MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Their storybook ending was almost complete, the final chapter all but written.
The San Francisco 49ers seemed poised to cap their wildly unexpected and stunningly impressive season with the ultimate prize: hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
Their head coach Kyle Shanahan appeared to be on the verge of erasing the ghosts of his greatest postseason fail.
And their quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, stood on the precipice of shattering the narrative that he is the weak link on a team stacked with playmakers.
Everything was going according to plan.
The lead had been theirs, as was the momentum.