49ers’ Ricky Pearsall out for Monday’s game at Colts with knee injury (paywall)
“Kyle Shanahan said Pearsall came close to playing versus the Colts. But he didn’t practice this week and was limited to sprinting on a side field during Friday’s session.
“He was close, but not close enough,” Shanahan said.“
49ers vs. Colts: The Standard’s 5 fast predictions (paywall)
“Kawakami: Colts 27, 49ers 24. Grandpa QB beats Purdy! Bring on the DISCOURSE! I’m predicting it and also saying likely in reality it won’t be as pointed as all that. I think Purdy will play fine. But if the 49ers aren’t super-efficient, there’s a window for Rivers to make a few plays and Taylor and the Colts’ offensive line to finish it off. (Yes, I’ve hit my last nine 49ers-game predictions. We’ll see if it’s 10-for-10.).”
Kyle Shanahan reveals funny story of why Brock Purdy made him proud vs. Titans
“”My wife tells me that sometimes I got to give people compliments more,” Shanahan said last month. “They got to hear them. So I’m trying to do that better.”….“So proud of you right there, Brock,” Shanahan was shown telling Purdy through their sideline-to-helmet radio communication.
It appeared to be a nice moment between coach and player, but . . .
“That was sarcasm,” Shanahan said on NBC Sports Bay Area’s “49ers Game Plan.” “I was trying to piss him off.”
Purdy told NBC Sports Bay Area he did not properly execute a simple play against the Cleveland Browns in Week 13. So when the same play was called against the Titans in Week 15, Purdy got derisive praise from his coach when the pass went to fullback Kyle Juszczyk, the correct target.
Shanahan said the play in particular has been an ongoing battle to get Purdy to settle for the safe option.
“We have an easy, quick (pass) play to Juice in the flat,” Shanahan said. “It’s designed to get 3 yards, and he might turn it up and get more. And the last, like, five times I’ve called it, he’s bypassed (Juszczyk) and tried to go for a deeper one.
“So we’ve been giving him crap for a long time that he can’t hit a guy in the flat quickly. And then he did it, and I said that just to piss him off, so he could flip me off, kind of subtly. But it was awesome.”
Shanahan called the play on a second-and-6 situation in the third quarter. Juszczyk turned the short pass into a 7-yard gain.
Shanahan said he could not see Purdy’s immediate reaction to his wisecrack.
“He was too far away, but I know he’s rolling his eyes,” Shanahan said of Purdy. “That was cool, though. I’m glad he did it, and sometimes when you piss guys off, they do it more. So that was the ultimate goal.”
Kyle Shanahan states 49ers trading DeForest Buckner to Colts ‘sucked so bad’
“Coach Kyle Shanahan might still believe it was the correct decision, but he said on NBC Sports Bay Area’s “49ers Game Plan” that it does not minimize how difficult it was to part with a player and person such as Buckner.
“We’ve had some tough decisions since then, but I would say that was the toughest, because it wasn’t something that you had to do,” Shanahan said. “But it was something that was the right thing, and it had nothing to do with DeForest. He was that good of a player and, gosh, I wish he was still here.”
Why 49ers’ Brock Purdy might need to be better than ever against Colts (paywall)
“The last two QBs the 49ers have faced: Tennessee’s Cam Ward and Cleveland’s Shedeur Sanders, 23-year-old rookies who have combined for 18 career starts and 607 pass attempts. Now they’ll get Rivers, who was a junior at North Carolina State when Ward and Sanders were born, and has 241 starts and 8,161 attempts, the 10th-most in NFL history.
Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh likely won’t be able to fool Rivers, who, he said, was able to expertly dissect coverages in last week’s 18-16 loss at Seattle, his first game since Jan. 3, 2021.
“You saw a guy who could make every single read, who’s still capable of getting the ball wherever he needs to get it to,” said Saleh, who is two years older than Rivers. “It’s amazing. I mean, it’s five years without playing football. … Shoot, I roll out of bed and I’m sore.”
Kyle Shanahan shares final updates ahead of 49ers-Colts Week 16 matchup
“Atlanta Falcons QB Krik Cousins went viral this week doing a dissertation about how difficult it is for quarterbacks to decipher coverages pre-snap and how progressions have had to change as a result. When he first got in the league, it was half the field, now it’s pure progressions, one, two, three, four, five. Have you seen that evolution? Have you had to change your offense in the same way?
“Oh, yeah. We’ve been doing progression reads for a while. I’d say like when I first started just, [general manager and president of football operations John] Lynch actually sent me what Kirk did last night. Kirk’s a smart guy, he should be on TV. He explained it well. So, everyone should watch that instead of what I’m about to say. But, when we first got in the league, it was so simple with two-shell, one-shell, so you just picked a side and you had two guys down to your back. The teams that disguised, it was always harder and sometimes quarterback gets caught on the wrong side and you don’t have as good of a play and you’ve got to find your outlet to a back. The more years that have gone by, I can sit in my office with a remote slowing it down and everything and it takes me a while to figure out whether it’s two-shell or one-shell and things like that. So you start to, you have plays in that are across the board reads where it used to be maybe 90 to 10. And the more defenses get used to what you’re doing 90-percent of the time, they get better at it. So, the plays you do 10-percent of the time are the ones you have more success on. So, the next year you go into training camp and you work more of those plays and then it just slowly evolves. I thought what Kirk was saying is a good example of everything. Whatever someone consistently does, and you get good at, the defenses will eventually stop it. And everything has always got to evolve like that.”
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