The 49ers lead, but the Seahawks are driving to take the lead.

They reach the red zone, and with less than 40 seconds to go. . .the Seahawks score a TD and win the game 20-17 in Levi’s Stadium.

That’s what happened in the second 49ers-Seahawks matchup last year, that hellish 2024 NFL season where Murphy’s Law played out for San Francisco.

This 2025 season was supposed to be different, but a lot of the ghosts of 2024 appeared in the opener in Seattle.

The special teams were again atrocious.

George Kittle came up lame with a bad hammy in the second quarter (he missed last year’s second Seattle game).

Jauan Jennings also had to leave the game, and Brandon Aiyuk was still out from his ACL tear (missed last year’s game at Levi’s).

However, things played out differently this time around.

Last year, Brock Purdy had a chance to ice the game, but he airmailed Deebo Samuel, leaving the door open for Geno Smith to engineer a game-winning drive.

This year, Purdy came up clutch (with a little help from his friend Jake Tonges), and threw a go-ahead touchdown pass in the final four minutes of a game for the first time in his career, for the people who care about such arbitrary stats.

Last year, first-round receiver Ricky Pearsall was a nonfactor with 2 targets and 0 receptions.

This year, Pearsall looked like a bona fide WR1 with 4 catches for 108 yards.

Last year, Nick Bosa, who was terrorizing Smith all day, had to leave the game in the 3rd quarter with an oblique injury that cost him three games. Smith completed his game-winning drive with a 13-yard TD run.

This year, Bosa was on the field to ice the game with a sack-strip-recovery trifecta on Sam Darnold, Smith’s replacement, after he drove Seattle all the way down to the 9-yard-line.

Last season’s defense under first-time defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen blew three leads in the final two minutes of games and could not stop the run all year.

But with Robert Saleh back in control, the defense shut the door as it had done many times in the past, and held Seattle to a paltry 84 yards (3.2 ypc) on the ground.

Another encouraging sign was Christian McCaffrey was taking himself out of the game, understanding the need to preserve his body for a 17-game season.

McCaffrey gave 49ers fans (and fantasy football owners) a scare when he missed the last two days of practice with a mysterious calf injury, which is usually a harbinger for an Achilles injury. Last season, McCaffrey was a surprising late scratch for the season opener, coincidentally against Saleh’s New York Jets, with bilateral Achilles tendonitis that cost him the first 8 games of the campaign.

There were still some bad vibes.

Purdy emerged from the physical division brawl with a toe injury that could cause him to miss time; he missed two games in 2024.

And beleaguered kicker Jake Moody missed two more field goals, although one was not his fault.

But Moody was finally put out of his seeming misery by being waived.

Moody gets a chance at a fresh start.

And so, too, do the 49ers, who just might have exorcised the demons of 2024.

Can they plug all the holes on defense in the draft?

Is Jake Brendel really going to start again next year?

Will Brandon Aiyuk look like his old self this season?

Will he be traded?

Are the Yorks retrenching after uncharacteristic spendthrift behavior?

But the biggest question is: how much will Brock Purdy get paid?

Some even question if he should get paid at all.

The opinions on Purdy’s compensation range from paying him $65 million APY to making him play out the last year of his dirt-cheap rookie deal at $5.3 million.

Ever since he burst onto the scene in the middle of the 2022 season, Purdy has been a polarizing player and low-hanging fruit for the NFL commentariat.

People are reluctant to believe their “lying” eyes. Can he really be this good?

Seventh-round quarterbacks are not supposed to be franchise players. Every bad game—or even bad play—is a moment for skeptics to point out his average arm strength and initial draft position as Mr. Irrelevant.

See? The scouts knew what they were talking about.

But even the scouts acknowledged they were wrong about Purdy.

The Athletic spoke with an NFL coach who wrote a scouting report on Purdy, and he conceded that Purdy’s performance as a rookie proved that he should have been drafted in the 2nd or 3rd round.

“We undervalued his agility and probably the mental side, and San Francisco is perfect for it because they put a lot of importance on that because of their offense,” the coach said.

Purdy’s first three years in the league are about as good as it gets.

Advanced metrics (EPA/play, CPOE) over that span put him at the top of the league, and his “regular” stats are just as good, particularly his yards per attempt, which is an absurd 8.9.

