The San Francisco 49ers once again appear to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender despite a slow start to the season, and Troy Aikman feels there is one man who is primarily responsible for that — the head coach.
Aikman heaped praise on Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan following San Francisco’s 38-10 win over the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night. The Hall of Fame quarterback said during ESPN’s postgame show that he believes Shanahan is the best coach in the NFL.
“I’m a huge buyer of the 49ers and I have been all season, and I have been for the last several years,” Aikman said. “A big reason for that is because of Kyle Shanahan. If I was in a position to hire a head coach, and I could hire anybody I wanted, Kyle Shanahan would be that guy.
“The way that he’s able to utilize his personnel … John Lynch, their general manager, has done a terrific job as well of assembling the players, but they play a style of football that you just don’t see around the league. It’s an old-school style. They are physical. In a league today where there’s so much emphasis on player safety, not much contact, not many padded practices during the week, they play the game as I used to know it.”
You can hear Aikman’s comments below:
"I'm a huge buyer of the 49ers, & I have been all season, & I have been for the last several years… A big reason for that is because of Kyle Shanahan. If I was in a position to hire a head coach, & I could hire anybody I wanted, Kyle Shanahan would be that guy."- Troy Aikman pic.twitter.com/klWABvSvk0
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 22, 2022
The 49ers have done a terrific job of drafting and building their roster. Lynch deserves a lot of credit for that, but Shanahan has plenty of input in those decisions. A perfect example of what Aikman was referring to would be the way the Niners have utilized Christian McCaffrey after acquiring him in a trade.
Shanahan has been around the NFL for a long time, and it shows. His father Mike won two Super Bowls as a head coach. Kyle has implemented a similar offensive scheme to his father’s, and it is still extremely effective even though the NFL has changed a ton since Mike coached. That is one of the main reasons the 49ers contend almost every year.
