Eight years, three teams: How Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur got here together
Editor’s note: This story was originally published on Nov. 22, 2019.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Matt LaFleur and Kyle Shanahan represent everything that is young and hip about the NFL. From their half-shaven look to their messed-up-on-purpose hair and perfectly sculpted eyebrows to their inventive offenses, they — along with their slightly blonder comrade Sean McVay — are the league’s next iteration of head coaches.
Don’t let their looks fool you.
2 Related
There’s an old soul in each of them.
His name is Mike Shanahan, and to hear LaFleur tell it, he’s one of the biggest badasses they’ve ever met.
“He’s just an old-school guy in terms of just being all ball,” LaFleur said in a recent interview. “He was one of the most intimidating guys I’d ever been around.”
The elder Shanahan, father of Kyle and winner of 170 NFL games and two Super Bowls, obviously paved the way for his son, the And you better believe that a game like Sunday’s between the 49ers and Packers is enough to get Mike Shanahan away from his retirement paradise in San José del Cabo, Mexico. “It is very hard to get him out of Cabo,” Kyle said this week. A game between his son and one of his son’s best friends, whose teams are a combined 17-3 and have the best combined winning percentage in a game between the 49ers (9-1) and the Packers (8-2), will do it. When it comes to talking about Mike Shanahan, LaFleur’s mind rewinds to an OTA practice in 2012, shortly after the Redskins picked quarterbacks Simulate your own scenarios and check the latest playoff picture. Playoff Machine » Shanahan stood in the middle of the field to watch both. With his back turned to Griffin, Shanahan watched a play at the other end of the field just as Griffin launched a deep ball. “Mike was right in the middle of the field and he had his back turned and I’ll never forget this: The defensive back and the receiver went full bore and just plowed into Mike,” LaFleur said. “I was the first one there to see him. “Did you ever play [the video game] Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!? He looked like he was ‘Glass Joe.’ I thought he was going to be severely hurt, like I thought something was really wrong. I didn’t know if he was still alive, to be honest with you, because he was out.” Shanahan verified the story, although, understandably, his memory of it was fuzzy. “Thankfully not too many people cheered, but I did take a pretty good shot,” he said. “I don’t really remember it, to be honest, I was that dazed. But you try to get up and act like it’s no big deal. All the players got a kick out of it, saying, ‘Man, we thought you were dead.’ I said, ‘You guys aren’t that lucky.'” It was bad enough that the Redskins’ doctors immediately ordered Shanahan to go to the hospital. But not for long. “I’ll be damned, he was right back at work,” LaFleur said. “This was a guy that was the most focused person I’ve ever been around. The hours he would put in …” It was at that moment when LaFleur knew the kind of toughness and work ethic it took be an NFL head coach. “He was the most focused person I’ve ever been around,” LaFleur said. “He could sit there and watch tape for hours without getting up, without getting water or coffee or a piss break. His focus was just second to none that I’ve been around. “It opened up my eyes to how it needs to be done. Granted, we didn’t have the success that we would have liked to [in Washington], but there’s no doubt in my mind why he was such a successful coach.” Mike Shanahan didn’t know LaFleur when he got the Redskins job in 2010. But he trusted Kyle, who trusted Robert Saleh. It was Saleh, now Kyle’s defensive coordinator with the 49ers, who got LaFleur into the NFL. Saleh and LaFleur worked together as graduate assistants at Central Michigan, where they shared an apartment with a kitchen table but no chairs and once had to shovel head coach Brian Kelly’s driveway and park cars at a party they mistakenly thought they were invited to. NFL Nation reporters went down memory lane with each of the league’s 32 head coaches, with recollections (and old pictures) from each coach’s first football coaching job. Among them: Kyle Shanahan served as offensive coordinator for one season (2014) with the
Packers offensive line coach Adam Stenavich spent the past two seasons as Kyle’s assistant offensive line coach with the 49ers. Said Stenavich: “They’re both extremely intelligent guys who see this game the same way.” LaFleur’s brother, Mike, serves as Kyle’s passing game coordinator with the 49ers. In fact, LaFleur tried to hire his brother, but Kyle wouldn’t let him go to Green Bay. Matt and Kyle still talk, but as Matt said earlier this week: “There will not be a lot of talking this week. The time I talk to him the most is usually if I’m FaceTiming my brother and he’s in his office.” Mike Shanahan was 36 years old when he became a first-time head coach with the Raiders in 1988. Kyle was 37 when the 49ers hired him in 2017. McVay was only 30 when the Rams hired him the same offseason. LaFleur was 39 when he Packers hired him in January. “Sean, Matt and Kyle were all very young when they got their first opportunity,” Mike Shanahan said. “But they were ready. They really were. Not only offensively but defensively was well. To be at the point where they’re at so early in their careers and gotten these opportunities, not only did they have to know their jobs but other people’s jobs as well to get comfortable in this position, and I know all three of those guys definitely do.” All three do it in a similar fashion. They run offenses based on pre-snap motion, play-action and a strong running game that stresses the outside zone scheme. “It really started in Washington,” Kyle said in an interview earlier this year. “It all goes back to my dad. You’re a product of your environment, and when you get your opportunities it becomes your own.”‘I didn’t know if he was still alive’
• Full schedule » | Standings » | More »‘You knew they were going to get to the next level’
‘It all goes back to my dad’
