What Shanahan’s car accident means for the 49ers
Chris Simms and Mike Florio discuss Kyle Shanahan being involved in a car accident and analyze what the situation means for the future of the San Francisco 49ers.
Video Transcript
Kyle's gonna be participating in training camp on a, on a limited basis because of the concussion.
They're basically treating him like they would treat a player.
And I assume at some s- point they'll go through the same steps that they'll do with a player before he's completely cleared and able to participate on, a regular basis.
Kris Forster, assistant head coach, offensive line coach, is running the team in his absence.
And he was there yesterday.
Kyle was able to be there for about a half hour.
Yep.
Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area reported that, that he was at most of the 11 on 11 portion of practice, watching from deep in the secondary with John Lynch, the general manager of the team.
So he's able to do some things, but when you have a concussion that bad, nobody knows how long the symptoms are gonna last.
They could last longer than anyone expected.
Yeah.
They just have to work their way through it.
Right.
And it's got to be, for a guy like him, especially for any football coach, it would be beyond frustrating.
Yes.
Training camp opens.
The train is rolling.
I got work to do.
I got work to do.
He'll probably have dreams years from now about, you know, the, the team leaving without him.
Right.
And, you know, he can't get his st- Yeah Like, you know, those kinds of stress dreams.
Yeah.
"I can't get ready."
Right.
I mean, the I can't get r- I can't get my shirt.
Where's my clothes?
Like, it's, you, that triggers all of those thoughts.
Like, it's time.
It's time to get to work, and I can't go do the thing that I love.
And he's the most important employee in that organization- Right by far.
Yep.
And all due respect to John Lynch, I mean, Kyle Shanahan was the first guy there.
He hired John Lynch.
Kyle Shanahan runs that show.
Without Kyle Shanahan, there is a massive void to fill, and he's the reason they've been so successful for the past 10 years.
So they just gotta hold on and, and hope that he recovers.
And it's not like you can will your brain to recover.
Totally.
I tried to will my back to recover.
You can't will yourself to recover.
You just have to wait for things to take their course.
Yeah, it, it, it seems that way.
And, you know, I, I think it wa- it was a few it took a few days for him to realize, right, that, like, "Whoa, I'm not working the right way," you know?
At first, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got in a car accident."
And of course, you f- you know you're gonna be a little fuzzy and, and not normal.
But then I feel like it got into somewhere like day six or seven, and it, like, you know, you're starting to now, "Oh, yeah, I should start feeling better.
I should start thinking more clearly," things like that.
And I know he was a little alarmed about, like, "I'm, I'm not functioning at a high level."
And like you said, you know, all these coaches are psychos, in a good way.
And the, Shanahan is who he is 'cause he's got a high-functioning brain and the ability to multitask and be creative and coach a team and be detailed and all of that as well.
And like you said, I don't think it should be, you know, underestimated what, how big of a deal this is.
I, I mean, this is like, you know, hey, this is like back to Deflategate with, like, Bill Belichick having to miss a few days of, of work getting ready for the Super Bowl.
It's concerning.
You just said it right.
I think you I was gonna say the same thing.
It's the number one person in the organization who sets the table for the c- upcoming season.
He's the one that puts the hot poker by everybody's butt here early in the year to get everybody going.
He's the guy that's responsible for everybody's energy, installing plays, and, "Hey, we're gonna do this, and this is why we do it.
And this is what get your team going."
And of course, we know they got a big game in Australia.
So, you know, l- like you said, all you can do is kind of wait and hope that it, it clears up here.
But I know he's frustrated, and yeah, this is, you know, something that's, it, it stinks for the 49ers and their whole organization right now.
And that may explain why Kris Forster, when he spoke to reporters yesterday for the first time in this role as And they're not saying interim head coach because they don't know how long it's gonna be, and they hope it's not very long.
But he is assistant head coach.
He's the one that would most naturally step into this role.
Here he is on filling in for Kyle Shanahan while Kyle recovers from the concussion.
Kyle is, one of his, one of the greatest things he does is how he leads a team meeting and talks football.
Teaches the team football, teaches the team everything, you know?
And w- that's gonna be more of a group effort than, than ever.
It's not gonna all fall on me.
So, you know, as far as certain, certain things, we'll all take a piece of and, and that's how this thing's gonna be done.
So truly when John said what the release said, you know, that listed my name but then said it's gonna be done with all the assistants.
And he emphasized that it's a group effort.
It's collective.
You got Raheem Morris there.
That's right.
You got Raheem Morris- Yep who can take care of the defense.
You've got some other assistant coaches like Clay Kubiak, who is the right-hand man offensively.
He can be in charge of some things.
And it's just a matter of, for them, processing the shock and then pivoting to, and I'm sure they went through some days not really knowing, is Kyle gonna be back?
Is he not gonna be back?
Yeah.
What's going on?
There's a lot of stuff that happened that nobody knew about
