SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Kyle Shanahan’s cellphone is an essential part of the NFL’s offseason hub these days, illustrating the 49ers’ elevated status and their leader’s audaciousness.
Who else would, coming off a third consecutive brutal playoff loss last winter, check in with Bill Belichick to see if he wanted to join the 49ers’ staff — maybe as defensive coordinator?
What other NFL figure would’ve had the gumption, with Brock Purdy pretty much locked in as the long-term starting quarterback, to ring up Tom Brady and offer him a one-year run at QB1?
Only Shanahan would’ve done that. We know this because he did try to do both things — not successfully landing either NFL legend, but moving with the same confidence and creativity that carried Shanahan and general manager John Lynch to the acquisitions of Trent Williams and Christian McCaffrey (along with a few other less successful but still-bold moves). That continues to be the hallmark of this era.
You never know until you ask. Why not try to hire Belichick, after his epic run with the Patriots came to an end last season and Shanahan had a vacancy after firing defensive coordinator Steve Wilks? The worst Belichick could do was say no. And what if he said yes?
“I threw it out to him,” Shanahan told me as we sat in his office for my podcast Tuesday. “He loves football so much that you never know what he would want. I can’t believe that he’s not a head coach of a team right now. I know what I would do if I was an owner. So that shocks me and the last thing you want to do is insult someone like Bill Belichick. But I know he just loves ball in the simplest form, so I threw it all out to him, whatever he’d want to do.”
You offered him the defensive-coordinator job, Kyle?
“Yeah, I was like, ‘Would you be interested?’” Shanahan said. “He was very nice and appreciative, but he politely turned me down. I think he’s helping out his son (Steve, the new DC at the University of Washington) a little bit. I know he’s involved in Washington up there and trying to help out with (Washington coach) Jedd Fisch…
“It could be good (that Belichick didn’t take the offer), because I’m sure he’s going to be back in the league next year. And I could be going against him. He could be in the NFC West, so it would’ve sucked if he came here (on staff for one year) and then he was going against us every week. But he’s the best and I just like talking to him.”
Shanahan recounted all this in his office from behind his desk — minutes after he and Lynch’s annual camp-opening news conference and a few hours before the first team meeting of the 2024 season. He looked tan from all the beach days with his family during the NFL break; his hair was long, but his offseason mustache, which shocked the internet when pictures from Christian McCaffrey’s wedding emerged, was newly shaved off.
Shanahan looked and sounded like a coach who is frustrated but not haunted by last February’s overtime loss in the Super Bowl, or by the Super Bowl loss in February 2020, also to the Chiefs. And Shanahan is happy with the roster he and Lynch have built, and convinced that this year’s version of the 49ers has every shot to finally get over that last hurdle, because several of the previous versions were probably good enough, too.
“Yeah, I believe that we should have already won two,” Shanahan said. “I actually think we should have won three.”
Much of the current belief is based on the logical presumption that Purdy, now more than a year removed from his elbow surgery and coming off of an incredible 2023 season, is the best QB of Shanahan’s 49ers tenure, and one of the best he’s ever coached.
And if you understand the way Shanahan thinks, you can see that his attempt to sign Brady was actually a sign of full support for Purdy’s positioning. Why? Because Shanahan had an even better shot to sign Brady back in March 2020, months after Jimmy Garoppolo led the 49ers to their first Super Bowl loss; Brady was leaving the Patriots and actually called the 49ers to ask if they’d sign him. And Shanahan turned Brady down because he was worried about how it would affect Garoppolo, who had already spent years in New England as Brady’s backup.
Left unsaid: Shanahan did not have the same worries about Purdy’s confidence or future. Confident coaches respect confident players.
“It wasn’t a hard conversation for me with Brock,” Shanahan said of telling him about wanting to sign Brady. “You have to ask (Purdy) about it. It’s not always the best thing you want to hear. But I looked at it as a huge compliment. You know, after the 2019 season, that was Jimmy’s first year as a starter in his career, and he did some really good things. And we almost won a Super Bowl. And he was a young quarterback we had only played with one year.
“To get a call a few weeks after that (from) Tom Brady wanting to come play for us, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. Because Tom Brady is the best quarterback to ever play. He’s who I’ve watched since Day 1 of when my career started. And that was kind of a dream of mine. But I also know we had a very young quarterback who had got us that far. And to sit and risk that young quarterback, I just kept thinking, like, what if he comes in at that age (Brady was 42), pulls a hamstring, and now I’ve messed up Jimmy? So it wasn’t a fun decision. But we had to stick with Jimmy at the time. …
“And then watching how it went (with Garoppolo’s injuries and struggles in 2020, and Brady leading Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl victory after the 2021 season), it was tough. And I was like, ‘Man, if I ever had a chance again, that’s something I can’t pass up.”
Purdy was hurt back then. He made it back for the start of training camp, but in February and March there were no assurances that he would. So if Shanahan had a chance to let Brady try to win a Super Bowl as a 49er, with this loaded roster, then have Purdy ready to take over in 2024 … well, why not?
“I felt very good when I told (Purdy), ‘Hey, I know we spent a lot of picks to go get Trey (Lance). I know you’ve only played seven games. You have a bad injury. But we believe you are a guy of the future. The only way that won’t happen is that Tom Brady comes for one year.’ And so I kind of looked at it as I was giving him the keys,” Shanahan said.
“I felt like he should be leaving the room thinking, ‘Man, they believe in me. Like, the only guy he’d even consider is Tom Brady.’ And Tom was done. Once Tom told me that, I just started counting the days to when Brock could get healthy.”
Here are some other highlights from our conversation.
