Eagles icon Donovan McNabb drops wisdom on how 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan can get over the hump like Andy Reid
San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has been one of the most consistent coaches in the entire NFL. He has won at least 10 games during the regular season in four of the past five years. The 49ers have also been to four Conference Championship games during that time, winning the NFC title in two of them.
However, the one main accomplishment that has been missing so far is winning a Super Bowl ring. Former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb has advice for Shanahan to get his team over the hump.
"When Andy Reid drafted Patrick Mahomes, Patrick was more of a gunslinger, where I compared him to Brett Favre, but he wnats to compare him to me," McNabb said on Up & Adams show.
"I wasn't a gunslinger, and so what he did was he brought that down to the point where he trusted more of his check-downs. And obviously him and Travis Kelce have a great chemistry.
"When you look at some of what Kyle Shanahan has been able to do, and his offense is guys that he can coach and control. So it's more or less allowing your quarterback to open his game up a little bit more. Instead of, kind of puppeting him and sitting there like, 'No that ball's going to go here.' No, you have to, it's like I missed him let me pick up five yards."
Donovan McNabb basically believes that while Kyle Shanahan runs an excellent offensive system, he may benefit from allowing Brock Purdy to improvise a bit more. He pointed out that Andy Reid has done this with Patrick Mahomes, which has resulted in three Super Bowl rings for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Reid once had a similar reputation as Shanahan, essentially as a head coach who could consistently take his teams on deep playoff runs but would ultimately fall short of the Lombardi. McNabb is familiar with this, as he was Reid's main quarterback with the Eagles during this time.
Kyle Shanahan's failed Super Bowl attempts
In his seven seasons as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Kyle Shanahan has made two trips to the Super Bowl but has failed to win, losing both of his matchups to Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Making things even more frustrating for Shanahan is that the 49ers held a lead in the fourth quarter in both of their Super Bowl losses to the Chiefs. The most recent one came during the 2023 NFL season, where the 49ers also had a lead in overtime before eventually losing again.