Andy Reid and Kyle Shanahan aren’t as aggressive as others, like Nick Sirianni. Will it cost them in the Super Bowl?

HENDERSON, Nev. — In Super Bowl XXI, the New York Giants faced a fourth-and-1 on their own 46-yard line during the opening drive of the second half. They trailed, 10-9, and coach Bill Parcells had the punting unit take the field, but with backup quarterback Jeff Rutledge lined up as the H-back.

“This could be a fake punt,” John Madden said on the broadcast as Rutledge stepped up under center. “It’s a trick!”

Few NFL coaches went for it in their own territory 37 years ago, and the defensive-minded Parcells was certainly among that group.

“We went for it and that was out of the box. Nobody did that,” then-Giants quarterback Phil Simms said. “Even I was like, ‘Holy [expletive], we could lose the game right here.’ … We punted every time, I think, in my career on fourth-and-1. I’m exaggerating, but I’m pretty close.

“Now that would be wrong in today’s game, and even I would agree with that.”

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Parcells’ aggressiveness proved correct because Rutledge converted with a 2-yard sneak. His plunge forward didn’t look much like the most successful fourth-and-1 play in the modern game — the Eagles’ Brotherly Shove — but it did the job.

“That takes a lot of guts to call it,” Madden said. “It’s easy to put in, hard to call.”

The Giants would go on to score a touchdown and eventually beat the Denver Broncos, 39-20, for Parcells’ first title. His roll of the dice wouldn’t be considered much of a wager in the modern NFL, partly because of the rise of analytics.

But there will likely come a time during Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers — in the gambling capital of the world — when coaches Andy Reid or Kyle Shanahan will have to make a similar judgment call.

They’re considered two of the best offensive play designers and planners in the league. They call all or many of the plays on that side of the ball, and typically, offensive-minded coaches are among the most aggressive.

But Reid and Shanahan have had questionable in-game decisions in big spots that have been second-guessed to death by a growing intelligentsia that sees the use of analytics in almost black-and-white numbers.

“I always first-guess. I don’t second-guess,” Simms said this week in Las Vegas. “And if I’m not watching the game, I’m not going, ‘Oh, I would do this or that,’ and I don’t really comment on it because you have to have the full spectrum of the game.

“But when has analytics said to not go for it?”

Simms and former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who are now analysts for CBS Sports, are old-school thinkers when it comes to game management that involves the use of analytics — on fourth downs, two-point conversions, and other such statistics-based decision-making.

They believe it lacks situational nuance.

“I think we make a bigger deal of analytics from a media standpoint than I think coaches should,” Cowher said. “It’s just another bit of information, but there’s no way you can put any kind of measurable, any kind of metric on momentum, which is real, on one-on-one challenges or matchups that we have that’s real, or really where your football team is at the time.”

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But analytics is here to stay, and while many coaches use it as just one piece of information, it has added another element into the headset of coaches. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni gave up play-calling seven games into his tenure because he felt it took away from game management.

Sirianni and other coaches who don’t call plays often rank among the highest in aggressiveness indexes. The Arizona Cardinals’ Jonathan Gannon, the Detroit Lions’ Dan Campbell, and Sirianni were the top three in 2023, according to longtime numbers-cruncher Aaron Schatz.

Reid and Shanahan, historically, fall somewhere in the middle or lower end. It may just be personal preference, but there is a belief that play-callers don’t spend as much time on game management and thus have more head-scratchers on situational downs.

“We haven’t had problem with that,” Reid said. “We have good communication. We all have headsets on so we have an opportunity to say things. I think we’re OK there.”

While the final yes or no comes down to one man, there is a collaboration in the process with roles distributed among the coaching staff. Every team handles in-game responsibilities differently. Reid doesn’t technically call plays anymore. Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy is the voice in quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ ear.

But Reid will step in and offer suggestions or take over when he feels it necessary.

“He always says he has 51 percent,” Mahomes said. “So whenever he feels like he has a feeling and maybe call the play that he’s feeling, or call a timeout, or put us in a certain situation, he’ll put his stamp on the game.”

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But Nagy, in his second stint with the Chiefs, allows for Reid to follow his other units, to step away and talk to certain players and coaches, and to focus on all the voices in his head when it comes to game management.

“It’s the other coaches that are on the headset with Coach Reid, just making sure, ‘Hey, Coach, we might need you here for a challenge,’ or, ‘Hey, Coach, you might be needed here for a timeout,’” Nagy said. “I know when I wasn’t calling plays there’s a big freedom to that as a head coach to kind of take in the whole big picture.”

Nagy, formerly the Chicago Bears head coach, called plays in his first three seasons before handing over those duties over to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor in Year 4. Reid has been up and down the spectrum in terms of how much or little he’s called plays over his 25 years as head coach.

Shanahan has been criticized for inexplicable play-calling in his two Super Bowls — first as offensive coordinator when the Falcons blew a 28-3 lead to the New England Patriots in 2017, and then as head coach when the 49ers forfeited a 20-10 lead in the fourth quarter to the Chiefs in 2020.

