San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke to reporters on a conference call Monday, a day after the team’s 42-10 win over the Dallas Cowboys. Here’s everything he had to say.
The transcript was provided by the San Francisco 49ers communications staff.
Opening comments:
“All right guys, injuries from the game: [OL] In the end, Aaron Banks was his shoulder, light burden, he’ll be a burden every day. And people who missed the game, just [RB] Elijah [Mitchell] He continues to suffer with his knee in everyday life. We will see in the next two days if he will be ready for Wednesday. Carry on, boys.”
Is that a big sigh of relief to hear from Aaron Banks?
“Yes. Whenever it’s biceps, obviously we were nervous and we still had an injury, but not as bad as it could have been.”
DL Drake Jackson was out of the game for a short time. Was this something that was reportable?
“No, he took the wind out of him.”
In the last three games, there have been penalties for plays where RB Christian McCaffrey had his facemask torn and helmet-to-helmet hits occurred. Is this something that worries you? Do you see anything unusual? Does the team think teams might start targeting him?
“No, I don’t think they’re trying. I don’t think teams are trying to hit him in the helmet or put a facemask on him. I think people are desperate to see how they can take him down. You see, if the guy didn’t do all of that in the tackle against Arizona, then Christian scored a touchdown or carried him in to score a touchdown. When you’re running that hard, guys will do whatever they can to take a guy down, and sometimes you’ll be clutching the facemask. From helmet to helmet, those are narrow windows. Christian is running really good routes and our quarterback is asserting himself in tight areas and these guys are determined to try and stop that. And when that happens, it’s really hard to manage without doing that. So when you have a really great player like Christian who is fearless, guys will do everything they can to try to stop him, and when they do that, sometimes they get penalties for it.”
After a thorough examination of a supposedly pretty good team like this, half-joking comments about the 1972 Dolphins, and the time to just send the Niners to the Super Bowl, at this point is there a locker room to take off your clothes in? Maybe you don’t have to worry too much about all week long, “Oh, let’s keep our heads together, let’s stay humble” and all that stuff? Where do you go if you don’t give in to all the hype?
“I am definitely aware of the question and how this could have happened. But honestly it was really easy with our guys. And the way they behaved in our building all week, they didn’t do much with it. It was like any other game and any other week. I think we have a good group of veterans that I’ve been through a lot of things, even the guys that have been there since our 2019 when we started 8-0. I think the guys who were here and went through things passed it on to the other guys. That’s always our message, that nothing can be taken for granted and it’s just one week at a time. I think everyone preaches that, but I think through our shared life experiences and stuff, our guys really know it. And the guys who didn’t do it part of it is they hear it all the time from the people who did it.
I think in five plays in the third quarter there was a sequence where QB Brock Purdy hit WR Brandon Aiyuk a couple of times, one of which was called back and then the hit there on WR Deebo Samuel. I know you say that you just expect certain things from Brock, but when you see things like that, are there still things that he does that surprise you or amaze you in some way?
“I mean, just the consistency. He does it all the time, but to just keep doing it at such a high pace was pretty incredible. How good he was, how many plays he made and how many plays he didn’t make.” Made for the other team. So yeah, the consistency was what impressed the most.”
Aside from the face mask and the other hit, Christian took a lot of hard hits in this game, or so it seemed. In your opinion, has he suffered nothing worse than wear and tear?
“Yes, as far as I know. When we spoke to him after the game he was fine and then I didn’t get any reports from the coaching staff today. But yes, they brought it. They were ready for this game and hit hard.” . They stopped at nothing and it was very similar to last year when we played him in the playoffs. Christian doesn’t shy away from anything either. I thought Christian ran so hard in that game, and he tried. He did it to them at every opportunity and had some really good, hard runs. There’s one in particular, I thought we’d lose about three yards because of it, but he got five. There was a third and a second that I did. The thought was blocked for one and he ended up getting two and a half. So he made really hard runs. But these guys, definitely their safeties and their edge players, they bring it, and that was something we knew going into the game.”
