Agreed there's not much you can do in that situation but try to jump on the ball.
I think in the NFC champ game, a Lions special teams player jumped on a loose ball from a full sprint. I wish I could find the clip because it's the best example ever of securing a ball on the ground.
Eh, I think if the 49ers had committed to the run game they could have chewed more clock, which could have left the Chiefs like Brady/Billy did in 2018 AFC Championship game. Then they started becoming as predictable as the Chiefs offense which let the Chiefs turn multiple pass plays into negative plays and then they had to pass. If they'd just kept to running it, those 3rd and 10+ would've been like 3rd and 4. It was when they started throwing those dumbass passes out in the flat (which the Chiefs also did in the 1st half and they pretty much all got blown up), which then made them have to play catch up and pass even more.
For the record, CMC averaged 3.6 yards per carry. The run game just wasn't all that effective. (Imagine in a parallel universe, the Niners stop the final drive and win the SB. Who then wins MVP? CMC seems to have the best stats, but they're not spectacular. I think Jennings had the most impact on the game. Nobody?)
Yeah the decision to start blitzing and then sticking with it when it was clearly worse than the defense they ran in the 1st half is baffling.
I don't know what the stats are, but some QBs just excel against blitz while others turn into scrubs. Mahomes excels against almost everything, so this could just be "damned if you do, damned if you don't." I don't blame Wilks for sending the blitz, because the 4-man front that dominated the first 25 game minutes had tapered off. In the first half, Mahomes was awful (under intense pressure), and his INT might have been the worst pass of his career.
That was on the blocking, there were multiple Chiefs that were able to get their hands up, not like the kicker was gonna be able to kick a parabola. Chiefs special teams was an unheralded part of their success this year. I think Butker was near perfect all season, and the punter channeled a bit of Colquitt in the Super Bowl. Simply put, the Chiefs outplayed the 49ers in all facets. Both teams didn't play their best. It was nice that their best play happened to end the game though. First 3 quarters were pretty sloppy/unsound, but 4th and OT were better.
This is false, kickers absolutely control the trajectory of the ball. Extra points are usually kicked high, and are rarely blocked. Long FG attempts are kicked at an angle to optimize for distance, and are more frequently blocked. Look at Butker's record 57 yard FG; it was pretty low and the ball mechanics didn't look all that great off his foot. It was just brute force power that drove it over the crossbar. Don't get me wrong, it takes special timing by the defense to block the XP. But the kicker is very much also responsible for the angle of the ball.
I do think Shanahan is catching too much blame for some aspects and not enough for others. Like their lack of discipline that showed up several times (be it fumbles, penalties, blocking, etc). The idiots griping about how Shanahan handled OT are idiots. Chiefs defense was already winded, and Chiefs offense was clicking, receiving made sense. The only thing people should be questioning is that he kicked the field goal instead of going for it to try to get the TD when already inside the Chief's 10. He should've gone for broke and should have bet the game on their ability to get 10 yards in 4 downs by running it down the Chiefs' throats after they got inside the red zone. Why people are like "it let the Chiefs go 4 down territory from the start" like the 49ers wouldn't have been in the same boat. They needed to score and should have guessed they needed a TD to win. If they didn't score the Chiefs were pinned back.
The stats on going for it on 4th and 4 aren't great (IIRC it's about 46%ish). Although the Niners defense by this point was tired (naturally), they are considered a top 5 unit. I don't second guess kicking the FG and asking your D to go out and win the game. Notice it took some Mahomes magic to flip the script. After Pacheco couldn't convert on 3rd-and-1, Mahomes had to run to convert 4th down. WR MVS made one of the dumbest moves you'll ever see, turning a 4 yard completion into a 3 yard loss. And Mahomes had the big 19 yard scamper later in the drive that took any last wind out of the defense's sails.
I thought the game was pretty good overall. I initially wondered why Kyle seemed to abandon the run in the 3rd quarter but KC's D stepped up. Aside from a few 6-8 yard clips in the first half, we just weren't that effective with CMC. With KC blitzing, you would've thought we'd call more screens to help Purdy out a little more. Losing Greenlaw on a fluke non-play was just terrible. In the end we just got outplayed and the D was gassed. You can't plan on a Mahomes scramble, although that designed Mahomes run was a great call. Nothing we can do now except retool and get ready for next year.
Honest take on the game! CMC wasn't gaining chunk yardage on the ground, but Shanahan didn't abandon the run either. (To his discredit, Reid never abandoned the run even though it nearly cost the Chiefs the game.)