Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – November 6, 2024

San Francisco 49ers

Opening comments:

“Injuries for practice today: [DL] Kevin Givens, groin, won’t practice, [WR Chris] Conley, hamstring, won’t practice, [CB Charvarius Ward] Mooney, personal, won’t practice, [K] Jake Moody, right ankle, limited, [WR] Jauan Jennings, hip, limited, [WR] Deebo [Samuel Sr.], rib/oblique, limited, [OL Jon] Feliciano, knee, limited, [RB Christian] McCaffrey, Achilles, limited, [DL] Yetur [Gross-Matos], knee, limited, [P] Mitch [Wishnowsky], back, limited. And that’s it.”

How did Christian fair on Monday and does he still seem on track to play Sunday?

“Yeah, he was good. We didn’t do too much, but had no pain, was good yesterday and excited to get him out there today.”

What have you told Mooney [Charvarius Ward] about, just how much time he needs?

“I haven’t told him any. We haven’t even gotten there yet. I know they’re having the service, I believe, this Friday for Amani. I know he is out in Dallas right now, and we’re on his time with that. So just whenever he is getting close to ready.”

The NFL doesn’t give you guys a roster exemption, or players, roster exemption for being on bereavement?

“No.”

Do you agree with that?

“No. But never thought about it until this situation, but no. It’s tough, but everybody handles those things differently. You never know, I don’t even like to think of how I would react, because you don’t know until it happens. So just something where you’ve got to be there for someone and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. It’s whatever works for the person.”

At what point do you think there will be a decision on whether or not Christian plays Sunday?

“Like publicly? Kickoff (laughter).”

What about in your mind? What do you need to see from him or what does he need to tell you?

“That he’s just Christian McCaffrey and he’s not hurting. But as long as everything goes well, it has in the rehab. So, just as long as he doesn’t get sore and have setbacks each day with practice, usually if you get that in practice, that means it’s going to be worse in the game. So hopefully he can string together three days in a row and not have any of those.”

If he does look like the Christian of old, does his workload become the workload of old or is that something that you’re going to be more cognizant of?

“It definitely could, but it also definitely might not.”

Let me just follow that up. He did have a heavy workload last year. Is there any thought that the issues that he’s dealing with now are related to the 20 games that he played a year ago?

“I don’t believe that. I don’t think he believes that. I think things happen to a body. I think they happen in offseason, but I don’t think that really has to do with numbers. When a guy is healthy and good, they’re usually good. But we’ve got to see where his conditioning is at, how he is. I know he is conditioned as well as he can be, but how his football conditioning is and stuff. But usually, I don’t chalk up to numbers one year to affect the injury the next year.”

When you’re making a game plan, do you have to make one with Christian and one without Christian?

“You’ve got to do it like always. You’ve got to be ready for, I mean guys have different traits. So, whether a guy is going 10 plays, 30 or all plays. Or whether he gets hurt in the first series or whether he gets sick before the game, it’s the same as always. Different with different players.”

People have gotten conditioned to you guys making a significant move at the trade deadline. That didn’t happen this year. What was your and president of football operations/general manager John Lynch’s thought process of, as far as not making a huge move?

“I think it was the same as every year. We don’t just make a huge move because we, just because we want to. If we think it’s something that can help and not hurt you for the future and you’ve got to risk, you’ve got to weigh those risks every year. And a few good things have popped up that we thought were worth the risks in past years. We didn’t see anything this year. That was a huge risk, but we do feel like we helped our team with the things that we did do.”

You had S Tashaun Gipson Sr. on the practice squad, I think it was two years ago. You put him in a lineup and then he never came out. What do you look for from him this time around?

“Just want to see where he’s at. With him having the suspension and then him being with Jacksonville, he was always someone we were looking to, in the offseason, to bring here. And then he ended up getting with Jacksonville and we’re glad that he is not there. We knew as soon as that wouldn’t be the case, we wanted to get him here if it worked out for him, with some of the injuries that we have. It was awesome to be able to get him and be available for a practice squad and we’ll get to see him practice this week and we’ll play it from there.”

Since you’ve been here, your teams have won 70-percent of the games after the bye. Is there anything that you do during the bye or that you do to prepare yourself or your team post-bye?

