LAS VEGAS—He stood there, eyes down, tucked underneath a flat-brimmed baseball cap. Kyle Shanahan was looking at a play sheet that provided little in the way of answers, and although he existed on that sideline surrounded by his peers—a whole jumping, yakking schoolyard of trainers, coaches, players and security—the man never seemed so alone.
Sure, the San Francisco 49ers were up by four points with three minutes to go in the third quarter of Super Bowl LVIII , but the sour pang of high-wire failure had to be hitting his gut. Anyone could see it. Anyone among the 66,000 celebrities and coattail hangers could feel it like a violently shifting weather pattern. The boy wonder. Winning by 10? In the Super Bowl? What could go wrong now ?
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And then came the three sounds that crystallized the end of San Francisco’s season, and, perhaps, the finality of one of the greatest teams to never win a Lombardi Trophy, one game short of a Super Bowl title.