It is coming up on three full years now and my how the paths have since diverged for two of the central figures in the Falcons run to a Super Bowl that, well, you know how that ended.
Dan Quinn and Kyle Shanahan were co-conspirators then – head coach and offensive coordinator – in a season of much offensive flurry for the Falcons. They scored at a record-setting pace and quarterback Matt Ryan had never, and has never, been more prolific. And he has the MVP trophy to prove it.
The two intersect again Sunday. Quinn is now the besieged head coach of the 4-9 Falcons, speculation of his firing rampant. And Shanahan in his third year as head coach of the 11-2 San Francisco 49ers, the sourdough toast of his town. At home, the 49ers are double-digit favorites.
They haven’t occupied the same field since Super Bowl LI. In that one, Shanahan at first appeared every bit the master play-caller as the Falcons broke to a 28-3 lead over New England, only to take the fall for trying to be too crafty instead of simply protecting that lead. The Falcons lost in overtime in the biggest Super Bowl collapse ever.
It is not a topic either man enjoys, but in talking to the Bay Area media via conference call Wednesday, Quinn kept the faith with his one-time assistant.
“There’s always criticism after the fact. But he made a hell of a lot of good calls, too,” Quinn said. “If there were one or two (calls) that he’d like to have back, well, that is in any game. I’d love to have any game rip and go like you want. But all of it, you learn from. And then you don’t really get to apply it until you’re in that moment again.
“The guy is a hell of a play-caller, and a hell of a football coach. I think he proved that then and continues to do that today.”
Asked Wednesday if his memories of his two seasons with the Falcons were at all shaded by his final game as coordinator, Shanahan only said, “Not at all.”
“I loved my time in Atlanta, loved the people I was there with,” he said. He said that working in Atlanta and working with Quinn was just the balm he needed after consecutive contentious postings in Washington and Cleveland.
The two obviously parted as fast friends, leading to some conjecture in the San Francisco area that Quinn might resurface on the Niners staff should the Falcons fire him.
When Shanahan speaks of what he picked up in his two seasons with Quinn (2015-16), he points more to the human interaction part of the job than the game-planning.
“Dan and I were a little different, personality-wise. He was always very upbeat, always positive,” Shanahan said. “I was always focused in on being a coordinator and the task at hand. It was cool to watch him run his team meetings, how he involved everyone, how entertaining they were, how loose he kept guys, how he communicated with everybody. I loved how he involved the Navy SEALs in what he did, involve a lot of boxing stuff in what he did, things that weren’t that big of a deal to me before I met Dan. But I saw how it cool was for him and I really gravitated to it, so did the players, and I’ve used it here.”
As Quinn teeters with the Falcons, Shanahan is basking in a big 49ers turnaround. He already has won more games this season (11) than in his first two seasons in San Francisco combined (10). In his first season with the Niners – he was named the coach the day after the Falcons Super Bowl collapse – he lost his first nine games. This season, by contrast, San Fran started 8-0.
No one here is going to quibble over his last play call as a Falcon. Coming off last Sunday, in which he won a battle of wits with New Orleans’ Sean Payton in a 48-46 shootout, Shanahan’s stock as an offensive savant has never been higher.
Ben Garland, the former Falcon now manning the line for the 49ers, speaks for locals when he says: “I think he’s a genius. He really understands defenses well and how to adjust. Being able to adapt and change with the game, as the game flows, is one of his best abilities.”
And then this: “Some of his meetings are the favorite meetings I go to. The way he explains things to the players, why we do stuff. Even if one play doesn’t seem like a good play, he’ll say this is why we run it because it sets up the other play for us that will be a huge play for us down the way.”
And according to 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, the mastermind is not taking Sunday off against his old friend and former boss. They apparently did not exhaust the playbook against the Saints. “The amount of plays we installed today was insane. Might have been a season high. It was crazy,” Juszczyk said Wednesday.
“Believe it or not, there’s a lot left. They’re not backing down, this is not a game we’re taking lightly or overlooking,” he said.
This San Francisco offense is not performing at quite the level as Shanahan’s 2016 Falcons unit, but it is not terribly far off. In 2016, the Falcons led league in scoring at 33.8 points per game, and were second in yards per game at 415.2. The 2019 Niners are just off that pace this season – second in the league in scoring at 30.5 points per game and fourth in total offense with 388.6 yards per game.
Oh, and Shanahan’s old team in Atlanta is scoring about a touchdown less a game, 23.1 points, than his current one.
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo said that when he joined up with Shanahan, he “watched a ton of Atlanta tape to learn this offense, to kind of learn the rhythm of it, the footwork of it.
“I’ve seen a ton of Matt Ryan tape over the last couple of years.”
As to whether they’re approximating what the Falcons did in 2016, Garoppolo said: “That offense was rolling the entire year, through the playoffs. Obviously, it’s a benchmark for us but we’re a different team.”
It’s just all going so well for Shanahan and his offense these days. Very much like it was three years ago, with one notable exception.
