San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman had his opening press conference with the media and right out the gate he gave some thoughts on Kyle Shanahan. Along with the stability he brings to the 49ers with general manager John Lynch, Sherman had a lot of respect for Shanahan’s play-calling.
“We’ve played him since my rookie year, actually, when he was with Washington. He always gives us issues with plays that we’ve never seen, routes that we’ve never seen, concepts and then the rest of the league piggybacks on what he has and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, look at these great offensive coordinators.’ It’s like literally, they’re just copying what this guy did against us for the past five games. So, congratulations, you can copycat. But, I really appreciate his offensive approach and defensively with [defensive coordinator] Robert Saleh, there’s familiarity there.”
Later in a post-press conference scrum, he offered an interesting simile. When asked about Shanahan’s ability to make minor adjustments that lead to big impact, Sherman told 49ers writer David Lombardi, “It’s like he threw a grenade in a tailpipe.”
While the offensive coordinator with the Atlanta Falcons, Shanahan’s offense gave the Seahawks a fit in the 2016 NFC Divisional Game, putting up 422 yards of offense and 36 points. And we saw last season what he did with Jimmy Garoppolo. And we even saw some intriguing signs of life before Garoppolo took over. Kyle Shanahan might know what he’s doing.