The San Francisco 49ers have made it to the playoffs quite a bit under head coach Kyle Shanahan. While he has come up short twice in the Super Bowl and has had a couple heartbreaking losses in the NFC Championship game, he still boasts an impressive 9-5 record in postseason play.
The losses still sting, but it’s worth remembering the wins, too, because this still has been a great era of Niners football even though there are no rings to show for it.
Let’s break down the five best playoff wins from the Shanahan era before he begins year 10 with San Francisco.
No. 5: 2023 NFC Divisional vs. Green Bay Packers
This one was nearly one of the worst losses of the Shanahan era. The Niners were the No. 1 seed going into the playoffs and had clinched a bye after a great regular season.
They faced a Green Bay Packers team that shocked everyone by blowing out the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card game and clearly had a lot of momentum going into the contest.
It seemed like everything was going against San Francisco, as it was rainy and quarterback Brock Purdy didn’t have his best stuff in the elements.
Despite it being a sloppy performance, Purdy and the Niners marched down and scored a touchdown to take the lead in the closing minutes, and then Dre Greenlaw iced the game by picking off Jordan Love before refusing to go down.
It was almost a huge upset, but when it mattered most, San Francisco came through in the clutch.
No. 4: 2025 NFC Wild Card vs. Philadelphia Eagles
2025 may have been Shanahan’s best coaching job, given how many injuries his team endured. The 49ers had a chance to be the No. 1 seed with a win in Week 18 over the Seattle Seahawks, but they lost and instead had to face the Philadelphia Eagles on the road in the Wild Card round.
It seemed like a death sentence, but even though the Eagles were the defending champions, they did not have a great year, offensively. That allowed a banged-up Niners defense to slow them down, and the offense did enough to grind out a 23-19 victory.
The 49ers got crushed next week against Seattle, but it was still remarkable they overcame so much adversity to get a playoff win over Philadelphia, especially after what happened the last time those two teams met in the playoffs.
No. 3: 2019 NFC Championship vs. Green Bay Packers
This was an absolute masterclass from Shanahan. He just ran the ball down Green Bay’s throat all game long, and the Packers had no answer for it. Raheem Mostert rushed for over 200 yards and had four touchdowns on the game.
Jimmy Garoppolo barely had to throw the ball, and that game just represented the height of the Shanahan run-based offense.
No. 2: 2021 NFC Divisional vs. Green Bay Packers
The Packers are featured a lot on this list, but this win was probably the most satisfying. Not many gave the 49ers a shot as they had barely beaten the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card game a week earlier to earn a date with the No. 1 seed Packers.
It was a frigid, snowy game in which offense was incredibly hard to come by, but a huge blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown by Talanoa Hufanga completely flipped the game, and then Deebo Samuel made a huge play to get the Niners into field-goal range.
Robbie Gould drilled it right down the middle in the snow to send the Niners to the NFC Championship game and break the hearts of Packers fans... again.
No. 1: 2023 NFC Championship vs. Detroit Lions
This game was remarkable because the Niners notoriously struggled to come from behind to win games under Shanahan, but somehow, they did it against the Detroit Lions.
Detroit was up 24-7 at halftime, but the Niners came back, thanks to great play from Purdy and some boneheaded decisions by Lions head coach Dan Campbell.
It seemed like maybe, just maybe, it was finally going to be San Francisco’s time, but the Niners got their hearts broken by the Kansas City Chiefs yet again in the Super Bowl two weeks later.
That doesn’t make it any less impressive of a victory, though, and it’s worth remembering just how many impressive playoff wins San Francisco has had with Shanahan as head coach.
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