Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh Talk Preparation for #SFvsLAR | 49ers

Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh Talk Preparation for #SFvsLAR | 49ers

All right, guys. Um, injuries for today. Uh, Ricky Pel knee won’t practice. Jordan Watkins calf won’t practice. CJ West thumb won’t practice. Robert Beal ankle won’t practice. Perie toe won’t practice. Um, Joan Jennings ankle/ribs won’t practice. Etor knee limited. Renardo neck limited. Dwyters knee limited. Um, Muel Williams wrist oblique limited. Uh, that’s it. Go ahead. Do any of those guys you mentioned or have you ruled any of those players out from playing? Yeah. What has Brock’s progress, if any, been since we last talked to you? Um, not much. That was yesterday. So, so has Mac come totally off the injury list now? Yeah. How’s that uh with Mel Williams’s wrist? I mean, he went to the locker room early in that game with it, but how’s that hindered him or is it hindering him at all? Sure does some. I mean, it’s painful, especially position you play with your hands all the time. Um, you know, he’s been dealing with it and um he’s been battling through it. First time facing the Rams with Adams and Nicole. What kind of challenge those guys present as a tandem? What what have you seen on film so far? Um, I mean, just those two great receivers with a unbelievable quarterback. So, huge challenge. Um, you know, just like when they had Puka and Cup going, I mean, two huge challenge, especially paired with Stafford. Um, two of the best hands in the league with Puka and Devonte and the separation ability, how they can cut, how aggressive they are in their routes. I mean, they’re as good as it gets. How uh Rams added Puna Ford to their Dline. How has he changed what they look like up front? Hasn’t changed what they look like, just added another one. Um he’s a hell of a player. Uh we’ve looked at him a number of different times. Does really good in the run game. Also is effective in the past pass game, but just add another um real good player to that group, which allows them to rotate them a lot more and keep them fresher. Obviously Stout won’t be on Nua the whole game. But what does he what about Nua makes it such a challenging assignment for a nickel? Um how big and physical he is, how good his hands are, and how aggressive he plays tied with how big he is. Um he’s full speed all the time running through people attacking edges and the same way he runs through that football and catches it. Will the decision to play Brock come down to pain tolerance? Um no. It’ll come down to do we feel he could play and to 100% of his ability and do we feel that uh he can protect himself with it? John said on the radio this morning that he thought that perhaps the uh second quarter scramble by Brock um affected him u bothered him I think was his his um the words he used. Was that part of um you know what what Brock was told to do to try to avoid scrambling as much as possible in that game? Uh no he wasn’t told that. You know they they said um you know it was my first time dealing with people with a toe injury like that. I was trying to ask if it was like a high ankle sprain, like is it something you just keep zinging over and over? Um they said no, it’s not like that. If you ever got caught in an awkward position on a tackle um is where you could hurt your toe again. Um but it doesn’t work like an ankle or anything like that. And I think they got him on that when they took him down. So whether it’s scrambling or just getting tackled was kind of the worry of it. Christian went on George’s show this week and he said that he at that deadline where you acquired him, he thought he was going to be traded to the Rams. Had that happened one, how painful would that have been for you? And did you realize the ramps were in the mix for him? We heard they were in it. Yeah. So, I mean, you hear a lot of things when you’re dealing with trades. Um, sometimes they’re real, sometimes they’re not. Um, people always do it left and right. Usually, you’re trying to get a few more picks out of it and stuff. So, um, you know, that’s I guess it was true, but glad he ended up here. We’ve had a lot of success, it seems like, with the dirty kickoffs. Um, what’s the sort of the challenge of dealing dealing with those? just how hard they are to catch. I mean, I think um I want to say they’ve had 23 kickoffs and 21 of them have been dirty balls. They’re number two in the league. The other team is number one, Carolina. They’ve been great at kicking those dirty balls, too. So, anytime you can’t catch a clean, the timing of just how you block and everything’s off. So, um those guys get back there a lot faster. And when the timing is off like that and you don’t know where the runner is tied to the blockers, um also a lot more penalties happen too with holdings and stuff. So, uh, the dirty ball is a huge part of this game with the new kickoffs. It’s just it’s not an easy thing to do for everybody. You guys look to using the dirty ball more often on your kicks or what? You always look into it. Every team does. Um, but the the issue is if that ball comes up short of the 20, if it goes out of balance, um, there’s a lot it’s not real easy to always do a dirty dirty ball. Um, you just miss a little bit and it’s out of balance or short or you kick a touchback like that and that’s real risky, too. So, um I mean I think you guys kind of you saw that with Arizona last Thursday night. Um so there’s a lot of risky things to it. Um after the game, Christian said in a lot of ways that the team is like right there. They’re just really close to doing everything that you should do out there on the field, especially in the run game. He says you guys are right there. When you look back at the tape from the game, do you did you see the same thing? Like we’re right there. We’re just missing a step here or step there or what is it? Yeah, I see that. I mean, it’s it’s you’d have to watch all 20 of the clips to do it, but um that’s usually how the run game is. You got to break some big ones. And when you