For those who like quarterback wins as a stat, Purdy is 23-13 as a starter in the regular season, and 4-2 in the playoffs.

The two playoff losses were in the 2022 NFC Championship Game where he got injured on the first drive, and overtime of the Super Bowl the next season.

If Purdy passes the stats test and the wins test, then it seems like a no-brainer to pay him something in between $50 million and $60 million per year.

But the people hesitant to pay Purdy have some persistent qualms.

The Garoppolo Paradox

Perhaps the biggest argument against Purdy is that Jimmy Garoppolo also won games and put up good numbers in Kyle Shanahan’s system, and Garoppolo has proven himself to be a backup in the league.

So how is Purdy any better?

First, I personally think there has been a revisionist history of Garoppolo that suggests he was always mediocre-to-subpar.

I think this is wrong.

When Garoppolo got inserted into the lineup in 2017, he took over a lifeless offense and made them tops in the league over a five-game span*.

YARDS PER GAME
Before Garoppolo: 321.7 (21st in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 409.6 (1st in NFL*)
Total: 349.2 (12th in NFL)

NET PASSING PER GAME
Before Garoppolo: 221.8 (17th in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 297.0 (1st in NFL*)
Total: 245.3 (9th in NFL)

THIRD DOWNS
Before Garoppolo: 34.1 percent (26th in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 50.0 percent (1st in NFL*)
Total: 38.9 percent (16th in NFL)

COMPLETION PERCENTAGE
Before Garoppolo: 56.6 percent (31st in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 67.0 percent (3rd in NFL*)
Total: 59.6 percent (25th in NFL)

SACKS ALLOWED
Before Garoppolo: 35 (tied for 6th most in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 8 (27th most in NFL*)
Total: 43 (tied for 11th most in NFL)

TIME OF POSSESSION
Before Garoppolo: 27:36 (31st in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 32:54 (1st in NFL*)
Total: 28:40 (26th in NFL)

POINTS PER GAME
Before Garoppolo: 17.0 (28th in NFL)
After Garoppolo: 28.8 (2nd in NFL*)
Total: 20.7 (20th in NFL)

Obviously five games is a limited sample, teams didn’t have a full season (or offseason) to prepare for the Garoppolo version of the offense, and not all teams are playing their best football at the end of the year.

That being said, the night-and-day difference explains why the 49ers gave Garoppolo the richest quarterback contract at the time, which seems quaint at $137.5 million over five years.

Why didn’t Garoppolo live up to the contract?

In professional sports—and perhaps in life—you’re either getting better, or you’re getting worse.

I think Garoppolo progressively got worse.

One big factor was his torn ACL.

Garoppolo was never going to be confused with Michael Vick, but his film from New England and early on with San Francisco showed a quarterback with elusiveness that just wasn’t there after the 2018 injury.

Garoppolo got injured again in 2020, further reducing his mobility.

Another factor in Garoppolo’s regression might be unscientific, but I think he got “the yips” after the Super Bowl.

His timing seemed off.

In 2019, he routinely threw outcuts on time and hit receivers in stride.

In the first Los Angeles Rams game that season, he converted several third downs with perfectly-timed out routes.

Against the Arizona Cardinals, color commentator Troy Aikman was amazed at how early he threw an out route to Emmanuel Sanders.

[6:21 mark]

But in the 2020 season opener after the Super Bowl collapse, he was noticeably late on an outcut to Trent Taylor on 4th down, and late to Kendrick Bourne in the back of the end zone on what would have been the game-winning touchdown.

These are a handful of examples (there are many others), but in my opinion, he was not the same confident thrower after missing Sanders with the Super Bowl on the line.

Also, Garoppolo was legendary for his disappearing acts during the offseason.

Nobody would characterize him as a student of the game.

When Purdy stepped in during the 2022 season, the offense immediately looked better than with Garoppolo.

During the 10 games that Garoppolo finished, the 49ers averaged 23.9 points per game.

During the 8 games that Purdy finished, the team averaged 32.6 points per game.

Garoppolo was a good player for the 49ers, but Purdy has shown to be a cut above.

“The Avengers”

Another argument from Purdy skeptics is that he’s surrounded with elite talent, so he doesn’t have to do much.

See? He wasn’t that good without “The Avengers” in 2024.

During the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Purdy had a strong supporting cast, but he did what quarterbacks are supposed to do under those conditions, which is score a lot of points and win a lot of games.

