Having worked together for well over a decade on various staffs, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel know each other as well as any coaches in the NFL -- perhaps except for the Harbaugh brothers.
Naturally, that enduring collaboration means their respective offenses overlap quite a bit.
On this week's installment of "49ers Game Plan," Shanahan detailed his schematic similarities with his former understudy to NBC Sports Bay Area's Greg Papa.
"It all originates from the same spot," Shanahan explained ahead of Sunday's matchup between the two long-time friends. "Mike was a big part of our offense, too.
"Mike and I had been working together since his first year of coaching. He had one year when he worked in Sacramento for a [UFL] team, but besides that, we were always together and building this offense everywhere we went."
After stints together with the Houston Texans, Washington, Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons, McDaniel rose to Shanahan's offensive coordinator in 2021 with the 49ers before taking the Dolphins' head-coaching job.
"So, some big similarities, but as you branch off and you get on your own, you see differences," Shanahan continued. "We motion a lot, but I always say Mike is going to go crazy with it. Mike loves that stuff, and so do I. But they do it a little bit more, and there's some different things, but that also has to do with the type of personnel you have, too. We're always going to adjust our personnel and try to put those guys in the right positions, so it always gradually changes."
San Francisco 49ers
In other words, get ready for a lot of pre-snap motion Sunday, though it just may look a little different. That's a credit to McDaniel's own intelligence.
The nerdy-looking McDaniel doesn't resemble a stereotypical NFL coach from a physical standpoint, but that doesn't take away from his coaching potential, as Shanahan asserted.
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"For a lot of his career, Mike was underappreciated," Shanahan told Papa. "He didn't totally look like a coach or a former player -- which I don't think I do, either. I don't think he came off that way to a lot of people. But he always, when I worked with him at such a young age, I could always tell how smart he was, how much he could retain things, how much he could understand what I was trying to get done. When you have someone like that, you trust them to do stuff, and they do more, and they just build more like that.
"So, Mike has always been a great mind. I didn't know if an owner would ever appreciate it, but I think the success we had had, he started to get a little more attention, and when the [Dolphins] interviewed him, they connected and they loved him. I think he's been great. He's done a hell of a job there."
Neither coach is having a season to remember right now, with both of their teams currently sitting at 6-8 with dim playoff hopes. However, the Shanahan tree -- which also features successful young coaches such as Sean McVay and Matt LaFleur, among several others -- has proven to be a revolutionary force in the NFL over the past decade.
