Chiefs would have gone for two, if teams had traded touchdowns in overtime

For the first time since the NFL changed the rules in 2022 to guarantee both teams a possession in postseason overtime, the rule was applied in a postseason game.

Both teams apparently made their strategic coin-toss decisions in advance. The Chiefs planned to kick. The 49ers planned to receive.

49ers coach Kyle Shanahan based his decision on a desire to have the first sudden-death possession, if the two teams had matched scores on their opening drives. Shanahan didn't know that, if both teams had indeed scored touchdowns, there wouldn't have been another possession.

The Chiefs have made it clear that they would have gone for two, if the 49ers had scored seven points in the opening drive and if the Chiefs managed to score a touchdown of their own. The coaches knew it, and the players knew it.

This means that the Chiefs had a two-point play ready to go. It quite possibly was the same play the Chiefs used to score the game-winning touchdown.

Here's the real question that the Chiefs did not answer — and, in the event they end up in another postseason overtime as soon as next year, they shouldn't. If the drive had petered out in field-goal range, would the Chiefs have gone for it on fourth down in order to avoid shifting the game to sudden death?

The answer might have hinged on field position and yardage needed for a first down. Given, however, the extent to which the Chiefs had planned out their overtime strategy, chances are they had precisely determined when and where they would have kicked a field goal or gone for it, if they faced a fourth down in field-goal range.

That's the one most glaring difference between the 49ers and Chiefs. Kansas City seemed to have put a lot more thought and effort into the various overtime possibilities and contingencies. And for good reason; the rule was changed because of a game they won in the first possession of overtime. Also, they had been burned by the prior rule in the 2018 AFC Championship, when a first-drive touchdown kept them out of Super Bowl LIII.

So if any team knows that postseason overtime is a very real possibility, it's the team that had been there two times in five postseasons. They've now been there three times in six postseasons. The next time it happens, assume they will have already worked out a specific plan for proceeding.