Kyle Shanahan confirmed his future is firmly with the San Francisco 49ers as far as he’s concerned after leading them to a 38-13 victory over the Cleveland Browns to rescue their postseason bid in the NFC West.
The 49ers had lost three games on the spin and slipped to the bottom of the division but produced the impressive victory in Santa Clara despite the absence of Christian McCaffrey, their star running back who landed on the injured reserve list.
14 points in the first and fourth quarter along with 10 in the second proved to be quite the statement and perhaps sent a firm message to Joe Lynch that the head coach is the man for the job after reports suggested the general manager could be set to axe him.
“I don’t want to be any place in the world more than here,” Shanahan said, as per Adam Schefter, when asked of his future at the Levi’s Stadium with the 49ers, who he led to Super Bowl LVIII in 2023.
The NFC West is fiercely contested at the moment with the 49ers in fourth just two games behind the Seattle Seahawks, who lead the division ahead of the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals.
The 49ers will look to continue their quest for the postseason in a massive, potentially season-defining, game against the Rams on Thursday, December 12 with kick off at 20:15 ET/17:15 PT at the Levi’s Stadium.
Could the 49ers fire Shanahan?
Although they were beaten by the Kansas City Chiefs in overtime in the final game of the 2023 season, the 49ers have enjoyed a very successful period under Shanahan’s tenure and have won 69 games since he was appointed in 2017.
And it’s in light of that success that Lynch very quickly dismissed suggestions they’re going to axe their head coach soon, although he did warn that the standards are to win the Super Bowl, not just compete.
“I found the whole discussion on Kyle rather comical,” Lynch told reporters. “We have won four of the last five division championships, and we’ve been to two Super Bowls. The standard here is to win championships, and we’ve fallen short of that and I understand.
“But we have an excellent head coach and the fact people are talking about stuff like that, I do find it comical.”
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