On the next play, Mahomes hit Kelce for a touchdown. 'I'm a little surprised by that call by Robert Saleh,' Fox's Troy Aikman said on the broadcast after watching the replay. Almost immediately, he was chased from the pocket and forced to scramble out of bounds for a minimal gain. Garpppolo did not get that level of protection. To convert a third-and-14, the 49ers' offensive line needed to provide stellar protection to allow the routes to develop downfield - the kind of protection the Chiefs' offensive line afforded Mahomes on his third-and-15 conversion to Hill on the ensuing drive. Before the next play, left tackle Joe Staley false-started to turn a third-and-9 into a third-and-14. This is where things really began to unravel for the 49ers' offense.

Pressure flushes Garoppolo from the pocket If the blitz up the middle hadn't arrived, Garoppolo would've had time to cycle through his reads and to get the ball to Bourne in space. Garoppolo never had time to get to a second read, which is why he tried to jam the ball into Samuel. As soon as Garoppolo looked up after a play-fake, he had Chiefs inside linebacker Anthony Hitchens bearing down on him. The Chiefs deserve credit for forcing the miss by bringing pressure. This isn't just a case of blaming Garoppolo for missing an open man. And if they had come down with that interception, they would've set up their offense with field position in Chiefs' territory there's also the possibility their defense would've reached the end zone all on their own. But there was a chance for the 49ers to intercept Mahomes far earlier on that series. Trailing by 10 points at the onset of the fourth quarter, the Chiefs were in the process of mounting a drive that appeared, at one point, to be leading to at least a field goal before Mahomes saw an inaccurate pass bounce off Hill's arms and into Tarvarius Moore's hands for an interception at the 49ers' 20-yard line. From there, the list will unfold chronologically. With that, we begin with the first play of the fourth quarter. Clark's sack of Garoppolo on fourth down to end the 49ers' attempted game-winning drive.Mahomes' downfield completion to Watkins on the following drive.Third-and-forever: How Mahomes and Hill sparked the Chiefs' comeback (you can read an in-depth breakdown of that play, with commentary from players and coaches, by clicking here).Kyle Shanahan not using his timeouts at the end of the first half ( you can read about that here).Both of the Chiefs' fourth-down conversions in the first half.In other words, the plays listed below aren't unheralded: But first, it's worth noting that the following plays were not considered because they were deemed to be plays that everyone will already remember for the rest of time.

With that in mind, let's run through seven under-the-radar plays that shifted Super Bowl LIV. Listen below and be sure to subscribe for daily NFL goodness fired into your eardrums. A few smaller plays also had to go in the Chiefs' favor.Ĭould Kansas City be starting a dynasty? What does the future look like for the 49ers? Brady Quinn and Jonathan Jones join host Will Brinson to answer those questions and much more on the Pick Six Podcast. And we know about the Damien Williams touchdown run that officially sealed the result.īut what about the plays that won't be remembered years down the line? What about everything that transpired in between those moments, the unheralded plays that swung the game in favor of the Chiefs and away from the 49ers? All of the aforementioned plays were game-changers, but those plays were only made possible due to a confluence of events. We know about Frank Clark's sack to end the 49ers' short-lived attempted game-winning drive. We know about the game-winning touchdown itself, a real-life example of how football really is a game of inches. We know about Sammy Watkins burning Richard Sherman for 38 yards to set up the game-winning touchdown. We all know about the 44-yard completion from Mahomes to Tyreek Hill on third-and-15 that sparked the comeback. A whole lot had to go wrong for the 49ers to lose. This wasn't just a case of one or two plays changing the outcome of the game.

Obviously, to squander a 10-point lead and fall behind by 11 points in a span of five minutes, mistakes had to have been made by the 49ers. They wound up losing by 11 points after Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs scored touchdowns on three straight drives in a five-minute window late in the fourth quarter. At one point late in the fourth quarter on Sunday, as they tried to salt away the clock and runaway with a 10-point lead, the 49ers' win probability hovered above 95 percent.

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