don’t break any um we had about three opportunities, too, and um a lot of people are involved in that, but um and we got to stick with it more um by being in some different games to get more opportunities of that, but um it’s nothing no one quick thing. It’s everyone still going to work um 11 guys blocking, 11 guys getting after it and doing better on other downs. So, you’re so diligent usually or on a normal week about immediately correcting all the mistakes that you made in the game you just had before you move on. Does that not happen this week? Uh, no. We don’t have time to I mean, we watch it all as coaches and stuff, but we don’t review it today. Um, we came here and it was Wednesday morning and I think it’s already Thursday for us and by the end of today it’s Friday and tomorrow is Saturday. So, uh, we got to get going, but uh, we’ll get to it eventually. You just assume that guys are doing it on their own. Um, I mean, position coaches will do it with guys. I mean, they won’t sit and review the whole game, but, um, they’ll review specific things that we got to change or we got to get fixed. When it’s, you know, you’re not going to review a guy dropping a ball or something like that, but when someone’s having a missed assignment or doing something wrong, those are things you definitely get corrected. How concerned are you with this offense that you haven’t scored a rushing touchdown so far? Um, I mean, I don’t I I get concerned with scoring points. I don’t really care how we do it. So, I’d like to score more points. And you score a lot of points and they’re all passing, I don’t care. If you score a lot of points and they’re all rushing, I don’t care. I just want to score points. It’s pretty rare for a team for your team to play four or five on the road so early in the season. I know it’s you’re focused on this game, but I mean, in terms of how challenging is this block of games coming up? Um, I’m not sure. I don’t even know who we have after um the Rams, so I know we got three days off to think about that. Um, but I mean it is what it is. I mean, yeah, it’s always challenging when you have more on the road, but that means you get more at home later at some time. Um, so it’s all how the schedule goes out and the healthier team when you’re doing it and stuff like that. And could be a disadvantage. It could be an advantage. So don’t don’t look too much into it. I pretty important question. What um what NFL coaches do you think could beat up Robert S? Um, just me. That’s about it. What about Dan Campbell? Yeah, probably bet on Dan over a lot of people. Um Saul’s saw’s too too nice usually, but seemed like someone struck a cord later. I mean, the other day, but I don’t think there’s any fights going on. It was kind of comical now to look back at it. You said um previously that you thought CJ West could play with a cast on his thumb. Is that um has that did that change after the surgery? Uh, no. It’s something that we’re looking into and still considering this week. So, that’s why we haven’t ruled him out. Um, that’s stuff he’s experimental experimenting with right now. All right. Thanks. What’s up, guys? Robert, can you kind of take us through um from from your comments Thursday um and and how that may or may not have been misinterpreted by uh the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach? No, it’s all good. Uh whatever happened on Sunday doesn’t change how I feel. you know, like uh um I in my heart genuinely was trying to give a compliment and uh I I own the fact that I probably used it was a wrong choice of words, but however you want to word it, I mean, they’re they’re really really good at at putting their players in position to be successful. You know, as coaches, we’re always chasing leverage. They’re trying to have winning leverage. We’re trying to take leverage away. And um and everyone in the league is trying to find every avenue they can. And as a coach watching their tape, I recognize the amount of hours that must be spent uh to to to be able to build formations and to find every little indicator they can to to give their players a chance to be in a successful position. That’s exhausting. And there’s every team does it. Some do it better than others. And and it was my way of acknowledging that these guys are really, really, really good at it. And um you know, so and like I said, Sunday doesn’t change that. I think Liam’s doing a hell of a job. I really do. Uh you can tell that that team is really taking on his personality and you know I hope they came out of the game healthy and I wish him the best of luck for throughout the rest of the season. But um you know I wish I could have ch found a better choice of words but my intent was always to to compliment that football that staff. Have you reached out in the aftermath to the other one? No. Was your intent after the game to seek him out and sort of explain to him what you just explained? The intent was to to say exactly what I just said that, you know, I think I think he’s doing a really nice job, which I do. Uh that football team is playing and and taking on his personality. They’re playing violently on the offensive line and their running backs are running really hard and I think they’re doing a really really nice job and uh and I just wanted to let him know that I that I appreciate the way he’s going about his business with his football team. Robert, you are universally regarded as a gentle giant. I mean, being people that have been around you for a long time, I’ve never really seen him mad. I mean, does it take quite a bit to get you get you to say, I don’t know, some whatever he may have been said? Um, I don’t know. Everyone has a trigger, I guess. Speaking of sign stealing, how’s Shawn McVey doing in that department this year? No, you know, same thing. those guys that they do like Sean, Shawn, Kyle, uh Kevin Okcon, all those guys, they they do such a great job through formation identification, uh building formations and and putting their players in position to gain leverage. And um you know, it’s all the same thing. They’re they’re