Inside the 2 breakdowns that cost 49ers in final minutes, and team's process for calling protections

Blame Kyle Shanahan, Jake Moody, a muffed punt. Whatever you want.

But the facts are, the 49ers had an opportunity to win the game at the end of regulation, and a protection breakdown stopped them. Another one cost them a touchdown in overtime.

The offensive line had its issues executing against a blitz-heavy approach from Steve Spagnuolo's Chiefs defense throughout the game, but their inability to set protections properly in two key moments cost them a Super Bowl.

Protections, for clarity, are the way an offense decides who to block. There are numerous protections, of which I will not pretend to be an expert. Center Jake Brendel told me Tuesday that the 49ers go into games with "probably 20 different protections."

I won't attempt to pretend to understand every protection, let alone the details and nuances of each. The 49ers knew the calls and still had trouble executing them.

But, for example, the offense can call a slide protection, in which the entire offensive line slides to the left or right, taking the gap closest to them in that direction. They can call a 5-0 protection (more on that later) in which they determine who the five most dangerous players are, and block them. It's who blocks who, or which gap, which at times is much easier said than done.

So what went wrong? And what’s the 49ers’ process for setting protections?

Let’s start with what went wrong.

The two damning plays

Q4, 2:00 at KC 35: 3rd-and-5
The real killer in this game was the 3rd-and-5 incompletion with 2 minutes remaining.

If the 49ers convert, it doesn’t end the game, but it comes very close.

Kansas City had two timeouts left. If they elect not to use their first timeout, the clock would wind down to about 1:10 remaining after the 49ers’ next first down play, a guaranteed run. Another run would follow on second down, leaving, say 1:05 left. They wouldn’t be able to stop the clock on third down, meaning about 25 seconds and no timeouts would be remaining by the time Jake Moody tried a field goal.

That’s a wildly different situation.

So, that 3rd-and-5. What happened? Trent McDuffie blitzed through the left B gap between Aaron Banks and Trent Williams. If you want a look at the play, and a visual breakdown, Nate Tice offers a great one that explains the concepts excellently.

In short, the 49ers’ protection is called a "5-0." Brendel identifies the five most dangerous rushers. Every offensive lineman takes one man, then it’s George Kittle’s job to pick up whoever goes unaccounted for.

Kittle decided to take safety Chamarri Conner, who it appeared Brendel added to the protection before the snap.

Kittle should have picked up McDuffie.

The real issue here, is that the 49ers did not adequately account for him. While it’s Kittle’s job, it would make more sense, given the protection is better set for the right side, and Purdy’s “hot” throw, to Jauan Jennings, is to the left, that Kittle “hop” to the left side. It would be far easier for him to take McDuffie out of the play while keeping his eyes up to the right side of the play if there’s pressure there.

But McDuffie went unblocked.

"It all comes down to just knowing the assignment on the play," Brendel told me. "There were a few free hitters this game and it's just stuff that's inexcusable. And I gotta be better because I got to make sure everyone around me knows what they're doing. And we've got to prepare better because, the game plan, we had two weeks to prepare for this game plan and there's no excuse for people just getting free hits on Brock...

"All of the protections should be good enough to get the ball out if we do our jobs. The hot should be coming where the hot should be coming from. It shouldn't be a free hitter in the A gap or B gap."

But once McDuffie goes unblocked, there’s the other part of the play. What do you do, or what can you do, when a free rusher is running at you? Purdy has shown at times this season an ability to avoid pressure and playmake, but this was not one of those opportunities. He had to throw hot.

Purdy took the “hot” he was designated to Jauan Jennings, on the far left, running an outside slant, instead of Aiyuk to the inside.

But logically, he should throw to Brandon Aiyuk, whose defender has abandoned him, leaving a high safety against a slant, which Aiyuk will have plenty of room to convert into a first down. If you watch the play, Purdy's eyes are there.

I asked Purdy about whether he should have, or could have adjusted with McDuffie coming that quickly. He said he should have read it inside (Aiyuk) to outside (Jennings) and thrown to Aiyuk, adding that he told Aiyuk that.

But he's also hit the throw to Jennings “a million times in practice” versus that same sort of Cover-0 look, and that he trusts Jennings in man coverage.

The decision to throw to Jennings is what he’s told to do, and there’s no guarantee he would the throw off to Aiyuk, either. Shanahan also said to Purdy before the play, “No sacks here,” so getting the ball out at all costs against that blitz was crucial.

The main problem on this play wasn't Purdy's decision. It was that the 49ers were taken so off-guard by McDuffie’s blitz. Kittle wasn’t ready for it. If Purdy was ready for it, he would’ve hit Aiyuk.

He also would have had Christian McCaffrey open — who Shanahan pleaded for the ball to go to on the sideline — if the protection was right.

