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SANTA CLARA — Coach Kyle Shanahan stuck to his guns Thursday and insisted it was a “no-brainer” not to call timeout for a potential 49ers scoring drive just before halftime of Sunday’s eventual Super Bowl loss.
General manager John Lynch explained his own actions, too, having been caught by television cameras signaling for a timeout from his suite, after the 49ers’ defense made a third-down stop with about 1 1/2 minutes until halftime.
The end-of-half sequence has been a hot topic among fans and media second-guessing any and all 49ers plays that backfired in the 31-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Speaking for the first time to the media since after Sunday’s postgame session, Shanahan took a seat next to Lynch inside the Levi’s Stadium auditorium for a 25-minute press conference, and part of the ensuing autopsy was about the no-timeout call. Here is how they described their thought process, starting with Lynch:
Lynch: “It’s just as if I was the player looking at the sideline calling timeout, timeout. I was thrilled for these guys. I get excited watching these games and not much I can do up there (in a suite). But I’ve got these guys’ backs. It’s not my role to do time management and I don’t focus a lot on it. I was proud of our guys getting a big stop.
“Paraag (Marathe, the 49ers executive vice president) was over there and studies a lot of time management, so I was asking him if we should get the timeout. …It was quickly erased when they almost pinned us at the half-yard line. Kyle knows that. I watch the game with emotion because I care and that’s all that was.”
Shanahan, on if he should haven handled it differently: “No, absolutely not. That is one of the reasons why we were up 10 points going into the fourth quarter. I absolutely wouldn’t have called a timeout at that time because we were expecting to be backed up inside the 10, just like we should have been at the 1 (had a punt not been a touchback).
“I was as confident in that situation as anything we did any all year. I mean that strongly. … You’re not going to give the ball back to them no matter what in that situation. The way he did that third-and-15 at the end of the game is how he does a two-minute drive.
“Not using a timeout there was a no brainer. If we got an explosive run on the first one, it would have been a whole different deal. But we got a 2 1/2-yard run. So the whole goal was not to let them call a timeout there. So you hurry to the line to act like you’re going, but then you don’t, so you can assure that Mahomes won’t have an opportunity. Then we run the ball, make them use one of their timeouts.
“Now it’s third down and at least made them use a timeout. We’ve taken enough time off where if we don’t get this, it’s going to be harder. But it’s still a lot of pressure to move the chains. They brought a corner blitz, Jeff (Wilson) did an awesome job there (on a 20-yard reception), we got a big play and would have had an opportunity to score if we didn’t get an offensive P.I.” (George Kittle’s pass-interference call negated his 42-yard catch to the Chiefs 13 with 6 seconds left.).”
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Shanahan said he’s been through his play calls “probably 1,000 times the past few days” and doesn’t regret any. However, he acknowledged later he did regret not calling a timeout and that came after Garoppolo failed to complete a 49-yard pass to Emmanuel Sanders with just over a minute remaining.
“The one thing I was contemplating that was hard on me, was after we missed the post to Emmanuel, I knew how tired the guys were. That was my hardest thing,” Shanahan said. “I wanted to call a timeout to give them energy to beat the corners again. It was very hard how they were going.
“The reason I didn’t was because if we didn’t get that first down, we still would have three (timeouts) and they couldn’t run the clock out, but they ended busting that long (Damien William touchdown) run so it didn’t matter. In hindsight I wish I called timeout just so they could recover more and have more energy to get away from what the DBs were doing.”