Their quarterback only had two quarterback pressures in 29 passes. What can you say about your offensive line’s performance after watching the tape?
“I thought they did a really good job. This team is a big challenge, as difficult as it can be in pass protection. I think we did a lot better than last year. There were still some that they got in there, but we were able to get rid of the ball and in the end I think they only had that one sack. There were a few plays that were risky for us to try a little bit further down the field, which sometimes gives these guys a chance. We wanted to play how good their pass rush was. And especially on those plays, our guys really manned up, gave Brock the time and were able to lead to a couple of touchdowns.”
Yesterday, DB Deommodore Lenoir said he was grateful that defensive coordinator Steve Wilks trusted his DBs with high man coverage. How do you assess the development of your defense in terms of what Steve is asking for on the back end and do you encourage him to focus on peaking at the right time later in the season in terms of coverage combinations? and everything he calls?
“Yeah, Steve is such a good coordinator and he’s been doing this for so long that Steve knows what he’s doing. It’s more about getting used to our guys and figuring out how to do what he loves with our group. And that is always a challenge.” Our coordinators. Every year is different. It’s for me, it’s for him, because what you want to do depends on how your players are doing. Steve is the new guy here, I think he understands that more and more with every game. I loved the way he was. I think every game he gets stronger and better at it and not only better at it but how we can run our scheme with our guys. He messed up a lot of stuff and thought we did it a little more man yesterday. The way the secondary school was finished, it starts with him and [defensive backs coach Daniel] Bullocks because that is the area they focus on the most. Those guys were so aggressive in their coverages, which allowed us to have a better pass rush and even end up in tight man coverage where Demo had that bias and it ended up being that pick with the top. I was really impressed with their preparation and how it looked on film.”
You scored a touchdown on four of your five opening drives this year. Is there too much emphasis on quick starts? Looking at the opening results, how did that affect your players’ attitude and confidence for the rest of the game?
“It’s not really something we talk about because we talk the same thing every ride. We want the urgency from the first game to the last game. So there’s nothing that we really exaggerate in that way because we feel like that’s the standard for everything. I think ours.” The boys just played well. They did a good job, and when things didn’t work out so well, we were able to get some important third downs that kept us on the field. This is usually the key to scoring points. “
They said the other day that LB/DL Randy Gregory would be arriving today. Is that still the case and is there a plan to give him full throttle right from the start?
“Yeah, we’ll throw him in on Wednesday. I didn’t check this morning to see what time he was flying in and stuff. I was told he’s flying in today. In the end I released the players. So we won’t see each other.” I’m sure he will meet with them when he arrives later today or tomorrow [defensive line coach Kris] Kocurek.
With all the big names on defense, what can you say about the rise of Deommodore Lenoir and how he can really stack up against CB Charvarius Ward?
“I think Demo was great for us, man. I thought it started like this last year. The way he finished last season, the second half, I thought he was playing at an extremely high level. He carried that over into the offseason, he continued it this year. I think his game was very good and I think last night was maybe his best game of the year so far.”
Do you think the way last season ended in Philadelphia gave you all a boost in a way that other postseason losses didn’t? Maybe it’s because it was the most recent of all postseason losses, but did that provide the impetus?
“Yeah, I think every one of them definitely does. I mean, players don’t always get the chance to get into situations like that throughout their careers. We’ve been in three pretty big situations here in the last four years.” So a lot of our team members have been in one of those three situations and some have been in all situations since the Super Bowl or both championship losses. You feel that as a coach because you’re usually in the league longer, you get older and stuff like that. But you always realize that you can’t take anything for granted in your time in this league. The only time you learn this is when the season is over and when it ends the hard way, like a Super Bowl or something like two championships. And when that happens, you know how hard it is to get there, and you know that’s really all that matters. That’s why when you go through this, you preach it and really mean it. When your players can go through that and they feel it along with the coaching staff, then yes, it takes its toll and that makes the offseason different. That makes the way you attack everything different. I feel that a lot from our players. You’ve been through a lot. We added some new guys this year that I think jumped in right away, but I think our guys have been on a mission for a while.”
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