The Super Bowl Fiasco: A Turning Point For Kyle Shanahan?
It has been a tough week for Kyle Shanahan. The ex-Falcons offensive coordinator lost his backpack earlier in the week and then proceeded to lose the most arguably the most heartbreaking Super Bowl in NFL history. But today, Shanahan has officially obtained the head coaching position on the San Francisco 49ers, a team that is in the rebuilding process. This is an excellent hire for San Francisco, and here is why.
First of all, Shanahan is an offensive genius. He is truly “one of the brightest minds in the game of football,” quoting owner Jed York. Shanahan has produced three 4000 yard passers (Matt Schaub, Matt Ryan 2x), five 1000 yard rushers (Steve Slaton, Alfred Morris 2x, Devonta Freeman 2x), and six 1000 yard receivers (Andre Johnson 2x, Santana Moss, Pierre Garcon, Julio Jones 2x) in his nine seasons as an offensive coordinator. There is a reason why he has developed all these statistics for all these great players. Shanahan truly understands his players’ strengths and weaknesses, and always utilizes certain strengths of the team to build his offense around. Six of his nine seasons as an offensive coordinator have resulted in top 10 offenses (in terms of yards) in the league.
The Falcons’ offense in the 2016 season was a historically great one. The Falcons finished the season with 540 points scored, which is tied with the 2000 Rams (then dubbed “The Greatest Show on Turf”) for the seventh most points scored in a single season. While one could say that the Falcons have arguably the best offensive roster in the league, the team scored an unbelievable 33.8 points per game. No matter how good the roster is, you simply cannot deny the clever scheme of Shanahan and his game preparation each Sunday.
Houston, Texas. Super Bowl 51. The biggest stage in sports. It was the worst time to lose, and Shanahan did, and in ugly fashion. The Falcons blew a 25-point lead in the second half, allowing the Patriots to tie the game at the end of regulation and ultimately win the game in overtime. Shanahan simply stayed too aggressive in the second half, calling only four run plays after taking the 25 point lead, which ultimately led to Atlanta’s demise. The two most perplexing playcalls were Shanahan calling a pass on the 3rd and 1, leading to a Matt Ryan fumble and an eventual Patriots touchdown, and pass plays when the Falcons were in the red zone with only a couple minutes left, leading to Ryan being sacked (and a holding call later), forcing the Falcons out of field goal range leading them to punt the ball, eventually resulting in the Patriots scoring a game-tying touchdown.
I do not think anybody can defend Shanahan for those two playcalls, but let us look at the offense in the second half as a whole. Shanahan exemplified the saying “pushing down the gas pedal,” and did not treat the game as a 28-3 game; instead, a 0-0 game, as a matter of fact. Shanahan did not act on common football intellect — he acted on his relentlessness that he had actually employed all season, which people fail to notice. Shanahan has never pounded the rock on every play after taking a big lead — he has been doing this for a while now. It’s just that the Falcons never lost those games, so people never saw the repercussions of it.
Which leads me to this — Shanahan will learn from this. This is the most painful loss any coach can ever suffer, and Shanahan had finally learned the consequences of his late-game playcalling, which was his only problem as a playcaller.
The Super Bowl will be the best thing that happens to Shanahan’s career. With his late-game playcalling woes now gone, Shanahan will look at this game twenty years away from now with a Super Bowl ring or two on his finger, and acknowledge that he just had to learn through the hard way.
