Kyle Shanahan's Car Accident Could REALLY Impact the 49ers

We haven't talked, uh, since the weekend.

Kyle Shanahan, uh, got into a car accident.

I believe it was 40 stitches across his face, um , uh, some broken bones and a severe concussion.

Chris Forster, um, is the interim head coach.

I, you know, I think you put the personal first, you just hope that everybody's OK.

It's what you think of whenever there's a car accident.

Um, I think.

I mean, it's scary.

I mean, from the way it was explained to me it.

I mean, I think he probably feels like lucky, you know, um, and not that like he's feeling great right now about the whole thing, but I do think there's a degree of being fortunate that, um, you know, a couple of things could have broken a slightly different way and you could have had a way worse result and, uh, you know, so, I mean, I, I, I think that's, that's first is that.

You know, I, anytime something like this happens, you just, you know, you're, you know, you, you , you think of and pray for the people that were involved in it.

And I, my understanding of it is like at this point.

Uh, the, like his body is healing up, right, like, so all the that have gone that, that everything physically, the physical damage that was done, um, is.

Starting to is, is, it's gonna be a, a, a bit, but it's, it's resolving itself.

It's the concussion issue that's lingering, and I think, you know, anytime you hear the word severe put in front of concussion, um, I think we've been like sort of taught to over the last 15 years and rightfully so to treat every concussion like it's serious, right.

Uh, so whenever you hear somebody, you know, especially football people, putting the word severe in front of concussion, you get, uh, an idea that, that there's, there's more at work there.

But the one thing that I wanted to bring up with this specifically, and, and it's hard, right, because you don't want to pivot it to something actionable related to football, but my guess is this is on the mind.

That's why we're talking about it, like the reality.

Yeah , that's why, that's why it's new and I don't know why we don't know a lot about the crash.

I mean, I think that we're still in the very early phases of gathering information on that front.

And so I'm allowing my perception to, you know, I'm allowing my perception to change based on information that comes out here, but In terms of the on the field, I would say that the Forty-Niners are one of the few staffs that are probably uniquely set up to be OK in a moment like this, right?

Where all of Kyle, because if you look at like all of Kyle's guys that have gone on to coach elsewhere have done a really good job coaching teams, right?

I mean, Chris Verster.

Had it not been for, you know, I think some incidents in his past, would have been a head coach in the NFL at some point.

I mean, he's one of the most revered offensive line coaches in the NFL.

He knows that Shanahan scheme inside and out.

Um, he was for a long time, kind of the $5 million dollar man for an offensive.

Defensive line coach in the NFL where everybody kind of came to him to fix their problems across the offensive line.

And Chris is a great dude.

You talk to Chris, like, you know, and, uh, you can see why he would be good in that role, but just generally speaking, like he had said the other day that they're splitting up all the meetings.

So some days this coach talks, some days that coach talks.

The way that Kyle vets and puts his coaches through like this, the daily steeplechase, these guys are ready.

I mean, and it's not like, you know, it's not like you don't need Kyle, but I'm just saying I don't, I don't foresee like a big drop off, not necessarily having your head coach in training camp, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I look at this two ways, right?

Like, so, this is a guy who I, I believe I'm, I think I'm doing the math here, right?

But I, I believe that this is gonna, this is gonna be his 12th year working under Kyle Shanahan.

There was 4 years when Kyle was the offensive coordinator for his dad in Washington and then the last 7 years plus this one, you know, in San Francisco.

So Chris Verster is uniquely qualified to run Kyle Shanahan's program.

Um, he has knowledge of it at a grassroots level, um, you know, saw it built out in Washington under Kyle's dad.

Um, and, you know, it has, you know, been in different places with different guys that, you know, I think, set him up to, to, to the, to this job the right way.

And I, I think having the resources of Raheem Morris.

As defensive coordinator, Mattieberflus on the staff too, that helps.

Those guys are former head coaches, having on the offensive side of the ball, Clay Kubiak, who isn't a first-year offensive coordinator anymore, that helps.

And obviously, Clay's got, you know, plenty of experience and background in the system too.

So, uh, I think the, the makeup of the staff, like you said, is Positions the Niners to to absorb this.

I, I would also say on the flip side that Kyle is as close to Belichick as any coach.

Um, I've seen it just his involvement in every facet of the operation, you know, in that Bill was branded as a defensive coach, but really kind of had his fingerprints on everything, and that's, I think, the way Kyle is.

So I think we'd be remiss to sit here and say, There isn't an impact when you're pulling Kyle out of so many different facets of their operation, you know.

Now, the good news is they don't play games for another 6 weeks, whatever it is.