In Purdy's first two seasons, his passer rating was 107.3 and 113.0, respectively.

But in 2024, his passer rating was only 96.1, and he finished 7th in ESPN’s QBR metric.

Nevertheless, Purdy went 6-9 as the starter.

First, the team was decimated by injuries.

For significant stretches of the season, Purdy was without his:

First-string tailback (Christian McCaffrey)

Second-string tailback (Elijah Mitchell)

Third-string tailback (Jordan Mason)

Hall of Fame left tackle (Trent Williams)

Top wide receiver (Brandon Aiyuk)

Virtually every quarterback in the league would struggle without those pieces.

Deebo Samuel also had a horrific year where he led the team in drops, missed time with pneumonia, and was reportedly out of shape.

And Ricky Pearsall, the team’s 1st-round pick at receiver, missed a lot of the offseason with a shoulder injury, then got shot in the chest.

Despite all of the chaos, the 49ers were still 4th in the NFL in total offense, and 3rd in yards per play.

Purdy did not have any trouble moving the ball.

However, the team had significant red zone struggles, particularly running the football.

The 49ers were also third in field goal attempts, but 27th in field goal percentage.

So they left a lot of points on the field thanks to missed kicks.

Defensively, the front four was a shell of its former self, and Nick Sorensen bombed as defensive coordinator.

The defense finished 29th in points allowed, and blew three late leads with chances to ice the game.

Purdy was not blameless in the 2024 debacle.

He had a few chances to win games late, but faltered for one reason or another.

All that said, the 2024 season was not the “gotcha” data point that many skeptics make it out to be.

Good, Not Great

Everyone but the most ardent skeptics would acknowledge that Purdy is a good NFL quarterback.

But he’s not on the elite tier, therefore he shouldn’t get paid near the top of the quarterback market.

How can you pay him $55 million? I’d move on.

The easy answer is that the quarterback market is what it is.

The going rate for a good quarterback has been inflated by questionable contracts, and 49ers fans’ sensibilities are offended by overpaying for a quarterback who’s not elite.

However, digging deeper reveals just how perilous the quarterback carousel can be.

Analyzing every single first-round quarterback since 2000 reveals a cornucopia of busts, mediocrity, and a handful of unquestioned hits.

Below are the 75 quarterbacks in that span, and where they were selected in the first round.

I’ll let readers be the judge of how many are worth top dollar in today’s market.

2000
Chad Pennington (18)

2001
Michael Vick (1)

2002
David Carr (1)
Joey Harrington (3)
Patrick Ramsey (32)

2003
Carson Palmer (1)
Byron Leftwich (7)
Kyle Boller (19)
Rex Grossman (22)

2004
Eli Manning (1)
Philip Rivers (4)
Ben Roethlisberger (11)
J.P. Losman (22)

2005
Alex Smith (1)
Aaron Rodgers (24)
Jason Campbell (25)

2006
Vince Young (3)
Matt Leinart (10)
Jay Cutler (11)

2007
JaMarcus Russell (1)
Brady Quinn (22)

2008
Matt Ryan (3)
Joe Flacco (18)

2009
Matthew Stafford (1)
Mark Sanchez (5)
Josh Freeman (17)

2010
Sam Bradford (1)
Tim Tebow (25)

2011
Cam Newton (1)
Jake Locker (8)
Blaine Gabbert (10)
Christian Ponder (12)

2012
Andrew Luck (1)
Robert Griffin III (2)
Ryan Tannehill (8)
Brandon Weeden (22)

2013
E.J. Manuel (16)

2014
Blake Bortles (3)
Johnny Manziel (22)
Teddy Bridgewater (32)

2015
Jameis Winston (1)
Marcus Mariota (2)

2016
Jared Goff (1)
Carson Wentz (2)
Paxton Lynch (26)

2017
Mitchell Trubisky (2)
Patrick Mahomes (10)
Deshaun Watson (12)

2018
Baker Mayfield (1)
Sam Darnold (3)
Josh Allen (7)
Josh Rosen (10)
Lamar Jackson (32)

2019
Kyler Murray (1)
Daniel Jones (6)
Dwayne Haskins (15)

2020
Joe Burrow (1)
Tua Tagovailoa (5)
Justin Herbert (6)
Jordan Love (26)

2021
Trevor Lawrence (1)
Zach Wilson (2)
Trey Lance (3)
Justin Fields (11)
Mac Jones (15)

2022
Kenny Pickett (20)

2023
Bryce Young (1)
C.J. Stroud (2)
Anthony Richardson (4)

2024
Caleb Williams (1)
Jayden Daniels (2)
Drake Maye (3)
Michael Penix, Jr. (8)
J.J. McCarthy (10)
Bo Nix (12)

Even among the hits, how many were elite and “deserving” of top dollar?

