All 49ers

Should 49ers Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Attend the Combine?

In Shanahan's nine-year tenure as the 49ers' head coach, he never has spoken at the Combine.

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:

INDIANAPOLIS -- Six head coaches decided not to come to the NFL Scouting Combine this year -- Sean McVay, Mike Tomlin, Matt LaFleur, Jim Harbaugh, Kellen Moore and Kyle Shanahan.

Shanahan used to go to the Combine, but he hasn't gone since Covid. These days, he generally stays at home instead of making the yearly trek to the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. Clearly, he feels the Combine has become a waste of his time.

But 26 head coaches feel it's an important part of the drafting process. And one of those head coaches is Mike McDaniel, who coached with Shanahan for more than 10 years. On Tuesday, I asked McDaniel why it's important for him to come to the Combine each year as the Dolphins head coach.

"I can't replace that face-to-face energy and human element that is so important in this game," McDaniel said. "It is for us a little innefficient in terms of time, there is some down time in the middle of the day. But for me, I'm hardpressed with how important the decisions are for the fabric of your team when it comes to the NFL Draft. Everybody can do it a different way. I need to see people in person for me to complete the whole picture of what I'm seeing on film."

McDaniel's answer is great and it applies to Shanahan. Shanahan is a control freak who wants to make the final decision on which players the 49ers should take with their top draft picks. If he wants that much control, he should come to the Combine and get to know the players in person like Andy Reid, Nick Sirianni and McDaniel do.

Just a thought.

Read more

Download and follow The Cohn Zohn Podcast

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.

Home/News