This Sunday, the 49ers and Rams will write the newest chapter in their NFC West rivalry. Like every rivalry, these California foes have seen ebbs and flows in success since the Rams’ move back to Los Angeles, and while players have come and gone from both sides of the battle, the two generals remain.
Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay have faced off 18 times leading their respective teams, with Shanahan currently holding an 11–7 edge over McVay. But those head-to-head matchups only tell part of the story of the rivalry between these two sides.
While both men first got their shot at a top NFL job in 2017, their history goes back further.
Coming from football families, both McVay and Shanahan were able to get an early start in the NFL
Both McVay and Shanahan grew up living and breathing football.
McVay’s grandfather John coached the New York Giants in the 1970s and served as the general manager of the 49ers during their run of championships spanning the ’80s and early ‘90s. Shanahan entered the top job in San Francisco as the son of the legendary coach Mike Shanahan, a football lifer who could be a Hall of Famer by the time the next vote comes around.
But while both McVay and Shanahan had familial ties help the start of their NFL careers, both had also made quite an impact of their own. McVay was known across the league as something of a wunderkind, when a guy first takes on an NFL sideline as an offensive assistant at just 22 years old and is not immediately devoured by the wolves, people take notice.
After a year with the Buccaneers and a brief stint in the UFL, McVay landed in Washington, hired by the elder Shanahan and working alongside the younger Shanahan, who would be his division rival a decade later. McVay worked as the tight ends coach in Washington while Kyle served as the offensive coordinator.
While the 2013 team would not find success on the field, it did produce one of the most impressive slates of future head coaches the NFL ever saw.
The Washington coaching staff in 2013 featured 4 assistants who are now NFL HCs whose teams went to the Playoffs this year, and DB Coach Raheem Morris was just hired by the Falcons over Bill Belichick. The team went 3-13. pic.twitter.com/Trmgnr92yR
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) January 25, 2024
When Mike Shanahan was let go by Washington ahead of the 2014 season, Kyle left the team as well, and McVay was promoted to offensive coordinator. While Mike was officially out of coaching, Kyle went on to serve as OC for the Browns for one year and then jumped to the Falcons, where he helped turn Matt Ryan and the Atlanta offense into Super Bowl contenders.
His time with the Falcons peaked with a 28–3 lead over Tom Brady and the Patriots with less than 20 minutes to play in Super Bowl LI. Unfortunately, his time with the Falcons would bottom out over those next few minutes. Shanahan, who was already lined up to jump to San Francisco, received plenty of grief for the blown championship after the Patriots mounted a historic comeback to win 34–28 in overtime.
After establishing themselves as elite assistants, McVay and Shanahan made the leap in 2017
Sean McVay was hired as the coach of the Rams in January of 2017 at the age of 30, making him the youngest head coach in the history of the NFL. He was taking over for Jeff Fisher, who had overseen the franchise’s relocation from St. Louis back to Los Angeles and had a reputation for going 7–9 so solid that it became a meme. When that classic 7–9 season looked out of reach, with L.A. at just 4–9 through 13 games in 2016, Fisher was finally given the boot.
Two weeks later, just a day after he stood on the losing sideline of Super Bowl LI, the 49ers named Kyle Shanahan as their next coach, taking over after a disastrous one-year run led by Chip Kelly that saw San Francisco go 2–14 in 2016. Making the run all the more embarrassing is the fact that they opened the year with a 28–0 win over the Rams before proceeding to lose all of those games. Shanahan was hired to pick up the pieces and reestablish San Francisco as one of the premier franchises in the NFL.
Any head coaching job in the NFL comes with massive expectations, but the weights on the shoulders of the rookie NFC West coaches were still comparatively spectacular. McVay would set out to prove that he could coach a team that featured players that were his senior, and had played in the NFL as long as he had been coaching in it, while Shanahan needed to shake off the embarrassment of the Falcons’ collapse and shed the label of nepotism by establishing himself as a great coach all his own, outside of his father.
Both men succeeded.
McVay owned the early years of the rivalry between the two sides
This first meeting between the two coaches proved electric. In a prime-time, color rush showdown on Thursday Night Football, Los Angeles outlasted San Francisco in a 41–39 shootout that saw the teams combine for 26 points in the fourth quarter.
While the Rams led 41–26 with less than six minutes to play, the Niners brought things to the brink, scoring a touchdown to put the score at 41–39 with two minutes to play and the extra point pending, but their two-point conversion attempt would fail, and Los Angeles held on to win.
