The NFL’s next great offensive mind is hiding on the 49ers coaching staff

MIAMI — George Kittle, the best tight end in the NFL, is due for a new contract from the 49ers, and in those negotiations, he can ask for anything he wants.

The most money for a tight end in NFL history? It’s his.

Long terms? Even with his injury history, the 49ers would give it to him.

Kittle is just that good, and just that vital to the 49ers, who will play in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday.

But Tuesday, Kittle suggested that he would use his immense leverage in any contract negotiations to keep an assistant coach around the 49ers.

Those around the 49ers know that San Francisco run-game coordinator Mike McDaniel is the next Kyle Shanahan.

And if the rest of the NFL doesn’t already know, they’ll come to the realization soon.

Whether the 49ers win or lose the Super Bowl, expect San Francisco defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, the runner-up for the Cleveland Browns’ job, to interview for open NFL head coaching jobs around the league this time next year.

And don’t be shocked if the 36-year-old McDaniel is also drawing plenty of outside interest too — if not as a head coach, then certainly as an offensive coordinator.

That is, unless Kittle can stop it.

“I want to put him in my contract,” Kittle said. “You can’t poach him. I want him to be with me the rest of my career.”

The 49ers’ dynamic, definition-defying run game has been the identity of the San Francisco’s offense this year — the team has picked up 71 percent of their yards rushing this postseason — and suffice it to say that the team’s the run-game coordinator has been a critical part of that success.

“We obviously see and hear and know what kind of a wizard Kyle is, but Mike McDaniel is right there with him,” 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk told me Monday. “He does all his work behind the scenes… He does so much for this offense and is just so innovative in what we do.”

McDaniel isn’t a commanding presence at first glance. Far from it, in fact. He’s thin and under 5-foot-10, though his trucker-style cap can make up for some height. He was the only 49ers’ assistant coach I spotted at Monday’s Opening Night that wasn’t wearing a team-issued sweatshirt, opting instead for a tan (taupe) hoodie. He wanted to lay low.

But when he starts talking — always deliberately and in an unmistakeable Colorado accent — it’s understandable why so many of his players through the years rave about him; why they believe that he’ll be calling the shots for a team of his own someday soon.

Legend has it that McDaniel is a member of MENSA and that he had a study on molecular biology published in Popular Science when he was in fifth grade. We can confirm that he’s a Yale grad who has been Shanahan’s right-hand man at nearly every stop of the 49ers’ head coach’s journey to San Francisco and Super Bowl LIV.

He was there in Houston. He was there in Washington. He followed Shanahan to Cleveland and Atlanta and then came to San Francisco when Shanahan was hired as the Niners’ head coach in 2017.

As such, as several players said, he has become an extension of the 49ers’ head coach, go-to sounding board for game plan ideas, and a next-level offensive innovator.

“He’s really, really instrumental in our offense as far as game planning,” Joe Staley said Monday. “He’s very, very special as a coordinator and run-game designer for our football team.”

Yes, Shanahan calls the plays, but “the Mikes” — McDaniel and passing-game coordinator Mike LaFleur — are the ones who script them for the Niners. There are head coaches in the NFL who have done less before being hired.

“I played one season under Mike, and if [teams] want an ‘offensive guru,’ I’d bet every dollar in my account that no other candidate understands offensive football the way he does,” former Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins tweeted last January. “EVERY. DOLLAR.”

“He does everything. man. I come to Mike for everything in the book,” Juszczyk said. “I am surprised [he hasn’t been hired away from the 49ers]. I always see people on Twitter trying to steal him. Shout out to Andrew Hawkins always trying to get him to Cleveland. And I say ‘not so fast… this guy can’t go anywhere.’”

McDaniel seems like an obvious hire for a team looking to revitalize their offense, right?

If only it were that simple.

Shanahan’s impact on McDaniel goes well beyond the X’s and O’s. McDaniels’ alcohol problems — which led to his ouster from his first NFL job in Houston and threatened to derail the second chance, provided by Shanahan, in the pair’s three stops following, have been nipped after a Falcons-sponsored rehab stint in 2016. Shanahan stayed loyal to him and he, in turn, has remained loyal to Shanahan, who despises losing assistant coaches, though won’t stand in the way of a big promotion.

“Being a head coach and being an offensive play-caller is a dream of mine,” McDaniel said. “Quite honestly, I haven’t even though about it for a second because I feel so fortunate to be in the situation I’m in.”

“It’s a special team. And the fact that I work in a specific phase, I want to do the best I possibly can for the team, for the guy that’s made my career.”

And while most coaches in his position would say that they are “their own man” with bold new evolutions to their boss’ ideas, McDaniel has no problem with those who say he’s an extension of Shanahan.

“Philosophically, I’d say we’re in-step,” McDaniel told me Monday. “ I was with him as a quality control at his first position job, and every job that he’s had, I’ve been in-step.”

“I think we all do our best to see the game the way he does, because if we do that, we’re probably moving in the right direction.”

At some point, hiring McDaniel away from the 49ers might be simple. His brilliance and unquestioned successes will surely soon override his past issues and his lack of physical “presence”

Perhaps that moment will come after the Super Bowl, when McDaniel will allow himself to think about outside opportunities. The Browns and Eagles have both been linked with him in their offseason.

For now, though, the man who would be the smartest guy in most every other coach’s room in the NFL (no one would dare say if that’s the case in Santa Clara) — an indispensable part of Shanahan’s staff — is waiting his turn, more than happy with his station.

“I’ve been trained by the most OCD, extreme guy of all time,” McDaniel said. “I feel Jedi — I haven’t thought about it for a second.”