Kyle Shanahan Provides 49ers Injury, Personnel Updates Ahead of #TENvsSF

Kyle Shanahan Provides 49ers Injury, Personnel Updates Ahead of #TENvsSF

All right, the injuries for the game. We got Tatum Bethun will be out. Um Sam O will be out. Nick Martin out. You two are out and Critter Sto out. Go ahead. Cry full go. Yes. Did he just have a B yesterday or something? I didn’t really ask him more about it. I know he wasn’t feeling well, but he looked good today. Was um Christian go today? Yes. I don’t know if you addressed this earlier in the week, but um concerned coming off a buy, you got a lot of rest and you’re ready for the push for the last few games. Concerned this could be a quote unquote trap game where you got a team that has nothing to lose coming in. Um I mean I don’t I don’t really look at it that way. I mean um I you know I think there’s no difference in this game than the next three games personally. I think when you come off a buy, it’s always a challenge as a coach because your goal is that everyone gets fresher by resting, which um is the best thing. But um you also get extremely rusty by not by not practicing. So um I felt that way early in the week, but getting to work in on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday of all full speed, getting walk through and base air half speed today. Uh I think he knocked the rust off and then I look at it as a full advantage going into by weeks. Now Cleveland, following by weeks, Cleveland Ferrell put up some pretty big numbers last month. Is he on a heater? Is he a late bloomer? Like, how do you explain what he’s doing right now? Um, I mean, I I think I think Cle played at a a real high level for us the last time he was here. Um, I didn’t study him too much. Um, you know, his year and a half at other places. Um, but when he came back here, you know, the first day of practice, he looked like the same guy. I, uh, I think when you do get sacks and stuff like that, uh, it brings a lot of attention. So, it seems like something drastically is different. Um but but I think Cle seems like the same guy he’s always been. Real good player. Your teams have a really good record after the buy through the end of the season. Is is there any message that you send to them going into the buy or coming out that maybe gets them to reach another level? Um no. I don’t think there’s really any message that anyone ever does um that gets people to another level. I think um practicing and working and getting better at things is what takes teams to other levels. So, uh, you hope the more you practice, which happens the longer a year goes, you hope you gradually get better at things, um, by just working at it more. Now, as you do that, you got to overcome injuries and all those things. There’s so many setbacks. uh by-weeks, you know, allow guys to be fresher and not have to battle through so much injuries, but um you know, you try to motivate guys to work and things like that, but to me, it comes down to the work you put in each week and never thinking, hey, we’re to November, we’re through December, we don’t have to practice now. Um once you start practicing, you get worse. Do you talk to Ricky when he’s not getting the ball or or any player when they’re not getting the ball and remind him that you still have confidence in him? Uh, I don’t need to talk to people when they’re not getting the ball when I know how much you guys are hounding them for not getting the ball. Um, those are the things that uh I don’t need to tell a guy that if I go up to a guy and say, “Hey, don’t worry. I I still have confidence in you.” So, when someone comes and says that to me, I’ll be like, I didn’t wasn’t worried you didn’t. What the hell happened? I hope my wife never tells me that for no reason. I think she genuinely likes me. Um, so no, I don’t do that at all. But I do feel for guys big time in this day and age and just how that stuff goes that um they got to answer to a lot of stuff and um all about stats and everything and this is a different sport. There’s 22 people on the field and um stats get a lot of people attention um in a good way and they also get people the attention in a bad way. But when it comes to our world, the football world and what we do in these rooms and watching film um there’s no need for me to explain anything. He understands it. a lot of your your your fast guys um you know cowing and Watkins and Ben and I you have not played this season. Um does that have a a big bearing on on the passing game on on the whole offense not having really a kind of a burner out there? Uh yeah, the more speed on the field you have the better. Um so when you’re missing a lot of guys who can run guys that you’re possibly counting on um that definitely affects everything. And when you look at, you know, just some of the things you said as a whole, you know, I think I think our past game has done a lot of good things, you know, numbers wise and things like that and help us win a bunch of games. But, um, it’s not just offense either. It’s is defense also. You know, when you’re missing guys who can really run, um, that is a that does have an effect. If you have all guys out there who can just fly around, but they’re not they’re that physical, then you’ll see some huge effects otherwise. Um, to be successful in this league, you need a little bit of a little bit of everything. As far as counting, is he is he back to full health? I mean, I realized that there’s no spot for him on the 53 right now. Um, but is he or at least as soon as as soon as he’s back to full health, we’ll open up his window. Yeah. So, he’s not quite there yet, but but he’s getting close. He’s got to pass a few more markers. How Jordan James handled this year really not being able to get on the field week by week, but trying to chip away in practice? Yeah, I think he’s taken a step forward these last two weeks. You know, I think it goes to Did you say Jordan James or Jordan Watkins? All right. Sorry, the Jay’s confusing me. Um they’re both similar answers. Um but I think he’s looked really good. Um going