Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – June 6, 2023

San Francisco 49ers

What’s QB Brock Purdy been up to? What kind of throwing program is he on? How many days is he throwing? Is he airing it out? We want details.

“I don’t watch him to tell you the truth. He’s right on pace. I think he throws three times a week. I do not sit and watch those. It’s part of his process of getting back and he’s continuing right on the track he’s always been on. No setbacks and it’s been very good so far.”

Is it your understanding once training camp starts that he’ll be able to do stuff on the field with the team before he’s fully cleared to go play football?

“I haven’t asked any of those yet. We’re taking it very slowly. It’s not like you just jump out and push stuff. You’re only supposed to throw on this date at this percentage, these many yards, and then you do a certain amount a couple days later and if you stay on track it should heal the right way. And right now, everything’s right on track and I don’t ask three weeks ahead. You just keep trying to stay on that trajectory.”

Have you talked to him? How’s his mental state?

“Great, I think. You guys can ask him, but I don’t ask him how his mental state is every day. I see him every day and he’s pretty good.”

Just normal?

“Yeah, everything’s normal. I know we want updates. I totally get it, but there are none, so I could make something up, but there are none. It’s just the next day of working out and rehabbing and I don’t get too involved in that. I see him in the meetings, talk to him about football, what will happen when he is healthy and we’re just waiting for him to get healthy.”

There’s a report you’re going to work out another quarterback. Are you looking to potentially add another quarterback for training camp?

“I don’t think so, but we always work out all positions, so I don’t go and ask about each one, but it’s just part of the process of every position and always having guys that if someone gets hurt to bring in, guys are on our call list and usually we don’t stop working guys out.”

Why did you sign a defensive lineman? Have you had some injuries along the line?

“No, I know we wanted 90 for camp and that’s where we wanted our 90. We were a little heavy at receiver.”

Is DL Kalia Davis okay?

“Yeah, he’s alright. We pulled him out today. We’re being safe with him. A number of guys like that, he’s been here for a while, but we didn’t want him to go today.”

Was that a bad snap on the K Jake Moody kick there?

“I didn’t look at the snap. I’ll see it when I watch the tape. I’m not sure. It definitely was a low kick though. I couldn’t believe no one blocked it.”

How has he looked just in OTAs and today?

“He’s done a good job. You want to feel the leg that you see on tape that we sent [special teams coordinator] Brian [Schneider] to go work him out, so we wanted to make sure that we felt the same way in person and you feel that every day. He’s got a hell of a leg and we’re going to put him in a bunch of situations and keep challenging him and hopefully he’ll be ready to go by Week One.”

What are your impressions of DL Javon Hargrave so far?

“He just got here, so we’re just getting to know him, we’re going to be slow with him not being around throughout phase one and two and OTAs. We’re not going to throw him into anything, so my impressions are he seems like the same guy I’ve been talking to on the phone. Seems like he’s been working out and I hope he spends this week to kind of get acclimated to what we do, the way we do it and just get used to the guys, so he feels a little more comfortable when he comes back in training camp.”

Is DL Nick Bosa here?

“Yes.”

What have your conversations been like with him?

“Same as they are every year. How you doing? How’s the workout been going? How’s Florida? How’s the boat? You look tan. Your legs still look big. What are you going to do today? He’ll probably be in the weight room.”

The last three years you’ve had like big money guys who are due for contracts and got them right before camp, do you at all get involved in that just from the sense of trying to gauge the player, the person, and if their mindset’s in the right spot as far as handling the contractual stuff while also taking care of business physically to get ready for the season?

“Each guy is different. I try not to get in there and if I felt they needed advice or something, just with the experience that I have going through this, I would, but usually the contract stuff takes care of itself. Usually the type of guys we want to pay, you don’t totally have to have those conversations with. If we did, we probably wouldn’t be wanting to sign him long term. Nick, he’s not a guy I really ever worry about, whether it’s a contract year or not. I know Nick is doing his work. I know Nick is obsessive with his job and obsessive with being the best he can be, so he’s usually pretty easy with that stuff, we don’t even need to mention the contract, so it’s more the same conversation I’ve had the last three years with him when he comes here.”

In the event that Brock is ready for Week One, have you talked to QB Trey Lance or his agent about a potential trade?

“No.”

WR Deebo Samuel was working on the side field throughout practice, not doing any team drills or anything, is there anything that he’s working through?

“No, he hasn’t been here too and we want our players to be ready to go and with him being away, it just didn’t feel he was quite in that right spot, so we have some time before camp so we’re not going rush him on anything that we don’t feel he is ready for.”

Is RB Elijah Mitchell okay?

He’s got some things too, so keeping him out.”

With Brock’s throwing program, will he be here during the downtime or do you have somebody that goes with him? Like how does that work?

“He’ll be here most of the time. I don’t check on every single one of those because I don’t think it’s necessary, but Brock’s been great on his rehab. He’s as obsessive about it as you can be. That’s why he’s ahead of schedule and I expect him to be here doing it with our guys and when he does get breaks and long weekends, however he wants to spend that, he’ll do it accordingly.”

We always ask about first-team, second-team reps, I know sometimes it isn’t as important, but with QB Sam Darnold getting the first team, does that mean Trey gets them tomorrow?

“Yeah, we’ve been switching them up each day I think for the most part, so yeah.”

Is it an even competition at this point, where is that?

