2024 Super Bowl: It’s time that Mike Shanahan got his due in the Pro Football Hall of Fame

By winning Super Bowl LVIII, Mike and Kyle Shanahan would make history by becoming the first father-son duo to win Super Bowls as head coaches. If the San Francisco 49ers do happen to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, Mike and Kyle Shanahan should make more history sometime down the road by becoming the first father-son duo to receive Hall of Fame busts as head coaches. 

OK, anointing Kyle as a future Hall of Fame coach might be premature, even if the 49ers dethrone the champs next Sunday night. But as far as his dad is concerned, a spot among the NFL’s elite is long overdue. 

Shanahan’s back-to-back titles won as the Denver Broncos head coach should alone be enough to get him to Canton, Ohio. The specifics behind those titles, the work he did before that in San Francisco and his impressive coaching tree solidify his case. 

While they did have some stars like John Elway and Shannon Sharpe already in place, the Broncos’ offense during their back-to-back run was largely built with castoffs and low-round picks acquired by Shanahan, who was also the team’s VP of football operations back then. 

Future Hall of Fame running back Terrell Davis, the backbone of those championship teams who flourished inside Shanahan’s zone-blocking system, was a sixth-round pick during Shanahan’s first draft in Denver. Three-time Pro Bowl receiver Rod Smith was an undrafted rookie that same year. Denver’s starting lineup also included former 10th-round picks Mark Schlereth and Brian Habib, seventh-round pick Tom Nalen and a former 49ers backup receiver named Ed McCaffrey, the dad of current 49ers star running back Christian McCaffrey. 

Shanahan was also quite the salesman. He talked highly-coveted free agent fullback Howard Griffith into signing with Denver during the 1997 offseason. Shanahan did the unthinkable that same offseason when he convinced Neil Smith, who until that point had spent his entire career…

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Author : Bryan DeArdo

Publish date : 2024-02-04 15:04:38

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