The Kyle Shanahan Discourse Is Broken
Can it be fixed?
It’s a rainy, dreary early evening in the fall.
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.