Once the hiring of Kurt Schottenheimer as special teams coach went down, the 49ers announced a conference call for earlier this afternoon. If you get a chance, 49ers.com has posted the audio of that conference call. The audio is just over 10 minutes long.
The most intriguing comment related to Al Everest came in the first 30+ seconds of the call. Singletary indicated that Everest was doing a fine job but that there were some personal things that had to be dealt with. Initially it sounds like Singletary said it was some personal things on his own end (as opposed to Everest's), but MM followed up on it and Singletary clarified it was personal things Al had to take care of. Singletary does specify it had nothing to do with the miscommunication issue. So I suppose you'll just have to take it for what it's worth.
For those wondering if it was some kind of irrational reaction, Singletary discussed the miscommunication issue (that reverse that blew up in their face) and said that did not play into the decision to not retain Everest: "If I were that shallow as a coach, I need to be out of the game."
Beyond that, Singletary said he got a good feeling from Schottenheimer in their interview and what he generally "thought football was." He actually liked the fact that Schottenheimer had spent so much additional time as a defensive guy because special teams is a "defensive mentality." I hadn't thought about it that way, but I can kind of understand that. Any thoughts on that?
For those wanting a CJ Spiller type in the return game, Singletary mentioned that adding special teams personnel to the return game was a very high priority.
If I get a transcript of this, I'll add it after the jump.