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Why 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan Hasn't Lived Up to his Father's Legacy

What did Mike do differently than Kyle?

Grant Cohn

Jan 19, 2020; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan celebrates the 37-20 victory against the Green Bay Packers with his father Mike Shanahan in the NFC Championship Game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Jan 19, 2020; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan celebrates the 37-20 victory against the Green Bay Packers with his father Mike Shanahan in the NFC Championship Game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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Kyle Shanahan has lost three Super Bowls -- one as offensive coordinator for the Falcons and two as head coach for the 49ers.

Mike Shanahan, Kyle's father, won three Super bowls -- one as offensive coordinator for the 49ers and two as head coach for the Broncos.

What did Mike do differently than Kyle?

Mike had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks -- Steve Young and John Elway. And yet, when Mike had second-half leads in those Super Bowls, he ran the freaking ball. In 1994, the 49ers ran the ball 51.4 percent of the time in the second half against the Chargers, and that was with Jerry Rice on the field. In 1997, the Broncos ran the ball 63.9 percent of the time in the second half against the Packers. And in 1998, the Broncos ran the ball a whopping 66.7 percent of the time in the second half against the Falcons.

The result: Three Lombardi Trophies for Mike.

Now let's see what Kyle did in the second half of his Super Bowl appearances.

2016: 9 runs, 18 passes (33.3% runs).

2019: 10 runs, 21 passes (32.3% runs).

2023: 11 runs, 17 passes (39.3% runs).

Keep in mind, Kyle had leads after halftime in all three of those games, and he did not have a Hall of Fame quarterback in any of them. Instead, he had outstanding running backs such as Raheem Mostert and Christian McCaffrey. So why the heck did Kyle pass so much when his father would have run the ball?

Because Kyle isn't his father. Kyle is Kyle.

He beat himself every time. And that's why he has no Lombardi Trophies.

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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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