Until Jimmy Garoppolo gets his first snaps with the San Francisco 49ers, it is safe to say there will continue to be questions about when he will get said first snaps. We are seeing more and more ways to approach the question, whether it be, how much does he need to know, how much does he already know, what’s the practice situation, and so forth.
Kyle Shanahan met with the media on Wednesday, and in answering more questions about Garoppolo, he acknowledged that there is nobody that isn’t excited about his eventual chance. Even his wife is excited about seeing Garoppolo get a chance to play. He was talking about being fortunate to be able to make the decision without the pressure of the team’s record, or the excitement of others impacting it.
“We’re not making a decision based off what our record is, based off that I know everyone is very excited and wants to see him play — including myself, including our coaches and players, including my wife. I get that, I’m very well aware of that.”
Someone asked if his wife was pressuring him, and he had an amusing reply.
“She’s getting used to my comments now. She’s understanding. I had to simmer her down a bit. I mean, when you make a trade, everyone feels the same. Everyone comes in the next day and it’s, ‘oh, this is what it’s going to be the rest of the year,’ and trying to explain myself to you guys. I have to explain myself to her, too. She understands it more now than she did the first day. I’m chipping away at it.”
Head to just after the five minute mark in this video, and you can get a little more context from his tone. It cracked me up.
But he made a good point amidst the humor.
“That’s the cool thing about getting him then — I don’t feel the pressure that, hey, we have to do this right now, we have to do that. That’s one of the reasons I said from the first day I got here, that I wanted to come here. I thought we were in a position where we could do things the right way, and make the right decisions.”
It falls in line with Jed York seemingly understanding that this is clearly a lengthy process. While there is always some kind of pressure on a head coach, Kyle Shanahan is in about as ideal a situation as he could be in considering how awful the 49ers are right now. He can’t kick the can down the road too much, but there is time, and I think generally people are showing patience and restraint on this. Not everybody, and it won’t last forever, but it’s there for now.