Jim Harbaugh vs Kyle Shanahan

[biggie.]

Which SF HC was better iyo?

[Ataal]

Fairly similar situations, so a great comparison here.  Both were handed an underperforming team.  Both got all they could out of their quarterbacks. Both had great defensive coordinators to rely on.

However, due to the fact that Harbaugh couldn't fix the delay of game woes(didn't they have some weird kind of committee offensive play calling?), predictable offense overall(run-run-pass), and overuse of the jumbo package, I have to give this one to Kyle.

[Ozzy]

This is even a question>   Harbaugh was good only because he had one of the best rosters in the NFL.  Not sure one can say that about the current 49ers team, they are good but Shanahan does a hell of a job coaching them to make them competitive.  Good roster but those Harbaugh teams had flat out great rosters.

 

The 2012 49er team had a great defense with Justin Smith, Patrick Willis, N. Bowman, Aldon Smith and Ahmad Brooks!  Also had Gholston at safety and Whitner and Carlos Rodgers at corner...  And the OL was one of the best in the NFL with Anthony Davis, Iupati, Staley and Boone also pretty decent WRs with Crabtree, Ginn and Moss and great TEs in Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker not to mention Gore at RB.  

[biggie.]

15 minutes ago, Ozzy said:

This is even a question>   Harbaugh was good only because he had one of the best rosters in the NFL.  Not sure one can say that about the current 49ers team, they are good but Shanahan does a hell of a job coaching them to make them competitive.  Good roster but those Harbaugh teams had flat out great rosters.

 

The 2012 49er team had a great defense with Justin Smith, Patrick Willis, N. Bowman, Aldon Smith and Ahmad Brooks!  Also had Gholston at safety and Whitner and Carlos Rodgers at corner...  And the OL was one of the best in the NFL with Anthony Davis, Iupati, Staley and Boone also pretty decent WRs with Crabtree, Ginn and Moss and great TEs in Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker not to mention Gore at RB.  

Yet they were terrible before and after Harbaugh left?

[GW21]

Harbaugh is perfect for college football IMO. Our players were getting sick of his antics by his third or fourth year here; I specifically remember Alex Boone calling him out. He’s great if you are looking to kickstart a team, but I think his behavior can get tired. I was really hoping he’d get that Minnesota job as I think they could have made a deep run with him at the helm. 

I think Kyle is all ball 24/7 and doesn’t play the games that Harbaugh played pitting people against each other. Im super jacked that we’ve got Shanahan and hope he sticks around for a long time.

[Ozzy]

3 hours ago, biggie. said:

Yet they were terrible before and after Harbaugh left?

In 2015 the year after Harbaugh left, Justin Smith, Willis, Aldon Smith were all gone, so was Gholston at safety and Whitner at the other safety spot and Rodgers at corner.  Also lost Iupati at OG and Davis at OT and Crabtree/Ginn/Moss at WR and Vernon Davis and Walker at TE and no more Frank Gore either.   So yeah it was the roster change over and losing players after having such stacked teams previously.  No way the 49ers, back when they went to the Super Bowl, did not have one of the absolute best rosters in football.  Sure Harbaugh's TE center run first offense helped in an identity and a new enthusiasm but it was the players more than the coach on the overall success.  

 

Last time I checked the 49ers did great last year despite not having an amazing roster....

[BayRaider]

Kyle definitely, he’s had a ton of injuries to deal with, including a injury prone QB. 

But they were/are both great coaches during their SF tenures. I will say if either had a Top 10 QB, they would both have one ring each at the moment. Kaepernick and Jimmy in those SB’s were laughable. 

[NYRaider]

On 7/26/2022 at 5:54 PM, BayRaider said:

Kyle definitely, he’s had a ton of injuries to deal with, including a injury prone QB. 

But they were/are both great coaches during their SF tenures. I will say if either had a Top 10 QB, they would both have one ring each at the moment. Kaepernick and Jimmy in those SB’s were laughable. 

Kyle has 2 winning seasons in 5 years and is 39-42 overall, Harbaugh never had a losing season in SF and was 44-19-1 in 4 years. Kyle love fest is weird to me.

[Forge]

2 hours ago, NYRaider said:

Kyle has 2 winning seasons in 5 years and is 39-42 overall, Harbaugh never had a losing season in SF and was 44-19-1 in 4 years. Kyle love fest is weird to me.

Because he tore the team down and rebuilt.  His first year with the 49ers they set a record for the greatest single season roster turnover in NFL history and that was coming off a 2-14 year. The situations of their coaching tenure were not the same and its disingenuous to compare them on the basis of the record without context, though I wouldn't argue with anyone who states that they would prefer Harbaugh. 

