Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – October 20, 2025

San Francisco 49ers

Opening comments:

“All right guys. Injuries from yesterday. [CB] Renardo Green with his toe, we’ll just continue evaluating this week. He ended up clearing Turf Toe though. [OL] Jake Brendel has a hamstring. He is expected to miss a couple of weeks and also, we found out that [DL Bryce] Huff has a hamstring, he’ll also be in that same boat with possibly a couple weeks. Updates on some players who missed the game, [CB Upton] Stout, evaluating this week. [WR] Ricky [Pearsall], same thing. We’ll evaluate him more on Wednesday. [QB] Brock [Purdy] will continue like he did last week, and [DL] Yetur [Gross-Matos] is going to continue with his rehab. Also got a chance to possibly open up [OL] Spencer Burford’s window for his knee this week. All right, go ahead.”

Is it a reach to say that Brock is on track to start this week?

“Yeah, I would say that is. No one has said that.”

The next two games are not on natural grass. Does that factor at all into when you bring Brock back?

“No, not that I’ve been told.”

Anything jump out at you from watching the film that maybe you didn’t notice last night or that you got a chance to take a second look at?

“I mean, I just think it kind of confirmed the feeling that I think that we all had out there. I mean, guys played really hard. It was a really physical game. Loved how physical we played on teams, loved how physical we played on offense, and I loved how the guys were running and hitting on defense. It was the type of game we wanted.”

What happened on the with the green dot with LB Curtis Robinson?

“It just happened so fast just in the middle of that series, so he just went out quick, and they didn’t change the helmets. The defense isn’t that wordy of a deal, so we were able to get it done there. Then when they were going to change the helmets, [LB] Tatum [Bethune] was good and was able to come back.”

How big of a deal was it to have Tatum, unlike the week prior, have all the reps in practice when it comes to having an understanding of his assignments? How do you feel that he carried out those assignments and what defensive coordinator Robert Saleh asked him to do?

“I think it’s a huge deal. I mean, you definitely get reps in the week as a backup, but not like the starter. When it comes to someone like the MIKE position, or a center, or a quarterback, there’s just so much that goes into play there that no matter how much you study, you’d like to get live reps and thinking in the heat of battle. Tatum getting all those this week I think helped him a ton. He was good in practice and carried over to the game.”

Speaking of center, how did OL Matt Hennessy do as far as knowing his assignments and keeping everybody on the same page?

“I think similar to how Tatum was, I mean, he wasn’t perfect, but he works really hard at it. We definitely mix him in with reps, and for him to get thrown in in that situation, especially versus a defense that stunts a lot, changes their fronts and definitely pressures at a higher rate, I thought he did very well. I think he’ll only do better with more reps this week.”

How did you feel your safety combination did with S Ji’Ayir Brown being in there for all the snaps and S Malik Mustapha getting in there a little bit more this week?

“I thought they played really well. It was nice to double Malik’s reps. I think he ended up getting 40, maybe 41 which is twice as much as the week before. So, I like how that’s played out, and hopefully we’ll be done with that, and he’ll get all of them going forward. But Tig has played really well in these two games in that role. I really liked what [S Marques] Sigle did when he was in there, and I loved [S] Jason [Pinnock] getting those reps at big nickel, unlike he did versus Tampa. I thought he did well too. I think he ended up getting about 15 to 20 plays.”

You have injuries to three defensive ends. Does that increase the urgency to make a trade and is that something that you would try to do ahead of this week’s game in Houston?

“I don’t think it changes the urgency of it. It definitely sucks losing Huff, but it is a hamstring and hopefully it won’t be longer than two weeks. You know that he is coming back and sooner than later, but those guys have been looking into that stuff all the time for the last few weeks, and I’m sure they’ll continue over the next couple weeks.”

Did Bryce get hurt on a specific play or was it an accumulation thing? Do you have any idea on that?

“Yeah, I was told it was right at the end. I was told he felt it on the last two plays.”

