The San Francisco 49ers are taking a lot of criticism for their decision to receive the ball first during the overtime period of Super Bowl LVIII and that decision has been openly questioned by several Kansas City Chiefs players since then. However, one data analyst does not seem to think it was necessarily a bad decision.
In an interview with NFL insider Peter King for his Football Morning in America column on Monday, Mike McRoberts of Championship Analytics – an independent analyst who consults with five different NFL teams – was not sure which decision he would have made, but he actually leaned toward taking the ball first like Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan.
“I thought it was almost a tossup,” McRoberts told King. “Gun to my head, I would have done what Kyle did. Whoever designed this rule did a good job, because the outcome should not be determined by the coin flip, and each team gets at least one full possession. It’s not gimmicky at all.”
Ultimately, it’s easy to question in hindsight as the Chiefs were able to win the game after holding the Niners to a field goal on their first possession. But the numbers don’t necessarily indicate that Shanahan did anything wrong.
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