The San Francisco 49ers sit at 11-4 on the season with two games to go. No matter what, they have clinched a spot in the playoffs, which is a remarkable feat for head coach Kyle Shanahan who laid the groundwork for this season in the offseason.
Before the season began, Shanahan hosted a team gathering in spring at his house and, unlike prior years, did not talk about the Super Bowl being the end goal for the season. Shanahan understood that with the insane amount of turnover San Francisco had in the offseason, shooting for the Super Bowl may have been a bit too ambitious.
Sure, the roster still had key players on defense like edge rusher Nick Bosa and linebacker Fred Warner, and there were still stars on the offensive side of the ball with quarterback Brock Purdy, tight end George Kittle, and running back Christian McCaffrey.
But outside of them, there were a lot of young unproven players or middling veterans who would have to fill in the gaps. This was not like the 2023 Niners squad in which you had to squint to find the weaknesses.
Instead, this season's iteration of the 49ers was going to have to find a different way to get things done. While past teams were adept at blowing opponents out, this team was going to have to survive tight contests, which is exactly what it did early in the season.
If someone had told Shanahan during that offseason meeting that he would lose both Warner and Bosa for the rest of the season by Week 6, he probably would have put even less emphasis on the Super Bowl as a goal.
But Shanahan realized that after everything San Francisco had been through over the last number of years, coming so achingly close to the promised land only to have victory snatched away by a hand to Purdy's elbow in the NFC Championship game or the magic of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, not to mention the gut-punch loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the 2021 NFC Championship game or the first Chiefs Super Bowl loss, lowering expectations was key.
This team had to focus and grind away week to week to get to where it is right now. If the Niners were concerned about the bigger picture, they would not have been able to win so many games when they were banged up at so many key positions.
Every team talks about taking it one game at a time, but San Francisco has had to live it this year.
Shanahan still may not get the respect he deserves, but he could sense in the offseason that the 2025 Niners were going to have to be different.
By lowering expectations, he may have freed the team up and laid the groundwork for what has arguably been the best coaching job of his career.