The morning after any close game: "What was [insert coach name] thinking? He blew the game."

Shanahan's explanation that they wanted the third possession (I felt) seemed absolutely reasonable. I haven't done all the calculations, but I can't imagine under which circumstances one could say that this decision was objectively flawed and hurt SF's chances.

Had SF kicked off instead, and KC still won, it's a guarantee that people would be wondering "why in the world" they gave the ball to a red hot Mahomes.

Fair point on the media angle and you are far better than me in calculations Chuck, but the point in overtime is to see the other team's hand.

If they don't score, you can win with a FG; if they kick a FG, you can win with a TD. If they score a TD, you know that you also have to get a TD.

Thinking ahead about a third possession (that may never happen) is overthinking in my view...Rick

As noted below, analytics say it's almost perfectly 50/50. Both teams get the ball, and it will be fun when the kicking team gets the ball down 7 and scores a TD -- they will very likely go for 2 for the ballgame. That's a good way to end things.

That being said, I think in this particular situation, you'd rather have Mahomes get the ball without the benefit of knowing to go for it on 4th down.

By the way, the whole "49ers players didn't know the rules" thing was overblown.

I thought the rules were different for postseason vs. regular season. I believe in regular season a TD on the opening possession still ends the game. I also believe that a regular season game cannot go past the end of the 5th quarter (and 5th quarter is 10 minutes long.)

All of the above would imply an advantage to taking the ball first in regular season OT.

That implies that the odds of the other team scoring on a standard drive is higher than ~43% (43% = 49% chance of 2pt success - 6% chance of missing the XP).

That strikes me as high in the aggregate. Perhaps scores are more likely in OT when defenses are tired?

and then whatever the losing coach chose was obviously the wrong decision.

Assuming Team A gets the ball first, and Team b second...

If the game goes to a 3rd possession, and assuming each team has a 40% chance of scoring and ending the game on a given drive (as a thought exercise... roll with it), then the chances of winning on a given drive are as follows:

3rd possession, Team A wins .4 (or game continues .6)
4th, B, .24 (which is .6*.4)
5th, A, .144
6th, B, .0864
7th, A, .05184
8th, B, .031104

Keep going far enough and sum each teams win probabilities on each of their possible drives (the sum of odd numbered drives for team A and the sum of even numbered drives for Team B), and you get 62.4% odds for Team A to win the game, or 37.6% for Team B to win the game.

Adjusting the assumed chance of scoring on a given drive, win probability changes as follows:

.25 chance of scoring on a given drive: A wins the game 55.5% of the time, B wins 44.5% of the time
.28, A wins 57%, B wins 43%
.3, A wins 58%, B wins 42%
.35, A wins 60.2%, B wins 39.8%
.4, A wins 62.4%, B wins 37.6%
.45, A wins 64.4%, B wins 35.6%

I think based on this and the assumption that the probability of scoring on a given drive is greater than .28, as the coach of Team B I would take my 43% chance of winning by going for 2 after scoring a TD on the 2nd possession rather than keep playing.

at least for playoffs. Both pro and college football have evolved to the point where offense has a big advantage. Giving both teams a possession, perhaps with only 2-point tries on TDs, should resolve a winner in an efficient time frame that will replicate the natural way the game is played instead of a contrived shootout that is unnecessary.

It seems that in general college offenses are less efficient than NFL (with the caveat that so are the defenses) which means an "extra innings" approach would be less likely to result in a quick resolution to the game. Thoughts?

higher than NFL. Not sure that answers your question, but I would guess either the NFL or college football would resolve a winner in a fairly similar amount of time (and quantity of plays), with college perhaps being done even faster. I would add the must go for 2-points on a TD (less than 50% conversation) to expedite a final result quicker in the two TDs on first possession scenario.

the easiest one I can think of is to move field position from the 25 to midfield.

Is that it eliminates two very important variables from consideration: field position and the game clock. It also eliminates special teams from consideration as well, with the exception of the PAT/FG unit.

but with the playoff games taking over the sport, would 1 guaranteed possession under normal football rules extend the game a significant number of plays on average, with only 2-point tries on TDs, and if tied after 1 possession each, next score wins? Shootouts are tolerable in the regular season, but I would prefer the new NFL style OT in the playoffs. You have a better sense of just how big of an issue number of plays is for college age athletes, but unless that is a compelling case, use the NFL rules.

