Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – August 12, 2024

San Francisco 49ers

Opening comments:

“Confirmed with [CB] Ambry [Thomas] from yesterday with the forearm. I think he gets surgery tomorrow. And then one surprise for you guys, [DL] Kalia Davis messed up his knee in the game. He’s going to be about the same timeline. He’s going to get surgery on Thursday. He’ll be some, he’ll be back sometime halfway through the year.”

Is that an MCL or something?

“No, it was just some, I don’t know exactly what it was, but some stuff behind his kneecap.”

Seemed like he had a pretty strong game on Saturday.

“He did. I thought it was one of his best games. It was really unfortunate. He played awesome throughout the whole game. That’s why he, and us, were real surprised that he had such a tough injury. Found out after the game, yesterday morning, and it’s a setback. But he’s had such a good camp, such a good game. He’s in a good spot to bounce back.”

How did you arrive at the decision to cancel the joint workouts and was that a hard thing to do for you?

“It was tough because we like to do it. In the long run, I waited so long to make the decision because of how much we enjoy doing it. But when we realized we were just doing it because we were enjoying to do it, and trying to change the monotony, that really didn’t make it worth. It really wasn’t the best thing for our team, with where we’re at injury-wise. Love doing that stuff, and love to go out there, but the risk was too much. It outweighed the reward.”

Is there any chance that you could do that before the Raiders game?

“No, it’s just such a quick turnaround with us playing on Sunday, having to fly out there and stuff, so we’re not going to scrimmage anyone this year.”

How much, in addition to canceling the joint practice, how much do you have to kind of mix around the schedule, the practice schedule, to take care of your team at this point?

“That’s kind of what I did today. We have a team in two different spots right now. We had like 23 guys miss practice last Thursday, who couldn’t play in the game also and most of them starters and things like that. And when that happens, the twos and threes really have to take a heavy load. So today a lot of those guys were sore, but a lot of the other guys hadn’t practiced in five days. So we just did the ones today because they needed it. We took really good care of the guys who were in two days ago, changed it up, and we’re going to give them a day off tomorrow. So those guys, the twos and threes, can continue to rest, the ones will recover from today. And then we’ll get three good days in a row on our own that we can kind of control and stuff, not going against another team. Then we’ll have out walk through and we’ll have a game.”

You’ve talked about how much you value those joint practices in the past. How concerned are you going into the season about being prepared if you don’t have those?

“No concern. I think I’ve said I value them more than the preseason games a little bit. But I also value practice more than the games. So there’s really no difference in that. We never scrimmaged against teams when I was in Atlanta. Never did in Cleveland. Never did in Washington. So it’s not something that you have to do. We did once in Houston, I believe. I just think it breaks up the monotony of camp, but we can generate that stuff with ourselves. Sometimes it’s nice to go against different schemes, but it all changes once the year starts anyway.”

What’d you think of the kickoff return in the game and have you thought about the idea of maybe just kicking it through the back of the end zone, putting them at the 30, it’s only a five yard difference from a year ago.

“It’s a hell of an idea (laughter). I haven’t thought of that. Yeah, we’re all talking about that and it looks like it’ll make a lot of sense once the season starts. But, this was our first week with us doing it. It was our first week really getting more teams, besides the Hall of Fame game and stuff, to evaluate it. When you can start there at the 30 and the average starting line’s the 29, it doesn’t seem like there’s that much of a difference to really go with the risk of it. It also can be an advantage too. We’ll see how good our 11 are that we put out there, how our returners are and stuff, whether people give you the opportunity for it. But it’s kind of a wait-and-see approach.”

We know how much you love watching special team stuff. Have you spent more time on it because of this than you normally would in training camp?

“Yes. That especially, because it’s just something that we haven’t seen and it’s something we have to keep discussing. The spacing of it, I think, seems closer to more of an offensive play than a special teams play. So there are some similarities in that. But there is so much unknown. The special teams guys have been doing this for a long time and I’ve always believed the key to special teams is just being sound. You always want to win the game on special teams, but the main thing is you don’t lose it. And when you’re experiencing new things like this, there’s a lot of unknowns and that’s why we all have to be very involved in it.”

What is WR Chris Conley’s value on special teams, but also at split end without WR Brandon Aiyuk here?

“It’s been huge. It was huge for us last year. He stepped up whenever we needed him at wideout, he came in and made some big plays. He made some big plays in the Super Bowl at wideout, he made some earlier in the playoffs. And then on special teams, we didn’t think he would have be a big factor on special teams, but just like everything he does, he’s such a pro and figures everything out. He was our best gunner in the Super Bowl, did a hell of a job at that. Wherever we’ve asked him, he’s done a hell of a job for us.”

What do you like about WR Robbie Chosen?

“I’ve always been a fan of him, his whole career. Especially going back to the Jets. Just the speed he’s had, the way he plays for a guy who can run so fast. I always thought he played physical, ran his routes very well. When you’re a very good go runner, streak runner but also can run a slant, it’s a problem. Love that he has some experience in our offense, with just being with Miami last year. We got him in on a workout last week and he looked like what we’ve seen from Chosen in the past. We’re excited to get him on board at this time.”

When you said that Kalia Davis will miss half the season, is that to suggest that you’ll keep him through the cuts and then put him on IR?

“We have to figure all that out, but we plan on Kalia being around here and we plan on him coming back and helping us this year.”

Is there a chance you’ll play the ones in this game now that you’re not doing the joint workouts?

