play0:4849ers confident Fred Warner would play in NFC Title GameNick Wagoner explains why the 49ers are confident Fred Warner will return next week should the team advance past the Seahawks.
Nick WagonerJan 17, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseNick Wagoner is an NFL reporter at ESPN. Nick has covered the San Francisco 49ers since 2016, having previously covered the St. Louis Rams for 12 years, including three years (2013 to 2015) at ESPN. In over a decade with the company, Nick has led ESPN’s coverage of the Niners’ 2019 and 2023 Super Bowl run, Colin Kaepernick’s protest, the Rams making Michael Sam the first openly gay player drafted to the NFL, Sam’s subsequent pursuit of a roster spot and the team’s relocation and stadium saga.Follow on X
Stephen A. has some high praise for Kyle Shanahan (1:23)Stephen A. Smith gives 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan his flowers after the team’s playoff win over the Eagles. (1:23)
49ers confident Fred Warner would play in NFC Title GameNick Wagoner explains why the 49ers are confident Fred Warner will return next week should the team advance past the Seahawks.
Nick Wagoner explains why the 49ers are confident Fred Warner will return next week should the team advance past the Seahawks.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Four days before Christmas and the night before playing the Indianapolis Colts, Kyle Shanahan stood in front of his San Francisco 49ers team in a meeting room at the JW Marriott Hotel in Indianapolis delivering a message unlike any other this season.
Before the 2024 season’s injury-plagued 6-11 drop-off, punching a ticket to the playoffs had become common for many 49ers players, something that could be taken for granted. That falloff only made it all the sweeter when Shanahan informed this year’s edition — equally plagued by injury and resetting on the fly after a massive offseason roster overhaul — that their return to the postseason was official.
Shanahan uttering the word “playoffs” in 2025 meant more largely because he had spent the previous eight months avoiding the topic. While players knew they had clinched a spot in the playoffs, Shanahan told the Niners the ultimate goal was back in play and the room erupted.
“It was the first time he openly said to the team, ‘We can win a Super Bowl,'” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “That was a huge moment. … I feel like that showed how Kyle has been energized by how we have developed this season and how we have responded to everything that’s happened. Early in the season, he was like, ‘I don’t know what type of team we are.’ And once we clinched it, he’s like, ‘I know exactly what team we are.'”
In fact, the Niners managed to win 12 regular-season games, the same amount they won in 2023 with a loaded roster and came within one play of winning Super Bowl LVIII.
Since arriving in 2017, Shanahan has led the Niners to two Super Bowls, four NFC Championship Games and three NFC West division titles. Despite his previous success, the players who know him best believe Shanahan has been reenergized by the challenge of squeezing the most out of a team that has defied its hardships to play the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC divisional round on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, Fox). Some believe it’s his best season yet.
The recipe for Shanahan’s coaching opus this season can be found in his evolving interactions with players and day-to-day messaging, the increased efforts to delegate and empower his staff and veteran leaders, and his continued focus on X’s and O’s excellence.
It’s what made last week’s wild-card win against the No. 3 seed Philadelphia Eagles possible after losing TE George Kittle to an Achilles injury before halftime.
Shanahan is now 9-4 in the postseason, surpassing his father, Mike, in playoff wins, and one more would tie him with Bill Walsh and George Seifert for the most in franchise history. Entering Saturday, the Niners have never lost a wild-card or divisional round game in seven tries under Shanahan.
“By far,” McKivitz said. “The coach of the year shouldn’t be a question. With what we’ve had as a team injurywise, all the roster changes and everything, everyone counted us out this year. … For us to be where we are, it speaks volumes to the coach he is.”
49ers confident Fred Warner would play in NFC Title Game
AFTER THE OFFSEASON exodus, Shanahan knew that more change was needed than just the names on the roster.
He invited veterans — such as Kittle, Juszczyk and Warner — who had been with the team for three-plus years to his house in the spring. There, Shanahan empowered team leaders to take ownership of their roles. If this team was going to go anywhere, Shanahan needed the Super Bowl-or-bust mindset to be cast aside and all hands on deck to help the young players improve.
“I wanted to get the guys together to really explain that this team is [going to be] a little bit different,” Shanahan told ESPN in August. “It’s completely new and you guys need to understand that this team’s not just going to fall in line and be like you were.
