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Why the 49ers Have Poor Attendance at OTAs

Nick Bosa showed up and practiced, probably because Kyle Shanahan asked him to, but the following players simply decided to stay home.

Grant Cohn

May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan watches during the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports
May 10, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan watches during the 49ers rookie minicamp at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Mandatory Credit: Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports
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OTAs are voluntary. Technically none of the players have to show up or practice. Keep that in mind.

So when most of the team shows up, that's a good thing. It means the team has a sense of urgency and the players have something to prove. Last year, the 49ers wanted to prove that they were the best team in football and had lost to the Eagles in the NFC Championship solely because Brock Purdy got injured. So they had great attendance in OTAs in 2023.

Christian McCaffrey showed up and practiced as hard as he could in every drill. It was his first offseason with the 49ers and he wanted to show how motivated he was to win a Super Bowl. He set the tone for the entire team. The players followed his lead and were driven to start the season fast, earn the no. 1 seed and win the Super Bowl. And they accomplished everything except the last part.

The 49ers should be champions right now. They were better than the Chiefs last season, they were two-point favorites in the Super Bowl and they had leads late in the game. And Kyle Shanahan still found a way to come from ahead and lose, which is his pattern. He chokes in the second half of Super Bowls.

So all of a sudden, attendance at this year's OTAs isn't good. Nick Bosa showed up and practiced, probably because Kyle Shanahan asked him to, but the following players simply decided to stay home: Christian McCaffrey, Trent Williams, Brandon Aiyuk, Jauan Jennings, Maliek Collins and Chris Hubbard. In addition, Fred Warner chose not to practice even though he's healthy. He stood around and watched like a coach.

The 49ers seem discouraged. They've lost the sense of urgency they had at this time last year, probably because they know they can do everything right, put in all the extra work, and Shanahan still will find a way to blow it at the end.

I'd stay home, too.

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Grant Cohn

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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