What the 49ers said after losing to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl

The 49ers lost Super Bowl LVIII to the Chiefs 25-22 in an overtime heartbreaker on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Patrick Mahomes threw the winning three-yard touchdown to Mecole Hardman with three seconds left in the extra period. The 49ers got the ball first in overtime and drove the ball to the five-yard line, where Jake Moody made his third field goal of the game.

Receiver Jauan Jennings was involved in both of the 49ers’ touchdowns. He threw a 21-yard touchdown to Christian McCaffrey on a trick play in the second quarter, and then caught a 10-yard pass to give the 49ers the lead midway through the fourth quarter.

Purdy completed 23 of 38 passes for 255 yards and one touchdown. Christian McCaffrey ran 22 times for 80 yards and caught one touchdown.

After the defense held Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in check for the first half, he helped give the Chiefs the lead in the third quarter with a touchdown pass to Marquez Valdez-Scantling.

Kicker Jake Moody made a 53-yard field goal with 1:53 left in the game to give the 49ers a 19-16 lead, and Mahomes and Travis Kelce led the Chiefs on a drive downfield to tie the game and force overtime.

Here is what the 49ers said after the game.

Kyle Shanahan

At media podium

General reaction:

“Those were two real good teams and it went back and forth the whole game. Both teams played their asses off, and in the end, they got it done.”

What are your emotions after the game?

“We all hurt, and no one knows how it feels, and I don’t have a lot of words for it, but obviously we’re hurting and our team is hurting. But that’s how it goes when you put yourself out there. I’m real proud of our guys, and I have no regrets with my team. I thought the guys played so hard today. Not everything was perfect by no means, but if I’m going to lose with a group of guys, it’s going to be with those guys any time. It’ll take some time, but we’ll get over this, and we’ll come back next year ready to go.”

With the way your offensive possession in overtime went, obviously you wanted a touchdown. What went wrong where you guys couldn’t get through there?

“On the third down? It looked like there was a protection bust up the middle. We were going to Jauan, and it looked like Jauan killed them pretty good. But Chris Jones got loose up the middle. I think there was a mistake, and I’m not sure. But he’s a hard guy to block.”

Had you thought about it on fourth down in OT, maybe going for it there instead of the field goal, or was there no hesitation?

“We never thought about it there, fourth and four. Even if we score there, they could still go down and match it. So no there, there was no thought there”

With the new rules for overtime (both teams get the ball), what goes into the decision to take the ball first there?

“It’s just something we talked about there with none of us having a ton of experience with it. But we went through all the analytics and talked with those guys, and we decided it would be better and that we wanted the ball third. If both teams matched adn scored, we wanted to be the team with the chance to go and win. We got that field goal, so we knew we had to hold them to at least a field goal and if we did, we felt it was in our hands after that.”

It looked like your defense was pretty gassed at that point in the game. Did that factor into your decision-making at all, to give them a little bit of a rest?

“No. We decided that before.”

How are Kittle and Dre Greenlaw and the guys who had to come out of the game?

“Greenlaw tore his Achilles, and I’m not sure about George. It was a shoulder thing and he couldn’t go, at the end he was off and on. He was playing through a lot of pain.”

You went out to try to shake Andy’s hand and didn’t. Is that because you saw it would take some time?

“No, we talked on Monday and last year, when we played each other last time, it took 25 minutes to shake his hand last time. So we both talked on Monday, and regardless of who won, I love Andy and am tight with Andy, but we talked and we were both going to do that because it was too hard to get to each other after these Super Bowls.”

How do you think Brock Purdy played? He was moving around, using his legs. Was that an emphasis to get him outside?

“Um, no. I mean we called a couple bootlegs and stuff, which you do that on that. But that’s what Brock does. He scrambles, he makes some plays, and we knew it would be like that. That’s the toughest defense we’ve been against this year, and we knew it going into the game. That’s a good group. The way they mix up the blitzes, and two-shell coverages against the run, and the man coverage they played was tough. That was why they haven’t given up more than 27 this year. We had our chances, and needed to score a couple of touchdowns and didn’t. But I was happy with Brock.”

Kyle, this is three times now, with the Falcons and now with the 49ers, three double-digit leads in the Super Bowl. People will talk about that. Why do you think this keeps happening?

“This is my second game as a head coach, but I think when you go against guys like Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, you never feel comfortable with a lead. Those are two of the greatest players to ever play this game. That’s why whether you have a lead or are down points, those guys are always in it. You watch them do stuff like that all the time.”

Brock Purdy

General thoughts:

“Shot ourselves in the foot with just penalties and the operations and stuff. So I’ve got to be better in terms of leading the guys and how I handle things in the huddle and telling them what to expect and stuff like that. At the end of the day, I think we have the team, the offense to score touchdowns and I think I failed to put our team in position to do that.”

Problems to start to the second half?

“I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m not going lie. I think first and second down, we’ve just got to be better. You get in these third and longs and it’s tough to convert those kinds of situations. So just got to be better on first and second down. There’s a couple of plays, the defense got the stops like they needed to, and then our first couple plays were just either negative or we’re not moving the ball so it’s as simple as that.”

On the overtime:

“At that moment in overtime it was pretty quick, just, we came down here, let’s get points, take a field goal and then trust our defense to do what they can do. So that’s where our mindset was at. “I think earlier in the game, we needed to score in that moment, and so we were aggressive with it and went for it.”

On the emotions for Kyle:

“I mean, obviously, it sucks, man. You want to win it for that kind of guy. And he’s a great coach. Everybody wants to go to war with that guy. The way he handles himself and carries himself like we all just want to win for him. And obviously the older guys, the vets, Trent Williams, Aric Armstead, all the guys that have been through it, man, you want to win for him. But it starts with Coach man, that’s who I hurt for, and I hurt for all the other guys, our whole team. What we’ve been through the last year hasn’t been easy and for it to go like that, where it’s close at the end, it’s tough. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.”

