Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have worked well together on the 49ers for nearly a decade, despite facing immense pressure daily.
Shanahan, San Francisco’s eighth-year coach, and Lynch, the franchise’s eighth-year general manager and second-year president of football operations, have combined to go 70-62 while appearing in two Super Bowls and four NFC Championship Games.
Yes, the storied tandem hasn’t brought San Francisco the long-desired sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy. But Shanahan and Lynch always have worked on doing that and have become tight-knit business partners along the way.
“I think that's why I really wanted him to be here with me,” Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday about his partnership with Lynch. “John got in this for the right intentions, it was to try to put together a team to win a Super Bowl, and that's what he is committed to. That's really the simplest way that everyone says, but in this business, you always go through hard times, but it's never just coaching and it's never just personnel. It's everything. It's why there's never a quick answer on anything in football.
“There's 22 variables out there every play, there's a long season, there's lots of scheme that's involved, there's lots of talent that's involved. There's lots of just random stuff … There's a lot of people who don't like to move their families, and there's a lot of pressure on people in that way. But when you know the character of a person and why people get into it, John's not ever going to do something or talk in a way just to survive. And anyone who knows how I am like, I'm not like that either. You're not going to make a decision just to scapegoat somewhere or just to survive.”
Shanahan and Lynch are on the same page.
The veteran coach clarified that there’s nothing wrong with being afraid to take risks -- or not taking them -- over fears of being fired and moving your family somewhere else for work; that’s just part of the “cutthroat business,” as Shanahan called it. But he admires Lynch because he joins him in trying to earn Super Bowl wins rather than job security, which ironically keeps the duo comfortably employed by San Francisco.
San Francisco 49ers
Lynch feels similar toward Shanahan. They’ve been through the wringer together, and the executive appreciates never being alone in the never-ending fight of managing an NFL team.
“I would just say it's respect and respect is earned,” Lynch told reporters on Wednesday about his relationship with Shanahan. “And we felt alignment when we came in here, and that's only strengthened since we've been here. And that’s not always the case. And it's not just blind loyalty and blind trust, it's earned every year. But what I know about Kyle, he's a good person. I say it all the time, he gives us an advantage, I think, every year, every week.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
“And he's obsessed with always continuing to evolve. When you have that, you have his natural instincts as a coach. You have the staff, people want to work with him, people want to work with us. And you’ve got to come to grips with the successes, with the failures, but never lose what the ultimate goal is. And I think we've been able to do that.”
Longtime coach-exec duos aren’t too common in the NFL anymore.
The fact that the 2025 NFL season will be Shanahan and Lynch’s ninth as a duo speaks volumes about the trust the 49ers organization has in them and the interest players, on and off the team, have in playing for them.
The 2024 season, in particular, was an utter failure for Shanahan and Lynch, with San Francisco finishing 6-11, last in the NFC West and without a playoff appearance, in large part due to numerous on- and off-the-field hardships.
Fortunately for the 49ers and their faithful fans, they have two football lifers at the helm. Shanahan and Lynch’s ability to work so well together surely will have San Francisco back in some form of competitive mix next season.
“We challenge each other, but we have each other's backs, and that's a good feeling,” Lynch said. “And we’ve got to keep forging ahead and get done what we came to get done here.”
“That's why I feel so fortunate in just the situation I am in with someone like John, with someone like [CEO] Jed [York], with how his parents are, I can always just tell what I think from a football standpoint and I know I'm going to get from John what he thinks from his football standpoint,” Shanahan said.
“It's not always the most fun answer. You’ve got to admit a lot that you didn't do right, but that's the truth of it, and that's the only way that you can consistently overcome things and find a way to consistently be successful.”
It isn’t always fun. And there’s always going to be criticism.
But Shanahan and Lynch are committed to trying to win Super Bowls and that relentlessness is unwavering, which makes them a match made in heaven.
