The 49ers' Faithful has made an indelible impression on Kyle Shanahan.
Throughout the 2021 season, even when the the 49ers' record was 3-5, there was always a strong showing of support for the team on the road. From Detroit to Dallas, the stands always included a sizable amount of red and gold.
The NFC Championship Game, however, was in a class all on its own. In the past five seasons, there has never been road fans that have amounted to more than 25 percent, according to ticket resaler Vivid Seats.
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On Sunday, the Faithful made up an incredible 65 percent of the 73,202 fans in attendance at SoFi Stadium for the NFC title game.
“What our fans did in L.A. was not just the coolest thing to the head coach of the Niners, it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in sports,” Shanahan said on Tuesday. “To watch the commitment of a fan base try to go take over another stadium and to watch how hard they were trying [to get them] not to.”
The Rams attempting to restrict ticket sales to those with billing zip codes in the greater Los Angeles area might have inspired the Faithful even more to make the approximately 350 mile trek to Southern California to root on their team.
Anyone who ventured out in L.A. County over the weekend of the game felt and saw the presence of the 49ers fanbase invading the city.
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“For me to sit there on Saturday night and my wife just show me videos of the airport,” Shanahan said. “From my friends sending me videos of the coffee shops and the streets. And for me to got in there and see the stadium. It gave me, it gave our players it gave us chills.”
Though they were grieving the loss of the game, 49ers players spoke about how grateful they were to have such a loyal fan base. Shanahan, emotional from the results of the game, forgot to mention the crowd and thus decided to make his statement, unprovoked, at the close of his end-of-season press conference Tuesday.
“It was not just cool because I’m the coach,” Shanahan said. “I have never seen that, and I’ve been in sports a long time and I’ve been in a lot of different places. I can’t tell you how cool that was and how much we appreciate it. That’s not normal.”
The 49ers Faithful was so loud at both games at SoFi this season that Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford needed to use a silent count. When big plays were made by the 49ers, the crowd was louder than when the Rams did so. Chants for the defense when Nick Bosa and Fred Warner were on the field reverberated off the translucent ceiling.
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General manager John Lynch also offered a message of thanks to the fans.
“It was L.A, it was in Dallas, it was in Green Bay,” Lynch said. “It’s everywhere we go and the Faithful is such an appropriate name for what our fanbase is all about. The passion. They stuck with us when things were going rough and we’re very, very appreciative and look forward to seeing that only grow stronger.”