Kyle Shanahan Explains Why He Didn't Hire a Game Management Coordinator

"We have a big department with Brian Hampton who does all our analytics."
Super Bowl LVIII - San Francisco 49ers v Kansas City Chiefs
Super Bowl LVIII - San Francisco 49ers v Kansas City Chiefs / Perry Knotts/GettyImages

ORLANDO -- Kyle Shanahan finds new ways to lose big games every year.

Two seasons ago, he failed to challenge on the first drive of the NFC Championship, and the 49ers gave up a touchdown shortly after. And then last season, he didn't seem to know the playoff overtime rules when he asked to get the ball first after winning the coin toss.

Shanahan clearly is an elite offensive coach, but game management isn't exactly his strength, which is why he should hire a game management coordinator like Sean McVay did this offseason.

Shanahan was asked about potentially hiring someone to help him manage games on Tuesday at the NFL Annual Meeting. Here's what he said.

Q: I was just talking to Sean McVay about how he hired John Streicher as the Rams Game Management Coordinator to assist in timeout usage and other game management things. Have you thought about doing anything differently in terms of game management?

SHANAHAN: "You review every situation that you're in, and each situation that you're in is a new one. You prepare for all those, but when you're in a situation the next time, it won't be like the last time. It's always different. Who's on the field? What's the score? How has the game gone? That's something we think about every week. We never really stop talking about it. We have a big department with Brian Hampton who does all our analytics."

TRANSLATION: The guy who told Shanahan to take the ball first in overtime of the Super Bowl is the same guy advising Shanahan on game management. No wonder they keep losing big games.


Published |Modified
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.