Kyle Shanahan's latest comments will not do anything to stop calls for his 49ers job

The San Francisco 49ers are undeniably suffering from the Super Bowl hangover. While it took until the second half of last year for it to truly set in for the Philadelphia Eagles, it has been a year from hell for Kyle Shanahan's team. They have had a myriad of injuries, especially when it comes to their running game. Even more concerning, the 49ers are not doing enough defensively to stay in games.

During Monday's press conference with the media, Shahanan was asked about his underperforming defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen. While the McVay/Shanahan coaching tree has been all the rage in the NFL for the better part of a decade now, it seems as though coaching attrition in recent years has made it quite difficult for Shanahan to replenish his coaching staff. The fan base is turning on him.

This is not what the 49er faithful will want to hear when it comes to Shanahan defending Sorensen.

“Yeah, I'm very satisfied with Nick. I’m not at all satisfied with the results and how it's going right now, but, some of the mistakes that we've made, I don't think or what's happened here in these last two weeks, I don't think that's a schematic issue.”

This next big kind of comes across as Shanahan blaming the players rather than his coordinator.

“It's a little bit more of a fundamental issue, and that also starts with me. That goes to all coaching, and it goes down to the players, it goes to everyone in this building. But the results here these last two weeks haven't changed my opinion on Nick.”

Stating the obvious, Shanahan admits that last year's team was better than what we are seeing now.

“Last year's team was obviously a better team. I'm not saying just from the roster, I'm just saying from the beginning to end, the way we started out, the way we felt in training camp, throughout the whole year."

Clearly, Shanahan's second Super Bowl collapse while leading the 49ers is having a lingering effect.

“We've been trying to build that with this team. We've had times where we felt that we were on the right path to it and then we've had some setbacks that I think it's always been one step forward, two steps back. We really haven't grasped the full potential of this year's team. That's why I don't like comparing it to last year's team or the year before.”

It took seven years, but San Francisco fans have realized what Atlanta Falcons fans already know...

Kyle Shanahan is quickly falling out of favor with San Francisco 49ers fans

As it is with anything, it is complicated when it comes to Shanahan's tenure in San Francisco. He has arguably brought the most stability from the 49ers sidelines since George Seifert was tasked with keeping the train on the tracks for Steve Young to continually take over ballgames. This has been a arguably a better stretch than the four-year run that Jim Harbaugh brought this team out of the cellar.

However, that is where the 49ers currently reside in the NFC West. They are 5-7 and two games back of the Seattle Seahawks who are 7-5 on the season. These bitter rivals have already split their season series with the road team winning both games. With the Arizona Cardinals being much improved and the Los Angeles Rams not seeming to go away, somebody will have to finish last in this division, right?

I think it comes down to a combination of things for Shanahan and the 49ers. Losing one coordinator of note after another to bigger and better opportunities stings. I also think that John Lynch being able to operate without consequence throughout the draft process breathes in chaos to an otherwise stable situation. To me, Shanahan is answering for the mistakes others make around him.

Where I think Shanahan is going to get hurt in this is two-fold. His Super Bowl track record speaks for itself in a bad way. Doubt has set in that he may never be able to win the big one like his father Mike Shanahan did with John Elway and Terrell Davis in Denver. The other is for as brilliant of an offensive mind as he is, Shanahan is not a man of the people. His likability often fluctuates into the negative.

I would not fire him if I were running the 49ers, but I can understand why everyone is so frustrated.