The San Francisco 49ers are the latest team to experience a disappointing season the year after losing a Super Bowl. Head coach Kyle Shanahan has been through this before, having a losing season (6-10) after losing the Super Bowl in the 2019 season.
San Francisco is experiencing this again in 2024, a year after Shanahan’s 49ers have failed to win a championship despite having Brock Purdy on a rookie contract. The 49ers have made three straight NFC Championship game appearances, yet have no Super Bowl titles to show for it.
With the late-season disappointments — combined with this season’s 5-7 start — is Shanahan’s job really in jeopardy in San Francisco? 49ers general manager John Lynch shut that down quick.
“I’ve found the whole discussion on Kyle rather comical,” Lynch said, via KNBR. “We’ve won four of the last five division championships and been in two Super Bowls. The standard here is to win (Super Bowls) and we’ve fallen short I understand that.
“But we have an excellent head coach and the fact people are talking about that I do find it comical.”
The 49ers are two games back in the NFC West with five games left, sitting in last place in the division. While making the playoffs seems to be impractical at this juncture, Shanahan has taken the 49ers to four NFC Championship games in the previous five seasons.
Shanahan is 69-58 as a head coach in his seven seasons in San Francisco (.542 win percentage) with three NFC West title sand four 10-win seasons. He also has an 8-4 playoff record, despite being 0-2 in Super Bowls.
The 49ers would be hard pressed to find a better head coach than Shanahan if they were to move on, especially with a monster extension looming for quarterback Brock Purdy. Shanahan would likely be hired within days if the 49ers were to move on.
