How Javon Kinlaw Has Improved
SANTA CLARA -- From Nov. 11, 2020 to Nov. 23, 2023, Javon Kinlaw recorded zero sacks.
The former first-round draft pick simply couldn't stay healthy. But this year, he hasn't gotten injured once, and suddenly he has recorded 2.5 sacks in the 49ers' past two games. He finally is emerging in Year 4 of his career.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked on Friday about Kinlaw's recent ascension. Here's what Shanahan said, courtesy of the 49ers P.R. department.
Q: How is DT Javon Kinlaw? How has he been able to just maybe build a little bit of momentum from just being healthy?
SHANAHAN: "I think the best part about him being healthy is what should be very obvious to everybody, but you get to practice and play football all the time. Football's the hardest sport to prepare for. You can't, you have to do it with 22 people out there. You can't just go practice your shot in the gym. You can't just do one-on-ones in the offseason or anything. You have to really play the game and we don't really get to in the offseason with our offseason rules and stuff. That's really tough on O-Linemen and D-Linemen. When you've been hurt every year that you come in and you have to be protected throughout practice the whole week, then you're only really playing on game day and then you get sore and you miss all that throughout the week. So, that's kind of been Javon’s story since his rookie year and this year that hasn't come up once and it didn't come up in the offseason. He stayed here the whole offseason so he just physically, he was in as good a football shape he could be in which he's done a couple offseasons. But then he didn't have any setbacks once we started practicing. So, he’s strung together all these practices. When you're talented and you work hard, you only get better when you practice. And that's what's been so good about [WR] Deebo [Samuel] this last month, [TE George] Kittle this last month. When guys don't get hurt and they can still play in a game and still practice, not to kill themselves in practice, but just to stay with their routine. All these guys get so much better and that's been taken away a lot in the NFL, just with the lack of anything in offseason and how little training camp is. It’s so important to practice football throughout the year because you don't build it up in the offseason."
Q: Do you think he's set himself up for the future? Probably coming into this year, a lot of questions around the League about his sustainability and how he could fit in long term. You think he's done a lot to raise his stock?
SHANAHAN: "Yeah, no doubt about it. Everyone around the League knows the talent he was coming out of college. He was starting to show that his rookie year, but then ever since that Dallas game, he just hasn't been right with his knee. So, it becomes a question of not how good can he get, but whether he can even play or not. What he did this whole offseason was as big of a commitment as anyone as I've ever been around. You're still so nervous for the guy because they can't control their injuries. But, for him to be able to do this and play, now the tape looks what people anticipated and the whole League has respect and he's only going to get better."
Q: Do practice restrictions make it harder than ever to develop young players?
SHANAHAN: "Oh yeah, how do you develop them? People have got to get hurt and they’ve got to get in and then usually they're not ready so they look bad and then they lose their opportunity and sometimes they're out of the league too fast. So that's one of the biggest challenges. I think that's what's so hard for draft picks sometimes to make teams and stuff because it’s just there's not always time."
