Kyle Shanahan Used a Time Zone Loophole to Dodge 49ers Injury Questions in Australia
Kyle Shanahan found a creative way to say nothing, and you have to respect the craftsmanship.
The 49ers head coach met with reporters Sunday night ahead of San Francisco’s Week 1 game against the Los Angeles Rams. Except it was already Monday morning in Melbourne, where the press conference actually took place, and Shanahan noticed the gap.
Asked for updates on players working back from injury, he delivered this:
“Because we are technically in the future, and the Rams are in the present, I don’t have to talk about injuries until tomorrow.”
This is a real competitive edge, however small
NFL injury reporting rules are built around a calendar that assumes everyone is in North America. Shanahan is coaching a game roughly 16 hours ahead of the Rams’ facility, and he correctly identified that the reporting window has not technically opened on his end.
Is it a meaningful advantage? Probably not. Los Angeles is going to figure out who is active before kickoff like everyone else. But Shanahan has built a career on collecting tiny edges, and refusing to hand a division rival a free 24 hours of information fits the pattern exactly.
It also gave him a way to avoid answering questions about Nick Bosa and George Kittle without saying “next question” twelve times.
The subtext nobody in San Francisco is missing
The more interesting story here is the tone. Shanahan was in a serious car accident this offseason, and he spoke to the media with a noticeably heavier demeanor as recently as a few weeks ago. Reporters covering the team noticed the difference.
A coach cracking jokes about time zones at a Monday-morning-that-is-actually-Sunday-night press conference is a coach who feels like himself again. For a 49ers fan base that watched Shanahan struggle through a difficult summer, that is a better signal than any injury report he was refusing to give.
The Rams took the opposite approach
San Francisco flew to Australia more than a week before the game, giving players extra days to adjust. Los Angeles chose to arrive Thursday, about 24 hours before the season opener at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Both plans have logic behind them. The 49ers get acclimation; the Rams avoid a full week of players sitting around a hotel in a foreign country with nothing to do. We will find out which theory holds up on a field where neither team has ever played.
Shanahan, at least, gets to keep his secrets until tomorrow. Whenever tomorrow is.
Sources
- https://larrybrownsports.com/football/kyle-shanahan-prefect-dodge-question-49ers-injuries/769084
- https://www.nfl.com/news/niners-de-nick-bosa-to-play-week-1-vs-rams-te-george-kittle-trending-in-right-direction
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