I admit to being a fogey and think tie games are OK The best OTs in sports are those which stay closest to normal rules. Baseball. Basketball, playoff hockey, and golf are good in that regard. Tennis and FB less so

Your idea of moving the ball back rewards god defenses. I hate OT field goals on an initial 4th and 15

Made OT special in playoffs

I agree with the rest of your post, too

At least have to make a 1st down or 2 to kick a FG

As a HS wrestler before reg season OT, I had 2 ties: 1 vs a very good wrestler. 1 vs a poor one
1 got me a big pat on the back & the other almost cost me my starting spot

I saw it on twitter yesterday.

Said the same thing--basically a toss up. It's the most fair way to do overtime.

KC converted easily, but it shows how close the 49'ers were to winning. I think getting the ball second is an advantage as you know what you need to do to win/tie. But Shanahan shouldn't be catching grief for it as the Chiefs converted on "match point" (Sean Payton term which makes sense)

advantage to getting the ball second. There's an even bigger advantage to getting the ball third. The debate is how to weigh the uncertainty of there ever being a third possession. It doesn't seem like the numbers guys have come to a consensus which as jt points out means it's a pretty good system to have in place to determine the winner. I personally don't have a preference and would probably let how my defense was playing dictate my decision. I wouldn't like the possibility of letting Mahomes know what he needed which in the case I scored a TD would mean he has four downs to work with but I really wouldn't like the possibility of having Mahomes/Butker only needing a FG to beat me in the third possession.

I think you have to assume he's going to lead his team to a TD on that drive.

So, the question becomes...would you prefer for him to lead the Chiefs to 7 points on the first drive, or give him a chance to win the game with a 2-pt conversion on the second drive?

With 90% of NFL QBs, I might agree that the OT scenario is a toss-up. With Mahomes, I'd absolutely want him to go first.

Or whatever yard line the 49ers were on when they kicked a FG?

The Niners should have gone for it on 4th and 4. If you miss it, Chiefs are get the ball deep in their half and then wouldn't have to go for it on their own fourth down every time.

and not winged it, they wouldn't have had to go for it on fourth down, because they would have scored on 3rd down.

If it was up to me (and thankfully it isn't) he should have been cut the next day.

specifically, would the head coach of the opposing team need to call a timeout because he saw that his DC was once again in a poor coverage on 3rd down?

Maybe Shanahan figured that his defense could keep performing reasonably well (only 1 td allowed to that point in the game). When you have guys shouting on the sideline to watch qb keep on 4th and 1 and your defensive coordinator is out of the loop (again), maybe that guy just needed to be replaced.

That's not a strategy issue in as much as it is a coach who couldn't rise to the occasion. If they hadn't fired him, several of their star players were likely to demand trades.

I just think Mahomes has ascended to the Jordan/Brady level, which means he's going to get what he needs when he needs it...even if he's been held in check thus far.

I think analytics have to account for the opponent...and I think Mahomes generally turns 50/50 propositions into ones that (greatly) favor his team.

and in the game in general. I believe that is a game the Niners should have won and basically completely blew it, and it started in the first drive of the game and continued through overtime; nobody is immune from blame, including (and especially) Shanahan.

We have the benefit of hindsight here, but I think that is basically came down to OL play and mangled pro schemes (looking back at the tape, apparently there were 4 plays that would have been td's with better pro, and there were 6 other potential shot plays where things didn't hit because of pressure. You can't hit on everything, but your % needs to be higher than that) as well as questionable defensive play calls at crucial moments. The Niners are very lucky Kelce didn't score at the end of the game, as an example. They're very lucky they got out of the first half without giving up a td. The Chiefs were able to get Kelce isolated on a LB (Warner is elite, but he is still a LB) and use his leverage against him in the second half; Wilks was standing there on the sidelines doing his inner Ty Willingham/wooden Indian routine and had no answers.

It was completely blown; those pointing out missed holding calls and overtime strategy are basically missing the point. For one, the officiating was extremely poor for both teams, and secondly it never should have come down to that. Kyle absolutely knows that this is the case, IMO. He knows that this game was blown. Hopefully he gets another chance, and hopefully Wilks and everyone else from the Willingham regime never coaches again for any team I root for (alas, Denbrock, but everyone knows how I feel about that).

This one is squarely on Shanny. Spags definitely owned him but Shanny reverted to his SB form and wilted.

say that they should go for two. When we see this happen in the playoffs, it will be interesting. Teams need to have an air-tight 2-point conversion for this situation.