People should keep that list in mind when discussing vague notions of replacing Purdy in the draft.

Fans think they’re getting Mahomes, but they’re much more likely to end up with J.P. Losman.

What about the quarterbacks not taken in the first round?

The hit rate obviously drops significantly.

Over the 25-year span from 2000 to 2024, I counted 215 quarterbacks drafted after the first round.

As far as I could tell, below are the only quarterbacks drafted after round one that led teams to the playoffs as the primary starter.

2000
Tom Brady (199)
Marc Bulger (168)

2001
Drew Brees (32)

2003
Tony Romo (Undrafted)

2004
Matt Schaub (90)

2005
Matt Cassel (230)
Ryan Fitzpatrick (250)

2011
Andy Dalton (35)
Colin Kaepernick (36)

2012
Russell Wilson (75)
Nick Foles (88)
Kirk Cousins (102)
Case Keenum (Undrafted)

2013
Geno Smith (39)

2014
Derek Carr (36)
Jimmy Garoppolo (62)

2016
Dak Prescott (135)

2020
Jalen Hurts (53)

2022
Brock Purdy (262)

That’s an 8.8% hit rate after the first round.

Quarterback is a massive crapshoot.

It’s almost impossible to predict who’s going to be good, let alone elite.

Even if there is an elite quarterback in the draft, there’s no guarantee that the team would be in position to draft him.

Every team wants an elite quarterback, but there just aren’t many of them.

The most prudent move is to pay Purdy, a good quarterback, and be consistently good with the chance of catching fire in the playoffs and winning it all.

The alternative is to reset at quarterback, and chances are the replacement would be worse.

Teams in the NFL are perennially bad because they can’t even find a good quarterback.

The 49ers have one.

In the words of Teddy KGB from the film Rounders: “Pay that man his money.”

If you show up too early, you get roped into setting up tables or picking up bags of ice from 7-Eleven.

If you show up late late, then everyone is well past “turnt up.”

The 2024 San Francisco 49ers could be that guy showing up to the party with a bottle of Grey Goose when everybody is taking an Uber ride home, and that one friend is splayed out on the couch.

The first half against the Chicago Bears looked like a preseason game with one team’s starters toying with street free agents.

The 49ers amassed a comical yardage disparity of 319 to 4.

A holding call as Brock Purdy strutted into the end zone was the only blemish on the way to a 24-0 halftime lead.

Fans of the team might have had a pit in their stomach after blowing multiple leads this season, but the second half was merely a formality.

This is the way it was supposed to look.

Running backs ripping off chunks of yardage. Receivers wide open. The foghorn going off after yet another touchdown.

Purdy looked like a quarterback primed for a big offseason extension.

Mr. Irrelevant has now defeated five different quarterbacks who were drafted number one overall.

It’s Christmastime, and Santa Kyle was in his bag.

But is it too late?

Probably.

The 49ers need to run the table through a challenging stretch of games, and hope for division rivals to lose in a particular way.

For example, even if the 49ers defeat the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday Night Football, they still need the Rams to lose another game, but their final stretch is at the New York Jets and then the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks at home.

If the Rams defeat the fading Jets and Cardinals at SoFi, then the 49ers need the Seahawks to win that week 18 matchup.

But the 49ers also need the Seahawks to lose two other games before the Rams game.

In other words, it’s a shit show.

It’s that friend splayed out on the couch.

Various computer models put the 49ers’ chances of making the playoffs between 4% and 11%.

Even if the 49ers take down a healthy Rams team, they have to go on the road and defeat the Miami Dolphins, who look functional again with Tua Tagovailoa’s brain not sloshing around in his skull.

The next matchup would be against the Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football, and they might be the best team in the NFL this year.

And the Lions surely have not forgotten about the 49ers sending them home in last season’s NFC Championship game.

