The safety is taking advantage of the rules. I’m surprised the 49ers were taken offguard by that and wasted seconds before they decided to tackle the kicker.
The thing that surprised me is that the Ravens are old guys and when both were fresh, they kicked the 49ers around.
And then at the end when they had to stand, they did.
Ravens won this one with smart, fearless football. The 49ers tentative approach lost it for them. I would give the MVP award to the Baltimore Defense.
The Baltimore defense came through when it counted in that last goal line stand where they kept SF from scoring 4 times in a row from the 5 yard line. However, they DID give up 25 points in the 2nd half after the ill fated power outage, and almost lost what looked to be a blow out.
The Baltimore D was severely underrated in the post season (always a big mistake), because the idiot commentators & odds makers that rated Baltimore the underdog in EVERY SINGLE post season game failed to realize that the season record for their D was meaningless because their stars were injured almost all year. They showed up at the end of the year and dominated, crushing the league's best QBs one after another (Luck, Manning, Brady, Kaepernick).
Regardless, despite the Baltimore defense's excellent last minute goal line stand, the fact that they gave up 25 points in the 2nd half and almost lost it for them disqualifies the D as MVP in this particular game. The Baltimore offense outshined them this time - both Joe Flacco and Jacoby Jones in particular. But I have to give the edge to Joe Flacco, who won the MVP, just because he was involved in a lot more clutch plays than Jones, despite Jones' amazing contributions and Super Bowl record 109 yard touchdown on a kickoff return.
re: The safety is taking advantage of the rules
It was brilliant strategy. With just under 2 min, I called the safety as the play to make if they had a 4th down.
IMHO, SF’s “tentative approach” was the result of Kaepernick’s being inexperienced. The guy is good. There’s no doubt about that. But he also cracked under pressure a few times where the more seasoned Flacco did not.
I’m sure it was unnerving for Kaepernick to be on the world’s stage as the QB for SF in the Superbowl. There’s a lot to live up to in that role. This marks the first Superbowl loss for SF. I wouldn’t want to be Kaepernick right now.