Nevius: Super Bowl is Shanahan’s shot at redemption

SANTA CLARA - We know that Sunday's lopsided 37-20 takedown of Green Bay sends the 49ers to the Super Bowl. It also meant different things to different people.

For the Faithful fan base, it is a return to their birthright. Of course the guys are back at the Big One. It is in their DNA. The franchise has won five silver football-on-a-stick trophies and been to the roman numeral game six times.

For the players, it will be the opportunity of a career.

“We know we have one more game to be the champions of the world,” said DeForest Buckner. “We've got to take advantage of that.”

But for Kyle Shanahan, it will be a chance for something more.

Vindication.

As confetti swirled in the air around Levi's Stadium after the win, Terry Bradshaw had a question for team owner Jed York:

“Did you think, three years ago, this is where you would be?” Bradshaw asked.

It might not sound like it, but that was a loaded question. Three years ago, Shanahan was about to be introduced as the new 49ers head coach. But he was also coming off a disaster of a Super Bowl in 2017.

As Shanahan is surely tired of hearing (although he will hear it again in Miami), he was the offensive coordinator for the Falcons at that game. With a 25-point lead with three minutes left in the third quarter against the Patriots, Shanahan was brutally second-guessed for calling disastrous pass plays at the end of the game.

Needing to kill the clock with first downs, Shanahan had quarterback Matt Ryan attempt to pass instead of running the ball. Ryan fumbled once to set up a score and then took a sack on the next series that moved the team out of the range of a field goal that might have sealed the win.

The result was the Patriots won the game in overtime after one of the worst collapses in Super Bowl history.

At the time, it looked like it might be a career-defining calamity. Pundits wondered openly if the 49ers had made a mistake in choosing the 37-year-old who had never been a head coach before.

Well now Shanahan is taking his team back to the Big Dance, and I think we can safely say that he's gotten the memo about running the ball.

The game against the Packers was almost laughably earthbound. A whopping 42 rushing plays, not including kneel-downs at the end of the game.

“Forty-two times is awesome,” said George Kittle, who caught just one pass for 19 yards. “But let's count the kneel-downs too and make it 45.”

Counting the 47 times the team rushed the pigskin the previous weekend against Minnesota, the 49ers have unexpectedly morphed into the 1967 Packers. They passed the ball so little, it turned into a punch line.

“Could you,” a reporter asked quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, “take us through all eight passes?”

So no, this was not the game for Garoppolo to silence his doubters and convince the locals that he's a worthy heir to Joe Montana and Steve Young.

But on the other hand, nobody in the locker room seems to care. This is happiest, winningest bunch of goofballs to pull on shoulder pads.

Kittle retains the exuberance of a 6-year-old on a sugar high. Leaving the podium after his media session he encountered linebacker Fred Warner on his way to the stage. Kittle leaped into his arms with such force that he bopped Warner in the nose.

“He's a little excited,” Warner said, rubbing his snozz.

Kittle also wore a custom T-shirt with a beefcake photo of a shirtless Garoppolo to the presser. It seems the two of them have been creating dueling embarrassing T-shirts and this was the latest version.

What are you going to do? These guys are the NFL's fun bunch. Just ask 13-year veteran Joe Staley, who broke into an impromptu dance with teammate Mike McGlinchey after one of Raheem Mostert's four touchdown runs.

“I don't know what that was,” Staley said after the game. “I saw it on the screen afterwards. I don't even remember doing that. I was just pumped.”

But you can bet that no one appreciates this moment more than Shanahan. Everyone wants to go to the Super Bowl, but what you never imagine is that you're going to leave the game with some heavy baggage.

Now, with the chance to go back, he can write a different narrative for his career. With his ball cap on backwards when the game ended, he may have set a league record for full-body hugs - “And I'm sure I will feel those injuries tomorrow,” he joked.

But at his media session he also spoke of history. The 0-9 start his first year and then the miserable 4-12 last season. He recalled going to 49er games at Candlestick, with the crowd roaring, when he was in middle school.

“Then I get here and we hear everything is different (in the new stadium),” he said. “But the fans today were awesome.”

And now, he's not only got his team back to the world championship, he's got his kind of players.

“If you could pick the perfect people for what Kyle does,” said Richard Sherman, “it would be these guys.”

“I never had one meeting with one player saying ‘I need the ball more'” Shanahan said.

He has to be looking forward to this. A chance for a mulligan, a do-over at the Super Bowl. And don't think he isn't prepared for anything and everything.

You'll remember that the other story about Shanahan at the 2017 Super Bowl was that a Bay Area reporter accidently walked off with his backpack. Sunday that reporter asked him if he was going to bring that backpack to this Super Bowl.

“Yes,” he said. “And I'm going to lock it to my arm.”

He's ready.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius