Ahead of the Super Bowl, two of the game’s most analytical play callers, Kyle Shanahan and Steve Spagnuolo, prepared for a high-speed game of chess at upwards of 20 miles per hour.
Shanahan, the coach of the San Francisco 49ers, learned the ropes from his father Mike, a Bill Walsh disciple. Walsh, the architect of the famed West Coast offense, concocted a scheme that enabled elusive wide receivers to turn short passes into lengthy plays that created stress on a defense. More than three decades after Walsh’s final Super Bowl title as a coach, the intricacies of the scheme took center stage at a posh ballroom inside the Mandalay Bay Events Center.
