Fans and Media Need to Shut the Hell Up About Shanahan

Kyle Shanahan is a good coach, and everyone needs to stop talking crazy-talk about his fitness as a head coach.

NFL

The fans and media want instant results. They want their dopamine hit of sports heroin. They demand the high of a Super Bowl win to satiate their desires. But this mentality is toxic. It drives good coaches away and brings in temporary replacements that do not work in the end.

American fans are the embodiment of corporate greed. Corporate greed is not just profits, profits, profits. It is profits now! Short term success over sustained excellence. It is money and win now. Screw the planet later. This demand for instant euphoria negates the ascendence to utopia.

I have written this before, but this Twitter and talking heads mob are what drove Jurgen Klinsmann away from US Men’s Soccer. It was a brutal jettison of an excellent coach and it cost our country deeply. The reason he got the boot was because Americans are stupid when it comes to futbol and football. Eyeing the ultimate trophy blinds the vision of how to get there. The journey matters. (Happy Birthday John Wooden!)

Shanahan is an offensive genius. That is the fact. He was the best offensive play caller for at least half a decade before he became head coach. His coaching tree based on his offensive tactics have trickled down to Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur, and Mike McDaniel. Are other fan bases calling for their heads?

The reason people want Shanahan to be better is because they injected their first dose. Kyle Shanahan brought very quick success for a rebuilding franchise. Yet fans forget what he has done in that short time. Fans believe some outsider will be a better product to get the 49ers to glory. The fans and talking heads are wrong.

Shanahan’s record speaks for yourself if you look closer, but step back to understand why:

2017: 6-10 in a rebuild year. Started off slow (as every first coach likely would) then railed off 6 straight with a newly traded Jimmy G.

2018: 4-12 in an injury ridden year. Jimmy G tears his ACL. What team aspires a title when their star newly minted QB gets sidelined for the year?

2019: 13-3 and a Super Bowl appearance. Jimmy G and the rest of the team are healthy.

2020: 6-10 during Covid-19. Jimmy G is hurt part of the year and the 49ers lose Nick Bosa the entire season. Bosa is that number 2 pick that was a game wrecker for the 49ers for the Super Bowl season. Also, Santa Clara Covid rules eliminates 3 of the home games. 

2021: 10-7 and NFC Championship appearance. A tough year yet the 49ers peaked in the playoffs and lost to eventual SB Champion in the NFC Championship game (The 49ers were leading most of that game). 

2022: 3-3 start. Everyone goes crazy and calls for Shanahan’s head.

Say what you want about Shanahan, but he has righted the ship and is steering it across the vast ultra-competitive sea of the NFL. Sure, he has made mistakes. Sure, you can “blame” him for costly errors. Blown leads are not the problem. The problem is that fans internalize these blown leads as lost wins. They do not observe the foundation that acquired such leads. Fans think missteps are the problem. Errors, mistakes, missteps do not disqualify an NFL coach. Fans point to the “reason” for not getting their addiction satisfied. That is Shanahan.

Shanahan gets the team there. How did he get the 49ers there? Foundational building blocks and continuity. Continuity from upper management thru the coaching staff. But, oh wait! He consistently loses coaches to head coaching positions because the 49ers’ organization does so well. Shanahan breeds coaches. The mainstays are just Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch. The lower coaches move up the ladder in the ranks to occupy the vacant positions left by the departures of the future head coaches. The 49ers are working with a turnover rate of Silicon Valley. Talent gets forged in the 49ers’ organization and leaves for their own pursuits. NY Jets and Miami Dolphin fans do not think Robert Saleh and Mike McDaniel are unworthy because they are the fans’ new shiny drugs. Take the prescription first and feel good because of the new medication. That’s how it works in perception.

If the fans want to feel good with their medication, they need a foundational lifestyle to manage their situation. Good habits and health. The 49ers have good habits and (at times) good health. And when they feel good, they just win.

The issue is that mob fans think mistakes are unrepairable. The fans deem a coach a polished gadget. Insert that gadget into the machine and it works. Yet when the machine breaks-down, they want to toss out the gadget without fixing it. Why always replace the gadget with a new insert that possibly does not fit? Just because it is shiny and new? The salesperson (mob fans and talking heads) got the fanbase hooked on what could be desirable. People want the new drug. This misdirection takes the mind away from what the 49ers already have.

Coaches are not finished products on their first coaching opportunity. NBA fans do not expect an NBA rookie, no matter how highly touted, to bring a championship their first year. NBA fans know that development is essential. Players must learn on the job. First-time NFL coaches need to learn on the job too. They need to develop. They need to grow. They need to get better. They need to learn from their mistakes (not get guillotined for them). And after they have gone thru their development, true success arrives.

If a coach needs to develop, what coach is better in the entire league than Kyle Shanahan? 49er fans need to seriously consider this. Shanahan is an offensive genius, and he can develop into an elite level head coach that will stay in the bay for a long time. The 49ers do not want one Super Bowl and then kick their addiction. The organization wants sustained success. The 49ers want what Bill Belichick built in New England. Year after year, decade after decade of excellence. That requires a coach with a vision and continuity in the organization. The Cleveland Browns booted Belichick (a first-time head coach then) and I am sure that Cleveland has no regrets.

Organizations should not get rid of talent. You need talented players, and you need talented coaches. Coaches have talent. Let that talent grow and develop. Please, 49er fans, shut the hell up!

Here is a list from that previous Klinsmann blog about coaching and continuity. In times before, we believed in continuity before our society got so hooked on immediacy. Desperation is not a good path.

UCLA Bruins: John Wooden was hired in 1948. From 1964-1975 he won 10 of 12 national championships.  A 16-year wait.

Boston Celtics: Red Auerbach was hired in 1950. From 1957 to 1966 he won 9 of 10 championships.  A 7-year wait.

Duke Blue Devils: Mike Krzyzewksi was hired in 1980. Didn’t win his first of five national championships until 1991. An 11-year wait.

San Francisco Giants: Brian Sabean was hired as GM in 1996. Didn’t win his first of three World Series titles until 2010. A 14-year wait.

So let the 49ers keep Shanahan and let him develop and grow to what all fans knew from the beginning. That he can be an elite long-term solution to the 49ers. 

I quote the words of Shanahan’s favorite artist. The artist that he named his son Carter after. Yes, that is Lil’ Wayne:

Now that’s how you let the beat build, b*tch

That’s how you let the beat build b*tch

Now that’s how you let the beat build b*tch

Let the Beat build b*tch

And the beat go

Boom… b-boom-ba-boom

Boom… b-boom-ba-boom

It go boom… b-boom-ba-boom

Now say… (yeah yeah yeah)