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Kyle Shanahan has heard the criticism that, for all his great accomplishments as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, he is unable to win the big game.
Those calls grew louder after a second Super Bowl loss in five seasons and Shanahan is as eager as anyone to quell them — to prove his doubters wrong but also because it would mean he had won “a damn Super Bowl.”
“The fact that we keep getting there shows how much we win big games,” Shanahan said Tuesday as the Niners headed home for the offseason two days after a 25-22 overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
“These two Super Bowls have been tough, losing to Kansas City. … You guys can have any narrative you want. The success or the failure comes down to one game,” he said. “I hope that I can be a part of a team that wins the game at the end of the year. But to say the Niners can’t win a big game would be an extremely inaccurate statement.”
They have just been unable to win the ultimate prize despite coming so close in recent years. San Francisco blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter to the Chiefs to lose the Super Bowl following the 2019 season.
The Niners then blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter of the 2021 NFC title game to lose to the Los Angeles Rams and lost again at that stage last season to Philadelphia when they played much of the game without a functioning quarterback.
Then came the latest Super Bowl, when they led Chiefs 10-0 early and then allowed Patrick Mahomes to lead two game-tying field goal drives in the fourth quarter and a game-winning touchdown drive in overtime.
“I’m just disappointed because we had more than enough opportunities to go and take it,” All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner said. “Super Bowls aren’t given. You’ve got to take them in the moments where they’re there and we didn’t. We had such a team to do it, we had such a great opportunity. We were playing the right way. What sucks is you have to go back to ground zero and start all over again.”
The Niners were…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/kyle-shanahan-bristles-at-the-notion-his-49ers-cant-win-big-games-following-another-super-bowl-loss
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Publish date : 2024-02-13 23:57:51
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