Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Press Conference

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Press Conference – September 23, 2024

San Francisco 49ers

Opening comments:

“Alright guys, injuries from the game. [LB] Dee Winters with an ankle, just aggravated his previous injury. [QB] Brock Purdy has some back soreness, he’ll be day-to-day. [DL] Javon Hargrave, we were wrong about, he partially tore his triceps so he’ll likely be out for the season. That’s it from the game, go ahead.”

Obviously surprised by the Hargrave injury. How was he playing and how big of a loss is that right now?

“It is a big one and I thought he had his best game yesterday. I thought he was a huge factor, really affected the quarterback in that game. It’s a big loss. He is one of our better players and he was definitely going in the right direction, was going to have a big year.”

What do you guys do now to compensate for the loss of Javon?

“We’re still working through that. We’ve got a couple guys on practice squad that we’ll most likely bring up. We’ve got some outside guys who are good inside rushers, as far as pass downs and things like that. But, we will always look out at what’s available out there. But usually you go to your practice squad. And hope to get [DL] Kalia Davis back soon too, which would help. Not this week, I don’t think, but hopefully soon.”

When you say he’s likely out for the season, is there a chance he could get back for the playoffs?

“I believe so. But when you, whether you partially tear it or tear it, we’re recommending surgery, so when you get surgery that’s usually, it’s a few months at least. If there was a chance, it’d have to be late in the playoffs.”

As far as Brock, is there any concern there about anything structural or anything of that nature?

“His MRI was good, so we feel good about that. But just sore today and hopefully it’ll feel better by Wednesday.”

Turning to the game, I have a question about how you guys handled the end of regulation. We’ve seen you guys in the past, at the end of the first half, make a major priority to not allow the other team to get the ball back. Why wasn’t that the thinking toward the end of regulation when you guys took over with 1:51 left?

“I think it is the thinking. It’s not the number one goal. The number one goal is to try to win the game right there, which I believe we had every opportunity to do. But that’s why we didn’t get into two-minute on that second-and, I think it was second-and-six, we threw a curl route to [WR Brandon Aiyuk] B.A. and we huddled up after it. So that was totally the thought process. And then the next down we had an incompletion and then we had a drop, and then it was third-and-10 and they had one timeout left. By that time, then it’s over. You’ve got to move the chains or they’re going to be able to use their timeout and go. Brock ended up scrambling on it, so we had them use their timeout. But there wasn’t a time that we could run out the clock. Obviously, we didn’t get it done, didn’t make the catch. And you could come out and run it the first couple downs and things like that, but we were trying to win it with that in our mind and that’s why we, when we were in bounds, that’s why we huddled up and didn’t go into two-minute mode.”

S Talanoa Hufanga, how was it having him back out there from an energy standpoint and what did you think of his performance in his first game back?

“I thought it was a good first game back. He wasn’t at the point of attack too much, but he definitely made some plays in it, had a good tackle on the sidelines. And I think he held up pretty well. I haven’t gotten to talk to him personally, but the film looked good. Hopefully it was a good step in the right direction and he’ll build off that going forward throughout the season.”

RB Christian McCaffrey traveled to Germany over the weekend, I believe. Is that to visit with Dr. Wehling and what’s your understanding of what he’s hoping to accomplish there?

“I’m not sure what doctor it is. I just, I know he is going to see a specialist that I believe can help him with his Achilles process and I think he’s doing that over these next few days and hopefully it’ll help.”

One more Achilles question about LB Dre Greenlaw. Is there a timeline yet on approximately when he might be able to come back?

“No. When I said out at the beginning of the year, I was hoping mid-season. I haven’t asked here in the last couple weeks, but that was what it was at the beginning of the year and still hoping that. But mid-season is still a ways away.”

Why did Dee Winters enter for LB De’Vondre Campbell Sr. on the Rams third series?

“Just planned on it before the game. We wanted to do that early going into this year also. But Dee just got hurt there, I think in that last preseason game, so that set that back a little bit. He’s gotten healthy and we planned on doing that early, just like the week before we planned on doing it with [S George Odum] G.O. and [S] Malik [Mustapha]. We started that and he got hurt on, he reaggravated his ankle on the fake punt.”

Is that any reflection of kind of a dissatisfaction with Campbell’s performance?

“No. It’s, we want to keep working to get the best guys out there and Dee has had a good camp and he showed that he deserves the chance to push him. He did good on the plays that he did when he was in there and hopefully he’ll get healthy so we can keep doing the same stuff.”

Where is WR Jacob Cowing on his, I guess, progression in getting involved in the offense and were there thoughts about getting him any more snaps on offense?

