What do you think of Kyle Shanahan so far?

[N4L]

I refrained from this argument (McVay vs Shanahan) all offseason and was ready to pounce when Kyle and Garoppolo won some games this year.

As for the roster that Kyle inherited vs the roster that McVay inherited, I don't know how anyone can say they were comparable at all. The rams had significantly more talent but were being held back by Jeff Fisher. McVay supporters are so quick to point out how bad Fisher was when it suits that narrative, but now they are trying to say the roster was bad and that McVay and Kyle inherited the same level of talent? Make up your mind. 

The Niners had Trent Baalke drafting duds for years before Kyle got here. We were on pace to be the worst run defense in NFL history in week 14 the year before kyle got here. It was really really bad. 

Its really hard for a play caller to consistently put up points when your team is shuffling through QBs. Kyle hasn't had the same QB for longer than a 5 game stretch since hes been here. Its also hard when your OL is terrible (as it was last year) and you have a bunch of young players make stupid mistakes that are out of your control. A coach can only do so much in that regard when you have no talent to fall back on when the ones on the field continue to make rookie mistakes. 

The main differences between McVay and Kyle so far has been:

1) the health of their QBs - kyle has had to deal with 4 QB changes due to injury (hoyer, beathard, Garoppolo, Beathard again). McVay has had one guy start games for him (outside of week 17 last year - a game they lost mind you)

2) the OL play - rams OL has been top 5 since they singed whitworth. Niners OL last year was bottom 5 until Garoppolo and his lightning fast release got the ball out before protection could break down. This year they are a top 5 run blocking OL and have made significant strides in blitz pickup etc as the season has gone on. The Rams OL is even better than it was last year. If you don't have a good OL, its hard to execute plays. If you have a good OL, they can make bad play calls work. 

3) Wade Phillips - McVay has a guy who has been coaching for 40 years, who has been a HC etc. someone he can just let run the defense and not worry about anything. Kyle does not have that luxury. His attention has to be diverted to some degree. 

We had to wait until February to hire kyle. Most of the good assistants were taken by then. As such, Kyle's staff is inferior. This offseason I suspect many changes will be made on that front. 

The bottom line is that its too early to say who is the better coach between the two, because McVay has faced no adversity, while kyle has faced nothing but adversity. Both guys are in their 30s, give it some time to make that determination. Both are two of the top 4 offensive minds in football imo. Most will say McVay, and I understand it considering the team's success to this point. If you are looking at them from a purely offensive mind standpoint, give me Kyle. but hey, I'm bias.

Lets not forget that Kyle was Sean's boss at one point.  

Mad props to @NJerseypaint for fighting the good fight. have some likes. Not always easy to have a contrarian point of view these days, lets revisit this thread when Kyle has a healthy year of Garoppolo

 

Also rammy don't speak about things you know nothing about. Kyle wanted out of CLE because their GM was texting him play calls during the game. Kyle told him to stop, the GM continued to do so and so kyle filed a complaint with the league. The GM was eventually suspended. Why would anyone want to work in a place like that? That's not 'quitting on your guys'. the PP happened in the offseason. so shut up lol if mcvay's name wasn't mentioned in this thread you wouldn't say stupid crap like that.

Kyle has had plenty of opportunities to throw guys under the bus since hes been here, hes been extremely frustrated by stupid mistakes that his offense has made, yet he still publicly supports all of his guys. A lot of other coaches probably wouldn't have been able to endure what kyle has gone through without losing their mind

 

I'll refrain from gushing over kyle in this thread, but if you want to see my thoughts on kyle click below

 

[buno67]

2 hours ago, El ramster said:

Sounds fake as hell bro. Quitting is quitting end of story. A man with strong character does not quit, no excuses 

That’s not quitting. Season is over. Why stay when the reason you signed the contract wasn’t happening. Didn’t sign on to coach with the browns to get over ruled by the owner

[jrry32]

32 minutes ago, N4L said:

I refrained from this argument (McVay vs Shanahan) all offseason and was ready to pounce when Kyle and Garoppolo won some games this year.As for the roster that Kyle inherited vs the roster that McVay inherited, I don't know how anyone can say they were comparable at all. The rams had significantly more talent but were being held back by Jeff Fisher. McVay supporters are so quick to point out how bad Fisher was when it suits that narrative, but now they are trying to say the roster was bad and that McVay and Kyle inherited the same level of talent? Make up your mind. 

It's easy to say all of this in hindsight. But let's get it straight, I said the offensive talent that McVay inherited wasn't significantly better. Also, you're not factoring in draft capital. The 49ers had a ton of draft capital in 2017. The Rams did not due to the Goff trade.

