San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke with reporters during a conference call on Monday, one day after the team's 29-20 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. The 49ers are headed into their bye week.
Transcript provided by the San Francisco 49ers Communications staff.
Opening comments:
"Injuries from the game, still is just [RB] Christian [McCaffrey]. He ended up having a mild hamstring strain. Ended up not being the thigh. That's all we've got from the game, so go ahead."
With it just being a mild hamstring strain, is it after a week from the Bye he should be okay?
"Yeah, we think so with it just being that. I mean, you never know for sure, but we're pretty optimistic about it. So is he."
Other guys that were injured like WR Deebo Samuel Sr., WR Demarcus Robinson, any idea if they're still on track to come back?
"Yeah, I think all those guys from, you've got [DL] Nick [Bosa], [WR] Mike [Evans], [LB Luke] Gifford, Deebo, [S Marques] Sigle, [LB Garret] Wallow, D-Rob, [DL] C.J. West, all those guys have a chance after the Bye week, but none are guaranteed. So, big week of rehab for all of them and we'll see where they're at next week at the beginning of the week."
Is WR De'Zhaun Stribling still on track for a December-type of return? Is everything still on schedule?
"As far as I've been told, yeah. Nothing new with him. I'm hoping for some time in December."
We also haven't gotten an update on DL Sam Okuayinonu in quite a while. How's he doing?
"I haven't gotten an update on him in a while either, so I'm sure nothing's changed. There's been no setbacks or anything, but his was going to be a long time. I think I was told January, so still hoping for January and hoping we can get in the playoffs to where we could have a chance to make that decision."
Can I ask you about the two touchdown runs yesterday? The first one with McCaffrey, is him diving over the top, is that planned or is that just more read and react? Then on the RB Kaelon Black run, was that blocked as perfectly scripted how it played out?
"It's not planned. We don't call the jump or anything like that. It's a tool that you hope guys have in them and you hope they use it at the right time. I think Christian obviously has that tool. I don't know what his vert was on that play, but he got up as much as I've ever seen someone jump and I think it was very needed on the play also. They built a pretty good wall there. Then yeah, the touchdown run, I thought it was blocked very well for everybody. They played the nose over the top, which took him out of the play. Their middle-third safety ended up coming up and playing MIKE linebacker at it on a, trying to disguise a Tampa-two type look. We just got him to overplay it and cut back door and then [WR] Jordan Watkins did a great job getting the corner, the only guy available, which allowed K.B. to get the big run and score on it."
With all the self-inflicted mistakes yesterday, was there a discussion at halftime or after the game about trying to correct those or is it just something that everybody already knows?
"When you make a dumb mistake, you don't need much discussion on how to correct it. You try not to do dumb things. At halftime we definitely stated that. We've got to protect the ball better, which I don't necessarily look at that as a dumb mistake. Guys in this league are really good at the peanut punch and knocking that ball out, and they got us in two bad plays on that and our guys have got to protect the ball. There's no excuse on that. That's the challenge of anyone who carries the ball in this league, how hard it is to hold it, and they got us twice on it, which is huge. But, the biggest part was our defense stopped them and held them to fourth down and then we had a dumb jump offsides penalty, which yeah, it was talked about. I think everyone knows it was that way, so it didn't have to be really overstated. Then the second half, we had those two picks and we had put ourselves in a hole and we couldn't have those. I think our guys know the mistakes we made. Anytime you have four turnovers to zero, it's really hard to win in this league. I still think we could have overcame it, especially at the end with our defense getting those two stops, but you can't overcome it when you throw a pick there on third down."
Have you discussed bringing in kickers this week to work out?
"I haven't discussed it with guys. I haven't been told that we are. I actually just finished with the team and just finished with the quarterbacks and came in here. As far as I've heard we don't have any plans on that right now."
Obviously the trade deadline is still a couple weeks away, but with the Bye being right now, how much will you guys dive into that and what is your sense of what your needs are right now as that approaches?
"That's stuff, I know [president of football operations and general manager] John [Lynch] and our whole personnel department, they discuss that seven days a week for a long time right now. Just hearing more about things they've been doing on the plane last night, I'll get to watch some stuff here now that I'm done with our team and we'll be in contact over this next week. We still have two weeks for it. We still have the week when we get back, but if there's stuff that makes sense that can improve our team in any spot, we'd love for that to happen. The obvious injury spots to us have been receiver and D-Line. We are getting a number of those guys back at both positions, but that also doesn't exclude us from looking to something that would make sense to help us."