“No. You’d like to think you get better the more you practice and the farther you go. You also like to think other teams do that too. I always like to feel we’re going to be better at the, I like to feel we’re better the following week, always. But our first year, we started 0-9, and finished 6-10, so I think that helps a little bit. But all the years after our second year, I think we’ve had good teams since we’ve had good records, and they’ve come pretty early too.”

You guys are playing, I think, four teams that are coming off a bye this week. And then the schedule as far as rest differential, it doesn’t work in your favor. This week is an exception, obviously Tampa had to play Monday. Did you watch the game and are you like, “Sweet they’re going to overtime?”

“Yeah, definitely. I was hoping the rules would change and they could go to double overtime. That’s always stuff that you, it can be an advantage, but I’ve done it enough that you think it’s an advantage and it’s a disadvantage. I’ve been in times where you think the bye week is the rest you need and yeah, you feel rested and stuff, but you just got out of your groove a little bit and you’re a little rusty where teams that are going every single week are kind of in their groove. So, I’ve seen it both ways. But I definitely would take our side over the other.”

What have you seen from Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield, how has he grown in Tampa?

“I think Baker is a stud. I think last year, I thought he was at the top of his game last year playing real well and this year I think he’s the same, if not better. I think he’s one of the main reasons I think they were a couple plays away from playing us in the NFC Championship last year. We were worried, real worried about him going into that game. He just got hotter as the whole year went. And he’s playing at such a high level right now.”

Three out of the next four weeks, you’re on pretty long road trips. Is there anything that you have to do to prepare for that differently?

“Not really. We deal with crowd noise more here and stuff, so you get used to the silent cadence, but usually, you get used to that in half a day. Sometimes we like having a little more sleep on the airplanes, which is nice, at least coaches. You get a little more rested. But I always like being at home, always like being in our stadium, always like Fridays being around our families and stuff. But sometimes it’s nice to hunker down a little bit and be the, be about a group of 53 guys or whatever it is, going against a whole stadium and doing that a few weeks in a row can get fun, as long as you handle the games the right way.”

You just mentioned how sometimes the bye helps, sometimes it doesn’t. Just your comprehensive look on what you’ve seen from your team as a whole, knowing that you guys were taking some hits early in the season. When they came back on Monday, how did you feel like you guys looked after the bye? Well rested?

“Yeah, I always go off, it’s usually like the first meeting I talk to the guys. It’s usually it’s like 10 am on Monday. I love the feeling, usually, of a room before you talk after a bye week. I’ve been on teams that don’t, that you don’t have a good team and everyone’s been off a week and everyone’s still trying to get used to getting awake for a meeting. And then sometimes you walk in a room, and you can just feel the collective energy of a team that’s feels rested. They got away for a little bit and they’re excited to be back. They’re excited to be around the players, the coaches and everyone for what’s ahead. And that’s the vibe I got from our team. I think we got it rested. Doesn’t solve everything, it’s only a week and stuff, but it’s as good mentally as it is physically and we’ve got a lot of ahead of us. It’s going to be a huge challenge, but one that we definitely feel we’re capable of and one we’re excited and up for.”

Tampa played 83 plays on defense. As a play caller, what can you do when you see a team’s played that much, logged that many minutes the game prior to take advantage of that advantage?

“Not much as a play caller. You hope they’re still tired from it. You hope that we make the game hard for them and stuff and do all that. But that’s kind of like what I was saying earlier, sometimes you go every week and you have bye weeks early and you go like 10 weeks in a row and you just get on runs and you get to the motions. I thought last year one of our toughest challenges was clinching our division after that Washington game and having the next week not count anything versus the Rams. And then another week where we had a bye week and we had to watch everyone and then we had a week of practice to get ready for our Green Bay game. I felt that was one of the reasons I thought we played some of our worst football and guys loved it. Guys were into it, they were getting rested, but you just kind of got out of that groove. And man, it felt like we needed a break because we were exhausted. But it doesn’t always help. So, you’ve got to keep that intensity even though your mind usually is, you’ve got to make sure everything’s going through it and because it doesn’t get easier, it gets harder and you’ve got to be used to it being hard all the time. And you’ve got to get comfortable with that, not used to it.”