Entering Year 10 with 49ers, Kyle Shanahans Super Bowl quest hits choppy waters
Ten years on this f—ing beach.Let’s go home.Now a decade into his time at the top of the San Francisco 49ers, Kyle Shanahan’s quest for his first Super Bowl title began to feel a bit like his own personal Odyssey this summer.His own men (Brandon Aiyuk) turned on him.He had to navigate a swirling whirlpool (his Tesla’s autopilot feature).The temptation of the sirens’ songs (of East Palestine, Ohio) proved to be too powerful.Now, here he finds himself on an unknown island in a faraway land, just hoping it is one stop on the way to the one thing he wants most of all but cannot have — not yet, anyway.The 49ers open the season under the brightest lights imaginable, against the Super Bowl favorites and division rivals, in front of almost 100,000 in the NFL’s first game in Australia.
But at the same time, squint and you can see the lights beginning to dim on their current era.Shanahan’s hair has grayed and his face has wrinkled since they made their first trip to the Super Bowl seven years ago.It’s been three years since their last appearance.Even the team that thwarted them twice, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, have begun to look mortal.
Some part of him must be wondering if they’ll ever make it back and get another crack.They’ve got two monsters to contend with in their own division who only seem to be getting stronger.Meanwhile, the same core group of 49ers gets another year older.More than ever, it looks like it’s now or never for the players that will be remembered as the faces of this era of 49ers football, whether it’s Shanahan’s sole one or merely his first.The 49ers would never move on from Shanahan, who’s brought the most stability and success the organization has seen since the heydays of the Joe Montana-Steve Young dynasties.But would it be all that surprising if after a decade of coming up short in San Francisco, Shanahan decided he wanted a bite at the apple somewhere else?When they take the field Thursday night, there will b...