San Francisco 49ers

Kurtenbach: The Super Bowl is the perfect venue for a trick play, and Deebo Samuel, the 49ers are ready

LAS VEGAS — Don’t be surprised if quarterback Brock Purdy doesn’t throw the 49ers’ first touchdown pass of Super Bowl LVIII.

The history of the Super Bowl is flush with trick plays — in the season’s final game, with everything on the line, why hold anything back?

It’s time to get funky.

“I think you have to be strategic,” Shanahan said. “Not just be aggressive.”

“You’re not just gambling on roulette.”

But whether it was strategy, aggression, or luck, trick plays have brought big excitement and big swings to the big game, starting with running back Robert Newhouse’s 29-yard touchdown pass in Super Bowl XII. Since then, we’ve seen William “The Fridge” Perry’s goal-line touchdown run in Super Bowl XX, Antwaan Randle El’s touchdown pass to Hines Ward in Super Bowl XL, onside kicks in Super Bowl XXX and XLIV, and the Philly Special, a play so cool and iconic it’s named.

The 49ers nearly had a play for the Super Bowl Pantheon four years ago.

On a third-and-2 inside the first five minutes of that game, the Niners ran an end-around run for Deebo Samuel — his second such carry of the contest.

But instead of another 32-yard run, Samuel loitered in the backfield. He wanted to throw it to quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who had run a wheel route, or push the ball even further downfield.

Kansas City was all over the play — the Niners’ wide receiver justly didn’t feel confident he could make a high-quality throw.

So Samuel tucked the ball and ran for seven yards, picking up the first down.

The official NFL scorer ruled the rush a “scramble” — that should tell you how obvious it was that Samuel canceled a trick play.

The Niners didn’t try anything else out of the ordinary for the remainder of the game, and while that wasn’t the reason they lost, the lost opportunity on both that play and, of course, the game has weighed on Samuel and company.

At Thursday’s media availability in Lake Las Vegas, I asked Samuel if he had been thinking about that play from four years back. Was he petitioning Shanahan to run it again this Sunday?

Samuel quickly slunk into his chair and broke eye contact with me once the question was asked — Deebo is fast at everything. He had been positive and affable amid a sea of questions to that point, but he wanted to be as far away from that dais as possible at that moment.

“I don’t know,” Samuel told me.

I know enough to take that as a “yes.”

Samuel, unsurprisingly, refused any further conversation on the subject.

Fair enough, I’d be afraid of giving away something, too.

But let me give you this: If you’re looking for a bet for Super Bowl LVIII, you can wager on more than 2.5 players to attempt a pass Sunday.

Three or more players attempted a pass in four of the last 11 Super Bowls.

I think we see a third again on Sunday, with Samuel running the same play the Niners couldn’t capitalize on four years ago in Miami. DraftKings will pay $164 on every $100 bet if that happens.

And that’s a much better bet than putting some chips on red in roulette.