Every NFL team says it wants to win football games. For most, winning means more profit. It can be a means to an end.

When Kyle Shanahan had an opportunity to become a head coach in 2017, he wanted to go to the right type of organization. He wanted to go somewhere where ownership genuinely wanted to win, not just to make money, but because of the desire to be the NFL's best.


Shanahan feels he found that with the San Francisco 49ers.

Team CEO Jed York believed in Kyle Shanahan. Shanahan, however, wanted to make sure he could believe in York and the 49ers' ownership. As Shanahan interviewed for the head coaching job, he also tried to get a feel from York whether or not his desire to win was genuine. Otherwise, it might not have been a good fit.

York passed with flying colors, apparently.

"You don't want to go to a team that's just a marketing firm," Shanahan told reporters on Friday, as the team prepares for Super Bowl LIV. "You want to go to a team that truly (believes) the most important thing is to win a Super Bowl. Everyone says that, but your actions show it.

"I got to really believe in Jed by spending about four hours with him in that first interview. That was so neat with the opportunity he gave us with the way our contracts were, John (Lynch) and I coming in together. I mean, everything that he said, he backed up.


"You never know until you get somewhere because it's always hard off just an interview and things like that, but since I've been here for three years now, whether we started 0-9 (in 2017) or went 4-12 our second year (2018), that's only gotten stronger, and he's validated that more and more each day."

Shanahan and Lynch each received six-year contracts upon joining the 49ers. That said a lot to the coach.

"He said he was very committed to trying to turn this around," Shanahan said, "which I think everyone is pretty committed to turning things around, but I always say you want to do it the right way, which is not a quick fix. No matter what you do, if you're doing the right thing, you're still going to make some wrong decisions, and you've got to be able to weather that storm."

Shanahan said times are tougher these days for a head coach because of the media's reach. His father, as you know, is former NFL head coach Mike Shanahan, who served as the 49ers' offensive coordinator from 1992 until 1994.

As a kid, after a bad game, Kyle would worry about the potential of a bad article or two in the newspaper the next day. Today, the articles don't stop coming and are delivered immediately to everyone's phones.


"It's very hard for people to stay the course, and to stay positive with things," Shanahan continued. "Jed, I think, showed that in every aspect of what he said to us when we were going through the interview process, and it's been right on and even better than I could have asked for since I've been here."

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