Kyle Shanahan hoists the Lombardi Trophy high enough for the football gods to use as a toothpick. Little Shanny bear-hugs quarterback Arch Manning and wideout Luke McCaffrey, his co-MVPs. Then the three get busy picking orange and blue confetti out of smiles they can see from the windows of the ISS.
The Broncos win Super Bowl LXV to launch a new Shanahan Dynasty, and the circle of NFL life completes itself. This one? This one’s for Mike.
“You know what? Crazier things have happened,” Zach Zucker, Kyle Shanahan’s longtime pal/confidant and Shanny’s former Cherry Creek football teammate, told me with a laugh a few days ago.
“Who knows? In five years, if the right opportunity comes along …”
Shanny Week is almost upon us, that annual rite of passage where we see a whole bunch of people with Denver ties getting ready to play in the Super Bowl.
Only since those people work for the San Francisco 49ers and not the Broncos, the knives come out. Front Range families pick sides over whether John Elway or Joe Ellis is more at fault, and X turns into Thanksgiving before an election year.
It’s also the week in which Zucker has to hold his tongue like a loaf of bread, lest he fumble and the truth spills out.
“To be honest with you, I’m kind of like, ‘I know too much,’” he chuckled. “I just kind of keep my mouth shut. (Or) Kyle will kill me.”
History says the Broncos interviewed Little Shanny and Vance Joseph in January 2017 for their post-Kubiak head-coaching vacancy, and picked the latter. History says the decision helped banish one NFL blueblood (the Broncos) to the NFL hinterlands while opening the door for another (the 49ers) to rise from the ashes.
The truth? The Broncos were too screwed up seven years ago for Little Shanny to kiss the sky here.
Only they didn’t know it. Or if they did, they didn’t care.
Too many egos. Too little space. Too little time. Paxton Lynch. Dove Valley still had a Super Bowl glow, its gatekeepers a Super Bowl hubris. Elway rode an elite, historic defense to the title and never quite shook free from that vision as the way forward. Even though multiple sources said Kyle hit his interview with the Broncos out of about five ballparks.
Right guy.
Wrong time.
“It’s not so simple,” Zucker explained. “Listen, I feel bad for the Broncos that they didn’t get Kyle, obviously.
“At that point and time, the Broncos were in a much better place. They were rocking, coming off Super Bowls. When Kyle went to interview with San Francisco, they were the worst team in the league — worst offense, worst defense, worst special teams, worst everything. It was a complete start-over.”
In a weird way, it wasn’t dissimilar to Deion Sanders weighing the CU Buffs versus say, Ole Miss, South Carolina, or any other SEC middleweight. Here, Coach Prime’s the program, the face, the front porch, the demigod. There, he’s got better money, better recruits, better facilities, better infrastructure, better opponents — and expectations through the stinking roof.
In Columbia or Oxford, 4-8 gets you fired. In Boulder, it gets you a Sports Illustrated cover. Context matters.
“I would’ve absolutely loved Kyle to be here in Denver,” Zucker continued. “I just think it would’ve been a lot — for a lot of different reasons.
“Can you imagine walking in on that (franchise), coming behind your dad, and that whole thing, and how much respect the whole town had for (former Broncos coach) Mike Shanahan? There was no bones about it: We called (Mike), ‘The Man.’”
Dad raised the bar. Gary Kubiak matched it. The Niners, meanwhile, had crashed and burned after Jim Harbaugh bolted from the Bay, bottoming out with a 2-14 dumpster fire in the fall of 2016.
San Fran gave Kyle a willing partner in ex-Bronco John Lynch as general manager, power, and a long runway. Ellis and Elway saw the Orange & Blue in 2017 as a dynasty at its apex, with so many pieces from a two-time Super Bowl roster still locked into place.
“Everything is timing, right?” Zucker said. “It was just a situation (where) I think Kyle had great memories of being in (the Bay), it was in middle school when he’d spent a lot of time there. It was just an opportunity. The other thing I can tell you is that Kyle just absolutely loves (Niners CEO) Jed (York). Jed has just given him an opportunity to do what he’s doing, and look what’s happened? Two NFC championships.”
Two Super Bowls. Three straight NFC title game appearances. Four seasons of 10 wins or more since 2019. Everything Broncos Country ever dreamed of. And still do.
“It is what it is,” Zucker said. “Everything happens for a reason. Kyle ended up, everybody ended up, where they were supposed to be. My feeling is, everything happened for a reason. Kyle was meant to be in San Francisco.”
Forever? Who knows? In five years, George Kittle might decide to bail on football to captain the U.S. curling team. Come back, Kyle. All is forgiven.
“I just learned, being around the Shanahan family (from) a very young age, you never put anything out of the realm,” Zucker said. He laughed again. “Things can happen.”
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
