Will the 49ers Fire Kyle Shanahan if He Misses the Playoffs Next Year?

The 49ers ownership just gave Kyle Shanahan a pass for missing the playoffs. He might not be so lucky if he does it again next year.
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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The 49ers ownership just gave Kyle Shanahan a pass for missing the playoffs. He might not be so lucky if he does it again next year.

Keep in mind, the 49ers lost 7 of their final 8 games -- they got worse as the season went on. Then Kyle Shanahan fired the defensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator, plus he essentially fired himself as the offensive coordinator too considering he's in the process of promoting Klay Kubiak to that position.

Which means Shanahan is out fall guys. If he misses the playoffs next season or makes the playoffs and loses in the first round, he would be the fall guy.

Compare Shanahan to Nick Sirianni. He was on the hot seat last year after the Eagles lost six of their final seven games and got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. No one cared that Sirianni led the Eagles to the Super Bowl the season prior. That's why he had to fire all of his coordinators. He had one season to turn things around or he'd be history in Philadelphia.

And as we know, Sirianni turned the Eagles around. Hired Vic Fangio who transformed the Eagles defense into the best one in the league. Beat the Packers in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs. And so Sirianni's job is safe for now.

We don't know whom Shanahan will hire to be the 49ers' next defensive coordinator. Maybe it will be Robert Saleh or someone even better. Maybe the 49ers will go 14-3 next and win a playoff game, too. In that case, Shanahan will be safe.

High stakes.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.