• Shanahan said it was definitely different to go through the first offseason of this era that didn’t have some kind of QB Drama. Purdy is healthy. He’s locked in as QB1. The 49ers spent approximately 4,000 percent less time stressing about this position.
“Yes, it was different,” Shanahan said. “It’s so much more relaxing when that position is established … It just allows you to focus on all the other stuff. And there’s always a ton of stuff that happens in the offseason. It was needed.”
Shanahan compared the situation to the years he spent coaching two of his favorite QBs: “I did have that with Matt Ryan (in Atlanta) … and with Matt Schaub in Houston, where you had a number of years with a guy where you weren’t looking outside. And when you do have that, it’s the time to take advantage.”
• Could Purdy’s mastery of the offense, and the sense that he’s still improving at 24, give Shanahan the inclination to throw the ball more than the 50-50 run-pass split that he says he’s always seeking?
“Well, I think we did,” Shanahan said. “I think you watch even when Brock took over, watch how different it was by the third game he was playing. And still tried to be 50-50. I still tried to do that with Matt Ryan. … I still believe we were a top-five running team. I believe it’s so much easier to be a top-five passing team if you’re a top-five running team. You don’t do the (number of) attempts, but that’s what allows you to play at a high level.
“I will always, no matter our situation, try to be 50-50, because I believe that’s the best way to throw the ball. … I do think at heart I always want to throw the ball. I love throwing the ball. But I’ve coached long enough to know how much you need to run the ball before something bad happens.”
• With the Brandon Aiyuk negotiations still unresolved at the start of the camp (Aiyuk reported to camp on Tuesday afternoon, NBC Sports Bay Area reported, but it’s unclear if he’ll participate in practices), there’s a possibility that a prolonged situation could affect Aiyuk’s season, the way that Nick Bosa and Deebo Samuel both said long negotiations affected their production in the past.
I asked Shanahan if taking these talks deep into camp is a 49ers philosophy and if he’s ever frustrated that they always seem to take so long.
“I don’t really look at that as our philosophy,” Shanahan said. “I just look at it situationally. … You look at the Eagles. I think those guys were like two years out (from the end of their contracts) and they felt they were where they wanted with their top-10 pick (Devonta Smith) and they wanted to do that. I love that philosophy.
“We would do that, too, if we felt it was right. I don’t think Bosa was listening, was willing to negotiate, until he did … We would always want to do it earlier. But it just hasn’t worked out that way with the big ones we’ve had. It’s not like we aways say, ‘Let it come down to the end.’ I would much rather it happened earlier. But you can’t always let it happen the way you want.”
• Since they arrived in 2017, Shanahan and Lynch have only taken two offensive linemen in the first two rounds of the draft: guard Aaron Banks with the 48th pick in 2021 and tackle Mike McGlinchey with the ninth pick in 2018. They sure seem like they could use a couple of high-round picks on the current OL, especially without any clear idea how they’ll replace Williams whenever he decides to retire.
Do they just not like drafting O-linemen? Here’s the clearest, deepest explanation Shanahan has given on this issue:
“I’ve heard the narrative that, you know, that we’re ignoring the O-line. If we felt the O-lineman was the best pick there, there’s no doubt that’s who we’d take. But there’s some O-linemen there at the end of the first round that you feel have just as good a chance as a guy at the end of the second round. One’s a higher prospect and might have a higher ceiling, but I’m not too concerned about the ceiling. I want to know if he’s going to be a starting left tackle, a starting left guard, whatever, a starting NFL player. And if you are a starting NFL lineman, I think we can have a good team with you.
“(But) if we have a bunch of starting NFL linemen (and) there’s no one who can score points, we’re not going to have that good of an offense. It’s weird to me that … I’ve never been on a team that was favored to win every game the whole year before the season started. And we’ve been (listed as) that two years in a row. So what that tells me is people think we’ve got a really good roster. Well, if we were drafting only O-linemen, we wouldn’t have as good of a roster.”
Taking offensive linemen in the early rounds is the safe NFL play, Shanahan suggested. You don’t get criticized if you can shuffle off a mediocre tackle to guard or some other variation. Taking wide receivers or defensive linemen could be riskier. But those are the players that probably can do more to help win games.
“One of the biggest things that drives me crazy throughout my whole career is being at places that just draft O-linemen in the first and second round because no one can really talk about whether they’re big busts or not,” Shanahan said. “We don’t really think that way. We don’t have a philosophy to avoid O-linemen. We just don’t have a philosophy that says we’re always going to build inside-out because you’ve got to establish that for the run game.
“Look at our run game everywhere. Look at our run game in Washington (when Shanahan was the OC under his father, Mike). I mean, we drafted Trent Williams, we had the fourth pick in the draft. … Our left guard was cut from Denver. Our center was a practice-squad player. Our right guard was a free agent that we got from Baltimore. And our right tackle we got off the street. And then our running back was a sixth-round pick. And we rushed for more yards than the Hogs ever did or John Riggins and all those big-time Hall of Fame people. …
“We want O-linemen, don’t get me wrong. But you don’t just get to pick whoever you want. … We have been favored in every game for two years in a row. Our roster is damn good.”
• Does Shanahan take comfort knowing that Andy Reid didn’t win a Super Bowl until his 21st season as a head coach, then quickly won two more over the next four seasons? Nope, Shanahan said, he doesn’t think about that at all. He’s just coaching.
“If I did worry about that stuff, I would never make it that long,” Shanahan said. “And the fact that I don’t makes me believe that I’m going to keep doing what I love doing until someone tells me I’m not. Until no one wants me. And then if I’ve made enough money, I can just go enjoy life after that.”
(Top photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