“Yeah, there is a chance. Usually, I decide that based off how the joint practices go. There’s been times I’ve told them that we’re going to go and I’m going to use all the ones in these joint practices a ton and not play them in the game and the practices haven’t gone the way I’ve wanted and we’ve ended up playing them. And then sometimes they’ve gone exactly how we wanted and we didn’t feel the need to play the guys. I don’t really see it much different going against ourselves. It’s nice for those guys to get a day off tomorrow so we can have three really tough practices in a row where we’ve kind of built up to our mountain, which we say that with the most reps, which will be one of those. So we’ll see how those three practices go and we’ll make the decision on what we think helps our team and the individuals for the game.”

New roster rules help with Kalia?

“It does. It helps a lot. Not just with him, but usually every year there’s a number of guys like that.”

Having 23 guys out sounds really dire, but if this was 10 years ago, how many of those guys would be practicing?

“It’s a lot more, which usually hurts them longer. I love the way it is. You want to push guys to get in, because it’s so important to build that callous and go through all this so they don’t have to do it during the season. When you’re having to need guys to build that on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, that doesn’t always help for Sunday. So it is more of a challenge. It’s nice that you get to keep 90 until the final cuts so you don’t have to mess around with that. And it helps so much more, just being able to keep 16 guys on practice squad as opposed to the past. But we also don’t go two practices in a day, which sometimes helps people, but sometimes when we used to go to practices a day, everyone was so tired and slow, it was harder to get hurt because no one could move that fast. We’ve been on both sides and definitely like the way it is now. It’s smarter the way it is now, but there’s some give and take with everything.”

Run game coordinator/offensive line coach Chris Foerster said last week that he thought OL Dominick Puni was going to be good. There’s the reason he was drafted, but he is little better than he expected at this point. Is that in line with kind of your assessment?

“Definitely. We were excited about him right away, but when you lose the two guys in front of him who both started a lot of games last year, a guy gets thrown in there before you want to throw them in there. Sometimes that can make guys better, but sometimes when they get put in a position that they aren’t quite ready for you get overwhelmed and it takes you a while to kind of get that confidence back. He’s been good since his first snap. So it hasn’t seemed too big for him. He’s gotten better each day in practice. And when you see that, you really want to see how it is in the game and see if anything changes. He looked the same in the game as practice. So we’re excited about that.”

When is a potential time for S Talanoa Hufanga to come back? Where is he at in the recovery process?

“Yeah, he’s going to see his doctor on Thursday to get his checkup and we’ll see where he is after that. It’s going very well. Hopefully we’ll get some good news on that and we can get him back in practice sooner than later.”

What did you think about OL Isaac Alarcon’s performance against Tennessee?

“He got a lot of playing time. He’s been our second guy that we’ve had in that situation. I think [former OL] Alfredo [Gutierrez] never got in longer than the last series and so he started the third quarter. [OL] Jaylon Moore got sick before the game so we couldn’t play him, so we were down just one more tackle. So, he got a huge opportunity, got a lot of playing time, some good, some bad. But the main thing was he got it on tape, got out there and I thought he got more settled down as the game went.”

What did you think of S Malik Mustapha? He had a big play, you challenged it. Obviously, I’m sure he was happy you did.

“I loved how he played. You could see how he did it on special teams. He had no hesitation. He’s a hitter, but sometimes guys get in that first game and they slow down a little bit and he was the opposite. He showed up on special teams. He showed up on a third and two, they got to our middle third player, which usually is at least an explosive and he met him at three yards, which is huge. The goal line stand was an unbelievable play. We had a missed assignment, so we had no edge player. So, he was actually the middle third guy and just filled it real fast in a blink and he knows how to hit. So, it was nice the guy went backwards.”

Where were TE Brayden Willis and S George Odum today?

“George Odum had a baby. Then Brayden was just sore from the game. I didn’t know if he wasn’t out there or not, but we weren’t going to have him do any reps.”

You’ve said that Brandon Aiyuk is taking part in meetings. Is there anything that he’s able to do or has done on the field, whether it’s just running routes with the quarterbacks or anything of that nature?

“Not with us. I trust Brandon knows what he’s got to do for this year to get ready to play. I have a feeling he’s finding a way to stay in shape and do those things. But there’s a football shape element that I know he is eager to get back to and us too. So hopefully we can get to that soon. But Brandon knows what he’s got to do to be in shape for the season and I feel confident he is doing that.”

CB Isaac Yiadom? I don’t know if we’ve had an update on him. Where’s he at?
“I think he’s a couple weeks away, one week away. I forgot to ask. Ankle, he rolled his ankle in a walk-through last week. They said it was going to be a couple weeks.”

Is this strange that this many guys are hurt at this stage or is it surprising to you?

“Yeah, I think we’ve been pretty fortunate the last couple years. That never stays. We’ve definitely been less fortunate this year, so a lot more numbers than we’ve been used to. But I think the best news about it all, we told you about Ambry and Kalia which are more serious and longer, but the other guys are anywhere from 10 days to three weeks. They’re guys that we expect to be ready for the season. It’s always tough when you miss training camp, so hopefully you can get them back. But yeah, we’ve had a lot of nicks and stuff that has made it harder to practice, but you’ll take that over a serious injury.”

With Feliciano, what’s his timetable?

“He’s not day-to-day. He’s not coming back this week. I forgot to check before I came, but he’s not coming this week.”

What’s his thing?

“Just a knee. Every time I say words guys don’t like them. So, it’s not an ACL, it’s not an MCL, it’s just knee soreness. Is that good for you? Irritation. Soreness. It doesn’t feel right and we’re trying to give him time to get it better.”

With him not practicing and OL Spencer Burford not practicing, is the focus on Puni? Is the door wide open for Puni to take it if he can seize it?

“Yeah, definitely. Anytime somebody gets starter reps, it’s always open. You don’t just give it away and stuff, but it’s always an opportunity. People get opportunities and you see how they take advantage of it. He’s doing a hell of a job so far.”