How close did WR Jordan Watkins get to playing yesterday?
“He is one of the guys that’s up, so if there would’ve been an injury he would’ve been up. I guess that’s always pretty close.”

WR Malik Turner had a good game on special teams, and I think that was the third time he’s been elevated. What do you plan to do with him there? It seems like special teams is a nice spot for him.

“Yeah, it was awesome. I thought he played really well. He ended up getting our Special Teams Player of the Week I was just told. So, I was pumped with what Malik did for us. He had an awesome week at practice too. He is out of flexes, so we’ll see how that goes moving forward. But it’s kind of tied to the rest of the roster with that decision.”

After being able to watch the tape, what’d you think of Matt Hennessy and OL Connor Colby, as you got to look back at the RB Christian McCaffrey touchdown and just how much they assisted in the run game? TE George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey both gave them a lot of credit.

“Yeah, both of them did a good job. You can’t run the ball like that unless everyone’s doing a good job. They definitely had their plays they missed, by no means was it perfect, but I liked how they battled throughout the game. I thought Connor improved from the week prior. I thought it was a good start for Matt.”

I was talking to some of the linemen about the sort of the in blocking in terms of more gap scheme stuff and getting away a little bit from the outside zone. Is that accurate? How difficult is that for a team that’s pretty much mostly an outside zone team to all of a sudden turn on a dime and be a gap team in one week?

“I think that would be hard to do it that drastically. That’s why I think that’s a little bit exaggerated. We do gap schemes every week, some weeks more than others. We did a lot of gap schemes in that game, but we also did a lot of outside zone schemes in that game. I think that’s just the difference when you get 39 runs too, you get a little bit more of everything. But we definitely liked those going into it. We thought it tied well together, and we felt we kind of balanced them out with that stuff, which ended up working for us.”

How did you think CB Darrell Luter Jr. played last night?

“I thought Luter played really well. It was cool. We were talking about how good of a week he had in practice with the defense and with the scout team. He was showing up on both. And when he got his opportunity when Renardo went down, I thought he was very active. You could feel him in the run game, just his presence physically, I thought was huge. I thought he had a big impact in that game.”

What did he do to earn Scout Team Player of the Week?

“Played better than everybody else. There’s lots of stuff that goes into it, but when you’re doing scout team player of the week, you need to give the look that we’re asking. Sometimes change up techniques a little bit, but we also want to see you play at a competitive level to where you’re getting better in your own craft. So, it goes with both of those. You’ve got to perform and do it a high level that shows that you’re playing well and improving, and you also got to make sure that you get across the look that we want. So, you’re preparing the guy across from you.”

Do you think you got your personality back so to speak in terms of the way you ran the ball and the way you played physically? Is it a game-by-game thing you do whatever you do it takes to win that week or do you want to play a certain way as much as possible?

“I always love just being able to physically run the ball and control the game like that. I think most people prefer to do it that way, but each team has a different identity, and you got to do whatever you think gives you the best chance to win. And we did think that would give us the best chance to win specifically in this game, but we haven’t been able to do that yet this year. So that maybe it probably has been our identity more in the past, especially going back a few years ago, maybe four years ago, it was huge with us. It doesn’t mean that we can’t do it, and it doesn’t mean we’re going to do it all the time. But it was really cool yesterday because we believed that was the smarter way to do it. We felt that was the way that would give us the best chance to win, and I was glad that the whole team allowed us to pull that off.”

On the subject of the trade deadline, would you find it imperative that if you were to acquire a player you wouldn’t just want him for the rest of this season? You’d want him for this season and potentially next year as well?

“I don’t like to say imperative at all just because I don’t like to put an absolute on anything. But yeah, I think that’s something that we definitely would prefer. Of course, we want someone to help us out this year, but I’d love it not to be at the expense of our team next year also. I know we all feel that way and hopefully we can find a situation that does both and if not, you don’t do something like that just to do it. I’m really excited about the guys we have in our building right now also.”