We’ve got the time stamps for an entertaining interview.
This past week at the NFL Combine, San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan made an appearance on Chris Simms’ new podcast for NBC Sports. Shanahan and Simms go back to their days together when they arrived in the same class. In case you forgot, they were part of a group of friends who got tattoos of each others initials.
Shanahan and Simms clearly had a good time on this podcast (video above, or here), and it led to some great stories. We get a picture of Shanahan and Simms at Texas looking reeeeeeally young. We get to hear about Shanahan’s underrated receiver skills, and also all the time he put into it (this involved a case of Bill Romanowski’s supplements!).
My favorite story is a short one at the 6:48 mark. Simms told his producers how Shanahan approached playing Madden, thinking that his knowledge of the game would help him out. Shanahan would get pissed off when he would run some play that would not work like it should in real life. It led to this comment about getting owned by young kids during online Madden matchups.
“I haven’t played Madden very much since my wife was pregnant last. And she would go to bed early and I would sit there and so I’d get online. This was like 11 years ago. And I’m playing kids, and you know, there’s a support issue so I’m bringing my receiver down to crack on him. And it’s not working, and I have these second-graders like talking so bad to me about how, “you don’t know anything,” and I’m just like “Yes I do!” But, can’t tell ‘em what I do. They just know how to work the joystick better.”
The entire interview is worth a watch. It’s a lot of fun stuff, but also some useful insight from Shanahan on the 49ers offseason. I was particularly intrigued by his idea of having the draft take place before free agency. Here are the timestamps.
0:40 — Talking his history with Chris Simms at Texas
2:15 — Shanahan’s skills as a slot receiver
5:15 — Talking about going from receiver to wanting to be a coach
6:48 — Madden story
7:40 — What he’s involved in right now in the first phase of the offseason as free agency approaches
9:30 — Shanahan’s approach to the Combine, and idea of having the draft before free agency
12:15 — State of the team heading into free agency
13:40 — Talking about need to move back to white cleats
14:28 — How does he feel about Jimmy Garoppolo given late arrival in 2017 and injury in 2018
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