49ers’ Shanahan-Lynch duo enters Year 10 intent on greater playoff success

SANTA CLARA – Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch, so naturally by now, sat side by side Wednesday, reviewing the 49ers’ ultra-challenging season and peering ahead to their 10th year as a power couple.

“I love working with Kyle and his staff,” Lynch said, “and we constantly challenge ourselves, challenge each other, to be better. And that won’t stop.”

Shanahan is a finalist for his first AP NFL Coach of the Year Award, the NFL announced Thursday morning.

How much longer will his harmonious pairing with Lynch go on amid the NFL’s volatile climate, as 10 teams change coaches and several GM posts shuffle?

It’s a question perhaps directed best at Lynch’s future. His roster gymnastics kept vaulting enough players into the lineup for Shanahan and his staff. They churned out a 13-win contender that finished two wins shy of reaching Super Bowl LX in its home stadium.

If Lynch opted to return to television as a shrewd, easy-talking analyst after bypassing Amazon’s lucrative bid for him in 2022, few would blame him now.

Instead, Lynch is crooning over Shanahan’s coaching job while not having to intrude on this season’s tireless transactions.

“I let him coach the team and, man, did he this year,” Lynch said. “It was unbelievable what he did leading our team. I couldn’t be more proud to work with someone.”

It’s a mutual admiration society at 4949 Marie P DeBartolo Way.

“That’s how we’ve been since our first week together and it’s cool that it’s 10 years later and that hasn’t really changed,” Shanahan said. “That’s, to me, why we bet more on each other as people, before we knew how we would be (as colleagues). And I think that bet has worked out for both of us really well.”

Lynch, 54, was a surprise choice to partner with Shanahan ahead of the 2017 season, once Lynch personally reached out as a candidate during his Fox Sports days. Lynch had no previous front-office experience, other than consulting with the Denver Broncos under fellow Stanford product John Elway.

Shanahan and Lynch have since formed an ideal tandem that, historically, goes down as one of the 49ers’ finest ever, but still behind the Bill Walsh-John McVay days of their 1980s dynasty.

Only two other franchises match that nine-year stability connecting a coach and general manager: the Kansas City Chiefs’ Andy Reid and Brett Veach, and the Los Angeles Rams’ Sean McVay and Les Snead.

Shanahan’s fellow coach-of-the-year finalists are Liam Coen (Jacksonville Jaguars), Ben Johnson (Chicago Bears), Mike Macdonald (Seattle Seahawks) and Mike Vrabel (New England Patriots)

Shanahan and Lynch don’t finish each other’s sentences. They don’t have to do so. They stay in their respective lanes in press conferences around the draft, training camp and end of season.

“That’s what’s easy with working with John. We don’t have to sit there and make much up or sit here and decide how I’m going to act before I go into a meeting room or anything,” Shanahan said. “I pretty much can act the same way with him in a meeting about free agency or the draft as I would having dinner with him at his house or something.”

Team ownership, namely the York family, knows it has a good thing going. Surely, they’d prefer their first Lombardi Trophy since taking control from Eddie DeBartolo 26 years ago, but long gone is the revolving door of coaches and personnel czars, which was needed in some cases.

Three seasons have come and gone since the 49ers announced multi-year contract extensions for Shanahan and Lynch. When their deals expire is unknown, but neither is on shaky ground and both are likely in the NFL’s top pay grade for their roles.

Owner Jed York kept his profile off the podium, preferring more unofficial chats with reporters before games on the field and at the annual owners’ meetings in tropical locales. He’s been known to socialize with Shanahan, Lynch and their wives, so having that trio happily coexist is key to more playoff runs in the future.

“I love the stability,” Lynch said.

Five years ago, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his 15-year playing career as a hard-hitting yet heady safety with Tampa Bay and Denver. He is in each franchise’s ring of honor. It’s not a stretch to think he and Shanahan will earn a spot in the 49ers’ – if they deliver a Super Bowl victory (or four) before they inevitably break up.

Seeing Shanahan and Lynch sit together at a podium is a much better look than what’s going on around the league, where owners are having to explain – in perhaps clumsy or whimsical fashion — why things are sure to be better in the future.

When Shanahan and Lynch say the 49ers are in a better spot, they’re truth tellers, considering what this franchise went through in the past year. There was the clear-cutting of veterans in March free agency, then the relentless wave of injuries to marquee players in a season that surprisingly delivered 12 wins (many in clutch fashion) before a wild-card dethroning of Philadelphia and then Shanahan’s most lopsided defeat yet, a 41-6 divisional-round exit at Seattle.

“I’m more fired up than ever to get this thing (going). While I’m proud of this (2025) team — we have higher standards,” Lynch said. “We’ve knocked on the door for a long time here and came here to do one thing and that’s win championships. So, I’m never going to stop striving for that.”

Of the 49ers’ 77 draft picks since 2017, just six have earned All-Pro or Pro Bowl honors: George Kittle (2017, fifth round), Fred Warner (2018, third), Nick Bosa (2019, first), Deebo Samuel (2019, second), Talanoa Hufanga (2021, fifth) and Brock Purdy (2022, seventh). Not enough high draft picks have panned out, making life challenging as an annual contender.

Whereas Purdy parlayed his opportunity (262nd and final pick) into the 49ers’ most lucrative contract ever last May (five years, $265 million), that golden discovery offset the biggest draft gaffe in 49ers’ history: their 2021 selection of Trey Lance at No. 3 overall, after trading to Miami three first-round picks as part of a package for that spot.

Another draft is upcoming, and this past year’s 11-man class got enough game action that some may think the 49ers are opening another championship window, even if it may have never closed. They’ve gone to the playoffs five of the past seven years.

“I really haven’t thought about windows or anything like that anymore. We’ve got a lot of good players on our team that were a part of teams that got real close to winning the Super Bowl a number of years ago,” Shanahan said. “And each year, it’s going to be a whole different deal.

“I’m proud to a degree of what we accomplished this year, but we didn’t accomplish what we totally want to accomplish,” Shanahan added. “… Your whole goal is to get to those playoffs regardless of what type of team you think you have, and if you get there, you’ve always got a shot.”

This season, their best shot got them a playoff win in Philly, undoubtedly the 49ers’ best (and last) victory this season. Then came last Saturday’s thrashing at top-seeded Seattle, where the 49ers were gassed, undermanned and doomed, from the opening kickoff (return for a Seahawks touchdown).

Shanahan said “we’re really disappointed” with going out in flames like that, but now comes Season No. 10, which he can focus on once he finds his fifth different defensive coordinator in five years.

“Once you do that, then it’s me catching up with John with where we’re at financially, what we can do and what’s available in free agency and in the draft,” Shanahan said.

It’s a group project, and neither Shanahan nor Lynch is willing to forgo it without the other. It’s been that way since Feb. 9, 2017, when they showed up in suits and red ties for their introductory press conference, complete with name plates identifying who’s who.