PALM BEACH — A year ago, Kyle Shanahan seemed exhausted.
He had just lost his third Super Bowl (second as a head coach) and he looked borderline burned out. Now, he’s coming off a 6-11 season and the team just lost nine starters. And yet, he seems reinvigorated.
On Tuesday, Shanahan was asked whether he has lowered his expectations for 2025 given all the players the 49ers have lost. Here’s what he said.
“I don’t think it’s about lowering expectations,” Shanahan said. “It’s about the position your team is in. We lost a Super Bowl in overtime before last season. That’s all anyone could think about. In the offseason, we were thinking about getting to Week 1. That’s kind of how it was for us last year. This year, we just had a bad year. We didn’t do good. We didn’t make the playoffs. So all we’re talking about is how we get back to playing good football.
“We know that we’ve lost a number of players. But I don’t think about expectations. I think about how good we can get in the draft. How many people we can add in that. Then you try to build it throughout Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3. It’s all about practicing, just focusing on that. Not focusing on trying to make up for a Super Bowl loss.
“It’s about becoming the best football team you can be and nothing else. And when we get to Week 1, I believe everyone in the building will be confident that we can win that Sunday. And I believe it will be like that the next week. And that’s the goal for me to try to practice and build a team where we genuinely believe every Sunday we have a chance to win. If you can do that one week at a time, you never know where it ends up.
“That’s how we felt going into 2019. That’s how we felt going into 2018. Some seasons are better than others. Just because we aren’t on paper picked that way, that doesn’t mean we’re going to sit there and say, ‘Next year is going to be different.’ No.
“I want to get to work more now than I probably have in a long time. I can’t wait until our players get back. I feel like we’ve been away from them for too long. Having all of January off was different. It was nice to get a little more rest but I know we’re itching to get back for Phase 1. I think we’ll have a hell of a turnout with all of our guys just talking to them. We’re ready to get back to work and find a way that we can go into Week 1 confident as hell that we’re going to win.”
It’s so interesting that Shanahan says he wants to get to work more now than he has in a long time. One way to interpret that is he’s been off since January and wants to get back to work.
Here’s another interpretation: he’s feeling some heat for the first time in his career as a head coach and is looking forward to rising to the occasion and showing the world how good he truly is.
Either way, I respect it.