The playoff outlook is bleak, but inside straights against pocket aces do happen.

Discussions of tanking will have to wait at least one more week.

For now, the 49ers have a chance for a satisfying win against the Rams on Thursday Night Football.

The Rams still have some wiggle room, but the 49ers don’t have any more outs.

They suffered a heartbreaking loss in Super Bowl LIV against the Kansas City Chiefs, but the team was determined to get back to the big game and set things right.

But the football gods had other ideas.

The season got off to a pretty good start.

The 49ers jumped out to a 10-0 lead against the Arizona Cardinals after Raheem Mostert took an angle route 76 yards to the house.

But then there was a special teams breakdown (sound familiar?) and the Cardinals blocked a punt.

That set Arizona up for an easy touchdown, and the 49ers never looked right.

The Cardinals eventually took the lead, and Jimmy Garoppolo failed to hit an open Kendrick Bourne in the end zone late in the 4th quarter for what would have been the game-winning touchdown.

Home opener ruined in a 24-20 loss.

It was all downhill from there.

The team turned into a M*A*S*H unit the next week against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.

The 49ers had one of the highest ever adjusted games lost (AGL) due to injury since the stat was recorded.

Adding insult to injury, the 49ers were kicked out of their home stadium due to California COVID policies.

They limped across the finish line at 6-10.

Fast-forward to 2024, and the vibes are eerie.

After another gut-wrenching loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII, the 49ers’ subsequent season is teetering on the brink.

In 2020, a depleted 49ers team with Richie James as its featured wide receiver got smoked by the Green Bay Packers.

A similarly hampered 49ers team just got taken apart by the Packers at Lambeau.

Injuries, holdouts, hold-ins, a Madden curse, subpar play, and more injuries have put the 49ers in a tenuous position at 5-6 with unfavorable tiebreaker scenarios.

An oft-cited cliché is that “football is a game of inches.”

Trite as it might be, it’s true.

The margins are small in the NFL.

A handful of plays can be the difference between “resilience” and “incompetence.”

For example, the defending champs are 10-1 despite injury issues of their own.

The Chiefs eked by the Baltimore Ravens (Isaiah Likely’s toe out of bounds), the Cincinnati Bengals (pass interference on 4th & 16), the Atlanta Falcons (dubious no-call on pass interference in the end zone), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Bowles does not go for two), and the Denver Broncos (blocked chip-shot field goal at the buzzer).

And they were in a death struggle with the Carolina Panthers yesterday.

Kansas City could very easily be 5-6 right now.

This should not be taken as a defense of the 49ers.

Good teams find ways to win.

The 49ers are not a good team this year.

They have blown three leads to division opponents with under 2 minutes to go, and the special teams mistakes have gotten more comical by the week.

Against the Packers, the 49ers finally got a big play in the return game, and it was called back because of a textbook pancake block.

The 49ers have six games left and they’re only one game out of first place.

However, they have sputtered through the easy part of their schedule.

Rattling off wins against the Bills, Lions, and resurgent Dolphins seems unlikely.

Crazier things have happened.

Since the NFL moved to the 17-game schedule with 7 teams making the playoffs, no 10-7 team has been left out of the postseason.

That means the 49ers could theoretically lose another game and still have a shot.

But 10-7 probably won’t be enough because of those damn tiebreakers; the 49ers are 1-3 in the NFC West and 3-5 in the NFC.

The playoffs have essentially begun for the 49ers.

One more loss, start booking those Cabo reservations. 

You just witnessed the San Francisco 49ers inexplicably lose another game while leading with under two minutes left.

Your lucky 49ers hat and unwashed T-shirt combo did not work.

Your beloved 49ers are now looking up at the three other teams in the division.

You grumble a few curses under your breath at the players, at the refs, at the owner, at Kyle Shanahan.

Suddenly your doorbell rings.

You trudge to the door and open it to find a gift-wrapped box on your welcome mat.

You look around and see no one insight.

Curiosity gets the best of you and you tear open the box.

Inside the box sits a game show buzzer with a shiny red button.

There’s an inscription under the button that reads: “Fire Kyle Shanahan.”

You have no reason to believe this is real, but you’re already a superstitious person.

You assume that yes, this is real.

Do you press the button and fire Kyle, not knowing if he is replaced by the second coming of Bill Walsh, or Rod Marinelli?

