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Kyle Shanahan Says He Won't Fire the 49ers Special Teams Coordinator

The 49ers special teams are bad at everything.

Grant Cohn

Oct 27, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan on the field before the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Oct 27, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan on the field before the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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The 49ers special teams are bad at everything.

It can't cover. It can't return. It can't even get the ball into the end zone on kickoffs. It's a disaster.

And yet, head coach Kyle Shanahan says will not fire special teams coordinator Brian Schneider.

“We evaluate special teams every week," Shanahan said Monday on a conference call. "There's not a lot that you're going to do a lot different in the Bye. We could add one more game to what we've been evaluating throughout it all. I have no concerns with Brian Schneider, if that's what you mean by that. I think that's what you're implying and that hasn't entered my head at all. No, that hasn't entered my head at all. I thought, I was proud of us last night. I thought we were up against a huge challenge. I thought our guys played real hard and did a real good job controlling KaVontae Turpin, who is one of the bigger game changers in this game. I think we've dealt with a lot of stuff on special teams. A lot of changing on people, a lot of young guys starting out to play who we've lost and having to replace them with new guys and working with a lot of different people. I expect us to get better with that throughout the year. I know it hasn't been good enough in this first half, not at all. But I thought last night was a step in the right direction and you're going to get better or worse from that and I expect us to get better.”

Shanahan said the right thing. Firing Schneider after the season is the right move, but the 49ers can't fire him now and find an upgrade over him midseason. Firing him now would be an emotional decision that would hurt the team.

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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.

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