On Mahomes:

“I think he’s one of the best to ever do it, honestly. Makes plays and obviously he’s got a great arm and stuff, but I just feel like the way he moves and his pocket movement and being able to run the ball when his offense needed it. And more than anything, he’s a competitor and like we said going into this game, man like you just don’t want to let him have the ball, because he can obviously do a lot of damage with it. He’s a baller.”

Takeaways?

“The first thing that comes to mind is when you have an opportunity like we did to really put some points up on them and take it, you got to take it. It’s the Super Bowl, you’ve got a good team in the Chiefs on the other side. I think we had opportunities to do that and we all fell short of it. I think that’s what eats at me is I feel like we had we had our opportunities to sort of lap them and get up on them and I think we failed to do that. So moving forward with my career, if you get blessed enough to get this in kind of position again, you have to understand that and not learn the hard way.

On the Chiefs’ defense:

“I feel like they play a little bit more man than we thought. We just didn’t know exactly how they were going to play us and we thought maybe just play zone, two show, like a lot of teams do. But they did a good job I think of stopping the run when they needed to and then man up … they did their job on third down so I think they did a pretty good job of playing man.”

On getting back to the Super Bowl?

“Yes, 100% I mean, that’s the mindset every year I think we have the team to do it. That’s what’s tough about all this, is it’s a long, long season and there’s a lot of stuff that you go through and but at the end of the day, we all have the mindset of being able to do it.”

Christian McCaffrey

On his first-quarter fumble:

“I think that I can’t put the ball on the ground on the first drive. That’s gonna sting, and I put that on me.”

On losing the Super Bowl:

“I’m still a little numb and angry and going through all of the emotions. I just have to wake up tomorrow, and try again.”

Brock Purdy talked about missed opportunities. Did you feel like you guys had opportunities to score?

“Definitely. One that keeps coming back in my mind is that first drive. I can’t put the ball on the ground.”

Is there anything the Chiefs did that surprised you guys?

“I think it was more about execution.”

You’ve been playing in this league for a long time. How does this heartbreak compare to anything else you’ve experienced in your football life?

“Yeah, it hurts the most. Yup.”

There’s a little bit of confusion surrounding the decision to take offense first in the overtime period …

“I was just thinking that we had to down there and score.”

Can you talk a little bit about Jauan Jennings? A touchdown pass to you, a touchdown reception himself, the second guy to ever do that in a Super Bowl. Just his talent to do so many different things?

“Yeah, he’s unbelievable, man. He’s extremely gifted, but he plays with so much heart. You see it in the run game, in the way he finishes plays. I’m just lucky I get to play with him.”

There’s a lot of attention on your young quarterback, a lot of spotlight on him. How do you think he held up on the big stage?

“I thought he did great. You go look at the self-inflicted wounds we had, and I think we just beat ourselves.”

Arik Armstead

On losing the Super Bowl.

Ah … sadness.

How tired do you feel like the defense got? You were on the field a lot.

We gave it all we had. It’s a hard task to chase around Mahomes, so it puts a lot of pressure on you to keep from getting fatigued. But we gave it our all, and I’m proud of our guys.

Are you surprised that Kyle sent the offense out there to start overtime instead of the defense? Did he check with you guys?

I didn’t even know about the new overtime rules, so it was a surprise to me. I didn’t even really know what was going on in terms of that. They put it on the scoreboard, so everyone was like “Oh, even if they score, we still get a chance to do something.”

Had the staff ever approached you about that this week, to let you know that there is a time when it goes to OT that the rules are different?

I wasn’t aware of it.

On the disappointment of losing in 2020 versus now.

The first time around, it being our first Super Bowl I was a part of, it was tough to lose. After, we were all younger. It was a little different feeling. We all had some great years ahead of us and some more opportunities. This time around, I feel like we have some opportunities, but we were just fighting so hard to get it done, and once it’s over, the hardest part is that you have to restart.

Fred Warner

On Greenlaw’s injury:

“He just been dealing with that same Achilles injury for the last few weeks, and so we ran out on the field together and I see him drop down and I knew exactly what happened.”

On the Chiefs last drive:

“We had to find a way to get to get a stop. There’s no perfect call there, we’ve got to execute. We got to find a way to get off and we just couldn’t do it.”

What happened on the final play?

“I’m not sure. I’ve got to see. I’m not sure who was supposed to be on (Hardman).”

On Mahomes:

“He’s a great player man. He’s a gamer. in those situations he knows when to throw it, when to run it. He’s a really great player.”

George Kittle

“You train all season, all offseason, every day you put in for work. You go to OTA’s. It’s a long, long season. It’s a long year, and we’re on week 27. We’ve been playing football since late July. To come up short of achieving our goal and dream, it’s not fun.”

On Greenlaw:

“That’s depressing. To get injured in the Super Bowl, hopefully he hits up Aaron Rodgers and figures out how to heal that quickly. Besides that, Dre’s a heartbeat of our defense, him and Fred in there. I know they feed off each other. And I think (Oren Burks) and (Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles) stepped in. I think they did a really good job, but we lose a guy like Dre, it’s just, it’s tough and he’s just such a fantastic football player. He’s everything that the Niners stand for. So to lose him, it really, really sucks for him.”

Jauan Jennings

On how it felt to throw that pass:

“That feels awesome. It felt like I was back at the University of Tennessee throwing to Josh Dobbs. To make that play, I just think about my quarterback coach from high school. I know he’s so proud right now and man, I thought we were gonna win.”

On the pain he’s feeling:

“How much does it hurt? Man, anybody got a nail he can step on? Probably about that much.”