On a third-and-10 with 1:40 to go,
Jimmy Garoppolo tried to win the game. Kyle Shanahan dialed up what is known as a Mills concept, named after
the early '90s Florida receiver who caught a series of touchdown passes as the deep post receiver under Steve Spurrier, who popularized the route combination in his offense.
It called for
Kendrick Bourne to run a crossing route and
Emmanuel Sanders to run a deep post. While Sanders appeared to be double-covered on routes breaking to either side at the sticks, Garoppolo saw that neither defender had any leverage to defend against the deep post. Some quarterbacks might have gone to the underneath read and tried to work to a seemingly open Bourne, but Garoppolo correctly saw that Sanders was going to come open and took his shot to win the game and threw before Sanders was even out of his break. The veteran wideout got a step and a half on the coverage, but Garoppolo
missed the throw that would have defined his life by two yards.
How the Chiefs came back ... and the 49ers blew it: Barnwell on Super Bowl LIV