Through 2017 and ’18, McVay and the Rams set out a new blueprint for teams looking to refresh their team under a new coach, while Shanahan and the 49ers struggled a bit to find their footing.
In head-to-head matchups those years, McVay’s Rams went 3–1 against the 49ers, including their Thursday night shootout and 39–10 shellacking in October 2018.
But the real difference between the sides was evident in their overall success. Shanahan and the 49ers went 6–10 in 2017 and 4–12 in ’18.
Meanwhile, McVay saw immediate success with the Rams, going 11–5 in his first season at the helm and winning Coach of the Year honors. While that season’s run was cut short in the wild-card round, McVay had the Rams right back in the thick of things in ’18, pushing his team to a 13–3 regular season campaign and an NFC championship, before eventually falling to the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII by a score of 13–3.
The Super Bowl loss sparked a soft reset for the Rams, and the 49ers took advantage
After falling short in the Super Bowl, the Rams spent two years in the NFL’s dreaded middle. They were good enough to contend any week, but did not have the talent nor execution needed to win a title. They missed the playoffs at 9–7 in 2019 and lost in the divisional round to the Packers in ’20.
Meanwhile, the 49ers ascended. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, long known as Tom Brady’s extremely good-looking backup, and a stellar defense led San Francisco to an 8–0 start to the year and a 13–3 campaign in the regular season.
After dominant 17-point wins in the divisional round and conference championship, Shanahan had made it back to the Super Bowl with a chance to exorcise the demons that still haunted him from 28–3. Instead, he suffered a painfully similar fate. While San Francisco held a 20–10 lead over the Chiefs heading into the fourth quarter, Patrick Mahomes painted his masterpiece, leading his offense to three touchdowns over the final seven minutes of action to lift the Lombardi Trophy.
Through their first three years, both McVay and Shanahan had reached the pinnacle of their profession, only to fall just short in the final test. But while they didn’t leave with a ring, both had clearly established themselves amongst the best coaches in the entire NFL.
The rivalry peaked in 2021 at the NFC championship, with a second shot at the Super Bowl on the line for both coaches
In 2021, both the Rams and the 49ers brought their best. Before the year, the Rams made the decision to move on from quarterback Jared Goff, trading him away to the Detroit Lions along with some high draft picks to bring in Matthew Stafford to operate the offense. Meanwhile, the 49ers drafted quarterback Trey Lance after trading up to the No. 3 pick, but ultimately stuck with Garoppolo under center.
With Stafford, McVay and the Rams went 12–5 to win the division, but two of their five losses came at the hands of Shanahan and the 49ers.
In the playoffs, San Francisco was able to ride their defense to upset wins over the Cowboys and Packers to reach the NFC championship, while the Rams rode Stafford and breakout star receiver Cooper Kupp to dominant wins over the Cardinals and Buccaneers.
At the NFC title game, Shanahan once again took a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter of a monumental game, and once again was unable to hold on. Stafford connected with Kupp early in the fourth to cut their deficit to 17–14, and two Matt Gay field goals in the final eight minutes of action pushed the Rams through to the Super Bowl.
"This feels good, but we got one more."
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) February 5, 2022
🎙 Mic'd Up with @VonMiller during our NFC Championship win. | @YouTubeTV pic.twitter.com/3OV7utLUDn
As the 49ers were left to pick up the pieces, Stafford finished the job with another comeback win over the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI, giving McVay his first championship ring.
Over the past few years, McVay and Shanahan’s résumés are similar—save for one open spot on Shanahan’s ring finger
Since that fateful matchup in the NFC title game following the 2021 season, both the Rams and 49ers have remained among the best teams in the conference.
The 49ers have two NFC West division titles in the past three years, and have reached two more NFC championships and one more Super Bowl—another loss to the Chiefs.
Meanwhile, the Rams entered 2025 as the reigning NFC West champs, and gave the Philadelphia Eagles basically the only tough fight they saw in the 2024 postseason en route to their Super Bowl title.
Overall, here’s how the two coaches stack up against each other, by the numbers, as of their meeting in Week 10 of the 2025 NFL season.
These are two of the best coaches in the NFL, and with Shanahan the elder of the two at just 45 years old, they should remain two of the best for quite some time.
As many twists and turns as their rivalry has taken thus far, it’s possible it’s only just getting started.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as 49ers vs. Rams: A History of the Kyle Shanahan-Sean McVay Rivalry.