But as Simms pointed out — “I didn’t realize Kyle was the Falcons’ head coach,” he quipped — Shanahan wasn’t ultimately responsible for the Super Bowl LI collapse. And Reid, Mahomes, and the Chiefs were just as responsible for their comeback in LIV as Shanahan not being able to drain the clock.

“Once you become a head coach, from game management and stuff, the clock issues are usually the same, but how to win the game becomes a little bit different,” Shanahan said. “I think when you’re calling plays and paying attention to that stuff as a coordinator, it’s more about how … do you outscore the other team because you don’t watch the other team’s offense, you don’t have a good feel for your defense, you’re not watching the game as it goes.”

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Shanahan, though, calls all the plays, and like the Los Angeles Rams’ Sean McVay — his former colleague and another offensive game design wizard — they seem to tense up when their script doesn’t have all the answers in a nail-biter that requires quick thinking.

But there are ways to prepare situationally.

“We talk through those situations so you’re not in a panic mode when you make the biggest decision of the game,” Nagy said. “You want to be able to be calm in those moments. I’m real big on making sure you almost simulate the game in crucial moments before you get to that. … We give a lot of input to Patrick and decision-making as far as plays that he likes.

“Coach Reid has a ton of that. So let’s talk about it the night before.”

Reid doesn’t seem to have as many issues with clock management as he did in Philadelphia and infamously in Super XXXIX when the trailing Eagles weren’t in hurry-up mode late in the fourth quarter.

There’s been some ambiguity as to how much of Reid’s struggles with in-game decision-making in Philly had to do with him or quarterback Donovan McNabb, but Mahomes seems to have helped change that narrative on the coach.

Cowher called defensive plays off and on during his 15 seasons at the helm in Pittsburgh. He said that defensive play-calling head coaches have it harder than offensive ones because many game-management decisions are made with the ball.

“I didn’t feel I had a great feel for the game because I was constantly trying to do things defensively, where on the offensive side of the ball your decision-making is your initiating,” Cowher said. “Defensively, we’re reacting to what’s going on.”

Offensive-minded coaches are thus more often aggressive than their counterparts. Only the lowly Carolina Panthers went for it on fourth down (48 times) more than Campbell’s 40 this season. He was successful on 21 tries for a 52.5% success rate that ranked 11th in the NFL.

The Eagles converted 19 of 26 fourth downs — with many coming via the Tush Push — at an NFL-best 73.1% in 2023.

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Campbell passed up two field-goal tries in the second half of the NFC championship that resulted in failed fourth-down attempts. Each decision should be viewed independently, but he was condemned by some even though that had been his modus operandi all season.

“If you don’t get it you’re going to be criticized, so there’s a balance there of how that works,” Nagy said. “But I think whatever you do, as long as everybody is on the same page — and their guys were in Detroit — it’s a lot easier in the building to understand that.

“If it doesn’t work, at least your coach stuck to his guns and did it.”

Nagy said the Chiefs’ analytics department alters its calculations weekly based on various conditions, namely the opponent and weather. Sunday’s game is indoors. The numbers aren’t binary and there is often a toss-up area that allows a coach to disseminate information from the game or to use his instincts.

“It’s not about gut or feel, it’s about what I’ve learned and the experience of being in this game,” Simms said. “So this game has nothing to do with so many other games that we’ve seen. When you can’t run the ball for a freaking yard, and all of sudden it’s fourth-and-1, and we’re like, ‘Well, we’re going to get [it] this time,’ what would make me think that?”

The Giants had clearly worked on their fake punt in Super Bowl XXI. Simms, in an MVP performance, had completed 13 of 16 passes by the time Parcells faced his fateful fourth-down decision. But he trusted that Rutledge and the right side of his offensive line could gain the necessary yard even though Denver had kept its defense on the field.

Last year in Super Bowl LVII, Reid attempted a 42-yard field goal on fourth-and-3 in the first quarter when the analytics strongly suggested he should have gone for it. Kicker Harrison Butker’s try hit the left upright.

Early in the fourth quarter with the Chiefs up, 28-27, the Eagles faced fourth-and-3 at their own 32. They weren’t likely to get more opportunities in a shootout in which Gannon’s defense couldn’t stop Mahomes and Co. Sirianni elected to punt and a miskick was returned 65 yards by Kadarius Toney.

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Later, with the score knotted, 35-35, a defensive holding penalty on cornerback James Bradberry gave Kansas City a first down at the Eagles’ 11 with less than two minutes remaining. Reid then became more concerned with bleeding the clock than scoring a touchdown.

Expecting the Eagles to allow them into the end zone, the Chiefs went into “church mode” with running back Jerick McKinnon giving himself up inbounds to force Sirianni to use his last timeout. Mahomes then knelt twice before Butker kicked the game-winning 27-yard field goal with 11 seconds left.

“If we miss that field goal when you could have scored a touchdown, that head coach has to go up to the podium,” Nagy said, “and talk why you didn’t score the touchdown on a high-percentage field goal.”

Any number of decisions from that Super Bowl — or any other for that matter — could be second-guessed depending upon the end result. Reid has seen it from both sides. He’s likely to encounter several make-or-break moments on Sunday and may be judged hero or goat based on the outcome.

“We always say, yeah, ‘51 percent,’” Nagy said, “but the coach is the one who has to go up to the podium.”