By Monday afternoon, San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan had shifted his focus from the NFC Championship Game to the upcoming Super Bowl 58 clash against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The coaching staff is diligently preparing the team's game plan in the early days of this week, anticipating the organized chaos of Super Bowl Week, which kicks off with Monday's "Opening Night" at Allegiant Stadium. Players are figuring out the ticket situation for family this week before returning to the team's facility on Thursday, with three practices scheduled through Saturday.
"So when the players come back after their two days off, which will be Thursday, we should have the game plan in by then," Shanahan stated during a conference call this week.
This marks Shanahan's third Super Bowl appearance and his second as a head coach. Drawing from his experience, he understands the significance of maximizing preparation during this critical week before traveling to Las Vegas.
"When you wait to do stuff there, it just gets too hectic," Shanahan explained. "So you can always change things and tighten it up, but you want to get most of your heavy work done before you get there."
San Francisco has narrowly missed a Super Bowl return in each of the last two seasons, finally getting over the hump on Sunday with a remarkable comeback victory over the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship Game.
Reflecting on the team's achievements since 2017, when Shanahan and general manager John Lynch took control, he expressed pride but highlighted that falling short is never the ultimate goal.
"We're real proud of a lot of things that we've accomplished here in the last five years or so," Shanahan shared. "We still want to be that one team that's happy [at the end]. No matter what you accomplish, if you don't win that Super Bowl, it's always disappointing."
Emphasizing the team's determination to capitalize on this opportunity, Shanahan added, "We've felt that, we've gotten close, and we're real proud that we're back in this situation. But we also know how it feels when you don't get it done. So we want to go and make sure to get it done this year."
To accomplish this, Shanahan must outcoach Andy Reid, the seasoned head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, who has led his team to four of the past five Super Bowls, including the upcoming February 11 matchup.
"Andy's done it for so long and always had success going all the way back to Philly," Shanahan stated. "... When I was at Washington for four years, three of the four years, we went against him. He's always been so tough to go against, and just how he spreads it around, the formations. He's always changing and staying on top of stuff.
"Then you give him the type of quarterback that he has, and it's definitely not a coincidence on how many games they've won together and how they seem to be in the situation every year."
The matchup between two of the brightest football minds is just one of the storylines in what is expected to be a riveting Super Bowl showdown.