On Friday night, the San Francisco 49ers will sit down with Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan and plan out the second interviews with general manager candidates George Paton and Terry McDonough, which will take place the next day. The goal will be to find someone who can be teamed with Shanahan and work well with him as the pair rebuild the franchise. The 49ers and Shanahan should have a better idea of who that will be before the Falcons fly to Houston on Sunday to prepare for Super Bowl LI.
Some have wondered why Falcons assistant general manager Scott Pioli has not been on the 49ers' radar. He was the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs for four years and has been working in Atlanta since 2014. Prior to joining Kansas City, Pioli also had a strong influence within the New England Patriots organization for nine years.
49ers insider Matt Maiocco was on 95.7 The Game on Thursday to discuss possible reasons why San Francisco has not shown interest in Pioli.
"My guess is that he's had an opportunity to be a general manager and it did not go very well at all in Kansas City," Maiocco explained. "And I think he was very difficult to work with in Kansas City when he had all that power. I think that's probably as good a reason as any. Are you really breaking free and getting somebody who's dissimilar to Trent Baalke when you decide to hire a general manager who's been in that position before and wasn't, fairly, a great guy to work with?
"My thought would also be that if Kyle Shanahan were touting him and, during that process, was telling the 49ers, 'Hey, this is a guy that I really want to work with,' then I'm sure he would have been on that list (of candidates). But to my knowledge, that hasn't happened."
"I think for whatever reason, maybe Pioli didn't really check out when the 49ers started asking people around the league about how easy is he to work with and would he be a good fit with Kyle Shanahan," Maiocco continued.
You can listen to the entire 23-minute interview on 95.7 The Game.
