GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan are ready to start the season. Let’s see how it goes. (AP photo Marcio Jose Sanchez.)
Monday afternoon John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan met the media for the first time since signing new contract extensions. It was a typical presser in the new normal. Which is to say everyone appeared on computer screens and reporters could ask questions if they remembered to unmute their microphone.
Lynch and Shanahan were upbeat and optimistic in the time-honored way of every football coach and GM at the start of the season. It was, Shanahan said, the first time they’d seen some of the players since the Super Bowl.
And a lot has happened since then.
We all had questions about the 49ers after that Super Bowl loss, but no one suspected that when we sat down with Shanahan and Lynch this time of year, we’d be talking about a global pandemic.
Shanahan admitted to some concern about how health protocols were going to work. But he said now that he is on the 49ers campus, and has seen how the social spacing and protective measures are set up, “I feel better and better about this each day. I get how this can work.”
And that’s great. Glad to hear he’s feeling good about football going forward.
Because there are so many ways for this to go wrong.
To begin with, we’ve seen other sports leagues re-opening their schedules. And in virtually every case —
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