And listen, it’s a perfectly-timed blitz from McDuffie, who was the real MVP of the game, on a perfect call from Spagnuolo. The former put Deebo Samuel in a blender, another major factor in why the 49ers lost. But despite that, the 49ers had the answers available to take care of McDuffie on that one — for all intents and purposes, the would-be game-winning play — in protection and did not.

OT, 7:29 at KC 18: 3rd-and-4
This one was the would-be touchdown to either of Jauan Jennings or Brandon Aiyuk. While Aiyuk was wide open, Jennings was the first progression, won, and probably would have scored.

The problem is that Chris Jones came bearing down on Purdy to stop a touchdown for the second time that day (see: deep ball incomplete to Samuel after beating Spencer Burford).

Burford, the right guard, had replaced the injured Jon Feliciano, who took to Twitter to blame Burford for making the wrong decision. Burford owned up to the error both online and to media.

He said he was responsible for the B gap and stay on Jones, but slid left and instead, and took a blitzing Justin Reid. It was just a matter of which one got through, and how quickly they did. It appears Purdy would have been able to hit Jennings if Burford blocked Jones, but there's still a wasted blocker on the edge, with Kittle blocking, then releasing on George Karlaftis, then handing him off to McKivitz.

"That was kind of the same sort of play-action deal where we're supposed to have a unified, R (right) or L (left) call and then we have one puller to the edge," Brendel told me. "And, you know, a couple players didn't do the proper assignment.

"It's that simple, right? We just didn't do our job. And again, I'm the leader of the group when it comes to knowing where people are supposed to be and dictating the plays and the calls at the line of scrimmage. It wasn't clean enough pre-snap for us to get that done."

To be fair, even if the 49ers score there and take an extra point, the Chiefs would have come down the other way and gone for two once they scored. But at the very least, it means a touchdown did not guarantee a walk-off win.

Who sets the protections?

So, could the 49ers have avoided this? Was Purdy at fault for not changing the protection?

The answer to the former is yes. The answer to the latter is no.

I asked Purdy Monday whether he has the ability to set the protections. While there are some select plays he’s asked to set the protections, he told me that he overwhelmingly leans on Brendel’s calls.

“In certain cases and scenarios with whatever play we have on, there's certain plays where it's like, 'Alright, Brock's in control of this play or that play.' If I see something, I could, but I trust that [Brendel] is making the right call every time,” Purdy said. “And honestly, when I walk up, I know what the protection should be and I see him calling it, so that's the other factor that goes into it.”

Purdy is saying that, overwhelmingly, Brendel calls the protection, Purdy keeps an eye on what he calls, and can change it. But that’s a diplomatic, team-leader-ish way of putting it.

It's very clearly not Purdy's job on the overwhelming majority of plays. He has a ton to sort out in terms of coverage both pre- and post-snap. That's Shanahan's system, and his ask of Purdy by design.

Brendel told me it’s on himself to set the protection, aside from certain situations when they can check to another call that’s built into the original play call.

“Brock can override my call, but it's very rare if he does,” Brendel said. “Usually, it's built into the play-call. And if we're going on some sort of double cadence or something, that's when he gets involved. It's usually me. It's me pointing who we're working towards, it's me making sure everyone hears the call clear and concise at the line of scrimmage and everyone understands what's going on. It's just tough looking back at it.”

Brendel was one of the few players who spoke Tuesday that actually watched the tape of the game. He said he only watched it that morning, just before the media entered the locker room.

He lamented a lot, but specifically, an abundance of would-be touchdowns that the 49ers left on the field.

"There's definitely plays where it's like, 'Oh, wow, that was a touchdown.' There were probably like four or five of those in the game, and that completely changes the entire outcome," Brendel said. "Do those next chances come up after you score that first one that you missed on? I don't know. People hope to think that, but I'm more of just seize the opportunity in the moment, make sure you're doing the best you can in the moment. And we just didn't do it."

When Brendel talks about missed touchdowns, there are a few clear examples in relation to the offensive line.

There's the 3rd-and-4 in overtime, the deep ball to Samuel when Jones got through (the touchdown to Jennings followed a few plays later), and this one where Aaron Banks slid right instead of left, leaving Leo Chenal unblocked on Purdy.

There was a Samuel run on the second play of the 49ers' final drive in regulation that went for 9 yards. If the second-level blocks were handled better by a trio of Brendel, Kittle and Colton McKivitz, it may have gone for a touchdown, or at minimum, put the 49ers in the red zone. Granted, Aiyuk probably held Bolton, making it a "ball don't lie" situation, but he got away with it. Plenty of players on both sides got away with holds on Sunday.

Perhaps the most gutting part, Brendel said, was the overwhelming confidence going in.

"I felt prepared going into the game. I mean, probably the most confident I felt towards playing a football game this season," Brendel said. "We had two weeks to prepare. They really streamlined the game plan down for us mentally.

"We really just needed to execute our job, and it's tough, man. Like, not everyone can do it. There's a lot of people that wish that they could be in our shoes and get the opportunities that we can and we really needed to start taking advantage of it."