Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference
Head Coach Kyle Shanahan
Press Conference – September 16, 2022
San Francisco 49ers
Listen to Audio I Media Center
Opening Comments:
“Injuries for the game: [TE] George Kittle, questionable. [OL Daniel] Brunskill’s out. That’s all we got”
What kind of influence will weather conditions have on the decision to play George or not?
“None. We’re not concerned about that for his injury.”
Is he limited or full go today?
“He’s limited”
How did he look?
“Looked awesome.”
Is that a game time decision?
“Yes.”
He was questionably questionable last week; do you feel stronger that he’s leaning more towards probable?
“I don’t know what probable means, but he’s healthier seven days later than he was last week when he was questionable.”
As far as the weather and the field conditions, QB Trey Lance said that there might be some work with watered-down footballs today, was there anything like that?
“Not with our team. He might do it after on the side, but that’s something that doesn’t change it the more you practice with it. It’s an issue, you have to deal with it.”
It seemed like you guys had a few plays that either could have been explosives or maybe touchdowns like one or two key blocks were missed, partially because of the rain. How do you assess that? Does that give you more confidence that if the conditions are iffy, it might work out better this week?
“Yeah, I don’t think it was because of the rain and that’s football. It comes real close, not always is it like that, but especially on a number of those runs that we had in the game. I thought that we had a real opportunity to run for a lot more. A couple of those ones we got [WR] Deebo [Samuel] on the edge and even [RB] Jeff [Wilson Jr.] a couple times, we were just about half a block away. So that’s stuff you have to keep working at to try to get and it’s a totally different challenge this week. But hopefully we won’t have as many close ones.”
You’ve had so much well-documented success with plug and play running backs since you’ve been here. And that’s something that goes back to what your dad was able to do in Denver. How much lineage is there between what he’s doing and what you’re doing? Is it completely unrecognizable? Are there some of the same base concepts? How would you describe that?
“I think they were the first people to just commit and do outside zone 90% of the time. And that’s where we start with, the commitment to outside zone that’s what everything plays off of. We mix in, I think a lot more stuff and we do our outside zone a lot differently. Things do evolve and change, but I think that’s the thing that’s similar that we’re always going to try to make people stop our outside zone. That’s where everything starts. And if you do, that makes a lot of other plays better. That makes your power game, your gap schemes better. It makes your toss schemes, your man blocking better, but we do try to major in the same thing.”
I read an interview with your dad before the Super Bowl in the 2019 season, he said that if former NFL coach Alex Gibbs saw the things that you had introduced to the offense, you’d be off the Christmas card list.
“Yeah, definitely. Alex didn’t like new things. I was with Alex for a couple years, so we had had to battle on that stuff. It was fun. I miss him.”
Can you convey the excitement of the home opener for yourself and the team versus an away opener? Is there an extra energy this weekend? What should the fans expect?
“Definitely when you’re at home. I think the advantage on the road is I always talk to our players. There’s an advantage with concentration on the road. You get on a plane usually right now, you’re there you don’t have family in town, things like that. And so those are the only reasons you like being on the road, but you always choose the crowd. And being in your own stadium, because that’s such a big factor and crowd noise and football. Not that I major in any other sports, but I just don’t get how other sports can compete with as big of an advantage. Every play starts with a snap count and cadence and that’s everything for O-line and D-linemen. So anytime you get a chance to be back home and know you don’t have to worry about on the road and the opposing team coming in, it does pump our guys up. It pumps our whole team up. It pumps our D-line up and man is our O-line glad that we don’t have to be on silent.”
There’s a buildup and anticipation in a normal week leading up to Sunday. Has that been increased because of the loss in Week One and just all the outside noise?
“Honestly, we don’t hear the outside noise. Anytime you do lose, there’s a lot more outside noise. Anytime you win, there’s a lot of outside noise telling you how good you are. You, can’t react to the noise and that’s hard to do, but that’s why you don’t look at it that way. Yeah, when you start 0-1, yeah, players, coaches, everybody feels that. But nothing really changes, so you don’t try to make it something that it isn’t. You don’t say, ‘Hey, let’s try harder this week,’ because you like to feel you do that every single day as well as you can and you just have to figure out why you lost the week before and try to do it better.”
Is it nice to not have Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson, I guess you play him next week, but is it nice to not face the Seahawks when they have Russell Wilson? What was your reaction when he was traded?
“I was happy, but no, all those guys who’ve been around there for a long time. They’ve had some really good players there in this last decade, starting with Russell. So anytime those guys are out of there, we’re happy. I thought we wouldn’t have to see him. We’ll definitely have to see him in a week from now. And they did a real good job last week, so not taking anything from their team, but everyone knows what Russell meant to that place for a long time. But they got a good team regardless and that’s why it’s still going to be a huge challenge. And I think they showed everyone that last week.”