The 49ers and Rams were both in need of new coaches after the 2016 season. San Francisco was an abysmal 2-14 that year and in need of a complete organizational overhaul. Los Angeles was in perhaps a tougher boat since they went 4-12 after selecting quarterback Jared Goff first overall in that year’s draft.
Both clubs found coaches who have had a ton of success, but there’s a universe where the Rams are the ones that wind up with Kyle Shanahan. Things may very well have turned out that way if not for some wild weather on the East Coast.
Rams general manager Les Snead said on ‘The Playcallers,’ a podcast from the Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue, that a snow storm grounded team brass and kept them from getting to their interview with Shanahan, who was then the offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl-bound Falcons.
“We couldn’t get there,” Snead told Rodrigue. “We did ask Kyle, ‘hey would you like to FaceTime?’ He didn’t really want to do that. So at that point in time we passed on the interview. That weather event and whatever occurred because of it, it definitely changed the course of the NFC West.”
The 49ers had strong interest in McVay during that hiring cycle and had a long interview with him. There aren’t that many deviations in the present timeline necessary to reach a world where the 49ers and Rams wound up swapped coaches with McVay joining San Francisco and Shanahan heading to LA.
How things would’ve worked out in that scenario is impossible to know. The two teams were in such different places at that point, and with McVay in the Bay Area it’s likely John Lynch wouldn’t have wound up in the front office – and the list could go on from there.
For now the 49ers are in a good spot with Super Bowl hopes on their mind for the fourth time in five years. And while they don’t have a Super Bowl trophy, it’s hard to imagine they regret how things played out.