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Its really hard for a play caller to consistently put up points when your team is shuffling through QBs. Kyle hasn't had the same QB for longer than a 5 game stretch since hes been here. Its also hard when your OL is terrible (as it was last year) and you have a bunch of young players make stupid mistakes that are out of your control. A coach can only do so much in that regard when you have no talent to fall back on when the ones on the field continue to make rookie mistakes. 

Okay, but that's partially Kyle's fault. He went into 2017 with Hoyer and Beathard. That's what he chose. He then traded for Jimmy. Jimmy's injury wasn't foreseeable, so I won't blame him there. The next one is, though.

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2) the OL play - rams OL has been top 5 since they singed whitworth. Niners OL last year was bottom 5 until Garoppolo and his lightning fast release got the ball out before protection could break down. This year they are a top 5 run blocking OL and have made significant strides in blitz pickup etc as the season has gone on. The Rams OL is even better than it was last year. If you don't have a good OL, its hard to execute plays. If you have a good OL, they can make bad play calls work. 

Yet, McVay inherited one of the worst OLs in the NFL. It was worse than the OL that Shanahan inherited. We made some great FA decisions, and Aaron Kromer is an amazing OL Coach.

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3) Wade Phillips - McVay has a guy who has been coaching for 40 years, who has been a HC etc. someone he can just let run the defense and not worry about anything. Kyle does not have that luxury. His attention has to be diverted to some degree. 

We had to wait until February to hire kyle. Most of the good assistants were taken by then. As such, Kyle's staff is inferior. This offseason I suspect many changes will be made on that front. 

 

This is pretty weak. Kyle knew he was taking a HC job. He had the ability to set his staff up ahead of time. 

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The bottom line is that its too early to say who is the better coach between the two, because McVay has faced no adversity, while kyle has faced nothing but adversity. Both guys are in their 30s, give it some time to make that determination. Both are two of the top 4 offensive minds in football imo. Most will say McVay, and I understand it considering the team's success to this point. If you are looking at them from a purely offensive mind standpoint, give me Kyle. but hey, I'm bias.

It's really not too early to say who the better coach is. You're welcome to believe Kyle can prove himself to be better in the future, but the results thus far could not be more different.

[NFLExpert49]

2 years after going 2-14, the 49ers are about to go 2-14 again. 

Kyle is a fairly good play caller, although he's much better between the 20s and has issues sustaining drives to the end on a repeated basis. 

But when you have had 2 years to build and your team is about to get the #1 overall pick, you're not doing a very good job of coaching, regardless of injuries (which are also partly his responsibility, as he has to get them physically prepared). 

The 49ers find ways to lose games, and that goes straight to the head coach. He has to run the show and build a good staff that gets the guys mentally prepared, and they're not. 

They turn the ball over too much, including with every running back fumbling. The defense has just 2 INTs all year. They commit dumb penalties. 

And in terms of team building, he built a lousy coaching staff (Saleh is a putz who thinks that "scheming" on defense is throwing random stuff at an opponent each week; doing random things by moving different players around just for the sake of doing it, with no actual strategy involved other than, "this'll confuse 'em!") and his draft pick recommendations have been lousy. C.J. Beathard was his guy. So was Joe Williams. 

[NFLExpert49]

On 11/28/2018 at 11:11 AM, sdrawkcab321 said:

Not good. Not bad. Just like his father. 

His father is a genius. 

[N4L]

4 hours ago, jrry32 said:

It's easy to say all of this in hindsight. But let's get it straight, I said the offensive talent that McVay inherited wasn't significantly better. Also, you're not factoring in draft capital. The 49ers had a ton of draft capital in 2017. The Rams did not due to the Goff trade.

Draft capital that was spent on the defense. outside of our OL and dante pettis, we dont have any skill position players that were drafted above the 5th round

4 hours ago, jrry32 said:

This is pretty weak. Kyle knew he was taking a HC job. He had the ability to set his staff up ahead of time. 

He was focused on winning the superbowl, he wasnt diverting attention to hiring a staff. You cant really blame him for that, his current job took precedent over his future job. 

4 hours ago, jrry32 said:

Yet, McVay inherited one of the worst OLs in the NFL. It was worse than the OL that Shanahan inherited. We made some great FA decisions, and Aaron Kromer is an amazing OL Coach.

The bolded is what I am talking about. McVay has an awesome staff around him. Kyle doesnt right now. We have some good coaches, but overall the Rams staff is better. The entire team finished on such a high last season that he basically brought everyone back. It is up to kyle to make the necessary changes this off season, especially on defense. We will see what moves they make. This is a very crucial offseason in San Francisco. 

