The San Francisco 49ers need to do something different offensively.
Last season they were one of the best outfits in the NFL. This season they’ve sputtered on that side of the ball. Injuries certainly played a role, but it doesn’t appear that whatever the 49ers have been doing offensively can work without players like Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk available and playing at a high level.
Those struggles, including 10 points in each of Week 12 and 13, followed by a six-point performance in Week 15, have led to questions about the viability of Shanahan’s offense as presently constructed. Shanahan said any adaptations to his offense will be based on what’s best for the team’s personnel.
“That’s what you try to do every single week,” Shanahan said. “That’s what you try to always do. But it’s kind of like the other question when talking about schemes, you don’t just say, ‘Hey, today I’m going to try to run the wishbone offense and stuff.’ It’s what are the players that you have, what do you believe in and what gives those guys the best chance to succeed? For a little bit here, we almost went with the running quarterback, possibly with [Dallas Cowboys QB] Trey [Lance]. You saw a different offense when he got out there.
“You see different things. You’ve got to adjust your players. I know what I want to do. I think we’ve got the players here to do that stuff. But reinventing yourself as you ask, I did that having a mustache this offseason for a little bit. That’s how I would look at that. And I’m totally joking, but it’s when it comes to football, football’s, that’s why I think coaches get a little too much credit too when a really good scheme is putting the players that you have in the best chance they have to max out and do their best. That’s what we’re gonna always try to do. The scheme will change with that.”
It stands to reason in 2025 we’ll see less reliance on McCaffrey given the team’s issues scoring in the red zone without him this season. There’s also likely to be an adjustment to a version of Samuel that hasn’t been able to take over games via screen passes and designed runs.
Whatever changes need to be made on offense for the 49ers, adapting isn’t something new to Shanahan.
“When I got in the league, you see certain things and I ran a certain offense at Houston when I was there, went to Washington, tried to do a real similar offense and it was totally different personnel and I realized I couldn’t run that same thing and I had to adjust and each year was different,” Shanahan said. “Then we got [Washington Commanders former QB] Robert [Griffin III] in there, which was a quarterback who had a running element, then I had to do stuff that I’d never done before. Not because you’re just reinventing yourself or trying to change the league because you’re trying to figure out what can help the guys that you have be successful. And that can change all the time depending on the player’s skillset.
“But, I’d say as a coach that if you want to make it in this league and you want to have some success in this league you better be able to adjust to anything or you’re only going to be successful when you have the perfect situations.”
