49ers HC Kyle Shanahan's Legacy as of Now

It's funny how important winning the Super Bowl actually is.

Grant Cohn | Jul 10, 2024

Feb 4, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan watches from a team bus during Super Bowl 58 team arrivals at the Harry Reid International Airport. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

Many people believe Kyle Shanahan is the best offensive coach in the NFL and that it's only a matter of time before he wins a Super Bowl.

Those things might be true. His offenses have been outstanding for the most part since 2016 when he was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons. And he has gone to three Super Bowls during that time. It's possible one day we'll look back at this portion of his career as a valuable learning period which he needed to grow and become a champion.

But as of now, he's not a champion, unless conference championships count. And for all of his talent and potential, if his career were to end today, he would not be a Hall of Famer. Instead, his legacy would be his Super Bowl defeats. Not just the fact that he lost three times. The way he lost. Leading by double digits in each one. Abandoning the running game in the second half all three times. Not knowing the postseason overtime rules in the final, most humiliating loss. A game he was favored to win against an opponent that was reloading.

And don't forget the NFC Championship game he lost to the Rams after beating them six straight times.

All the other accomplishments of Shanahan's career would be mere footnotes compared to those choke jobs. He would be known for squandering one of the most talented teams to never win a Super Bowl.

It's funny how important winning the Super Bowl actually is.

Published Jul 10, 2024

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.