The 3 biggest regrets Kyle Shanahan will have on offense after re-watching the Super Bowl

The type of running plays, the player he targeted the most, and the blunders in pass protection

If you had known the San Francisco 49ers scored 22 points in the Super Bowl beforehand, you probably would have been hesitant to think they would’ve been Super Bowl champions.

But if I had told you they went 3-for-12 on third down, averaged 3.5 yards per carry, committed two turnovers, and the most targeted receiver only had 33 yards, a loss would’ve felt inevitable.

The high-flying offense we saw during the regular season and sporadically during the playoffs was nowhere to be found against a stellar Kansas City Chiefs defense. You’re asking for it when you only score two touchdowns on 13 drives with Patrick Mahomes on the other side.

Acting like everything went wrong with the 49ers offense on Sunday is inaccurate. Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings, Chris Conley, and Charlie Woerner were excellent. Unfortunately, the box score doesn’t tell the same story, and a plethora of mistakes at the worst possible times prevented Kyle Shanahan from optimizing his offensive output.

Speaking of Shanahan, there were three facets of the game that I believe he regrets in hindsight. Let’s walk through each of them.

Ditch the zone already!

During the regular season, the 49ers were a predominant zone running team. Three out of four run plays were zone, the second-highest usage rate in the NFL.

The Niners were an elite running team this season, whether zone or gap scheme. They were second in success rate running zone and fourth in using gap.

The splits were predictable against the Chiefs, as running back carries were 19/5 for zone and scheme. The problem was that Shanahan continued to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. Steve Spagnuolo used heavy personnel, and his defensive linemen owned the line of scrimmage when it came to 1-on-1 blocking — which is what a zone scheme comes down to.

The 49ers could not block Chris Jones, which isn’t surprising, as not many teams could all year. But the Niners’ offensive line made defensive tackle Mike Pennel look like Aaron Donald. Not blocking him, like on the play below, doesn’t help:

14:29 timestamp

In the Super Bowl, you call a running play, and you have two offensive lineman leave a first-level defender to go to the second-level. Inexcusable mistakes like that were the reason the offense struggled on third down. It’s a lot tougher to convert when it’s 3rd & 9 compared to 3rd & 5.

I don’t recall plays like the one above ever happening. Mano e mano, across the board, the Chiefs outclassed the Niners upfront. That even applies to Trent Williams, which is something that I never thought I’d say.

You can’t blame Shanahan for that. Still, I thought he could’ve ditched the zone runs sooner and run more gap/man blocking to offset some of the looks the Chiefs gave him.

Filtering out the jet sweeps and end-arounds, the 49ers ran 19 zone plays for 58 yards with a 42 percent success rate. There were only five gap runs, but the offense gained 36 yards with a 100 percent success rate. Jon Feliciano and Aaron Banks looked far more comfortable when they had to pull, as opposed to running laterally trying to cut off a defender.

In hindsight, it’s easy to point the finger, but one type of run worked every time, while the other was essentially wasting a down and putting the team behind the chains.

Deebo on a milk carton

If you could point to one matchup in this game on this side of the ball that had the biggest contribution to the outcome of the game, it was Deebo Samuel against Trent McDuffie. On six targets, Samuel had one reception — a screen — for nine yards. Deebo had a drop while McDuffie broke up three passes. L’Jarius Sneed also broke up one pass on two targets against Samuel.

There were numerous plays that were non-targets where Samuel couldn’t shake free:

27:50

Funneling your passing offense through Deebo — he had 11 targets compared to six for Brandon Aiyuk — was a head scratcher for multiple reasons. One, Aiyuk has been your go-to guy all season against man coverage. That’s never been a strength of Samuel’s. And two, it was evident that Deebo wasn’t healthy. Ray-Ray McCloud was on the field in overtime on a 3rd down over Samuel, who was in and out of the lineup with a hamstring issue.

Yet, when the team needed to make a play, it was No. 19, not No. 11, who was seeing the ball. This comes off as harsh, but Samuel certainly didn’t live up to his contract in the biggest game of the season:

Re-watching the game, Aiyuk could’ve easily had 100+ yards. He was open early and often. That wasn’t a Brock Purdy issue. It was a coaching issue and a lack of adjustment from the play-caller.

Passing on protections

Next Gen Stats tweeted that the Chiefs created nine pressures with an unblocked defender. Nine. That number seems unfathomable. But when you watch, it felt like more.

I’m not sure how other teams run their offense, but the quarterback doesn’t make the calls for the 49ers. It’s on the center. That’s not placing the blame on Jake Brendel, either. Brock Purdy was under pressure on 49 percent of his dropbacks. The Chiefs blitzed him 46 percent of the time. You can get away with those reckless numbers when your cornerbacks can win 1-on-1, which they did.

There were times when Kansas City brought more than San Francisco could block. But more often than not, the Niners went to the wrong spot. One of those plays led to a Twitter spat between the players:

53:58 timestamp

The last offensive play of the season for the 49ers was a bust in protection. Give credit to Steve Spagnuolo, as he manipulated the protections all night against the Niners.

There weren’t enough built in “hot” routes for Brock Purdy to go to. When there were, he found them:

50:00 timestamp

I’d argue that the 3rd & 4 bust toward the end of regulation was more egregious than the 3rd & 4 play in overtime from above. Why? If the 49ers convert on this play, it’s ballgame. They keep the ball, milk the clock, and Kansas City’s offense likely doesn’t step onto the field again.

46:23

At the time, the biggest play of the season comes down to a third down back needing to pick up a blitz. That third down back was George Kittle. That’s right, your star tight end is in the backfield. Instead of scanning across the formation, Kittle misses the check from Brendel — how could you blame him, he’s never done this all season — and blocks the same player as Spencer Burford, and the nickel comes untouched and tips the ball.

Perhaps Aiyuk has an explosive play. At worst, he picks up the first down. But we’ll never know because there was a mistake in the protection — which was an unfortunate theme for the 49ers offense all game.

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