Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – July 29, 2024

San Francisco 49ers

Can you give us the timeline for DL Drake Jackson?

“We don’t have a timeline. I know it won’t be any time in camp. So we have to see how rehab continues to go, but definitely not any time in camp.”

Did that turn out to be worse than initially expected?

“Anytime you do that type of surgery that he had, I think [Mike] McGlinchey had a similar one, those are big surgeries. They’re tough to come back from and you never know how they’re gonna react. We always know it’s a possibility to take a long time and it’s taking a long time.”

OL Spencer Burford’s wrap looked pretty substantial. Did he have surgery?

“No, he hasn’t had surgery yet. He’s still got one more doctor to talk to today. I’ll have the answer for you guys the next time I speak with you guys.”

I know you had a lot of your top of offense guys, not practicing this in the team stuff, but just from our view it looked like the defense really was all over. Did you feel like the defense had the edge today?

“I would say so. Especially down there in the red zone where it’s tighter. Just the tighter coverages and stuff, they definitely did. First day of pads, I thought it helped with our protections and stuff a little bit. Definitely thought the offense got the better half in the run period at the beginning. But the way the rest of practice went, I’d say it was obviously the D.”

You said the first day of pads. When you have that here and obviously the intensity, the energy and everything that comes with that, did you see more explosiveness from them today or more energy? What did that bring?

“I think there’s always a different element when pads go on. I think there’s a little more butterflies for guys and stuff like that. But you try to make it the same stuff that we’ve done the last four days. You can thud running backs up, which is nice. You don’t just have to tag them off. But there were more thuds, you heard the pads a little bit more. But we show a lot of clips before we get out to practice to make sure they’re that anyone’s going out there and just acting like it’s game day because we have pads on. So we practice pretty hard without them. And we like for nothing to change, but it feels a little bit safer having those on today.”

Plan for WR Ricky Pearsall, just to kind of ease him in then get him into team drills tomorrow?

“Yeah. We wanted him to go today, see how he responds tonight and tomorrow morning when he comes in. If that’s good, he should be in practice tomorrow.”

What have you seen from WR Trent Taylor? It seems like he’s pretty involved in the returns and then he was also with the ones today on offense.

“I love having Trent back here. Trent can help out anywhere. Trent’s such a good football player. The moment’s never too big for him. He knows the offense well. He can hop in at all three spots. Competes his ass off in everything he does and he’s very valuable as a returner too. So, especially having a lot of guys in and out, it’s good to have some versatility there with Trent.”

Did you only bring him back as a returner at first or just all around?

“No, you always want a group of receivers in camp. And you know you’re going to get a few in the draft, possibly a free agency after the draft. You have the guys that you already have on the roster and you want to add harder competition. I always love getting some veterans in here who know how to play. Who the game is not too big for, that hopefully can add competition to possibly make your team, or make guys better who have to be very good to beat out some guys like that. And you always like guys like that as possible practice squad players too, because when they have experience and something happens on a Friday or Saturday, the game is never too big for them. You can get them up and they don’t blink.”

TE Cameron Latu had a nice chunk play today. How is it to get him out there and after last year where he had the drops, and then he got hurt? It was kind of almost like a lost year for him.

“I know that was frustrating for him. To go through camp, a lot of times you go through camp and you have to get worse before you get better. But it’s tough when you have a big injury like he did. He has been working his butt off to get back. I know he did that throughout OTAs. For him to get his fifth practice in today and to finally make it to get the pads on, to get some catches too, I was happy for him and hopefully he’ll continue.”

What do you expect the timeline to be for WR Jacob Cowing and RB Isaac Guerendo?

“I think those were grade ones, I think. No, Isaac was worse. That’s going to be a few weeks. Jake is in a similar boat as [WR] Tay [Martin]. I think it was a 10 day guess, whenever that started. So hopefully sometime next week.”

After watching the kickoff returns, seeing a number of reps, do you feel like you have a good idea of what traits you like in your return guys? Do you want bigger guys, smaller guys?

“Not totally. You want the best guy. They come in all shapes and sizes. You want the fastest, quickest, biggest guy possible. But they usually don’t make it exactly like that. So you also want some smart guys too. Just how they can, not necessarily smart, but how they track the ball. It’s going to be different. We don’t know what type of balls are coming back there. You almost need a shortstop, too. Because the quicker you can pick those balls up and judge it right, the more you can get on track with the blockers and in line with them, which is going to happen real fast. There are so many variables that are going into it, so we’re just trying to learn by watching it and thinking about it, but we’re not truly going to learn until we get some experience at it.”

