There have been a lot of brilliant coaching performances in 2025. Mike Vrabel has transformed the Patriots into the AFC’s most-fearsome team, Ben Johnson is turning the Bears into a contender, and Shane Steichen has unlocked Daniel Jones on the Colts, to return them to prominence. As good as these performances have been, Kyle Shanahan has been better — and as it stands he’s being criminally underrated.

At time of writing Shanny is currently 8th in odds to win AP Coach of the Year on Fanduel, nestled between Liam Coen of the Jaguars and Sean McVay in Los Angeles. Granted, this is just the view of the betting community — which doesn’t have a bearing on final voting, but it does shine a light on the public perception of the coaches in the league this year. There appears to be a very strong bias toward building bad teams into good ones, and no appreciation for what Shanahan and the 49ers have achieved this season — which is not only play dramatically better football, but do so while navigating and mitigating more misfortune than any other team.

This hasn’t just been Shanahan’s best season as San Francisco’s coach, it’s been one of the best coaching performances of the last 20 years.

Just how much have the 49ers improved this year?

When we get down to brass tacks the 49ers are a much better football team in 2025 than they were last year. A large part of this has been the return of Robert Saleh as defensive coordinator, who is unquestionably one of the best football minds in the NFL — but it goes beyond that to the offensive side of the ball as well.

San Francisco ranks 5th in the league in passing yards and 9th in passing touchdowns (7th average) — up from 4th and 15th in 2024 (9th average). It’s not really pertinent to compare the running game due to Christian McCaffrey’s lost season, and the return of the run game has certainly helped the pass — but this improvement happened in spite of Brock Purdy’s turf toe, and being forced to turn to Mac Jones.

Naturally the running game improved as well, and in totality that has caused the 49ers to rise to score 23.6 points per game this season, marginally up from last year — but critically the team is allowing 4.9 fewer points per game this season, making them a top-10 defense, whereas last year they were 29th.

It isn’t just these rudimentary statistical improvements the team has either, but in advanced analytics as well. At RSBDM the 49ers have the 10th ranked offense in EPA/play, and the 24th ranked defense in EPA/play allowed. These represent more improvements over 2024 where the team was 11th in offense, and 26th in defense.

Finally there’s the most simple stat: Wins. If we look at the remaining schedule the 49ers should wind up at worst being 10-7 (beating the hapless Titans), and more likely finishing 12-5 with wins over Tennessee, Chicago, and Indianapolis.

These improvements are so darn impressive

The mammoth injury issues go without saying. The challenges the 49ers have faced this season have been pronounced, as much of the league has been dealing with horrible absences as well — but where teams like the Bengals and Commanders crumbled, San Francisco rose above. This is the strongest, clearest example of coaching prowess, because it shows just how well Shanahan and his staff were able to alter their offensive and defensive game plans to succeed with the players they had, not the ones they wish they had.

This might seem basic, but it’s something an astonishing number of coaches fail to do well. Instead of reshaping a phase of football, they neuter it — removing all plays from the book that can’t work, and simply limp along knowing nobody will blame them for the losses as a result. Shanahan never settled for mediocrity, refused to let his staff punt on the season, and turned a team that could have easily been forgiven going 6-11, into one that should make the playoffs.

Oh, and the 49ers did all this while playing an absolutely brutal schedule compared to 2024. Partly due to the strength of the NFC West, but also based on tough non-division opponents, the 49ers have played the third-most difficult schedule in the NFC this season at a +5.3 strength of schedule rating — compared to +1.6 a year ago.

This defies all logic. A team should not be playing better football on both sides of the ball, while dealing with more injuries, and playing a tougher schedule. It’s here the masterclass in coaching really emerges.

What exactly has been different?

Naturally on offense it’s been the return of McCaffrey, but there’s been tremendous nuance added to the passing game — particularly with Purdy. San Francisco reigned in Purdy’s deep ball a little by shortening the routes. This has manifested by intended air yards dropping to 7.5 this season, down from 8.4 a year ago. This might seem minute, but this is a significant offensive change overall.

That has manifested itself in two important ways: Firstly, Purdy’s time to release has increased, which seems counterintuitive at first glance. Last year his time to throw averaged 2.69 seconds, and this year it’s up to 2.97 seconds. That additional time has lead to more patience in the pocket for the QB, and caused him to lets plays develop more. This has happened in spite of being under pressure more often. Essentially what this means is that Shanahan and Co. have preached quality over quantity in the passing game, impressing on Purdy that making any play is more critical to attempting an explosive play and failing.

Secondly we’ve seen play action utilized far more often as a strategy to open up the passing game. If we go back to 2023 when McCaffrey was on the field we saw the Purdy and the 49ers run 93 plays out of play action in 444 attempts — or 21% of dropbacks. In 2025 that’s swelled to 37 attempts in 160 — or 23% of dropbacks. This is an adjustment to Brandon Aiyuk not being on the field.

In their totality these are all minor, incremental tweaks that has retained the identity of 49ers football, but intelligently adapted it to mitigate injuries and absences. This ability to fine tune the offense is a mark of brilliant coaching, without overcorrecting and making too many adjustments that muddy the offense.

In a year of great coaches, Shanahan is on another level

This isn’t about denigrating the job guys like Vrabel or Johnson have done, and more appreciating just how brilliant Kyle Shanahan has been this season. Nobody has been dealt a worse hand, and somehow crafted his cards into a winner. From organizing his staff, to tweaking the game plan on the field — this has been a masterclass.

Shanahan has gotten so much production from unlikely places, and had positioned the 49ers as a playoff team in 2025. It could very well be another flame out early in the playoffs, because let’s face it: A lot of the talent is on the bench right now. However, none of that will be due to Shanny, which is something we haven’t been able to say about the 49ers in the past.

There is no doubt in my mind that Shanahan should be the coach of the year in 2025, though he’ll likely get snubbed.