What do you do? 

***

A not insignificant portion of 49ers fans would not only press the button, but gleefully smash it.

And that speaks to the irrationality of sports fans.

A scholar once said, “You play to win the game. Hello!”

Kyle Shanahan wins.

He took over a 2-14 team bereft of talent after the failed Chip Kelly experiment.

In year three, he had the 49ers in the Super Bowl.

In seven seasons, Shanahan already has 8 playoff wins (66.7% win percentage).

His eight playoff wins tie him with his father Mike (20 seasons), and he’s only two short of Bill Walsh (10 seasons).

So why are so many 49ers fans itching to push the button?

Because the Kyle conversation is broken.

Because Shanahan is a victim of Narrative.

The Narrative around Shanahan is that he is a choker with a tragic fatal flaw that will always keep him from winning a Super Bowl.

Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes will forever snatch the Lombardi Trophy away from him, like Lucy snatching the football away from Charlie Brown.

The playoff success without a Super Bowl ring only enhances The Narrative.

Hard-fought playoff victories almost become boring, rote, expected.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher went through something similar.

Year after year, pundits questioned if he would ever win the Big One.

Cowher didn’t break through until year 14, his penultimate season in the NFL.

The Narrative around Shanahan began in Super Bowl LI.

As head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, Shanahan let a 28-3 lead slip away, losing to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

What’s that, you say? He wasn’t the head coach? 

Oh, that’s right. He was the offensive coordinator.

Perhaps never before in NFL history has an assistant coach been blamed for a total team collapse.

It’s the football version of the Mandela Effect.

Everyone remembers that ‘90s Sinbad genie movie (that doesn’t exist), just like everyone remembers Kyle Shanahan as the head coach of the 2016 Atlanta Falcons, not Dan Quinn.

In Super Bowl XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks lost to the New England Patriots (those damn Patriots) on a goal line interception because they chose to throw instead of hand off to Beast Mode.

Pete Carroll has taken flak for that.

How many people even know who the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator was that year?

If you said Darrell Bevell, you get a gold star.

The Falcons couldn’t close the door against the Patriots, and The Narrative was born.

The Narrative reared its ugly head again in Super LIV when Shanahan’s 49ers had a 20-10 lead against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Narrative added a new chapter when the 49ers blew a 17-7 lead against the Los Angeles Rams in the 2021 NFC Championship game.

The Narrative intensified after the 49ers lost last year’s Super Bowl to the Chiefs again, this time unable to hold onto a 3-point lead late in the 4th quarter.

There were many variables that contributed to those losses, but The Narrative is cleaner and simpler.

Kyle choked!

Kyle has backed himself into a corner where going to the NFC Championship game or the Super Bowl every year is not enough.

In fact, it’s only further proof of The Narrative.

When coaches win the Super Bowl, they become made men.

They can go 7-9 three years in a row with a Hall of Fame quarterback like Sean Payton (who only has one more playoff win than Shanahan).

They can go seven years in a row without getting past the Wildcard round like Mike Tomlin (who has the same number of playoff wins as Shanahan).

No, Shanahan must win the Super Bowl. Anything short of that is failure.

Sports fans love to think in those cold and unflinching terms, imagining themselves as Alec Baldwin’s character in “Glengarry Glen Ross.”

But in reality, firing coaches rarely results in Bill Belichick-in-waiting coming in as the replacement.

Fear of nobody better out there is a bad reason to stay in a toxic relationship, and it’s a bad reason to hold onto a middling coach.

But Shanahan is not a middling coach.

He is a top-tier coach, and if the one big knock on him is that he can’t win the Super Bowl, then hiring a first-time head coach or a retread is far from a guarantee to deliver a Lombardi.

If Kyle’s replacement couldn’t duplicate going to the NFC title game or the Super Bowl four times in five years, would he get tired, too?

How many years does a coach get to win the Super Bowl before he’s fired, irrespective of his win percentage?

It’s year six for Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. Should the Packers fire him if he can’t win the Super Bowl this season?

Coaches are hired to get fired.

Belichick got fired.

Andy Reid got fired.

Tony Dungy got fired.

Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. famously “fired” Bill Walsh several times.

It’s a safe bet that Shanahan has a pink slip in his future.

But not today.

Not this year.

Not even close.

Don’t you dare push that button.

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