49ers' delay in revealing Kyle Shanahan's accident gave impression of 'hiding something'
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio to discuss the San Francisco 49ers and ESPN's handling of Kyle Shanahan's car accident and why the delay raised more questions about the incident. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
What do you make of the Kyle Shanahan car accident and the subsequent reporting, or maybe even lack thereof?
The whole situation has been an example of how not to handle PR if you're a major professional sports team.
Because they created that eyebrow raise by hiding the fact that an accident had happened for 11 days.
It happened July 14, they announced it on July 25.
They clearly coordinated with ESPN when the announcement was made, so ESPN knew plenty about it and kept it quiet at the behest of the 49ers.
The people who cover the team on a regular basis, they either didn't know at all or didn't act on what they'd heard to try to push it forward.
That's a problem.
Then even after we knew about it, there are natural questions that arise from it, and I don't get the impression that the people who cover the team have been nearly as aggressive as they could be or should be to try to answer these questions.
And look at what's come out.
He's behind the wheel.
The Tesla is driving itself.
He drops his phone.
At one point, the impression was it fell from his lap into the space between the seat and the console.
He said Saturday it went all the way into the backseat.
He turned, took his eyes off the road, and then either coincidentally and simultaneously the self-driving mode malfunctioned, or he somehow hit something and turned it off while his eyes were off the road.
It was enough to cross the line and cause this head-on collision at 20 miles an hour, which doesn't sound like much, but when both vehicles are going 20 miles an hour in opposite directions, it's like driving into a wall at 40 miles an hour.
That's why he got as injured as he did, and these questions are still out there because they're not releasing the 911 call.
They're not releasing the accident report.
It feels like one of these situations, and you know, this shines a little light on the fact that the security director at every team is basically a fixer, and that person knows all the right people to call to make something go away or not be an issue.
And I just think that they're wired to do that, and in this case, they allowed that to take over when maybe they didn't need to because it makes us all think, "Man, they must be hiding something," because they're acting like someone that has something to hide.
If it's as simple as he had a malfunction in a Tesla or he leaned down for his phone, like why is that worth hiding?
That's the part of this that I can't wrap my head around.
Like have, have you heard or seen anything so far that justifies the fixer even getting involved?
Well, I had reason to believe that he was using the self-driving apparatus on the Tesla, and that, that would explain it, I guess.
I don't know.
I mean, I, I don't know what they're hiding, so it's hard to understand why they'd hide it.
Are they hiding something more?
The way they've acted would make us think that they are hiding something beyond what we've learned bit by bit and trickle by trickle.
So the, the whole thing is just odd.
And again, maybe it's standard operating procedure for the various big doms of the world who are in charge of security and in charge of making sure that things don't become a distraction for the team.
But sometimes you just have to have the presence of mind to realize this is gonna come out, and it's gonna look weird when it does come out.
Let's just issue the statement that Kyle Shanahan was involved in a car accident.
He has non-life-threatening injuries.
We'll provide more details at the appropriate time.
Boom.
Announce it the day it happens and just leave it at that.
And will there be curiosity?
Will there be reporting?
Yeah, people will try to find stuff out, but they're still gonna do it anyway.
We're gonna find out about it at some point.
They delayed it because they could.
If it would've happened this week, they'd have to tell us about it immediately.
They took advantage of the fact that nothing was going on to keep this quiet, and I just think it was a mistake.
It, it has the effect of creating a lingering sense that they're hiding something.
And I don't know how many people are actively searching, but maybe somebody will find exactly what it is that will cause us all to say, "Aha, now we know why they hid this from the get-go."
