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Kyle Shanahan Instantly Made Good on Goal of Silencing Eagles’ Crowd

49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said part of the game plan was to quiet the Philly fans early. Mission accomplished.

Tyler Lauletta

San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan leaves the field after the game against the Indianapolis Colts.
San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan leaves the field after the game against the Indianapolis Colts. / Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images
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The 49ers got off to a hot start against the Eagles in their wild-card showdown on Sunday. San Francisco had the first possession of the game, and marched right over the usually stout Philadelphia defense with barely any resistance, ending with a short touchdown pass to wide receiver Demarcus Robinson.

Just minutes after the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field was roaring with anticipation, Philly fans were silenced by the 49ers slicing right through their defense. The quick score was always part of the plan for the 49ers—no NFL team plans not to score—but coach Kyle Shanahan had also stressed the importance of quieting the Eagles crowd early in the game during the days leading up to kickoff.

“Every place you go, it always starts with crowd noise,” Shanahan said. “It has to do with how loud the crowd is, and they’re going to be [loud]. You’ve got to give them a reason to be quiet. If not, it’s an extremely challenging place to play.”

Mission accomplished coach.

The touchdown was especially shocking to the home crowd because it came with the 49ers basically coming straight All-Pro cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, possibly the team’s best player all year. Mitchell was burnt by Robinson for a 61-yard gain to put San Francisco in scoring position, and then got beat against by Robinson for the score. It was the first touchdown scored against Mitchell all season.

While the initial plan to silence the crowd worked, the Eagles offense was able to bring their fans right back into the game with a touchdown drive of their own on the following possession. We should be in for a good one.

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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

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