Following up on that. You get the guys back, but how much do you just because of the history of the injuries that you've had, do you have to consider the fact that you could lose more guys moving forward too, like that balance that you have to strike there?
"Without a doubt, but that's also the challenge of IR and how many people can return from IR. We were almost not able to field a 48-man team because we have guys who are hurt who are coming back that aren't on IR. So that almost got us yesterday. When you trade and add players, that might make sense for one or two weeks, but then other guys come back, now you've got to cut people. So it's got to make sense for all that. We would love to just stockpile some players in case some people get hurt going forward because the odds are people do, but that's what the rules of this league with how many you can carry on a roster and things like that don't allow you to stockpile players at the position. So, you've got to kind of see where you're at and try to guess the future."
After the Jordan Watkins touchdown was overturned a few plays later you had 4th-and-10 and you guys went for it and QB Brock Purdy got sacked. Did you consider doing the field goal? Did K Eddy Piñeiro and how he's been kicking, did that factor into the reasoning not to go for the 41-yard field goal?
"No, I didn't consider the field goal, and it had nothing to do with whether I thought we'd make it or not. I just thought it was a two-touchdown game, I believe, at the time. I didn't think a field goal was going to change much. I also thought we could get that first down. So no, the kicking situation didn't have anything to do with it. I thought we needed to go for it. I thought we needed two touchdowns."
On the interception on the sideline that Purdy threw, he said, 'Hey, I should have thrown that ball out of bounds.' When you saw that play again, was that 100-percent on Brock or would you have liked the receiver to do more to make a play on the ball?
"No, that was 100-percent on Brock. The receiver was running that on the sidelines. I had the same view live. I thought he was throwing to [WR Christian] Kirk, and then Brock said he was and then at the last second he turned it down and tried to throw it away and didn't throw it away enough. It was an off-schedule play. We broke the pocket and Kirk was working and it came back to him. Brock, whether he was throwing it to Kirk or not, he needed to throw it away and get it away from [Atlanta Falcons S Jessie] Bates [III] more because that's what Bates is very elite at. If you have that ball anywhere by him, he's just proved it too long over his career. He comes down with that pretty much more than anyone else."
I know we didn't see Kirk get the ball, but how was he over the 13 routes that he ran based on the tape?
"I thought Christian did a real good job. I thought it was a good first game back for him. I thought he did a good job in separating and running his routes right. I thought he played really well in the run game too. I thought he blocked well and it was a good game to keep working to get his feet back under him, but I thought it was a good step in the right direction."
What's just the plan for the players? How much will you see them? I know you've got to give them the four days, but just how much will you see them and when do you guys kind of get back to work next week?
"We won't get back with the players until next Monday. We just spent all day with them today, just finished here a little bit ago. Tomorrow they'll come in, they'll do all workouts and things like that, do a little exercise on the field, have a meeting and then we'll be done with them. Then we'll come back Monday ready to go."
After two weeks of having quite a few pressures from the defensive line, they only had three pressures yesterday. What did you see when you looked at the film?
"I didn't think we played as good as we have in the last couple weeks just at beating the one-on-ones and getting there. Those stats I think were right when you watch the film. The pressure one wasn't as good as it has been, so need to play better coming back next week."
Where is CB Upton Stout right now with the shoulder and do you anticipate him being back to full-go coming out of the Bye?
"Yeah, I do. He's been hurting here for the last few weeks and that's why we weren't going to use him last night in case it was just a dead emergency, and we got close to that, but by not doing that hopefully that'll allow him to heal up here and hopefully come back on Monday 100-percent."
The substitution where you guys weren't allowed to substitute, obviously you were not happy with that. Did the refs make a mistake there? Were they supposed to allow you guys an extra second to substitute to get your base personnel back on the field? Could you talk to that a little bit?
"Yeah, I believe so. We'll wait to hear today, but they strategically did that. They sprinted three guys onto the field, got them in the huddle, then fast-breaked it and we saw it. We subbed right away. You can see us on the sidelines doing it. My understanding is when they sub, you need to stand on the ball and give us a chance to sub snd that's what we did do, but no one got to the ball. His explanation was that they huddled for two seconds, but I still think we needed a chance to sub and we weren't given a chance to sub."
More info on: Kaelon Black, Nick Bosa, Mike Evans, Luke Gifford, Christian Kirk, Christian McCaffrey, Sam Okuayinonu, Brock Purdy, Demarcus Robinson, Deebo Samuel, Marques Sigle, Upton Stout, De'Zhaun Stribling, Garret Wallow, Jordan Watkins, C.J. West
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