>And there's not as much of an advantage as people think to
>going second. You have a narrative of what's already happened
>to fit some self fulfilling prophecy.

what? where did I state any narrative? I was rooting for the Niners lol. I simply said there is no advantage to going first in this scenario.

>
>If the second team that deferred doesn't score at all it would
>be.....well they may not have scored if they took the ball
>first either.

no one said a deferring team is guaranteed a win, just that there's a few obvious advantages to deferring, even if they're small. Besides know what you need to score to tie or potentially win the game, you can also get an INT/fumble while on defense and score, thereby ending the game. All this combined with the fact that the Niners seemingly didn't know about the rule makes this inexcusable. I have no opinions on Shanahan as a coach, but there's no excuse for that.


>It's never an advantage to be down in a game AT ALL.

Deferring is not simply conceding points. You can also stop them on their drive and then you don't have the pressure of figuring out which way you need to score, so that's another advantage.