For Kyle Shanahan, the playoffs at the end of the 2023 season have seen his team dramatically and emphatically put one of the most persistent narratives about him and his San Francisco 49ers his bed.

While the Niners have consistently been one of the most dominant teams in the NFL under his leadership, they had previously been dismissed by many as a group incapable of coming from behind to win games. Frontrunners only, with that school of thought backed up by the numbers, with the 49ers 0-30 in games in which they entered the fourth quarter trailing by seven or more during his tenure.

That prevailing wisdom now looks a lot less sound after the 49ers produced successive comebacks to progress to a Super Bowl 58 matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs. San Francisco overturned a 21-14 deficit to knock off the Green Bay Packers 24-21 in the divisional round and followed that up with a fightback for the ages against the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship Game, scoring 27 unanswered points to 34-31 having trailed 24-7 at the half.

"I've never felt like we didn't have a team who could come back or win a game like that. Just had to do it today when it mattered the most," Shanahan said of that perception of his team in his post-game press conference.

The idea that the Shanahan Niners can't come from behind may have been dispelled. However, for all his successes during his time as San Francisco head coach, for many Shanahan continues to be defined by his two biggest failures, both of which came on the grandest stage.

Shanahan's Super Bowl demons

Shanahan was famously the offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons when they blew a 28-3 lead against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 51, with his abandonment of the run game in the second half leading to stinging criticism in the wake of that epic collapse.

Talk of him being unable to win the big game only increased three years later when Shanahan and the 49ers let slip a 20-10 lead in Super Bowl 54 against the Chiefs, who scored 21 points across the final six minutes and 13 seconds of game time to deny San Francisco a sixth Lombardi Trophy.

It is Kansas City that once again stands between the 49ers and that achievement, with the Chiefs the obstacle that separates Shanahan from being able to remove the one significant blot on an otherwise sparkling resume.

The Niners will once again be looking to overcome conventional wisdom, which says that there's slim chance of them being the team that defeats Patrick Mahomes on the biggest stage four years on from him ripping their hearts out in Miami.

But things have undeniably changed since then.

A better-equipped attack

Though the Brock Purdy experience is a rollercoaster one, Shanahan now has a quarterback who has proven much more capable of producing explosive plays on a consistent basis than predecessor Jimmy Garoppolo, who infamously sailed a throw to a wide-open Emmanuel Sanders late in the first Super Bowl matchup with the Chiefs, wasting the chance to retake the lead on what would have been an easy touchdown.

With Purdy delivering playmaking ability the 49ers have previously not had access to during Shanahan's tenure, the Niners head coach authored one of the best offensive seasons in modern NFL history during the 2023 regular season, San Francisco finishing first in offensive DVOA, Expected Points Added per play and Success Rate.

That success is the product of the uptick in quarterback play, Shanahan's outstanding scheme and, most importantly, the supreme level of offensive talent at San Francisco's disposal.

Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle serve as the best and most versatile collection of weapons in the NFL and represent a clear improvement on what the 49ers had in 2019, when Kittle was the focal point and Samuel was a rookie.

Simply put, this is an offense much better equipped to go blow for blow with Mahomes and a Kansas City offense that is not as explosive as in years gone by. With Kansas City's defense arguably stingier than that of San Francisco, these two teams are very different to the ones that met four years ago, and that is what makes the matchup so compelling. 

The barrage of points scored in the second half of the NFC title game illustrated why Super Bowl 58 still represents an excellent chance for Shanahan to get over the hump. 

It is an unfair fact of the NFL that coaches are predominantly judged on what happens on that grandest of all stages. Despite playoff success most coaches could only dream  of, for many Shanahan's career remains defined by the one cloud hanging over his head. If and when he removes it, his genius will finally be celebrated at the level it deserves.

49ers’ Brock Purdy playing with house money in the Super Bowl

He might not see it that way.