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Sports Illustrated: The 49ers Have the NFL's 7th-Best QB-HC Duo

This head coach-quarterback duo has so much to answer for this year.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (right) and head coach Kyle Shanahan (left) look on the in second half against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (right) and head coach Kyle Shanahan (left) look on the in second half against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images | Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images

The 49ers' roster is a far cry from what it was when they went to the Super Bowl less than two years ago. But the team still has hope because of Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy.

In three seasons together, those two are 23-13 in the regular season with two NFC Championship appearances and a Super Bowl appearance. That's why Sports Illustrated ranks Shanahan and Purdy as the NFL's seventh-best head coach-quarterback duo.

"The Niners showed their faith in Purdy this offseason, signing him to a massive five-year extension worth $265 million." writes Sports Illustrated's Matt Verderame. "While he doesn’t have quite the same dominant cast around him, Purdy still has an abundance of weapons in George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk and others. Meanwhile, Shanahan is an excellent coach and one of the brilliant modern-day offensive gurus. All that’s missing is a Super Bowl ring."

The 49ers certainly did show their faith in Purdy by extending him after a miserable six-win season. They did not extend Shanahan, which makes you wonder how much faith they have left in him after he lost his second Super Bowl as a head coach.

Even though the 49ers had injuries last season, they still had Purdy, George Kittle, Jauan Jennings, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa and Deommodore Lenoir. They should have won more than 6 games. But they were a disorganized mess from the beginning of training camp. One of the worst-coached teams in the league last year.

Now, the pressure is on Shanahan to take this team back to the playoffs. And it's unlikely that Aiyuk will return to form before 2026. And it's unclear if Christian McCaffrey ever will be a dominant player again. He was not good last season.

Meanwhile, Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts just won a Super Bowl and they rank 10th on this list.

That seems wrong.

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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.

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