And so, I don't know that you really feel that until you get to a game day.

That to me would be, if for some reason, and, you know, God forbid the concussion issue lingers that long, um, you know, and he can't go to Australia, like then I think it becomes a bigger issue.

But for right now, I, I would think it would be manageable, especially, you know, with Kyle available as a resource in the building, at least, you know, on, on a, on, on a Less than completely full.

It's another thing too that, you know, having the Australia game at the beginning of the season, it, it's just, it's just another, and, and again, like, it's not like the NFL can foresee the fact that like the head coach is going to get into a car accident and I, I'm not saying it that way, but what I am saying is like, man, like, We, we, we might not have George Kittle.

They, they might not put George Kittle on a plane because it's such a long flight.

Now, you might not put the head coach on a plane because it's such a, you, you know, like it's just, it's, it's too, it's too far.

It's too far, goddamn it.

Um, we shouldn't be having this, uh, discussion.

But, uh, alas, where, is there any more remote place like that we could go, um, to stage a football game, Most remote island in the world .

Um, Tristanda Kahuna, uh, in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Tris Tristan da Cunha.

Um Uh, we can put an NFL game there.

Um, it's a group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic.

Uh, looks like a British overseas territory Falklands, you know.

The Falklands were in the news recently, well, not in the news, but got some attention recently, you know, when Australia played England in the World Cup, so that could be a potential destination.

I mean, we gotta like.

I mean, have it in Cabo Verde, you know, why not?

I, I just, like, I remember, we can talk more about this when we get close to the game, but I, I, uh, for our honeymoon, we went to Bali, and we flew through Hong Kong.

And so we went to, uh, we flew New York to Hong Kong, and I was told at the time that was the longest flight in, that was the longest flight, um, in the world, like the longest like operating flight in the world.

It was like 18 or 19 hours.

And when I tell you I was Just completely disoriented, like for the next day plus coming off that flight.

It was, it was, yeah, it was like, because you took off, I think it was, I remember, we took the train to New York, had dinner in New York, and then left at like midnight.

On Sunday.

And when we arrived in Hong Kong, it was like Tuesday morning.

The sun was coming up on Tuesday morning.

It was so disorienting and like, uh, it was just, it was so, it was weird.

You know what I mean?

Like, so, the idea of doing this for a football game is interesting to say the least.

And they're not as far as like the East Coast would be from there.

We had to fly over the North Pole, actually.

We flew over the North Pole to get to Hong Kong.

Um, so, yeah, but it's, Uh, it's gonna be interesting because this is definitely different than than what the NFL's done for just sort of just because the, uh, uh, Tristan Da Cunha has Google Street View, which is unbelievable.

Uh, I'm on it right now and you can't, there's a lot of sheep, um, just a lot of sheep, kind of like two roads.

Oh wow, it kind of looks like it looks a little like Iceland here, but you can't tell me that you couldn't stick a football field there, Albert.

That is cool.

Wouldn't it be?

So here's the next stage, right, because, like, you know what, we had the UFC fight on the White House lawn.

Welcome to the records.

If there's a sign, Welcome to the remotest island, Wouldn't it be most remote?

I swear to God, it's.

Here, hold on, the remotest.

I didn't know remote, remote.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna send you a picture right now.

Welcome to the remotest island.

Hold on.

Uh, there you go.

That's amazing.

Um, that's the next stage for the NFL, right, is to stage like boutique games with no fans, you know, or fans that could afford to make it there and each ticket's like a million dollars.

What do you think about that?

Oh my God, that is remote.

Holy crap.

I just did the the, the Google Maps.

Wow, it's like in between Argentina and South Africa, dead in the middle of the mount of the ocean.

Pretty sick.

And It looks like it has a city or neighborhood or whatever called Edinburgh by the seven Seas or Edinburgh of the of the seven seas is the name of the town there.

I like, I like when you have to like.

It's so small that when you just hit the minus button like 3 times, uh, you know, you, you can't even see it.

And I did a lot of mapping, Google mapping during, uh, during COVID.

I was, I was looking.

Population, population of Edinburgh by the seven seas, 246.

Probably tough, right?

If you miss out on your A gal in that one, you know.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what you, I mean, how do they, like, how do you live there?

I don't know.

Yeah, anyway, um, in other news, again, less.

I mean, it's, I've been just happy you look at just getting food and I, I'm, I'm interested.

I'm like, I'm probably going to be doing some research on this after I fell down so many tiny island rabbit holes when I was, uh, during COVID when I was using Google Earth to look for the Malaysian airplane.

I was like, well, you know, I'll take a stab at it, see if I can find it, you know, I didn't find it.

Um, I don't think anybody did.