Shanahan, Lynch hope to be latest dynamic duo
Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch sat side-by-side Thursday to meet the media on the first day of 49ers’ camp, cornball old-schoolers in their earnestness yet new-age football hipsters joined in their quest to bring the 49ers back from the dead.
They’ve been together not quite six months, yet they seem like longtime buddies. By all accounts, they were and are instantly compatible, and both appear to lack the drama gene that has long been the trademark of 49ers’ leadership.
Jim Harbaugh and Trent Baalke gave off a similar vibe early in their partnership, but racquetball soon gave way to backstabbing. That doesn’t seem likely with Shanahan and Lynch.
This partnership could be very good for the 49ers. History tells us that when it’s you against the world, facing an impossible challenge, two heads are better than one.
You need partners in crime, sometimes literally. Bonnie and Clyde. Jesse and Frank James. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. To fight the criminals, it takes two. Cagney and Lacey, Marshall Dillon and Chester, Sherlock and Watson, Andy and Barney, Tootie and Muldoon, Tango and Cash, Batman and Robin, Woodward and Bernstein.
You have to lighten things up, and the best comedy has always been produced by duos — Key and Peele, Martin and Lewis, Laurel and Hardy, Cheech and Chong, Abbott and Costello.
Music had Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Page and Plant, Simon and Garfunkel, Sam and Dave, Flatt and Scruggs, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Gilbert and Sullivan, Leiber and Stoller.
You survive the Wild West by having each other’s back. Lewis and Clark, the Lone Ranger and Tonto. On the road, Jack Kerouac’s Dean Moriarty needed Sal Paradise. Don Quixote leaned on Sancho Panza.
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited Mt. Everest together. Neither would have made it alone.
The most dynamic decisionmaking duo in sports right now is Steve Kerr and Bob Myers. Shanahan and Lynch aren’t in that class yet, but they’ve got potential, and they’ve got each other.