Kyle Shanahan is starting to feel the heat from San Francisco 49ers' rabid fanbase

For as up and down as the San Francisco 49ers have been as a franchise ever since Steve Young retired, we are firmly in the midst of a second mountain of relevance with the Bay Area football team of note. Kyle Shanahan has been one of the better head coaches in the NFL since coming aboard in the 2017 NFL offseason after a brilliant two-year run as the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator.

He may be the son of a two-time Super Bowl-winning head coach in Mike Shanahan, but Kyle has more than earned his owned way in his professional coaching career. In fact, anyone who is worth a damn tries to hire someone off the McVay/Shanahan coaching tree whenever they can. However, we are starting to see it begin to unravel on Shanahan in his seventh season on the job in San Francisco.

The NFC West is the most up-for-grabs division in football. Every team in that division is either 6-5 or 5-6. San Francisco has lost two games in a row and finds itself in the cellar of the division it won a year ago en route to the Super Bowl. San Francisco is clearly experiencing the Super Bowl hangover, while the Kansas City Chiefs find new and creative ways to win games without playing all that great.

What I am getting at is people are seeing the talent on display in San Francisco being under-coached.

No, The Yorks are not going to fire Shanahan, but 49ers fans know what I know: He has limitations...

San Francisco 49ers fans are starting to finally turn on Kyle Shanahan

I will give Shanahan some benefit of the doubt. He has suffered major coaching attrition in recent years. Mike McDaniel and DeMeco Ryans are NFL head coaches, and Robert Saleh was only a few months ago. Losing one great position coach or coordinator after another and expecting to replace him with someone just as good is why great eras of football teams, college or pro, come to an end.

What I cannot get past with this era of 49ers football is how much Shanahan shrinks in the big moment, refusing to adapt from his scheme he deems gospel, as well as how often general manager John Lynch gets to operate without consequence, seemingly throwing darts at balloons on the wall when it comes to making draft picks. This partnership has worked well, but it has been incongruent.

The late-round steals that Lynch hits on and Shanahan develops has kept this team's Super Bowl window more open than most teams in a similar situation could keep alive. Conversely, you have to take advantage of these precious moments when you have the chance. San Francisco fell ass-backward into the Super Bowl last year. It eventually caught up to them in the big game yet again.

For as great of a play-caller as Shanahan is and for how good of a feel he has on the pulse of this team, he is starting to become yesterday's news in NFL coaching circles. John Harbaugh, Andy Reid and Mike Tomlin have been able to stay employed for even longer than Shanahan because of how steady they are. What I am getting at is Shanahan has a reputation for getting teams to sour on him.

I don't think the message is getting stale, but I am afraid the rest of the league is catching up to him.