49ers Talk: Kyle Shanahan's honesty after accident sets tone for organization
On "49ers Talk," Jennifer Lee Chan and Matt Maiocco discuss San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan's accountability following his recent car accident.
49ers Talk: Kyle Shanahan's honesty after accident sets tone for organization originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
From what I've heard, it seems like he was also, again, very down to earth and very sincere in his- Yeah communication with everybody yesterday.
Yeah, no, and he was emotional too.
Yeah, he was, he said it, it crushed him.
And, you know, the, the reporting is out there.
The driver of the other car was a 21-year-old female.
So that, that young lady, was fine.
But I think it just, it really hit him.
It hit him in a way, you know, as a father, that he had a, you know, a, what he calls basically a two-second lapse in judgment where his cell phone, he said he wasn't on his cell phone, but the cell phone was on his lap, and it slid off of his lap and went, between, you know, the seats.
And when he reached down to pick it up and he turned back, that's when the, the collision occurred.
The, his Tesla had veered over, the double yellow lines.
And so, i- it was, it was really emotional.
And it was, boy, it, it was, v- showed his vulnerable side in, in a big way.
But, you know, he said that he was absolutely crushed on Monday night, I believe it was, when he saw, the reports.
And it was a clerical error.
The po- the actual police report did assign blame to Kyle Shanahan, and he had seen the report.
He knew the report.
He's, he has the report.
But when it was basically keyboarded into the database with a Dropbox and everything else, it was just put on the wrong line so that it appeared as if, the, the young lady was at fault.
And Shanahan was like, "That is not at all what happened."
He took the blame for it.
Distracted driving.
He wasn't cited.
The, the, there was no evidence according to Palo Alto Police of any, you know, drugs or alcohol.
The, the accident happened at 6:14 PM on July 14th.
And he also showed us a picture of what he looked like in the immediate aftermath of that accident, and his face was whoa.
It was jacked up.
He had a big V-shaped scar, not scar, but a gash, right by his, his right eye.
He, he applauded the work of the pa- plastic surgeon.
And, and he looked fine.
You know, f- face-wise- Mm-hmm you could tell.
A little bit beaten up.
Mm-hmm.
But he, he looked fine.
But he, yeah, he was struggling.
You could tell.
And, you know, the, the thing about the, the cover-up or how it took so long, I mean, as, as I kind of observed, he's had a really difficult time, like, making decisions.
And he said he's getting better.
He will, he will be fine, but he's not there yet.
So I think there were many days after that occurred where he, it was tough for him, and, you know, the 49ers wanted to kinda give- Make sure he was better- Yeah before actually, you know, he's- Well- obviously he's still not talking at the podium either.
Right.
So just to make sure he's better and kind of assess the situation more?
Yeah, it was, it was actually probably more of how do we handle this, and he wasn't in a position to make any decisions- Mm-hmm on how it should be handled.
So- Right his wife, Mandy, called some, or, you know, texted or called, people close to them, including maybe about 10 players on the 49ers, that, that went over time.
And, and, you know, Shanahan texted and when, when he was feeling better, he texted and phoned some friends of his to, to let them know.
And, the, the way the 49ers chose to proceed was they say that, you know, they didn't know, they didn't have all the details.
They didn't know how they were going to, specifically how they were going to manage without Kyle Shanahan until, like, basically that day on Saturday.
And the, the release went out at, at 9:00 AM, and I think, John Lynch spoke to us, what, around 11:30, I think, that day.
11:15.
11:15 that day.
Right.
So it, it was, boy, it, it was- It's a lot
