On Sunday, the 49ers were outplayed by the Vikings in a 23-17 loss. No matter where you looked, holes were visible across the entire team. The offensive line was bad, Purdy didn’t look great, the run game wasn’t utilized correctly, defensive issues and so much more. But there was an issue that isn’t being talked about enough, clock management.
With 3:30 left on the clock, the Vikings kicked a field goal to extend their lead to 23-14. This put the 49ers down by two possessions. Simple football knowledge is needed to understand what the plan is, if you’re down two possessions in the final 3 minutes you tend to want to score quickly. The quicker you score points, the sooner the Vikings would get the ball, the more time you have to get a stop. Pretty simple right? Well, you would think so.
The Niners got the ball on their 30 and immediately ate up some yardage on a pass to Kittle. Kittle knew that they had no timeouts, so he got out of bounds quick to conserve time. Then another pass goes to Jordan Mason for a first down. 3:03 left on the clock at the 40. Then Purdy makes a great throw. A bullet pass on the dime to Deebo Samuel took them to the Vikings 39 with 2:43 left. Then another great pass to the TE Saubert to the 29. 2:32 left on the clock. And this is where it gets interesting.
At this point, the 49ers were in field goal range and the clock was ticking away. The two minute warning hadn’t happened yet and they knew the Vikings were going to get the ball. So why not just kick the field goal to conserve time and give themselves a free timeout with the two minute warning?
Instead of doing that, Shanahan elected to keep going for the touchdown. Another pass goes to Saubert to the 13-yard line, and the clock stops because of a penalty at 2:18. Pass to Deebo Samuel up the middle to Deebo, but a penalty brings it back to the 16. Clock stops at 2:01. At that point, they had already committed to the touchdown and couldn’t go back. So what happened next?
After two more pass attempts, the Niners were unable to get the touchdown and kicked a 31-yard field goal on 4th & 10 with 1:16 left. Maybe you read this and think, Kyle Shanahan made the right play. Touchdowns are harder to get, so you might as well risk it. Maybe that’s right, but wasting over a minute of clock and the two-minute warning for the same result is inexcusable.
Naturally, the 49ers found themselves in a sticky situation, no timeouts and about a minute left put the Vikings in a position to kneel out the game. The only option for the Niners was to onside kick it. In 2023 onside kicks were effective 5% of the time, not very good odds of success if you ask me.
Whether you view this as a mistake or not is truly in the eyes of the beholder, do you prefer trying to kick the onside or give the ball to Sam Darnold to make a mistake? To me, the answer is obvious, let Darnold make a mistake rather than betting on 5%. But the Niners chose different based on their decision making in the final drive.