After rehiring Robert Saleh as defensive coordinator and bringing veteran coach Gus Bradley in as assistant head coach, Shanahan delegated responsibilities in different ways.
Shanahan stepped back and let Saleh take the reins of the defense after years of cycling through coordinators such as Steve Wilks, who was unfamiliar with the scheme the Niners prefer, or Nick Sorensen, who was in his first year in the role.
In the past, the Saturday night meeting began around 8:30 p.m. with Shanahan showing the defense a highlight reel of 30 to 40 plays from the previous week’s game. That would take 45 minutes to an hour.
This year, Shanahan briefly steps in front of the team and then cedes the floor to Bradley, a coaching lifer with more than 20 years of experience coaching in the NFL. Bradley will then launch into a story that usually doesn’t have anything to do with football but has everything to do with life.
The stories range from tales of fishing with his son to going on a roller coaster with friends, among other seemingly normal activities. The Niners won after Bradley’s first storytelling opportunity and Shanahan hasn’t looked back since.
“We’re in and out of a team meeting now in 15-20 minutes,” Kittle said. “And I’ve never experienced that since he’s been doing the film stuff since 2019. He’s evolving and just adapting with the times, and it’s just kind of fun to see that.”
WHEN SHANAHAN DOES speak to the team, he’s dishing out more compliments than in the past — or at least trying to.
According to Shanahan, the credit for that goes to his wife, Mandy — with Kittle also claiming to have a role in it. Both have encouraged Shanahan to lean into the power of positivity. While players appreciate what Kittle calls Shanahan’s “brutal honesty,” there’s also value in encouraging words, particularly for a team with many young players.
For example, Kittle notes that in 2022, Shanahan ripped the offense apart after a 22-point win against Carolina in which it had nearly 400 yards of offense. After this season’s 16-point loss to the Los Angeles Rams, Shanahan showed clips of the team playing with high effort and intent, a reminder that the performance wasn’t as bad as the final score would indicate. Kittle says Shanahan’s balance of coaching hard and being complimentary is “something new he hasn’t done in years past.”
Rookie defensive tackle Alfred Collins, a second-round pick out of Texas, got off to a slow start after injuries in the spring and training camp. When he made a play or even just improved his technique, Shanahan made sure to call it out.
“He will commend me or say good job for doing something right but then always be like, ‘There’s more to be done and you can do this even better,'” Collins said. “I like how he just never lets us settle. … I want to be great. And you can’t be great if you just stay with what makes you good.”
Lest anyone believes Shanahan has gone soft, there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. After San Francisco’s 34-24 win against the New York Giants on Nov. 2, Shanahan ignored Christian McCaffrey’s 173 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns when doling out in-house player of the week awards.
“He’s always just finding ways to make sure you have that little chip on your shoulder, that little something extra that you might need that week,” McCaffrey said.
Occasionally, disagreements are more serious. Aiyuk’s refusal to take part in mandatory rehab sessions and eventual departure from the team could have been a distraction, but Shanahan repeatedly made clear that any player not in the building was not part of his focus.
One such issue spilled over to the sideline in a Week 6 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Television cameras captured Shanahan in a heated exchange with receiver Jauan Jennings late in the first half.
Coming off a frustrating training camp marked by injury and a contract stalemate and then a series of ailments accumulating in the first month and a half, Jennings grew increasingly frustrated that he wasn’t getting the ball. In turn, Shanahan was frustrated by Jennings’ frustration.
The argument continued into the locker room where Shanahan and Jennings calmed down before they could get together and squash it the next day. In 12 games since, Jennings has set a career high with eight touchdown catches and threw a touchdown pass in the wild-card win against Philadelphia.
“I probably could have done a better job of ignoring it and staying away instead of joining in and fighting with him,” Shanahan said. “It was a little immature of myself, but there were things that were bothering me.
“But, when you know someone and they know you too, you can usually get through that stuff. I think we both, after it, realized that that was so unnecessary. … I think it helped us.”
THE NINERS ENTERED their Week 5 Thursday night meeting against the Rams without Bosa, quarterback Brock Purdy or any receivers or tight ends who caught a pass for them in 2024. They were 8.5-point underdogs playing on a short week and, despite being 3-1, reeling from a loss to Jacksonville.