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It’s hard to argue with the 49ers’ success since head coach Kyle Shanahan took over to start the 2017 season. He took over a rebuilding team and turned them into a Super Bowl contender by his third season. Since Shanahan’s first trip to the Super Bowl in 2019, San Francisco has gone to two NFC championship games.
For all the good Shanahan does and has done with the 49ers, there are still a handful of complaints levied against the head coach. One of them is his aggressiveness, or lack thereof. Shanahan told Jourdan Rodrigue of the Athletic in her podcast The Playcallers that he hears loud complaints on both ends of the spectrum.
“Do you know how many people crush me for never running the ball?” Shanahan asked. “And do you know how many people crush me for running the ball more than anyone? I think it’s hilarious. But I get talked to all the time about how I don’t run the ball. But no one runs the ball more than me. And so like, yeah guys. It depends on the situation. It depends on what we think is best at the time, and that doesn’t have to do with the stats at the end of the game. That has to do with our preparation during the week, our life experiences, the situation at hand.”
The 49ers have maintained a fairly even run-pass balance during Shanahan’s tenure as head coach, typically leaning more run heavy as they’ve tried to navigate a quarterback-dominated NFL without a dominant quarterback.
For the most part it’s worked, but without a Super Bowl to show for it there are reasons to question some of the head coach’s play calls in key spots. Sometimes the team gets aggressive and throws it, much to the chagrin of some fans. Other times they get conservative and keep it on the ground, much to the chagrin of some fans.
Shanahan explained some of what goes into his decision-making process on those potentially risky play calls.
“If I’m just trying to be risky or just trying to be conservative, I’m not gonna be able to live with that good or bad,” Shanahan said. “If I call what I truly believe based off of experience, and everything and it feels just so genuinely right – this is the right decision – that is where I’m the most aggressive because my mind’s clear and I know it’s the right decision. And if it doesn’t work, yeah it’s a bottom line business, I was wrong, but I’m still gonna go with what I think is right because I’m prepared.”
Two of the big marks on Shanahan’s play-calling record have come in Super Bowls. In a Super Bowl LI loss to the Patriots when he was the Falcons’ offensive coordinator, some people have criticized him for being too aggressive with his team up 28-3 late in the third quarter. Then again in Super Bowl LIV while he was the head coach of the 49ers he was marked by some as being too aggressive with a 10-point lead late in the fourth quarter.
Other times in the regular season he gets very conservative with punts in plus territory or long field goals on fourth-and-1 or 2. Those situations make it feel like the aggressive Super Bowl stumbles force him into a more conservative mindset.
Ultimately players have to execute to win games, and there’s no specific track record of Shanahan always being too conservative or always being too aggressive.
It’s going to be interesting to see how that mindset evolves with quarterback Brock Purdy, who has already gained enough trust that Shanahan was more aggressive by putting the ball in his quarterback’s hands in key spots last season.
Conservative or risky. Run or pass. It won’t matter to 49ers fans if the team hoists a sixth Lombardi Trophy. In fact, doing so may be the only thing that at least momentarily stops the shouting from both ends of the spectrum about the coach’s too aggressive or not aggressive enough play calling.
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