The San Francisco 49ers are very happy with how Kyle Shanahan has led this team over the past six seasons. A testament to this fact is how the Niners recently penned the 43-year-old to a multi-year extension that will see him sit at the helm through 2027.
As it turns out, however, the new deal has been in place for quite some time now. Shanahan spilled the beans in a recent interview.
Kyle Shanahan Signed San Francisco 49ers Extension Before Week 1
Speaking to reporters for the first time since his extension was announced on Friday, Shanahan himself revealed that he had already put pen to paper on his new deal even before the season started:
“We did it before the Pittsburgh game, so I’d already celebrated with my family and stuff like that, which is huge,” Shanahan said, via Mike Florio of PFT. “I feel very grateful. Just being a coach anywhere for a long time, I know what that means and extremely grateful for that to have that opportunity and mainly for my family to be somewhere for so long, which is cool. But, doing it before this season even started, I think meant a lot to me. Just shows you the people that we’re with, that we believe in each other, despite what could happen whether we were 0-3 or 3-0, we’d still be in the same situation. I really like where we live and really like the people we work with, and they’re committed to giving us a chance to go for it every single year and that’s all I could ever ask for.”
Thankfully, the 49ers have not gone 0-3 to start the season. In fact, they are one of the few remaining teams that have yet to taste defeat this term. It goes without saying that Shanahan has played a key role in his team’s success early on.
Before Shanahan arrived in 2017, there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the head coach position in San Francisco. Prior to Shanahan’s reign, the team had three coaches in the span of three years — something that the Niners shot-caller spoke honestly about in his recent interview:
“It’s tough because you don’t know the people until you get in those situations,” Shanahan said. “So sometimes when you come into a situation that looks really hard to win in the first couple years you’re nervous about it because you know how the pressure goes when you lose, no matter what people say. It gets tough to stick with the plan and that’s what made it so exciting the first time, meeting with Jed [York] and the commitment he gave us and what he said. I really feel like that made us make the right decisions for those first couple years and helped build it the right way. And that’s really what got us to come here, allowed us to be patient, do it right, and he hasn’t changed ever since. I love being in a building where you trust each other, you can always try to do what’s right, might not always be right, but the intent of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, we all believe in each other in that way. To me that’s the most important thing in giving you a chance.”
Niners Also Extend GM John Lynch
It wasn’t just Shanahan who got a new deal prior to the start of the season. General Manager John Lynch also agreed to a new contract with the team, which will see him sit at the helm until 2026. Incidentally, his new deal is one year shorter than that of Shanahan. They both joined the organization at the same time in 2017.
Over the past seven seasons, the Niners have gone 55-46 under Lynch and Shanahan’s leadership. They have two NFC West division titles under their belt, as well as two trips to the NFC Championship game. While they made an appearance in Super Bowl LIV, the one thing missing in their trophy cabinet is the Vince Lombardi trophy. They are hoping to change that this season.
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