We must chill. The 49ers are not firing and should not fire Kyle Shanahan

We must chill.

No one is trading Kyle Shanahan to the Chicago Bears, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox or the Chicago Bulls. Even the Chicago Sky is out of luck. No Shanahan in a trucker hat roaming the hardwood.

Nor is anyone firing Kyle Shanahan as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

We must chill.

I get it, I guess. In a world with the patience of a TikTok scroll, one bad NFL season can seem like an eternity, lost into a void of no likes, retweets or shares for 18 long weeks.

The 49ers are having a bad season. Kyle Shanahan is having a bad season. Whether it’s blowing three separate fourth-quarter leads to NFC West rivals, or fielding noncompetitive efforts in Green Bay and Buffalo, the Shanahan 49ers are stinking it up in 2024.

A segment of the fan base thinks this is a fireable offense.

I disagree.

We can sit here in a brief Jock Blog conversation about *why*, exactly, the 49ers are 5-7. A calm, rational mind could very well point to an absurd slew of injuries, led by the absence of the 2023 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, and moving down to the absence of your highly-paid #1 wideout, and the season-long absence of one of your heart-and-soul defensive force multipliers at linebacker, not to mention your run-stopping defensive tackle with a mighty W2 form of his own.

But since no one wants to hear about injuries — the Detroit Lions are without Aidan Hutchinson, the Kansas City Chiefs have been without Isiah Pacheco, the Miami Dolphins were without Too Tagaviloa, et cetera, et cetera — we can talk about other factors. The holdouts of Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams giving a ‘bummer summer’ vibe, the fourth-choice hire of Nick Sorensen at defensive coordinator not yielding any fruit, and then of course the personal tragedies affecting Charvarius Ward and Trent Williams casting a tragic pall over the season.

It’s been a lousy year, man. I’ve been wary of the Super Bowl Hangover ever since February, and while that seems like an undefinable excuse, I would present to you that everything you’ve seen is definition. Frequently in NFL history, a team that loses a Super Bowl, much less in excruciating fashion, winds up finding mental and physical scars that take a full season to heal.

Which brings us back to the point: don’t fire Kyle Shanahan. Don’t trade Kyle Shanahan. Ride out the storm of 2024, and bring back a guy who — while maybe not a Canton-level manager of the game clock when it’s late and close — brings to the table such a prolific offensive mind, you’d be a maniac to let him walk.

The NFL in the 2020s is an offensive league, as I was just saying to the 1978 49ers, who only topped 20 points twice in a fourteen-game season. You have one of the best offensive minds in the game. You are ahead of the game by having such mind. You would be behind the game if you got rid of such mind. Last time I checked, being ahead of the game is better than being behind the game.

Random stats for a bad 49ers season: they are 5th in the NFL in yards per pass attempt, tied for 5th in the NFL in yards per rush attempt. If you prefer non-traditional stats, the 49ers are in the top half of EPA/play, 11th in the NFL, seventh in the NFC. The 49ers’ DVOA is 11th in the NFL, and sixth in the NFC. Seven NFC teams make the playoffs. Their 5-7 record is easily the worst of all the other teams in the top half of those advanced analytics. In Farhan-ian terms, the 49ers are having a bad BABIP year.

Yes, your gripes about the red zone are real. Yes, your concerns about the offensive line are worthy. Yes, your brow-furrowing about the team’s inability to finish games is legitimate.

Like I said: they’re having a bad year. Kyle is having a bad year. It’s literally his first bad year, and the team’s first bad year, since the pandemic.

Or, as the sage Ted Lasso (remember him?) once told us: “I hope that either all of us, or none of us, are judged by the actions of our weakest moments. But rather, by the strength we show when, and if, we’re ever given a second chance.”

And that second chance is 2025. You’re bringing Kyle back in 2025, no questions asked. He will be refueled and hungry. The team will be refueled and hungry — and presumably considerably healthier.

We won’t even mention the fact that if they beat the Chicago Bears on Sunday, and the Cardinals hold serve against the Seahawks in the desert, the 49ers would only be a game out of first place. Because that would be hilarious math in a year that feels so long gone.

We must chill.