The Final Grade For the 2021 49ers Coaches
Let's start with the defensive coordinator, DeMeco Ryans.
Ryans was excellent in his first season as a defensive coordinator. He inherited the NFL's fifth-ranked defense in 2020, and improved it to No. 3 in 2021 (the return of Nick Bosa from an ACL tear helped, too). Ryans is a top-flight coordinator who will become a head coach soon, if not next year.
But you would expect a dominant defense led by a high-level coordinator to perform better on third down. The 49ers defense gave up a 41.29 third-down conversion percentage, which ranked 20th out of 32 teams. Not good. And in the NFC Championship game, the 49ers defense allowed the Rams offense to convert 11 of 18 third downs (61.1). Awful.
Ryans needs to improve his blitzes and pressure packages, as too often he rushed only four defenders on third and long and gave up conversions when he should have blitzed and forced quick passes in front of the first-down marker.
Creating new blitzes will be a good offseason project for Ryans. That's the next step in his development.
Shanahan's next step is less obvious.
Shanahan had an extremely volatile 2021 season. The 49ers started out 3-5, largely because of questionable decisions Shanahan made with personnel -- relying heavily on sub par veterans such as Josh Norman, Mohamed Sanu, Trent Sherfield, and Jimmy Garoppolo, waiting around Javon Kinlaw and Dee Ford to be healthy, and playing Deebo Samuel and Arik Armstead out of position.
Once Shanahan gave up on Kinlaw and Ford, moved Samuel to running back and Armstead to defensive tackle, then replaced Norman, Sanu and Sherfield with Ambry Thomas, Jauan Jennings and Brandon Aiyuk respectively, the 49ers took off. They won 9 of their final 12 games. Shanahan in particular seemed to have grown.
But he never gave up on Garoppolo, even when he tore a ligament in his throwing thumb, and this decision ultimately cost the 49ers a trip to the Super Bowl.
Garoppolo injured his thumb Week 16 in Tennessee, and played terribly the rest of the season. In his final five starts, he threw 4 TD passes, 7 interceptions and his quarterback rating was just 79.9. He became a liability.
No one would have faulted Shanahan for sitting an injured Garoppolo and playing a healthy Trey Lance. But Shanahan didn't do that.
So in the Wild Card playoff game against Dallas, Garoppolo threw an interception while leading in the fourth quarter, and the Cowboys nearly came back to win -- they just ran out of time.
The next week in Green Bay, Garoppolo threw a pick which nearly cost the 49ers their divisional playoff game, but their special teams blocked and punt and returned it for a touchdown.
So the 49ers dragged Garoppolo to the NFC Championship, and then he choked with a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, just as he did in the Super Bowl. Surprise, surprise.
But the 49ers still should have won that game despite Garoppolo. Unfortunately for the 49ers, Shanahan reverted to the coach he was earlier in the season. In the fourth quarter, with the season on the line, Shanahan got the ball to Deebo Samuel just once, and to George Kittle exactly zero times. As opposed to Rams head coach Sean McVay, who went to Cooper Kupp over and over and over at the end of the Super Bowl he just won.
Shanahan forgets who his best players are at the worst possible time.
And there's something else about Shanahan. In the NFC Championship game, he punted three times inside Rams territory. This is the same coach who went for it on fourth down five times during a Week 5 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
So sure, Shanahan made it to his second NFC Championship as a head coach, and that's extremely impressive. He clearly does certain things very well.
But he's still the same reactive game manager who blew two Super Bowls.
He still has no discernable philosophy on fourth down.
He still has lots of growing to do.
FINAL GRADE: B-MINUS