these these guys are the best in the world at it. And that’s why this tree keeps on growing and growing and growing. It’s very very hard to defend. Um and Sean’s no exception. These guys are phenomenal at I mean, you think it’s easy. Well, just defend Puka. Well, shoot. They’re always finding ways to put Puka in different spots to create leverage. Okay, then you got to deal with Devonte. Well, well, just double both of them. Well, then shoot. They got other guys and and they still managed to find ways to to put those guys in winning leverage and and they do it with great film study and understanding football and understanding defenses and understanding body language and and and just trying to find every nugget they can to help their team be in great great position. And and that’s what I was trying to articulate. Obviously, I did a poor job with the word. I mean, if I if I said the word film study, I don’t think we’re really talking about this, but I I use signal stealing and that’s why I was so adamant about legally. I was just struggling for a word. But um but for Sean, same thing. I mean, these guys are the best in the world at it and that’s why they’re they are where they are. Just to clarify, did you not mean science stealing it? You’re talking about specifically game planning and studying? Yeah, it’s just it’s a it’s all in it’s Yeah. No, I I I had a bad choice of words. So, Robert, on the on the on the uh Fred Warner force fumble, um the ball was on the ground, Brian Baldinger said that your defensive linemen were loafing after it. You saw the play. What did you think? No, you know what? You you could you could pick out any play and and uh and try to pinpoint different things, but uh we’re always going to strive for tremendous effort. Our D line can always be better. uh you know I can make an excuse for him on that particular play with the game we were running or we’re running a game to our defensive left. The ball came out to our defensive right. They’re spinning out trying to find and locate the football and um their guys had a head start on it. So uh but I I’ll never question the effort of this football team. They our guys are relentless to the ball. We get 11 hats on in the screen at about 90% of the time. So um if that’s a problem to to some it’s not a problem in here. Robert, what was your assessment of the pass rush on Sunday? Uh, I thought Jacksonville did a really a really nice job kind of negating our ability to to rush the passer. You know, they’ve uh I mean, they got rid of the ball elitely fast. They stayed ahead of the chains. Um, you know, the the one that uh uh the young rookie caught the 28 yard on third and 15 that came out in a huddle caught us in a a miscommunication and uh you know uh which extended a drive but overall you know I thought we were really good on third down. Um I thought we did some good things overall but uh but obviously it wasn’t it wasn’t good enough. Robert, you weren’t here for seven of these games, but this franchise tied an NFL record with 11 straight games without an interception. I mean, it seems like it could be a little fluky, but I don’t know what what can you is there anything that you point to like this is what we’re doing wrong or is it just kind of there are chances you don’t get? Yeah, we had opportunities on Sunday. Uh, you know, Fred had a couple of ops. Um, I think Upton made a hell of a play to make a to get an interception. I can see what the refs saw, but you know, there’s there was a hell of a lot more going on throughout the game than just that. Um, they’ll come. You know, we we’ve had opportunities against Seattle. We were we were that close on a few. Um, against New Orleans, uh, same thing. Arizona, I think we had a couple of shots at the ball. Um, you know, it’s just they’ll come. It’s sometimes it happens that way. You mentioned Devonte. How are he and Puka working off each other and how that a tough challenge for you guys to prepare for? Yeah, the they’re incredibly tough. You know, Sean, like I said, he’s got two guys and he’ll put them everywhere. He’ll put them together. He’ll put them opposite. He’ll um and and they find ways to put them in in positions where they’re leveraged and uh you know, so they’re I think it starts with the coaching staff and finding ways to utilize both to make sure that they’re both u uh viable targets on on each down and um and they’re doing a great job. They do a great job at the line of scrimmage getting off and they do a great job at the top of the routes creating separation and they’re big strong easy targets for the quarterback to get the ball to and uh um and elitely efficient in terms of uh when they do get the ball in their hands getting vertical and and eating up yards. Last one. Go ahead. What does Nick Mark need to do to get in uniform play? Um he’s got to get he’s got to he’s got to dominate special teams first and uh you know right now Dwyers is playing at an extremely high level. Um and the guys after D and and Fred are are are outpacing him on special teams and D and to for Nick he’s going to be fine. He is he’s uh um you know he needs reps but uh but he’s got to earn those reps and he’s working hard at it. He is. But, uh, you’re talking about guys who have been in this league for a while, uh, between GIF and and, uh, Curtis, guys who who know the game and know how to play special teams and know how to, um, be pros, uh, week in and week out. Not that he’s not being a pro, talking about Nick, but they’re just a little bit ahead of him right now in that regard. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you. [Music] Hey, [Music]

#49ers #FTTB

Head coach Kyle Shanahan and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh provided updates on QB Brock Purdy, WR Ricky Pearsall, and other key players, discussed the challenges of a quick turnaround for a Thursday night game, and previewed Sunday’s NFC West matchup against the Rams.

Chapters:
0:00 Head Coach Kyle Shanahan
8:30 Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh

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