Over the last few years, we’ve heard several reports on the interviews between San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York and head coach Kyle Shanahan when the latter was still an offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons. Details of the interview are scarce, but until this week hit, we had just one nugget from an Athletic article that ran awhile back that really encompassed the whole process:
“He was very honest with you,” York said, before pausing, clearly deliberating whether or not he should share Shanahan’s exact quote. York refrained from that but did say that Shanahan “wasn’t very complimentary.”
There wasn’t much of that roster to compliment. The 49ers offense was going off Chip Kelly’s hurry-up, one-formation style. And the defense? Historically bad. We don’t need to go into that one.
The media caught up to York and got some comments. Most of them you can find on the 49ers site via videos, but there are a few others that weren’t filmed:
“He told me how much he loved our roster at the time and how talented our roster was,” 49ers owner Jed York on his initial interview with Kyle Shanahan.
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) January 24, 2020
York was being sarcastic: Shanahan actually unapologetically told York that 49ers’ roster was terrible; York respected that
There’s a lot of situations where telling a prospective employer what they want to hear is the best course of action. There’s also the upfront honesty of talking about what doesn’t work or what you really think the state of a company is in. The trick here isn’t just what you’re saying but how you’re saying it.
Regardless of what was said or how it was articulated, this is one of those interviews; I wish we could get more details from what was asked and how Shanahan responded. We all know that after John Lynch and Shanahan were hired that the Great Roster Purge of 2017 began, so they weren’t too high on much carryover.
Hopefully, if the 49ers win the Super Bowl, we’ll get an America’s Game episode where a segment is dedicated to “The Interview” where we have back and forth from Shanahan/York recalling what was said to get him the job.