Head coach Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers are currently gearing up to take part in the upcoming 2024 NFL season, which is set to begin in just over a month. The 49ers of course are coming off of yet another heartbreaking Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the third crushing big game loss of Shanahan's coaching career, but are once again expected to be among the NFL's elite heading into this season.
While it would be understandable if Shanahan's biggest coaching thorn in his side would be his continued heartbreaking Super Bowl losses, it turns out, the thing that bothers him most is people who expect him to adhere to a certain roster-building philosophy when the one he employs clearly has worked.
“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, per Tim Kawakami of The Athletic. “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.
“…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.”
Indeed, the 49ers' roster is heavy on skill positional talent, and the offensive line is certainly comment, but may not be considered among the best of the best.
Is this finally the year for Shanahan, 49ers?
The 49ers have been knocking on the door of NFL immortality for quite a while now, first nearly breaking through to beat the Chiefs in the 2020 Super Bowl, spending for years working their way back to that stage, and then falling to the Chiefs once again in February of this year.
It's certainly not due to a lack of talent: The 49ers boast inarguably the most talented array of skill positional players, including Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, and, when he's not having contract disagreements with the team, Brandon Aiyuk.
The defensive side of the ball is also elite, even if it took that unit a bit of time to get going during the team's playoff run a season ago.
In any case, 49ers fans will certainly hope that 2024-25 is the season where the team finally puts it all together, is able to get off a nice start in the Super Bowl, and actually hold on to win this time.
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