“He’s still working to get out there. He is trying to get more comfortable with the offense and just earn a role with it, gets closer and closer each week. Still got a bit to go though.”

How has he been looking? He is obviously back, not off the injury list, but does he look like he is normal health-wise other than that?

“Oh yeah, he is totally healthy.”

Is it more mental understanding of the offense and where he needs to be?

“There’s lots of reasons that go into it, but he hasn’t been able to make his way into that group yet, and the more he gets comfortable with the offense and the more consistent he gets then he’ll earn those opportunities.”

There was a play late in the game where it looked like Brock had Brandon open late and saw him and kind of hesitated to throw it and ended up coming back to WR Jauan Jennings. What did you see on that play? What was kind of the reason that Brock maybe didn’t let that one go?

“They busted a coverage and B.A. had a deep curl route. They busted a coverage, so B.A. did the right thing and just took off and went to that hole. It kind of caught Brock by surprise because B.A. was number two in the progression and when he looked to him B.A. wasn’t in the right spot because they busted a coverage and he went down the field and Brock thought about it, he just wasn’t sure where the rest of the safety was or anything, since he wasn’t anticipating that to happen. It would’ve worked, obviously, if he let it go, but that happens sometimes. Defense busts a coverage and if you’re not looking at the guy the whole time, all of a sudden it turns it into a go route, you can’t always just let it rip.”

Can you explain that a little bit more? What coverage were they supposed to be in and what did they end up doing?

“They’re supposed to be in two sky week and the corner safety is supposed to be a half player, stayed in a cloud and didn’t play half.”

That’s kind of what I thought.

“Yep.”

Last year you had pretty good injury luck particularly your star players. Obviously totally different so far this year. Do you have a sense of this may not happen back-to-back years of guys staying healthy?

“Yeah, injuries are always a part of it. We’ve had to deal with it a number of years, sometimes more than others. I think last year just mainly with some of our main guys, we were very fortunate. They didn’t miss too many games. This year has been totally different to start out. So that’s been real tough. I’d like to try to stay positive with it that all of them eventually are going to come back, but that probably changed with Hargrave today so that was a tough pill to swallow there. But yeah, we definitely haven’t had the luck that we had last year.”

Did the Rams go into more 12 personnel? Was that a surprise in any way or did it mess with your defense?

“Not really. Just with them being down their two top receivers and we had a feeling that they might do it more, something that they’ve never done, but we definitely thought it could be a possibility with just their injury situation.”

What did you see from your secondary and pass coverage after looking at the film?

“I thought the biggest thing was when you give up three deep balls for 130 yards and only one of them was a completion, that was tough right there. We got the two PIs, I think one 50-yard PI and another 30-yard PI there at the end. And then the one that they got by our defense on the one they completed inside the four-yard line. So, I thought that was the toughest part about it. That’s what gave them a chance to get back in the game and eventually beat us.”

Do you have any updates on CB Charvarius ‘Mooney’ Ward and TE George Kittle?

“Kittle, hope to get him back at practice this week and Mooney’s good to go.”

As far as special teams, is there a common thread that runs through where the issues have been? I know they’ve come in different areas these last couple weeks, but what do you need to see from that special teams unit as a whole that hasn’t been out there producing so far?

“At first, I always loved the special teams to help win, but my biggest thing is to not help lose. It’s not by making mistakes. We had a bad one in Minnesota with the blocked punt and then we had a bad one this week with giving up the fake punt. So, those are two things that we’ve got to shore up. I would always love to make plays and stuff on special teams, but the biggest thing is to not be one of the reasons that you lose. And those are two huge things, one in Minnesota and then yesterday on that fake punt. That’s stuff we’ve got to be more prepared for, first as coaches, and get our guys ready for that a lot better than we did yesterday.”

There was also the long punt return. Is that just a matter of the young guys not fully embracing their roles or not having enough experience in those roles?

“Well, you’d love to be able to make the tackle at the gunner. I loved how I think Malik shot his guns which slows the guy down a little bit. And you need a contained player on that play when he gets to the sidelines. There was a clip in the back which would’ve, negated him from getting to the sidelines. But once they did end up clipping us, he got to that edge and our contained player who was supposed to be there was not there. He was sucked up in the middle and didn’t get to that, which led to a huge play. That’s coaching, that’s playing, that’s everything, but that’s why it happened. We’ve got to make sure that we get a guy there because if they do get to the edge, however they get to the edge, you better have a guy in contain and we didn’t.”

Is DL Yetur Gross-Matos a possibility to play on the interior?

“Yes he is.”