“It’s OTAs so every position, like I think I’ve said to you guys before, I don’t try to come in and know who’s ahead or not. All this stuff gives these guys a chance to have a chance to compete in training camp. When you don’t practice football an entire offseason, you don’t do any practice of football since your last game. It’s very hard to come to training camp and be ready to beat someone out and so that’s what you try to provide all this stuff for is just to give guys a chance to learn the offense, get their timing, get everything, so now when they go to training camp, they’re ready to compete and that’s truly where I see the competition starting.”

How’s QB Sam Darnold progressing and adapting to the new system?

“He’s been good. All these guys, some good days, some bad days, but that’s what the point is, throwing all the stuff at him, letting him go through it and we’ll go through the exact same process our first seven days of training camp, but it’s just a little easier to do it because you get pads on, you can do more and hopefully it’ll be easier for him second time going through it though.”

Last OTAs, a representative from the players association came on the field and you seemed to get really agitated about it. Could you shed some light on what we were seeing there?
“I wasn’t agitated, I was just surprised. You get surprised and that’s all, but we had a good conversation. He had asked me something, I was surprised to see him out there and I actually know him pretty good. He’s a good dude and there’s no issues at all.”

Is T Trent Williams kind of in the same boat as DL Nick Bosa in that you don’t really worry about him too much? You do have him here now, but you haven’t had him before.
“Yeah, of course I like everyone to be here, always. Trent, I do think that each year in my career it gets extremely harder for offensive linemen and defensive linemen to get anything out of the offseason because of the stuff that doesn’t allow them to practice football, so it’s a little different with those guys. I’d want Trent here more, but at that position, it comes to a time, like for what? And when you’re his age and you’ve done what he’s done, yeah, I’d rather him be here but that’s one of the positions and definitely one of the players in the league at that position that would worry me the least.”

When you talk about the quarterbacks having good days and bad days, is it a combination of the ball isn’t going where it should or the actual passes are off target? How do you define a good or a bad day during this time of year with those quarterbacks?
“Same way I define it any day, it’s how they play and when you look at a play just because a guy makes a wide-open throw that looks good that’s what they’re expected to do, that’s what everyone in the NFL should do, so you’re evaluating tons of stuff, how they play in the pocket, where their eyes are, where the ball goes, how does the ball look when it goes? Even though that is kind of a prerequisite, you still have to do it, so yeah, everyone can see how it’s thrown, but even when you get completions doesn’t mean you had the best practice. There’s not always a pass rush. Even when there is, we’re not calling sacks. Sometimes just based off how the script goes, you might have a bunch of good looks and the other guy might have a bunch of bad looks. You don’t know how it’s going to go, so you evaluate each play and then you get in there and you watch it with them, but you know who is playing well after that and who’s playing bad. It’s not a stat thing, it’s not a thing I could just verbalize, I guess.”

When you leave the practice field, do you automatically know who had a good day or a bad day?

“Yeah, I got a pretty good idea. Yeah. We know the coverages and we know where the ball is supposed to go and we know how that goes there and how it looks and why and you get in and you watch the film and alright, I thought that was bad, now I get what he saw. It wasn’t. Or vice versa and that’s why you try to never make too big of a decision or an opinion until you get through the film.”

How is WR Danny Gray’s grasp of things since last season ended to now?
“I think it’s a lot better than when he left off. I think Danny learned from his first year, just how long that grind is of a rookie year, just going from the offseason of the combine and all the workouts to getting here and really never stopping. And we saw him in the offseason have a little different attention to detail the way he came here in phase one and two, how he worked to get in shape and that’s what has allowed him to have a good OTAs and go through a bunch of stuff, which to me he’s finally got in the shape to where he could do everything and this will really help him for training camp.”

Same question for DL Drake Jackson?

“Yeah, definitely. Drake, you guys have heard about it and it’s exactly what we’ve said, he was unbelievable this offseason. Even when it wasn’t voluntary, he was here on his own anyways, just living in the weight room trying to change his body and that’s stuff he had to learn from last year just like Danny and you can tell how guys learn it by how they start working before they see you and Drake did that big time. It’s carried over to phase one, two, and throughout OTAs and phase three, and I’m excited for him to now get away, keep doing that when we’re away from him and we’ll see how he is when we put the pads on.”

I have a two-part QB Brandon Allen question. One, just your initial impressions of him, and he’s been a number two, it looks like he came here as a potential number four here. Do you know if there was a conversation before he signed about what led him here and why he viewed this as maybe a decent opportunity?
“We knew in free agency we didn’t know where Brock was going to be at the time so we knew we had to go get someone to compete with Trey in case Brock wasn’t. And we got fortunate with Sam on that. Then we felt good just with our targets and everything and once we kind of started phase one when we’re doing all the quarterback drills and workouts, it was just, man, there’s only two quarterbacks here. Brock can’t do much and we would like a third guy. And then we looked out there and he was available and then he had the confidence to come here and then when we watched his tape and we’ve always known about him and we felt very fortunate to get him because he has been a backup in this league. And so, when he came here and hopped in our drills, I think we got like two weeks with him, and I’ve been extremely impressed. The reps he’s gotten, he’s done very well. And he is obviously not just a camp arm around this league, he’s been a backup for a while, but just how good he’s done in his OTAs and stuff is going to give him a chance with us.”

Do you think that you have, and you will have four quarterbacks who are going to be on 53-man rosters this season?
“That’s what it looks like. Technically the fourth guy was the number two for Cincinnati the last couple of years. And that’s the way you want it. We could have gone the college free agent route, but when we looked into those guys compared to what was out there and the fact that Brandon was willing to do it, we would never hesitate to do that. Now, if someone like Brandon doesn’t want to do it and the other guys that you think are NFL-caliber don’t want to do it, that is when you go to the college free agent route, but we feel our guy is much better than those options.”