Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – October 7, 2024

San Francisco 49ers

Opening comments:

“Still early, so we don’t have confirmation on all of the injuries. [S Talanoa Hufanga] Huf definitely has his wrist, but we have no update yet on that, we’ll get that later today. [K] Jake Moody does have a high ankle sprain, expect time out and stuff, no update yet on that. Players from last week who missed the game: [LB Demetrius] Flannigan-Fowles, calf, unlikely for this week, [WR] Jacob Cowing with his shoulder is still day-to-day, [WR] Chris Conley with his oblique is still day-to-day and [WR] Ricky Pearsall is going to continue rehabbing this week. Go ahead guys.”

Did Hufanga have an X-ray at the stadium yesterday at all?

“I don’t know if he had an X-ray or not. I don’t remember.”

As far as RB Christian McCaffery, is the plan this week to ramp up a little bit more than he did last week?

“His plan, yeah, is to continue his rehab and every day you try to push the rehab more and more each day.”

With the kicker situation, have you guys singled out somebody or do you expect a competition tryout thing this week?

“Yeah, I think we’ve got four guys coming in later today.”

Can you reveal who those are?

“I don’t know. I don’t have their names. I know that’s what the guys are working on now, just finishing this game and getting started on all the Seattle stuff in the short week. So I know those guys are scrambling in. I think they’ve got four guys coming, but I didn’t get their names.”

Just to clarify on Ricky Pearsall, you say he is going to continue his rehab, that means you won’t be opening the window on the short week?

“No, just because we’re not going to practice or anything.”

After the game, DL Nick Bosa said it was a blessing that you guys have the quick turnaround after that game. How, as a coaching staff, do you handle it? How much time do you spend on kind of the debrief of what happened yesterday as opposed to just quickly turning the page and focusing on Seattle?

“We already did it as a coaching staff last night and early this morning, but there’s no time to spend on that now, especially when our players come in. Position coaches can kind of get it on the side with a couple things that they need to clarify and go over, that pertains to this week. But any time in these short weeks, you get right to the next game as fast as possible.”

And how do you, as a head coach, kind of look back on what happened yesterday? And just, how is your mindset when it comes to dealing with that loss and trying to put it behind you and figuring out ways to not allow that to happen again?

“Same way I do it always, I just don’t get to go over it with the whole team as long on a whole Monday. My process with that started all last night. I do all that stuff at home when I’m done, when I get home. And then I come in in the morning and clarify it with all the coaches real early and put that to bed with them and then get right to Seattle.”

On the last pass that QB Brock Purdy attempted with Arizona blitzing, what was the coaching point on that one in terms of where RB Jordan Mason, which guy he should have picked up? And did one of the interior linemen pick up the wrong guy?

“No, they had a blitz. We had two guys, when two guys blitz the back that means you’re hot and we’ve just got to get rid of the ball quicker.”

This may fall under you don’t have time, but Brock talked yesterday about talking to Jordan Mason about obviously the standard of excellence, but not putting it all on him for the loss. As a coach, do you have time to talk to him about that and how do you balance that?

“Yeah, I mentioned it after the game that, that’s not all on J.P. We all had our part. We had four possessions in the second half and we had three turnovers and one turnover on down. To make it come down to the last turnover is the easier way out. But that’s not the case. All these plays affect the whole game. We didn’t score in the second half and the four times we got the ball was basically four turnovers, when you turn it over on downs. So his was just one part of that.”

I think it was last week everyone was saying how great Brock scrambling was and how effective it can be. Obviously after a loss it’s like what about his scrambling? Is there a fine line sometimes of trying to exhaust the play and making something happen and then sometimes maybe just taking a check-down or throwing it away?
“Yeah, always. That’s why you try to cover that too when those things happen, good or bad. Last week I thought it really helped out and he made a number of plays with it, but I think I also said last week there was a couple that it hurt us on. I’d say the same thing happened yesterday. There’s always some good and bad from both of those things. You hope the good outweighs the bad, which it has. But there was a couple in particular, that sack on the second-and-14 that were tough to overcome.”

