All 49ers

Kyle Shanahan says How 49ers OC Klay Kubiak will Help him Call Plays

The 49ers just made an interesting change to their offensive coaching staff.

Grant Cohn

Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
In this story:

The 49ers just made an interesting change to their offensive coaching staff.

They promoted assistant passing game specialist Klay Kubiak to offensive coordinator. This promotion clearly comes with a significant pay raise, but it's unclear how Kubiak's job will change.

"I'll continue to call plays," Shanahan said on Wednesday, "but Klay and I have done everything here the last two years together kind of hand in hand. We put the game plan in together. Yeah, I call it, only one person can speak to the quarterback, but I mean him, [run game coordinator/offensive line coach Chris] Foerster, [tight ends coach Brian] Fleury, those are the guys I rely on through play calling throughout the game. It's not like I'm just in silence there calling every play. I'm discussing it with the guys we've prepared with in the week, discussing it with the guys who are talking with their players and what they see. And that's the same thing we all did for Klay versus Arizona.”

That's such an interesting answer. Apparently, the 49ers have a brain trust of coaches that collaborate to help Shanahan call plays during games, and that brain trust consists of the offensive line coach, the tight ends coach and Kubiak. So Shanahan makes the final call, but he takes suggestions.

Which means the effectiveness of his offense changes year to year based on who his assistant coaches are. The 49ers offense regressed big time in the red zone in particular this season. Shanahan and Kubiak will have to figure out solutions to that issue.

Download and follow The Cohn Zohn Podcast.

Published
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.

Home/News