Last week QB Brock Purdy said he noticed intensity and the pep in the step, obviously in the veterans, based on where you guys have been and how close you’ve been to the Super Bowl. Do you notice a different intensity this time in training camp and a look in the guy’s eyes that they’re hungry to get back and then get ultimately over the top?

“No different than last year. I don’t think you can have that look much more than we have had. I think guys, that’s always on their mind, especially with our history and stuff. But you also want to, you like that on guys’ mind, but you also want it off their mind. It’s about getting better each day. Everyone knows our goal and what we expect, but you can’t think totally how it ends. You have to start with where it begins and you have to get better each day, all the way to the end. And you have to play your best on the last day of the season, whatever that is. So that’s what we’re focusing on now.”

Is there a benefit at all with WR Brandon Aiyuk watching on the sideline versus not being here? What do you hope that he gets out of it, at least by being here physically even though he’s not participating?

“I think it’s good when any of these guys have the business part of the contracts going on and everything, I think it’s always good to not get too far away from football. At least he can be with his teammates here, in meetings, get some work with the strength and conditioning coaches, things like that. Hopefully when things work out, it just makes it a little bit of a smoother transition.”

It seemed the last two years, RB Elijah Mitchell was a pretty clear-cut number two tailback. Has that started to blur at all with RB Jordan Mason playing like he has?

“I’d say, nothing against Elijah, there’s been no fall off in Elijah at all, but [RB Jordan Mason] JP runs at a very high level. I see in both of those guys, that if [RB] Christian [McCaffrey] is not in there, not going, I mean we always expect no matter who we’ve had in the past, that number two, number three, sometimes our fourth guy comes in. And if their number is called, we expect them to run like a starting back and just how many reps did they get at it, how long did they last at things like that. JP wasn’t there right away, but he got there pretty quick. He did a hell of a job for us last year. We’ll see how camp plays out. But I love both of those guys and got some depth behind them too.”

Purdy was asked the other day if he looks back on the Super Bowl and has any regrets on plays? He said he looks at a couple of third down passes, obviously the one at the end, another one later in the regulation. Have you gone over with him that specifically like play-by-play on the two plays he would circle?

“Yeah, that’s one of the hardest things. I take like a month off of it before I can handle it. But then I get a couple month head start before those guys do and by the time they’ve gone here I’ve seen it a thousand times, not just in game order but cut ups. Things like that. So they get here and it’s sometime in Phase One where you’re going through cutups and stuff and then it’s, hey, there’s only one game that we haven’t reviewed from last year because the season ended after it and we always review games together. So we took a time where I reviewed it with him and the other quarterbacks were in the meeting room, the other coaches. And it’s always hard to watch that stuff because so many emotions are attached to it, but after you do and you start to assess it and look at things, you put in perspective and you find a way to get better from it.”

We know it’s DL Nick Bosa’s day off, what do you think about that? Why is that important for him to not practice?

“Nick’s the man. I like when he has days off. It makes it a little more efficient for the offense so we can get some more work in. But Nick also has to stay on his routine so he can keep being Nick. He’s continuing to take it to another level. But he handled everything the right way. I think it was hard on him just missing all of camp last year. Nick’s thinks about everything, every rep, everything he does and so do we. We got a good plan for him. He’s got a lot of work in so far, a lot more than last year at this time and we believe that’ll continue.”

Are there any other defensive ends that you have to keep an eye on to see just how the depth is?

“Yeah, all of them.”

Is it not a concern for you just where the depth is because we talked about how Drake is not going to be able to participate, so does that put extra focus on those guys’ reps?

“We knew that coming in with Drake and we’ve also, bringing in [DL] Yetur [Gross-Matos] and bringing in [DL] Leonard [Floyd], we’ve addressed that, especially with some of the guys that we lost. So we feel good about what we came in with our D-line. And five practices in, we feel just as good, if not better.”

Today is the beginning the second week of training camp so far, has there been anything or any player in particular that has surprised you or impressed you in a way that you’re like, ‘wow, okay, they have that there?’

“No. A lot of guys have impressed me but it’s also so early in camp. I don’t try to get too high or low on anybody. We’re not through our install yet. Today was our first day of pads. So some guys will look real good one day and tail off a little bit the next day. But we got to get a little bit more into it, especially with the pads on, before guys start separating themselves.”

QB Brandon Allen had a pretty good hip start on QB Joshua Dobbs in terms of the system, how do you see that playing out, determining which one’s going to be number two?

“Just them continuing to get equal reps and usually it plays itself out. You like it for one of them not to make it. They make the decision. Usually we all can see it and it eventually takes care of itself and the players know, the coaches know and it’s not a tough decision. If it is a real tough decision, hopefully that’s a good problem because they’re both playing so well that we eventually got to make a decision. But I feel pretty confident one of them will separate themselves as it goes.”