People are misremembering the pre-Harbaugh years as though the 49ers were awful. Mike Singletary was only 4 games under .500 as the head coach preceding Harbaugh. They weren't bad, they were just largely mediocre with bad coaching. Honestly, one of Harbaugh's biggest contributions to the win total was the staff that he brought with him and then just stabilizing the coaching on his end and not being incompetent. We had one of the highest paid assistant coach groups in the NFL and he brought studs and very competent coaches with him.  But a lot of the pieces were there and then some more pieces were added by Baalke in that first year Harbaugh was there. 

If Harbaugh doesn't get canned after 2014, I don't know that he's going to have a winning record with that team in 2015 or 2016 given the way the roster was constructed. 

[NYRaider]

Just now, Forge said:

Because he tore the team down and rebuilt.  His first year with the 49ers they set a record for the greatest single season roster turnover in NFL history and that was coming off a 2-14 year. The situations of their coaching tenure were not the same and its disingenuous to compare them on the basis of the record without context, though I wouldn't argue with anyone who states that they would prefer Harbaugh. 

People are misremembering the pre-Harbaugh years as though the 49ers were awful. Mike Singletary was only 4 games under .500 as the head coach preceding Harbaugh. They weren't bad, they were just largely mediocre with bad coaching. Honestly, one of Harbaugh's biggest contributions to the win total was the staff that he brought with him and then just stabilizing the coaching on his end and not being incompetent. We had one of the highest paid assistant coach groups in the NFL and he brought studs and very competent coaches with him.  But a lot of the pieces were there and then some more pieces were added by Baalke in that first year Harbaugh was there. 

If Harbaugh doesn't get canned after 2014, I don't know that he's going to have a winning record with that team in 2015 or 2016 given the way the roster was constructed. 

And his rebuild has only resulted in 2 playoff berths in 5 seasons. The 49ers had a losing record in 7/8 years before Harbaugh took over with the only exception being an 8-8 season. They had 2 losing seasons before Shanahan took over and decided to rebuild the roster. 

 

[Forge]

11 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

And his rebuild has only resulted in 2 playoff berths in 5 seasons. The 49ers had a losing record in 7/8 years before Harbaugh took over with the only exception being an 8-8 season. They had 2 losing seasons before Shanahan took over and decided to rebuild the roster. 

 

How fast do you think a complete tear down and rebuild happens? How many teams have gone from 2-14 to super bowl in 3 years? Like, 2 years is pretty much the fastest you're going to see that without a season that bad being driven by a significant injury. 

Did you see the roster in 15 and 16? Yeah, it needed to be rebuilt. But even still, their decision to rebuild the roster is completely different and separate conversation than how good someone is as a coach (like, you can't hold it against their coaching acumen because they decided to rebuild a roster that you felt was unnecessary to rebuild...that makes no sense) 

 

[Forge]

I have no problem with anyone choosing Harbaugh in this as I think he's a very good coach. Hell, I'm not even sure who I would take and I watched pretty much every game that each of them coached with the team. But I do think that simply putting it on W/L is flawed when the situations they walked into is not the same. That 2010 49ers team the year before Harbs joined would have stomped that 2016 team. Talent levels were pretty substantially different. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

On 7/26/2022 at 5:54 PM, BayRaider said:

Kyle definitely, he’s had a ton of injuries to deal with, including a injury prone QB. 

But they were/are both great coaches during their SF tenures. I will say if either had a Top 10 QB, they would both have one ring each at the moment. Kaepernick and Jimmy in those SB’s were laughable. 

Kap was FAR from laughable in that Super Bowl. In fact, if the defense didn't have late season injuries, they would have won that year. He was on a completely different level than the Jimmy G we saw in the Super Bowl and just in the playoffs in general. 

 

[J-ALL-DAY]

3 hours ago, NYRaider said:

Kyle has 2 winning seasons in 5 years and is 39-42 overall, Harbaugh never had a losing season in SF and was 44-19-1 in 4 years. Kyle love fest is weird to me.

So which roster was more ready to win, the Harbaugh roster in 2011 or Shanny's in 2017? Have you went back and seen the roster of those Harbaugh teams? Once Shanny got a comparable roster, he has had the same amount of success with Jimmy. This isn't even to say Shanny is better than Harbaugh as both have their strengths and weaknesses but just using the W/L record to compare the two is a VERY flawed stat. 

 

[NYRaider]

35 minutes ago, Forge said:

How fast do you think a complete tear down and rebuild happens? How many teams have gone from 2-14 to super bowl in 3 years? Like, 2 years is pretty much the fastest you're going to see that without a season that bad being driven by a significant injury. 

Did you see the roster in 15 and 16? Yeah, it needed to be rebuilt. But even still, their decision to rebuild the roster is completely different and separate conversation than how good someone is as a coach (like, you can't hold it against their coaching acumen because they decided to rebuild a roster that you felt was unnecessary to rebuild...that makes no sense) 

 

I think Kyle is a good coach but I'd still say Harbaugh was better and I think Kyle is pretty overrated.