A little under a year ago, I racked my brain on what Jimmy Garoppolo said at the line during his pre-snap cadence. Besides some of you responding that I mis-identified what a cadence was, we had a nice discussion on what the hell he was saying.
But, while the discussion was good, we had no answer. How can any of us emulate Garoppolo in sandlots and cul de sacs when we can’t say what he says to start a play? Inquiring minds must know. This wasn’t just me asking Niners Nation, I texted some of our writers, even asking those at press conferences to get the question in if they had a moment to.
Well I finally have an answer. A concrete, unarguable answer. It wasn’t Jimmy Garoppolo who answered it, it was Kyle Shanahan, and it wasn’t from any question. The 49ers head coach was mic’d up at the Senior Bowl and 49ers.com tweeted out a fun video where Shanahan is searching for the perfect whistle. The subject matter alone is rather funny given who it involves, but early on at the 00:06 mark in an off-tangent coaching moment, you get the confirmation. You get from Shanahan’s mouth what he wants his quarterbacks to say.
Can we get Coach a whistle?!
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) January 24, 2019
Kyle Shanahan at the @seniorbowl pic.twitter.com/JxwtXCZwNp
To be fair, the question was somewhat getting answered when Nick Mullens took over but his voice still muffled the call for any consistency. Shanahan has confirmed what Garoppolo has said. This is one of those questions we always wanted answered, like how does time travel work, how were the Egyptian pyramids built, how to revive Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, and what really happened to Tony Soprano in the series finale of The Sopranos?
Jimmy Garoppolo no doubt is yelling, “White-eighty! Set hut.”
And now back to your regularly scheduled 49ers blog.