San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan is starting to come under scrutiny in that he leads brilliantly bit fails at the final hurdle.
Shanahan was quick to dispel such morose talk, after watching the 49ers lose to the Chiefs in overtime in a classic Superbowl encounter.
“I mean, you’d love to fix perception because I would love to win one for what I know about football and I know if I fixed perception that means I did everything I wanted to do, which isn’t to fix perception, it’s to win a damn Super Bowl,” Shanahan told reporters on Tuesday.
Since taking over as head coach in 2017 he has led his team to two Superbowl rings, four NFC Championship games and three division titles.
“But I also know when you say ‘big games,’ we’ve had to win a bunch of big games to get to Super Bowls. We’ve won a lot of big games here. We’ve won a lot of big games to get into playoffs. The fact that we keep getting there shows you guys how much we’ve been able to win big games and I think you guys are aware of that. But these two Super Bowls have been tough losing to Kansas City. But to think that if we win that, it means I can win a big game? No, that means our team won the Super Bowl.
In the Superbowl LIV encounter against the Chiefs four years ago, the 49srs lost 31-20.
“You guys can have any narrative you want, but the success or the failure, it comes down to one game and I hope that I can be a part of a team that wins a game at the end of the year, but to say that the Niners can’t win a big game would be an extremely inaccurate statement.”
Shanahan has a career regular season head coaching record of 64-51, a playoff record of 8-4 and a career record of 72-55.
Before taking on the HC role at San Francisco he was the offensive coordinator for the Falcons, Browns, Washington and Texans.
One stumbling block for future success is Patrick Mahomes, who is likely to stay at the Chiefs for at least another ten years, but this last Superbowl was decided by the finest of margins as tbe 49ers led on four separate occasions including in overtime.