4 hours ago, jrry32 said:

It's really not too early to say who the better coach is. You're welcome to believe Kyle can prove himself to be better in the future, but the results thus far could not be more different

Judging a coach by their record is like judging QBs by their record. Its oversimplified because there is so so much that goes into it. I will not argue that the Rams have had better 'results' so far, just like you wont argue that Kyle is a bad coach, but it is possible to be a better coach with a worse team that has a worse record.

The head coach is the CEO of the team. You could have the best CEO in the world, but if your product/raw input is crummy, then chances are your company will not be profitable over the long run. Meanwhile there are plenty of bad CEOs out there who lead successful businesses. Its the nature of the beast. 

Again, I am not saying that one is better than the other, but rather we need to give it a few more years and see how things play out. It is very hard to compare the job they have done as HCs when their situations are so vastly different. 

This is an argument that will go on for the next 20 years. Both coaches were born and raised on 49er football in the 80s and early 90s, both of them were born to coach football in the NFL. 

Lets not forget that they have the same number of playoff wins as head coaches. ZERO.

[evilflamingo]

6 hours ago, N4L said:

Lets not forget that they have the same number of playoff wins as head coaches. ZERO.

Yet, Shanahan is obviously infinitely better as he's still unbeaten in the playoffs while that scrub McVay is a choker losing 100 % of his playoff games.

 

PS. Rams fans, relax, I'm joking, just wanted to join in on the foregone conclusions party. I see a lot of potential in both guys as HCs and time will tell who will find long-time success. There are so many parameters that goes into winning in the NFL so I think it's way to early to anoint either. After all, Chip Kelly started out with two 10-6 seasons and found himself out of the NFL two seasons later while Bill Belichick had a losing record in his first three seasons but turned out alright in the end either way.

 

[jrry32]

8 hours ago, N4L said:

Draft capital that was spent on the defense. outside of our OL and dante pettis, we dont have any skill position players that were drafted above the 5th round

That was your choice, though. I don't know why. Lynch and KS have made some weird decisions. For example, here were your picks through the first 5 rounds of the 2017 Draft (the first draft) compared to the Rams' picks:

SF

#3 - Solomon Thomas

Could have had: Mitch Trubisky (#2), Leonard Fournette (#4), Corey Davis (#5), Christian McCaffrey (#8), Patrick Mahomes (#10), or Deshaun Watson (#12)

#31 - Rueben Foster

Could have had: Ryan Ramczyk (#32), Cam Robinson (#34), Dalvin Cook (#40), or Joe Mixon (#48)

#66 - Ahkello Witherspoon

Could have had: Alvin Kamara (#67), Cooper Kupp (#69), or Kareem Hunt (#86)

#104 - C.J. Beathard

Could have had: James Conner (#105), Dede Westbrook (#110), or Josh Reynolds (#117)

#121 - Joe Williams

Could have had: Marlon Mack (#143)

#146 - George Kittle

Could have had: LOL, who cares?

#177 - Trent Taylor

Could have had: Aaron Jones (#182)

With the "could have hads," I named offensive players who went before your next pick. It speaks volumes. You guys did try to go defense, and frankly, it looks like a lot of whiffs. I know this is all easier to say in hindsight, but Shanahan had his pick of the litter at both QB and HB. He chose C.J. Beathard and Joe Williams. This happened to be a draft stacked with quality HBs. And FWIW, I think Solomon Thomas was a bad pick. It's not because I think he's a bad player. It's because he didn't make sense for your scheme based on the talent you already had. I know you're going to say that is a hindsight call, but I was faced with literally the same call, and I chose Jamal Adams instead (I already had Goff at QB).

LAR

#5 - Traded for Goff

#44 - Gerald Everett

#69 - Cooper Kupp

#91 - John Johnson

#117 - Josh Reynolds

#125 - Samson Ebukam

Look at how heavy McVay went on offense early. I realize he inherited a better defense, but I don't know why an offensive coach like Shanahan wouldn't want to fill out his offense with his guys before focusing on the defense.

EDIT: And to make clear, my point with the "could have hads" wasn't to say that you should have drafted one of those guys at each spot. You're not ever going to have the perfect draft. My point was that if you had drafted a couple of those guys instead of all the guys who don't seem to be panning out, your offense would look very different today. The biggest reason why the Rams have so much more talent on offense is because our leadership (McVay, Snead, etc.) made a lot of great decisions in the 2017 off-season, while yours (Lynch, KS, etc.) didn't quite measure up.