on about six weeks in a row right now. Um to where it’s, you know, we have two guys really running the ball. We have Isaac who is um there if one of those guys go down, especially in like a third down pass role. Um who does help at special teams. uh he kind of missed his window throughout training camp in the beginning of the season to really have one of those spots, you know, then we trade for Brian and um Brian’s to me like his last seven games have probably been his best game seven times in a row. I think he’s just keeps getting better and so it kind of looks like I’ve been real pumped with him in practice and be awesome to get four guys up. Um but you’re only using really two on offense. Um, so it’s got to make sense with the rest of the roster and, uh, I think that’s a tough thing about this league because I’m really excited about him. Um, I’m really excited about him on the practice field and I would really love for him to get up because he deserves to be. Um, but it’s not at the expense of someone else that’s doing something at a high level, too. And, um, got to make sure it’s the right thing for our whole team and our whole roster. Kyle, there was a report earlier this week that Robert Salah uh turned down like a lucrative contract with the Raiders to potentially also be their next head coach line, but what does that say about him that he wanted to come back to this organization and then also his name’s also now, you know, floating around there for a head coaching job? Um, well, I mean, I think I think Robert had a lot of opportunities to be decoordinator. Um, I think that was definitely one of them. Um, so just talking through that whole thing and he got close to I think a couple head coach jobs in the time too. So he was definitely our first choice and we were hoping that we would be his and that’s what he told me early on. Um, so I was glad he stuck with his word or we would have had beef. Um but it’s I mean Salah has done a lot in this league, you know. So I mean when you’ve done a lot, especially what he did here, but when you go do it um at another place the way they their defense um was in New York, um that’s a hot commodity. And the way he carries himself to how he is, um I hope for us he’s not a head coach next year. Um but I also know when you have the talent um that someone like Robert does, it’s only a matter of time. Seems like managing the end of the first half has gotten harder kickoff rule in the long kick. Scoring is up in the last two minutes, last 30 seconds of the half even when teams get the ball in their own possession territory. You guys Cleveland, how have you adjust the way you balance trying to score and score prevention at the end of the first half? Um, I mean, you try to you try to do it the same way. it it’s just heightened because of the new touchback rule and everything. I mean, we’ve had, you know, since 2019, we started really trying to always finish with the ball in the second quarter. Um, our goal is to score, but not at the expense of giving the other team the ball last. Uh, that’s that’s been kind of our philosophy for a while now, and that’s only gotten stronger now that I mean, you score, but there’s a minute left. We’d still rather score. Um, but, you know, them getting at the 35 as opposed to the 20 is is a huge different deal. So, uh, you want to take a lot more time if you can. You don’t just do it not to score, but you’re not going to sit there and be so risky trying to do that because of how quickly you can get a field goal on the other side. This isn’t necessarily the best team you’ve had here, but given all the injuries you’ve had, is this the season you’re most proud of as a head coach personally? Um, no. I mean, I’m proud of a lot of seasons. Um, you know, I was really proud of us having the second pick in the draft in 18, being a 4 and2 team and starting 8 and0 and being the one seed and getting real close to win a Super Bowl um at 19. Um, I was really proud in 21 I think. I might be wrong where we had to win like five last six games to get the seven seed and get us all the way to the NFC championship with a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter. I was proud of that. Um, I was proud of our 23 team of getting down to our third string quarterback and win seven in a row to get the two seed and um to go to Philly and have a chance to go to the Super Bowl. Um, and I was really proud of our 23 team going to the Super Bowl. Um, and I’m really proud of this team this year. Kyle Boyer uh seems to have a presence. Obviously, he’s doing a nice job. What What has he added to your football team this year? Do you see him as a future NFL head coach potentially? Um, I mean, I think Boyer is awesome. Love the guy. Was a huge fan of him as a player when he played. Um, I love the question you ask him as a head coach. Haven’t thought about it because he’s like a professional fisherman and loves Montana too much probably. Um, but no, Ber can do anything he wants to do. So, I mean, if that was something that he ambitions for, I want to hold him back for anything. Did you hate Two more? Did you hate the 2017 team? No, I haven’t hated any team, but um when you go six and 10 in your first year, you’re hoping that you can improve. And so, no, I didn’t enjoy going four and 12 the next year, but I did enjoy getting Nick Boso with the second pick in the draft. Last one. Talk to me about how more difficult it is to get the team and the guys and coaches to have that laser focus as the season wears along. Now you’re in December after a buy and you’ve got to push through the last few games and hopefully get the number one seed or at least the highest seed you can. Um it’s that’s what I say the big benefit of having this buy in December is I mean no matter what even you know when we’re going when we were the number one seed and we’re trying to maintain it back to 23. Um it seemed like you’re playing for everything. So you got the focus and stuff, but it’s the mental stamina that you need to do this seven days a week. Um to prepare the right way just