The 49ers’ coach has a convoluted history at pivotal moments, but his team’s resolute victory over the Packers in the NFC divisional round on Saturday night proved that he has developed a successful machine.
How quickly will we be able to forgive the coach who, during a moment of genius, transformed professional football but, on other evenings, just can’t seem to pull it together?
After the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Green Bay Packers 24-21 in a heart-stopping playoff game, Kyle Shanahan is getting closer to removing the most difficult distinction in professional football. Naturally, he is not alone in this.
As Andy Reid entered his fifth decade on the planet, he was no longer seen as a football virtuoso but rather as a coaching speed bump with fatal flaws who was best renowned for his situational clock management skills rather than his superior offensive design.
It is absurd how a single game, or the passing down of a quarterbacking talent down the generations, may change the course of history. Consistent competition is more impressive to me, even when I don’t play by the rules.
The 44-year-old is currently in charge of the 49ers for the seventh season. Shanahan has made it to the postseason in four of those years. He has advanced to the conference championship game in each of the last three years (losing both of those visits). The 49ers lost the Super Bowl in Shanahan’s third season in San Francisco.
Shanahan had a 10-point lead going into the Super Bowl, but the Kansas City Chiefs, coincidentally, defeated Reid’s team. That slim lead was destroyed by a quarterback disaster, defensive lapses, and some bad officiating. The timing was particularly unfortunate because Shanahan was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons the previous season and was accused of letting up after Atlanta built a 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl.
We must thus constantly struggle with this difficult contradiction. In actuality, though, Shanahan created one of the NFL’s most frustrating offenses ever. Many of the players who were passed over in the first two rounds of the draft were piped by him. He made the family offense more efficient. He became so deeply, flawlessly, and intimately familiar with something that he could control it with ease.
Shanahan altered our perceptions of running, blocking, and the idea that the notions of pass and run are interconnected. He committed a transgression that might be anything, anywhere, at any moment.
So, will he finally pull off a Reid-esque turn this year, or will he always remain football’s Hemmingway, Picasso, Hendrix, or Beethoven (insert your favorite cliché about troubled geniuses here) for another year?
It looked like 2024 would start in San Francisco like a rake handle to the nose for a moment. Due to a shoulder ailment, Deebo Samuel was unable to play in the first quarter.Brock Purdy looked disoriented and almost threw two crucial pick-sixes. Wide-open touchdowns soared over the heads of defensive players, and they slipped.
Aaron Jones was throwing like a crack player for the Packers, and it was pouring more heavily than at the conclusion of Blade Runner.
Despite all of its downregulation, Shanahan’s machine was just barely efficient enough to grind out a win. Correctly, you are reading this: It was the first time a team under Shanahan’s coaching had trailed by five or more points going into the final frame and still prevailed.
Even though Shanahan’s loss in the conference championship game next week renders this debate meaningless, it is still interesting to consider the amount of damage he could do to his history if he continues to play and makes it to another Super Bowl.
How soon will he be able to live up to our expectations of him? When will we finally acknowledge that Shanahan is so much more than his most glamorized setbacks?
With two more victories, he might raise doubts about the fairness of the process used to create his legacy. As we have stated, the 49ers’ Super Bowl defeat to the Chiefs was caused as much by defensive lapses as by offensive mismanagement.
In the Super Bowl, a defensive-minded head coach ought to bear just as much, if not more, of the blame as his offensive coordinator for a 25-point swing. The squad essentially ran out of quarterbacks in the NFC championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles the previous season.
Those who win the Lombardi Trophy use spray paint that has historical significance. Being able to refute every critic at that very moment is a beautiful thing. It is a privilege enjoyed by very few. A lifetime of well-earned conceit is invited.
For significant portions of Saturday’s game, the 49ers could not have been further off from that accomplishment, but maybe that is the idea. Perhaps this is the year when the 49ers’ chances of winning a championship aren’t derailed by growing mistakes, late deficits, injuries, and fear. Perhaps 2018 is the year Shanahan finally moves on from his past.