Last night TE George Kittle spoke about the fact that with this team compared to year’s past, you guys just haven’t been able to kind of figure out how to get these like gritty or gross wins he called them. When you’re watching in practice or when you’re watching from the sideline in the games, what do you think is missing with this team to be able to kind of close out these games compared to other seasons?
“I just think that’s kind of a generic answer for someone trying to answer your guys’ questions. It comes down to specifics. So it’s hard to give a generic answer. But in these two games, these two division games that we believe we should have won with the lead we had in the second half, I thought this one was worse than the Rams one in terms of we got sloppier in terms of our turnovers and things like that, not scoring in the second half. When you have a lead on people you need to finish them. The way you finish people is you continue to score and if you aren’t doing that, you can’t turn it over and you’ve got to stop people at the end. We had a couple chances there at the end, especially on that fourth-down. I thought [Arizona Cardinals QB] Kyler [Murray] made a hell of a play. But those are the plays you’ve got to stop to win these, especially when it’s tight like that.”

Nick said that the Cardinals started doing something a little differently with their zone-read to get Arizona Cardinals RB James Conner, the reason Conner started to get loose at the end. He said there wasn’t a proper adjustment on the defensive side and he said that it has kind of been a theme in each loss this season. Is that a fair assessment?

“I don’t know the quote exactly, but the way you just said it, no I wouldn’t think so. I know the long run, touchdown run we got, when you’re in an eight-man front and you missed the back, you’re one guy short and your middle-third player needs to make the tackle and he got buried. It was going to be a big gain, but not a touchdown gain and he got buried in it too. When you have an eight-man front and no one accounts for the quarterback it’s not necessarily adjustment. It’s a mistake. You can always go to two-shell defenses to have a guy in that lane, which definitely helps for those things. Just makes it harder for the downhill runs to the running back. There’s always give and take with that. But that’s the challenge of when you play a system where the quarterback can pull it, you can’t fall asleep on any play the whole game because you never know when he is going to pull it. And if you don’t have a guy account for it and they have the type of speed that quarterback has, that’s what happens. They got us about two times in the game on it. That one being the worst one. Then another one in the fourth quarter that hurt us.”

A couple of people have talked about playing complementary football and the need to get to that. I’m curious, is that something you can address during the week or is that just more of an abstract term of when all three phases play well that’s what you say after the fact? Is complementary football something that you talk about and can teach?

“I mean, all these things have to do with just the detail of each play and then you add it up over 70 plays and how is that going on each side of the ball and then how’s it going on special teams? So complementary football is something I talk about a lot, so that’s probably why you hear it from those guys. But it’s not something that you teach complementary football. You teach playing each play the best that you can. And when the offense is doing it and the defense is doing it and the teams are doing it, that’s when you get some very easy victories and it’s usually out of hand in the fourth quarter. When one side of the ball’s hot, but the other side’s not, that usually keeps guys in the game and you can’t really put people away until you play more complementary football, which is another way of saying all three phases are playing at the top of their game at the same time, not taking turns doing it throughout a game.”

How long are you guys expecting to be without DL Yetur Gross-Matos?

“I think he got his surgery Friday and they told me anywhere from four to eight weeks is their estimate on it. And so, it’s a pretty big estimate, but four on the short side, eight on long.”

Can you tell us what happened, what the surgery was?

“Yeah, it was the same injury that he had in the last preseason game. We thought giving it a long rest would be able to help it. It did for a little bit, but then the more he started playing and started aggravating it again it just became too painful. So, had to make the choice to get surgery and I think it was a good decision.”

You guys have been in arguably worse situations, I guess 3-5 in 2021. And a lot of the guys are still from that team on this team. Is that in any way relevant or does it help to have that history of knowing what can still be accomplished?

“No, I don’t think it pertains to anything. I think everybody goes off their life experiences and we have some people who have been here can always resort to that and just know how things work. I’ve been through a number of them in my whole coaching career, not just here. So, you always know going through this that you can never count yourself out until you’re actually eliminated from something. I’ve seen teams start 0-4 and get there before. So, there’s lots of things that go into it. But I think every year’s different and we’ve got to write our own story this year and it has nothing to do with other years.”