Kyle Shanahan

Kyle Michael Shanahan (born December 14, 1979) is an American professional football coach who is the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). He came to prominence as the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, whose offense in 2016 led the league in points scored and helped the team reach Super Bowl LI. Shanahan became the head coach of the 49ers the following season, leading the team to three division titles, four postseason appearances, four NFC Championship Game appearances, and two Super Bowl appearances (LIV and LVIII).

Shanahan was born in Minneapolis, where his father, Mike Shanahan, was the offensive coordinator at the University of Minnesota. He attended Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California, in 1994, while his father worked as offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers. He later attended Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, Colorado, while his father served as head coach of the Denver Broncos. Shanahan accepted a scholarship offer by Carl Franks of Duke University, but chose to transfer as a redshirt freshman to the University of Texas at Austin where he started out as a walk-on. Shanahan played wide receiver on a Longhorn team that featured future college coach Major Applewhite, future NFL assistant coach Richard Hightower (who worked with him in San Francisco) as well as future NFL players Roy Williams, Cedric Benson, Bo Scaife, Mike Williams, Quentin Jammer, and Chris Simms. Shanahan caught 14 passes for 127 yards in his career for the University of Texas at Austin.

I studied every potential Xs and Os play and issue possible. I spent my whole life working on that. My goal was that any question a player could have about anything on the field, I'd be able to answer it.

— Kyle Shanahan, 2006

Shortly after Shanahan graduated from Texas in 2003, he became a graduate assistant to Karl Dorrell at UCLA. As a graduate assistant, he worked with players like Maurice Jones-Drew, Marcedes Lewis, and Drew Olson, but he still had to take classes and could not spend all his time on football.

Shanahan was hired as assistant coach for offensive quality control under head coach Jon Gruden with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2004. As a quality control coach, Shanahan helped break down game film and drew diagrams of plays for the playbook. He has said that his time spent using the computer program SuperPaint to draw up plays for Gruden introduced him to many plays used in the NFL.

In 2006, Shanahan was hired by Gary Kubiak to serve as wide receivers coach for the Houston Texans. Kubiak had previously served as offensive coordinator under Mike Shanahan with the Broncos. At the time, Kyle Shanahan was the youngest position coach in the NFL. The following season, Shanahan received another promotion to become the Texans quarterback coach. In 2007, he had also been offered to become offensive coordinator at the University of Minnesota, where former Broncos assistant Tim Brewster just became head coach. Shanahan declined, citing his decision to be an NFL coach. Shanahan was immediately considered the frontrunner for the vacant offensive coordinator position after Mike Sherman had left the Texans to take over as head coach at Texas A&M University.

On January 11, 2008, Shanahan was officially promoted, becoming the youngest coordinator in the NFL, being more than three years younger than Josh McDaniels of the New England Patriots. Despite his lack of experience, Shanahan found near instant success overseeing an NFL offense. The Texans finished their 2008 season third in yards per game. This reflected the individual success of his top offensive players that year. The Texans' starting quarterback Matt Schaub led the league in passing yards, and wide receiver Andre Johnson led the league in receiving yards.