelce's modest starts.

Early in the third quarter, Mahomes was flushed from the pocket, only to find Kelce covered by linebacker Fred Warner. Instead, he lofted a pass to receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, which was picked off by safety Ji'Ayir Brown at the Kansas City 44-yard line.

The 49ers had momentum, they had the crowd behind them and they had a perfect opportunity to extend their 10-3 lead. Instead, Purdy threw an incompletion on the first down, guard Aaron Banks committed a false start on the second down and the 49ers had to punt the ball.

“It was little things everywhere – all three phases,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “We did things that were not typical of what we usually do as a team and I think that's ultimately what hit us, and it was too much to overcome.”

The 49ers also experienced higher turnover than the Chiefs.

They lost linebacker Dre Greenlaw in the second quarter when, running onto the field after a punt, he tore his Achilles tendon. Right guard Jon Feliciano was injured late in the third quarter, while Samuel (hamstring) and Kittle (shoulder) left the game for stretching exercises. During a crucial sequence late in the fourth quarter, the 49ers were without defensive starters Greenlaw, Brown and Deommodore Lenoir.

As the 49ers weakened, the connection between Mahomes and Kelce grew stronger. The tight end's 22-yard catch and run late in the fourth quarter — he beat Warner, who had been strong against him up to that point — set up the field goal that sent the game into overtime, and Kelce finished with 93 yards for. direct all recipients.

“That's probably the most disappointing thing about the loss,” Warner said. “Because we went into it and said he wasn't going to be the reason they hit us. And at the end we were doing a couple plays where he was running wide open down the middle of the field. That is disappointing.”

Shanahan cited analytics as the reason he let the 49ers receive the ball to start overtime. He thought the team that got the opening kickoff of the session might get a second possession.

“We wanted the ball third,” he said. “If both teams were evenly matched and scored, we wanted to be the ones who had a chance to win (the match).”

The 49ers never got that chance. Their opening drive of overtime was their longest of the game: 7:38. That was followed by the Chiefs' longest game: 7:19. The difference was that one ended in a field goal and the other in a touchdown.

After Mahomes' big scramble in the red zone, tailback Isiah Pacheco ran three yards and Mahomes hit Kelce for another seven yards. That put the ball on San Francisco's 3-yard line as the clock expired in the first overtime.

The final blow came on a shotgun blast on which no one covered Hardman, who started moving toward the formation but retreated to the outside. Both Warner and safety Logan Ryan rushed Mahomes on the play.

THE CHIEFS ARE BACK-TO-BACK SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS! pic.twitter.com/ZzfhTyUXg9

—NFL (@NFL) February 12, 2024

“I'm not sure,” Warner said of what went wrong with the reporting. 'I have to see it. I'm not sure who would be with (Hardman).

The loss had many of the same themes as the one in Miami four years ago, including a blown lead and an inability to stop Jones and Mahomes in key moments.

However, the aftermath of this seemed worse. There was a funeral-like silence in the locker room afterwards. Shanahan gave only a brief postgame address to his team, McCaffrey gave a cut postgame interview, and even the normally extensive Kittle session lasted just four minutes.

“Not much has been said,” Purdy said. “It just hurts. We clearly have the team to do it, to win the whole thing and then come up short like that. … The way things have been going here the last few years, everyone wanted it so bad. So I think right now we're still trying to sort out our thoughts and stuff. But everyone in that locker room loves each other, I can tell you that.”

(Top photo of Brock Purdy being pressured by Chris Jones during overtime: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)