for three and a half hours to really to be judged on. And all all that matters is those three and a half hours, but to be successful in those three and a half hours. Um the focus you need for seven days straight to give yourself a chance to do that to do that 17 weeks in a row. Um it becomes a grind. You know, I was talking about it before the Cleveland game that, you know, you do all this stuff, but really everything that we work for since February is going to be decided over the next 15 hours. And that’s what I mean by whatever how you ever you go forward times three and a half should be somewhere around there. Um, but that’s really all it comes down to is the Sundays, but how much you have to work to stay focused to have a chance to play at a high level there. And that’s what gets exhausting for guys. And yeah, it was nice to rest our legs and stuff, but to be able to get away for five days or whatever it was, your mind’s a little bit fresher. And when you can see four games right there to try to get to your ultimate goal, I think that helps a lot with your focus and things like that. And that’s what I could kind of feel from our team a little bit this week. Sorry, end of half situations. It’s like second and eight, you’d usually pass, but you know, you want to run clock and so maybe you run or maybe you wouldn’t do that. I mean, have those kind of decisions where it seems a little counterintuitive and you’re balancing, you know, now because you’ve done it since 2019, is it more second nature? Are those still difficult? No, it’s to me it’s the difficult stuff is when you have a philosophy, but any philosophy you have isn’t right 100% of the time. Um, so you got to go against that all the time. You know how hard it was for me in the second quarter versus Cleveland going into the wind. First time in probably maybe my career. I can’t remember. But I we started with the ball and I did it solely because we could avoid the wind in the fourth quarter and we had that wind in the second quarter and which means that we that field goal range is the 25 yardd line and I’m trying to think of what are the odds of us going this far to get inside the 25 um throwing into the win which means we can’t really go far down the field. we can’t kick a long field goal and so we’re gonna have to drop back to do all this stuff and we’re going against one of the best pass rushes in the league. What are you doing? U let’s run the ball. And that’s what I’m thinking and then all of a sudden it’s third and 10 and like screw it. I’m going to try one and Ricky makes a big play on third down. Um you guys should give more points for that. You know, there’s only one stat for you guys, but it was a huge play. Um and we get a first down. Then we throw one quick pass to Jawan the next play and it’s like all right, screw it. And we throw a far one to George and it gets caught in the wind, which is why you can’t throw that way. But he does an awesome job. Spins over his left shoulder, catches it, gets us to the eight yard line, and then because of the wind, our kicker hits the upright and goes in. And I’m like, I’m glad we tried for it. Um, but damn, that could have been real stupid, too. You know, all you need is one strip. And I was like, what the hell was I thinking we could pull that off for? And so that’s sometimes you got to go with your gut and um no nothing’s an absolute and live with consequences. Number one in that progression and that double move. He was Yep. It takes usually it’s a two hitch throw. Um in those conditions and stuff we could it was a double move so you can’t get out of it quite as fast. And Brock was waiting and he actually took four hitches. Um and it was an unbelievable route that um it actually wasn’t what I was hoping for because the the original route would have been open and he still got him on the double move. Um, but if he would have told me that he needed four hitches for that, I would have been like, “Is our quarterback all right?” And our O line gave him those four hitches. And so I’m like, “All right, well, it must have been not into the wind, but it was.” And so Allstars aligned on that play and it’s what made it good. One more if you don’t mind. Colton McKib seems like he’s having a really good season. How much has he improved over the six years that you’ve had him wherever it’s been? Every year. Like Colton’s been unbelievable. Colton’s one of my favorite stories here. Um, we cut Colton before. we don’t want to, but it was a roster thing and he was at the end and he was competing with another position and um we ended up cutting them um and took a big risk. When you cut someone, you might lose them and he came back on the practice squad and and I remember trying to get into the playoffs versus the Rams in week 17 and we were thinking Trent was going to go because he did everything he could and or maybe it’s the playoff game, I forget. Um right before Trent’s like, “I can’t do it.” And we just looked over to Colton who had just come off practice. I’m like, “You ready?” And there was zero hesitation in him and you always knew the game wasn’t too big for Colton and he went out there played at a high level. I think the next year, I want to say the next year is when McGllinchi went and everyone was wondering who was going to be our starting right tackle and you still look for people in the draft and if it would have fallen the right way, we possibly could have taken someone, but we did believe in Colton um that he was going to continue to get better because the type of guy he is and the build he has and he has gotten better and I mess with him all year, but he called a shot and said he was going to be a pro bowler this year. So, he he better play like one and I think he has. Thank you. Good. All right, guys. Hey.

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San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan meets with the media to provide injury and personnel updates before their Week 15 matchup against the Tennessee Titans.

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