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He was focused on winning the superbowl, he wasnt diverting attention to hiring a staff. You cant really blame him for that, his current job took precedent over his future job. 

He had plenty of time to call around for some guys. He could have done both. Frankly, the word on Shanahan when he was hired was that not a lot of veteran coaches were eager to work for him. He was seen as an arrogant, entitled micromanager who preferred to surround himself with "yes men." Considering the connections he had in the NFL (due to his experience and his dad's coaching tree), you would expect him to be capable of putting together a stronger staff.

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The bolded is what I am talking about. McVay has an awesome staff around him. Kyle doesnt right now. We have some good coaches, but overall the Rams staff is better. The entire team finished on such a high last season that he basically brought everyone back. It is up to kyle to make the necessary changes this off season, especially on defense. We will see what moves they make. This is a very crucial offseason in San Francisco. 

Okay, but the coaches we have chose to come work for McVay. Many of them didn't have strong connections to him. That speaks to how respected he is around the NFL.

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Judging a coach by their record is like judging QBs by their record. Its oversimplified because there is so so much that goes into it. I will not argue that the Rams have had better 'results' so far, just like you wont argue that Kyle is a bad coach, but it is possible to be a better coach with a worse team that has a worse record.

No, it's more like judging a QB by their passing stats. It's possible to be a better QB with a worse team who has worse numbers, but when the numbers are that different, it almost always means the other guy is superior. A head coach will always be judged on wins and losses. That is the metric that guides the opinion of them. Some will judge QBs on wins and losses, but they're not literally the person in charge of the team. That's the head coach.

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The head coach is the CEO of the team. You could have the best CEO in the world, but if your product/raw input is crummy, then chances are your company will not be profitable over the long run. Meanwhile there are plenty of bad CEOs out there who lead successful businesses. Its the nature of the beast. 

If you had the best CEO in the world, you would expect him to: 1) change the product to make it desirable or 2) not put himself in a situation where he literally can't win.
 

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Again, I am not saying that one is better than the other, but rather we need to give it a few more years and see how things play out. It is very hard to compare the job they have done as HCs when their situations are so vastly different. 

This is an argument that will go on for the next 20 years. Both coaches were born and raised on 49er football in the 80s and early 90s, both of them were born to coach football in the NFL. 

Lets not forget that they have the same number of playoff wins as head coaches. ZERO.

 

Listen, if you want to give it more time, you have every right to do that. Other people have every right to feel we've seen enough to make a call. Yes, their situations are vastly different, but it's hard to ignore each coach's role in that.

As for the playoffs, only one guy has the opportunity to change that this year.

[SotanKing]

49ers are actually not as bad as their record suggests...there are three 2-9 teams right now...Point differential of all these teams are Raiders  -140, Cardinals -138, 49ers -54...so yeah they aren't that terrible..have injuries to key players..mainly the QB. Next season could be used as a good evaluator of Kyle if Jimmy G is fit for entire season

[El Ramster]

2 hours ago, upriser7 said:

49ers are actually not as bad as their record suggests...there are three 2-9 teams right now...Point differential of all these teams are Raiders  -140, Cardinals -138, 49ers -54...so yeah they aren't that terrible..have injuries to key players..mainly the QB. Next season could be used as a good evaluator of Kyle if Jimmy G is fit for entire season

We heard that last year. Let's not act like they were tearing it up with Jimmy Guwop this season either. Next year never comes

*source

 

A rams fam under Spags, Fisher and Jimmy Hasssss.. 

[Mr Bad Example]

19 hours ago, upriser7 said:

49ers are actually not as bad as their record suggests...there are three 2-9 teams right now...Point differential of all these teams are Raiders  -140, Cardinals -138, 49ers -54...so yeah they aren't that terrible..have injuries to key players..mainly the QB. Next season could be used as a good evaluator of Kyle if Jimmy G is fit for entire season

 

 

PFR shows their pythagorean record as being about 4-7.*

 

Sooooo does underperforming by 2 wins mean that Shanahan is a good coach (keeps the team motivated and fighting hard to be outmanned) or a bad coach (poor motivation/game management costs his team wins)? 

 

* FWIW their 2017 pythagorean record was 6.6-9.4 so if you round that to 7-9 they underperformed there, as well, which a slight underperformance of a game or less I'd happily chalk up to poor luck; that SHOULD even out over time but with an underperformance of >2 so far this year, we seem to be heading towards a "trend" 

[Calamity_Cometh]

I think Kyle is a brilliant mind with a high degree of pedigree behind him. This year is lost obviously, and next year I think they will be in recovery mode.

