Kyle Shanahan has captained a remarkable turnaround in his three-season tenure as the 49ers head coach. Taking over a talent-deprived roster without a franchise quarterback in 2017, Shanahan guided San Francisco from just 10 wins through his first two seasons to a 13-3 record in 2019, and a berth in Super Bowl LIV.
CEO Jed York, who also hired general manager John Lynch alongside Shanahan in 2017, decided to reward his coach with a new six-year contract extension on Monday, sources tell NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco. ESPN’s Adam Schefter first reported the news.
Included in Schefter’s report was the information that Shanahan’s deal makes him one of the NFL’s five-highest paid head coaches. If that indeed is the case, Shanahan got a pretty significant raise. Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh previously was the league’s fifth-highest paid coach, at a reported $9 million. New Orleans’ Sean Payton ($9.8 million) comes in at four on the list, behind the Raiders’ Jon Gruden ($10 million), Seattle Seahawks’ Pete Carroll ($11 million) and finally New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick ($12 million).
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According to Maiocco, the 49ers were paying Shanahan around $5 million per season on his initial contract.
Shanahan and Lynch executed a midseason trade in 2017 to acquire Jimmy Garoppolo from the Patriots, and the QB had a better yards per pass attempt mark than Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes (8.4) and a better completion percentage than reigning NFL MVP Lamar Jackson in 2019.
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There are plenty of tremendous head coaches in the NFL today, and opinions often vary wildly as to who the five best currently are. This kind of investment, especially when Shanahan still had three years left on his original contract, shows that York wants the 40-year-old to be with the organization for a long time, and that he believes Shanahan is in that class.
Don’t be surprised if a lucrative extension for Lynch also happens before the 2020 season gets underway.