Kyle Shanahan Says he's "Been Really Impressed" With DeMeco Ryans
The 49ers were close to beating the Packers on Sunday night.
Unfortunately, the defense made two egregious mistakes on the final drive by allowing Davante Adams, arguably the best receiver in the league, to be wide open.
Since that loss, the defense of the 49ers has taken some shots from fans, especially defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans. The final drive, and even just a portion of the game, did not look good for the defense. Since Ryans is the play caller, he takes the brunt of the scrutiny.
Despite the defensive gaff, Shanahan isn't concerned with Ryans at all. In fact, he's "been really impressed" with Ryans.
"I love working with DeMeco," said Shanahan at his Wednesday presser. "He's really smart. He's strong-minded. He's not a yes man at all. He's going to listen to you. He's going to tell you what he thinks and he's never going to stop working at it. So, I've been really impressed with DeMeco in these three weeks when it's been good and when it's been bad. How he's handled it during the games, how he's handled it after the games, I thought he made some real good calls on Sunday night. I wish we had got a better execution on that last call on the two-man coverage. But that goes back to what you do throughout the week. It's not all about calling the play. It's about executing the play and that has to do with coaching guys throughout the week.”
Shanahan is right that if they had executed the play, it would have been fine. Fred Warner admitted that he whiffed on the first play that allowed Adams the chunk play. Still, you would like to have your defense be more keyed in on Adams, which showed on the following play when Ryans had Adams doubled with Deommodore Lenoir and Talanoa Hufanga. At that point, it just might as well be single-coverage.
Prior to Shanahan's praise of Ryans, he was asked about the comparison to him and Robert Saleh. Both were first time coordinators under Shanahan, so the growing pains is something for him to elaborate on since he saw it first hand.
“That's something we all go through," Shanahan said. "Even people who have been doing it for a while. You go through different stuff every week. Everything's adjusting and each Sunday is a new Sunday and the league evolves. So that's something everybody goes through. Comparing it to Saleh’s start is just completely to me, apples to oranges. We had a totally different team then. It's not that Saleh just learned how to be a good coach and all of a sudden we did well."
"That took time, putting the team together. It took time working and developing all that stuff and I think we got there. I think we have a head start this year compared to where we did four years ago. We’re a better team than when we started here. But that’s the cliché thing, anytime the defense struggles with a first-time play caller. I know that's what everyone's going to say. People used to always say it about me, but yeah everyone learns with experience, but it's never just the absolute at all.”
Growing pains is something that was to be expected with Ryans. He was always going to be a downgrade from Saleh. This is something that the team and the fans are going to need to become accustomed to this season.
