The San Francisco 49ers have announced Nick Mullens will be getting his second start against the New York Giants after a near perfect day last Thursday against the Oakland Raiders. If anything, Mullens should be prepared. Not just for the game, or the defense he faces, or the offense he’ll run, but for his coach’s tendencies throughout the game.
The Athletic’s David Lombardi dropped this today on Twitter and I found myself laughing for a good few minutes.
Kittle said that the entire 49ers huddle exploded in laughter whenever Mullens jokingly “talked back” to Shanahan in the radio (but since it’s a one-way radio, Shanahan couldn’t hear him).
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) November 6, 2018
I really wonder what Mullens is saying to Shanahan during the play-call. I’m sure while Shanahan is going off those convoluted names for a simple run through the tackles, Mullens is on his tip toes like a kid wanting to pay for his ice cream sundae for the first time, or a kid jumping out of the car at Disneyland with his parents limping behind. Of course as the night goes on I can only visualize Mullens in the huddle making the talking hand gesture and looking at the team saying “Blah, blah, blah.”
Mullens is definitely one of those cats who wants to play and has visualized himself out on the field in a loud game. 49ers tight end George Kittle commented on how into it Mullens can get at his press conference last Thursday:
“My favorite story that I’ve heard so far is that when we have away games, he puts on his headphones super loud, crowd noise, and then he calls the plays out loud so he gets used to calling them with noise all around him. That’s the best thing I’ve seen so far.”
”Yeah, that’s what he does. He does that. I know coach Shanahan will record the calls for him and he’ll listen to them and he’ll re-call them out. I’m pretty sure last year he was a guy that took the script after the game and he’d go out on the field after the game and run the plays by himself. That’s just Nick Mullens in a nut shell.”
All Mullens wanted to do was call the play. I keep thinking of Shanahan as the adult who tells the kid “waiiiiit...waiiiiiiit” for no reason other than to just make everyone wait another two seconds.
In any case, now that this story is out, I’m wondering what Shanahan will have to say about this at practice. I do think a question about this is bound to come up, and I’m sure Shanahan will have a good answer for it.