2020 is the year to look at, assuming that they have two solid drafts. His success will depend heavily on how well Lynch nails those drafts and free agency.

[Forge]

6 hours ago, Mr Bad Example said:

 

 

PFR shows their pythagorean record as being about 4-7.*

 

Sooooo does underperforming by 2 wins mean that Shanahan is a good coach (keeps the team motivated and fighting hard to be outmanned) or a bad coach (poor motivation/game management costs his team wins)? 

 

* FWIW their 2017 pythagorean record was 6.6-9.4 so if you round that to 7-9 they underperformed there, as well, which a slight underperformance of a game or less I'd happily chalk up to poor luck; that SHOULD even out over time but with an underperformance of >2 so far this year, we seem to be heading towards a "trend" 

I agree with what you are saying - it's hard to judge what this means. This is largely due to the games they keep close but still lose. So I'm not sure how to treat that. I mean, the team last year was competitive in multiple games with Brian Hoyer as the starting quarterback, considerable number of injuries (I believe they led the league in starters lost due to injuries last year). But they kept losing the games. You can look at it either way I suppose - he hasn't been able to get the team to close (though they were better at that obviously at the end of the year with Jimmy), or they kept games close that they shouldn't have been in anyway, which is a positive. For example, they lost by 2 points to a very talented playoff Rams team where they shouldn't have been close. They lost to the Cards by 3 in a game where the Cards were 6 point favorites. They lost to the Colts by 3 in a game that they honestly probably should have won (the colts weren't very good), so I don't view that as a quality loss. They lost by 2 to a washington team that was 12 point favorites

Once they got Jimmy, they beat 2 playoff teams (Ten, Jax), and managed to hang up 37 offensive points against the best defense in football and the roster still sucked - the only difference was that they had an NFL starting quarterback (his actual aptitude is debatable, but I Think he's a starter at the NFL level as a quarterback, which is far and away greater than any of the other three could ever hope to be). The two games that were close, they managed to win both (Chicago and Tennessee). So are the close losses a byproduct of him not being able to close, or just a largely talentless roster he's getting the most from the majority of the game but then loses when the talent rises to the top? 

This year, they weren't great out of the gate, but once Jimmy went down, they kept the chargers game close losing by 2 points where they were 10.5 point underdogs. They lost to a packers team by 3, on the road, in a game where they were 9 point underdogs. They've certainly lost some games that they shouldn't have (both Cardinals games spring to mind, you can make a case for the Giants game), so it's certainly been hit and miss in that regard with what would constitute a "good" and "bad" loss. 

I just don't know how you really make any judgments on him yet when he's been throwing out Hoyer, CJ and Mullens as starting quarterbacks. As a 49er fan, I can tell you that I have no problem with the offense. The schemes are largely well done, the team actually manages to move the ball better than it should with that menagerie of quarterbacks. The run game is particularly impressive when you consider that with those quarterbacks and Breida's success, teams should be able to stack the box, but they haven't been able to. That's a tribute to Shanny's scheme, it's effectiveness, etc.  Like any coach / team, there are times where I would have called plays differently, but largely, for the first time in a long time I'm okay with the way the offense operates. Defensively, there's been a lot of debate about this. Some hate Saleh, and I've certainly noticed a lot of warts in his methodology. There are things I certainly don't love. But I don't blame him for everything either. The defense is just kind of bad without a pass rush, which is a problem given that Saleh's scheme doesn't allow for us to blitz a whole ton. 

A lot of 49ers fans were buying the hype hard this year for a possible 49er playoff run. I wasn't one of them. I thought they still had a lot of holes on the roster, and thought they were likely going to win 6/7. The roster is just not very good, and we lack one of the most important features in football without the ability to get to opposing quarterbacks (the numbers show that we aren't that bad at it, but in truth, that's skewed considerably by one game against the Raiders, and on a game by game basis, it's not pretty). Obviously, for me personally, thinking we were only a 7 win team from the jump, losing Jimmy for the season absolutely made us a 2/3 win team. So I'm just taking the lumps with regards to the season, but I can't really hold it against Shanny at this point in time because what we are is largely in line with what I expected us to be once Jimmy went down. 

Bottom line was that with 6 year contracts and no offset language, we were always going to see at least 4 years of Shanny / Lynch, so I have no problem with continuing to bide my time and further evaluate. I am hopeful, and there is a lot that I really like from Shanny the coach, but there are concerns. Yes, the majority of them are in roster construction, but I do have some issues with the discipline (this has been corrected in major ways throughout the year, so that's a positive - particularly the early year penalties) and a few other minor quibbles.