The San Francisco 49ers have come agonizingly close to winning another Super Bowl in recent years. They’ve been to four NFC championship games in the past five seasons and won two of them. But they’ve fallen short in both Super Bowl opportunities, including on Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.
It’s tough to come that close to lifting the trophy on so many occasions, especially for a team with as rich a history as the Niners. The weight of those near misses was evident in the San Francisco radio call of the final play of the team’s crushing defeat in Las Vegas on Sunday.
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Play-by-play man Greg Papa’s call of Patrick Mahomes’s game-winning touchdown pass was one of total despair.
“Mahomes, gonna roll to his right, throws. Touchdown,” he said. “The Chiefs have won the Super Bowl.”
The way his voice dropped when he said “touchdown” was heartbreaking.
How the 49ers losing Super Bowl LVIII to end their season sounded on 49ers radio pic.twitter.com/vYlOgbfO9P
— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) February 12, 2024
Color commentator Tim Ryan had it even worse. Ryan was silent for several moments before finally blurting out, “Dang it!”
While any Niners fans watching Jim Nantz and Tony Romo were surely seething over the CBS duo’s excited call, it must have been cathartic for San Francisco partisans listening to the game on the radio to hear Papa and Ryan echo their sentiments.