Wednesday Transcript: 49ers Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

San Francisco 49ers Head Coach Kyle Shanahan

Conference Call, November 8, 2017

Q: Who is going to start at quarterback for you this week?

A: Right now, C.J. [Beathard] is. And that’s how I expect it to be.

Q: How are things going so far with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo?

A: They’ve been going well. Last week was kind of crazy, he got in here on Tuesday night. He’s never been in an offense with our type of verbiage and nothing close to it, so everything was backwards for him. He grinded hard Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday. Friday was the real test to see if we could have a game plan together to where he could come in as a backup if needed and he passed, so we had a small package that he could get us through a game. He came in this week on Monday, he works real hard on Monday and Tuesday and just to where he’s at right now is much farther ahead than last week. So, I feel confident he’ll be further along this week. Still plan on going with C.J. because I know he’s not there yet, but I’ve been excited about his progress.

Q: Is there any circumstance where Garoppolo could come in if Beathard goes through adversity in the game, or will you ride with Beathard no matter what?

A: No, it’s not a ‘no matter what’ at all. I believe in C.J., I’m excited about him. I definitely believe in Jimmy and I’m excited about him, too. I’d like to give Jimmy a chance to eventually play. I kind of was just telling our own media right now that everyone is very eager to see Jimmy get in, especially after you make that type of trade. And I am, too, and everyone is. But one of the reasons I came here is because I thought I’d be in a position to truly make what I felt was the right decision for our team and that’s what’s kind of nice about this situation. I don’t feel any pressure to play this guy because of our record, or pressure to play him because everyone wants him to come in and save our season. I want to make sure that we play him because Jimmy has a chance to be successful, it has a chance to help him and it has a chance to help our team. And that’s something that I’m looking at on a day-to-day basis and it gets better and better each week. I know we only had one week, but we’re a lot farther along right now. We’re a pretty banged up team, as [the Giants] are also. We don’t have a lot of our guys out there that we’ve been playing with this year and that’s definitely a tough situation for C.J., that’s a tough situation for any quarterback, let alone a quarterback that doesn’t know the offense inside and out and is very far from that. So, I’m really trying to be patient with this and make sure that when he does go in, he has an opportunity to be successful.

Q: How much do recent examples in the NFL guide your approach with Garoppolo?

A: What happens on other teams really doesn’t affect anything that I do. I study the situation for what it is, so comparing other situations to ours is too different, all the circumstances are different. I think one thing that’s tough, when you’re on a team that’s struggling – and we have throughout the year, but especially in these last few weeks – the amount of injuries that we’ve had, it’s made it much tougher. And you don’t want to sit there, which everyone does, but when you struggle the most, people are always going to get after the quarterback and you have to look into it as a coach that, why are you struggling? And if it’s on the quarterback, then you do have to make a change if you think it could help your team. But I don’t think that’s where we’re at right now. C.J. can play better, but also in order for him to play better, we have to play a lot better around him. We have to get better at the O-line, we have to get healthy at O-line, we have to get better at receiver, which we also have to get healthy at receiver. But we can play better team football to help C.J and if we did, I think he would play at a higher level. Until we do that, I think it would be hard for C.J., I also know it would be hard for Jimmy.

Q: Is there a sense of excitement around the team this week, knowing that it could be a good opportunity at home against the Giants?

A: Yeah, I feel like our team has been the same every week. That’s the one thing I’ve been impressed with our guys. Our record is very disappointing and it’s extremely tough to have a record like this, and as you guys know, going through this in New York, it wears on people. And it’s really hard on Mondays, it’s really hard on Tuesdays and I really have been impressed with our team, how we’ve come in on Wednesdays and we have had good practices. I feel like we have played hard, I feel like we’ve competed. It was a real tough five-game stretch, when we lost those five games by three points or less in all of them. And that’s when you worry about guys because it’s human nature, that stuff does wear on you. And then I thought we had a setback versus Dallas, when we lost pretty good. Our guys came out to Philly and I thought we hung with them for a while, especially on defense. Had a lot of injuries that game and we’ve been really trying to recover ever since. I’m not proud of our record by any means, but I am proud with how our guys are handling it. I think we are getting their best, but that’s still not enough. We need to figure out how to play better, how to coach better, in order to beat a team like the Giants.