The presumptive next head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Kyle Shanahan, sat down for a podcast with MMQB.com’s Peter King.
For any head coach, confidence is key. And Shanahan believes his background with four different teams in the NFL has given him unrivaled experience to lead a franchise.
“I’ve believed it for a while,” Shanahan said. “You always want the right opportunity. But, I think it starts, I’ve been battled tested. I think I went through a lot of situations that a lot of coordinators in this league haven’t. I think I’ve had to handle some situations, or got some attention, mostly negative, that usually head coaches only have to deal with. So I think that’s helped me prepare from that standpoint.”
Shanahan dug into all four of his stops to better explained what he meant by all the adversity he’s faced. The negative attention he mentioned came specifically from Washington, where he and his father Mike were locked in a war with Dan Snyder and Robert Griffin III over the offensive scheme and ultimately playing time. By the way, the Shanahan’s were proven right in that scenario, choosing Cousins over Griffin.
“There’s not one step in my career that I would’ve skipped — if I had to do it all over again,” Shanahan said. “I had a lot of early success in Houston, being able to start out as a coordinator with Matt Schaub. We had a bunch of good players there. And then going to Washington, having to work through a bunch of different rosters with a bunch of different quarterbacks and finding different ways to do things. Even having Robert and having to go to a zone-read type of scheme, it really helped me grow as a coach, realizing I couldn’t do everything I could do in Houston. I had to learn. And then going through things I did in Cleveland, we did a lot of good things there too, I felt. Making that decision to try and get out of there and come to Atlanta, we started out 5-0 last year went on a six-game losing streak, went through a lot of adversity in Atlanta our first year. But we finished seventh in offense and I felt like we were a lot closer than people thought…
“Sometimes it was hard. I wasn’t always enjoying everything. But when I look back, I feel like what I’ve been through has made me really battle-tested. I feel like I can handle anything. I’ve been through a lot of situations that really forced me to adjust. And in the long run, I think it’s made me a better coach, a better person and a lot more confident.”
King steered the podcast segment in San Francisco direction by saying it sure seems like Kyle is going to be coaching the 49ers next season.
“I’m going to try to be how I’ve always been,” Shanahan said. “I live and die football. I’ve loved football from an Xs and Os standpoint, from a personnel standpoint. Really everything I do in my life is about my wife and my kids and it’s about football.
“I always work as much as I can, study as much as I can. I’m always going to develop an opinion, work with other people to get an opinion and whatever you think is right, we’re going to try and do it for the right reasons. You can always count on me to, I’ll make the hard decision, but I’ll always make the right decision and not everyone’s right. You mess up a lot.
“But you’re going to get a guy that always works hard and is always thinking what’s best for the organization, what’s best for the football team and what’s going to help us win games now and down the road.”
King reminded Shanahan that Jed York has fired three coaches in 25 months, which Kyle slightly chuckled at. Is Shanahan intimidated by the challenges that lie ahead in creating a whole new culture?
“Not really, you got to look into every situation for what they have, what they’re saying,” Shanahan said. “I got to talk to them a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be allowed to talk to them again this week. We’ll see what their plans are – don’t really know yet. But that’s definitely something that’s enticing and you hope to have an opportunity because everything takes time, but you’ve got to make sure you’ve got that.”