Don’t start with the San Francisco 49ers needing to fire Kyle Shanahan or John Lynch. Those two are not going anywhere.

The 49ers lost to the Green Bay Packers 38-10. It was a game where they had enough opportunities to win. While their playoff hopes are not over officially, the remaining schedule is tough, and this might be too deep a hole to dig out of.

And this is the time that everyone will say Shanahan is on some undocumented hot seat, the 49ers should blow the whole thing up, John Lynch needs to go, blah, blah, blah.

To even think that’s a good idea is nonsense. Teams are praying the 49ers would do something that stupid. Because if Kyle Shanahan was let go today, he’d be on a team tomorrow, perhaps one that fired their head coach immediately to have him.

When Jim Harbaugh “mutually parted ways” with the 49ers after an 8-8 season, the argument was that he took them to three NFC Championship games in a row, one of which led to a Super Bowl. This transformation into an NFC powerhouse was immediate, with a roster inherited through the Mike Singletary years.

Kyle Shanahan has taken the 49ers to four NFC Championship games and two Super Bowls. With a roster he built.

Before Shanahan arrived, it wasn’t an underachieving locker room like the one in Harbaugh’s case. Shanahan told 49ers owner Jed York the roster was terrible and went to work building what was needed. George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, even trades for Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams; Shanahan’s doing. Do you think all those names would be on the team, or the 49ers would have been a superpower all this time if Shanahan wasn’t here?

So not only has Shanahan taken the team to three NFC Championships and a Super Bowl over the last three years, he’s also built a roster to compete through the draft. Yes, the draft. Contrary to popular belief, the 49ers draft well.

2024 is a frustrating disappointment for several reasons: injuries, training camp holdouts, personal reasons for some players, and even the undisciplined way the team plays, with numerous drive-killing penalties on offense and a defense having issues getting off on 3rd down.

But one bad season, with many things out of Shanahan’s control, isn’t a reason to fire a head coach who has built this roster and demonstrated he can win.

Of course, there is an alternative. What happened after the 49ers fired Harbaugh? If you remember, that was a merry-go-round of coaches. First, it was Jim Tomsula, with #fartgate being the highlight of the season. The 49ers managed only five wins all season and weren’t nearly as depleted via injuries. They were just bad, spearheaded by a historically atrocious offense.

Then, after one year, Chip Kelly was hired to replace Tomsula. The 49ers went the other direction with a league-historically lousy defense. Jim O’Neil etched himself into the 49ers’ history book for being arguably the worst defensive coordinator in team history.

We all have issues with current defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen, but that’s a whole new level he’d have to descend to compete with that.

Do any of you want to go back to that? Revolving doors of coaches? Dysfunction between the front office and the coaching staff? Not having a shot at the playoffs each year? The 49ers at least had a shot this year, which is more than we can say about the Tomsula and Kelly squads.

I sure as hell don’t. Not one part of me as a fan says, “Oh yes, let’s go back to that.”

Now, that doesn’t mean there doesn’t need to be changes this offseason, either big or small. The 49ers’ special teams have been an absolute mess, and any draft picks need to be taken with the potential to re-tool the special teams. Special teams coordinator Brian Schneider can’t be in the team’s good graces, given how his squads have cost the 49ers numerous games in 2024 and probably the Super Bowl in 2023.

Then there’s the defensive line. I’m not saying Kris Kocurek is a bad defensive line coach (he isn’t), but the Wide-9 needs to be either reworked or dropped. It’s obvious the 49ers cannot get the pressure they need using it. It might have worked with DeForest Buckner, Nick Bosa, and others on the squad, but it doesn’t work now. If you don’t have the depth to run it when someone goes down, that’s an accident waiting to happen.

Does Nick Sorensen get his papers? Robert Saleh was in that same position in 2018. Everyone wanted him gone; he got another year. He’s a Shanahan guy, so assume that will be what happens. Brandon Staley? That’s a different conversation. We don’t know what the plan is until the season ends.

Then there’s the offense. Kyle Shanahan’s offense. Shanahan isn’t going anywhere, but he does need to look at his offense and adapt. Teams have found a way to make things difficult on the 49ers. The Seahawks found a way to give the 49ers offense fits in the red zone, which won’t go away for the foreseeable future. It might help to surround himself with people who can continually challenge his offense if he isn’t already.

We saw the offense move across the field in many games but got no points. On Sunday against the Packers, we watched a 4th-and-2 call set up an empty backfield. Shanahan doesn’t need an offensive coordinator but someone who can quickly challenge a play call like that and possibly get a change. I hate to bring up Greg Roman, the 49ers offensive coordinator when Harbaugh ran things (due to how many delay of games or burned timeouts), but there needs to be someone there whispering in Shanahan’s ear. The 49ers have set up their red zone this year with some head-scratching run plays that put them into an immediate rut. They need something better, and it needs to be someone who will work well with Shanahan and challenge him occasionally.

I’m listing off ideas and changes the 49ers should consider for 2025. So yes, there should be changes. But no, Kyle Shanahan should not be fired for the 2024 season. Not when he’s had a roster and front office removed from the dysfunction we all have seen. There’s no reason to do so.

Of course, we can’t predict the future. We can look at Shanahan’s resume and say there’s no reason to fire a coach that took his team to an NFC Championship three times in a row, one of which led to a Super Bowl, and say it’s time to move on.

It’s not. Not yet. His teams do have issues, namely disappointing you, but all teams do. Some teams haven’t had the playoff consistency the 49ers have had in decades. Shanahan dug this team out of a subpar roster and made it competitive again. Do you really want the 49ers to throw all of that away?