San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan attributes some of his team’s struggles last season to coming off a loss in the Super Bowl. Which means that explanation won’t fly this year.
Shanahan said that a year ago, his players were worn down from a full postseason that ended with a heartbreaking overtime loss in Super Bowl LVIII. But this year, his players had a full offseason after going 6-11 and missing the playoffs, and he’s not going to accept anyone not being completely read to go.
“The way I addressed it the most, was at our last meeting in January,” Shanahan said, via NBCSportsBayArea.com. “I just told the guys, I talked about how the season ended the year before, and how when I felt them all come back. I felt guys weren’t ready to come back and I understood that. But I told them how I really won’t understand it this year, not that that was right or wrong, but I couldn’t comprehend it. We’re off five weeks earlier, we all know how disappointed we are. And a lot of us have played a lot of football here.”
Shanahan’s 49ers have lost the Super Bowl twice, and both years they followed that with a six-win season. After their 6-10 season in 2020, they bounced back and made the NFC Championship Game following the 2021 season. Returning to winning form is the kind of response he expects from his players this year as well.
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