Why the 49ers Need to Hire a Game Management Coordinator

Kyle Shanahan has many strengths. Game management isn't one of them.
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
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Kyle Shanahan has many strengths. Game management isn't one of them.

Like lots of offensive play callers who double as head coaches, Kyle Shanahan struggles when it comes to managing the clock -- that's why his record is so bad in one-score games. He's thinking more about the next play he's going to call on offense than the big picture, and his team suffers as a result of his myopic vision.

Most play-callers have this issue when they become head coaches. That's why only two head coaches who also call plays -- Andy Reid and Sean McVay -- call offensive plays. The rest -- Nick Sirianni, Dan Campbell, DeMeco Ryans, Sean McDermott, Dan Quinn and John Harbaugh -- do not call offensive plays. Most of them don't call plays at all.

Reid juggles game management and play calling duties by allowing offensive coordinator Matt Nagy to call plays sometimes. Shanahan could try something similar but already has said he will continue to call plays next season.

In that case, Shanahan can do what McVay did last year -- he hired a game management coordinator. His name is John Streicher, and his job is to help McVay decided when to use his timeouts, when to go for it on fourth down, when to attempt a fake punt -- all those tough decisions. So far, the hire has paid off, as the Rams are still alive in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the 49ers didn't make the playoffs largely because they lost almost every close game they were in. Plus they lost the Super Bowl in overtime because they won the toss and elected to let the Chiefs have the ball last.

Shanahan needs a game management coordinator.

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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.