Time to blame defense
Shanahan has made it clear that he has nothing to do with that side of the ball
In the hours since the 49ers were embarrassed at the hands of Colt McCoy and the Cardinals Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, there has been a steady stream of fans imploring me to blame the San Francisco defense — not the offense — for the loss.
While I don’t think that either unit did particularly well on Sunday, I cannot disagree that the defense — which made McCoy, a decade-plus backup in the NFL look like Tom Brady — is more deserving of scorn.
Kyle Shanahan agrees, too. But both the Niners head coach and all of us who watched the game seemingly have the same amount of agency in changing San Francisco’s floundering defense.
Under winning circumstances, Shanahan doesn’t like to telegraph that he has little, if anything, to do with the Niners’ defense. Why wouldn’t he take credit for a good thing?
Still, it would slip out every now and then in press conferences. The 49ers’ offense would be “we” — the Niners’ defense, “they”.
Now, more often than not, Shanahan does remember that he’s the Niners’ head coach and takes the perfunctory blame for both sides of the ball, but that stance hardly stands up to scrutiny.
The truth is found in the margins and Shanahan’s made his truth pretty clear.
The “we” vs. “they” thing has happened too many times over the years to merely be a hasty slip of the tongue. No, it’s a mindset.
After all, Shanahan has shown he has no problem sprinkling in those pronouns when the Niners are losing — making it clear the defense is not his purview when they’re not playing well. He did it Sunday.
He did it again on Monday afternoon.
Geez. I wonder why? There’s a fine line between giving the 49ers’ defensive staff and players autonomy and a head coach having total apathy in coaching that aspect of the game.
That line is pretty blurred in San Francisco and that’s if Shanahan is given the benefit of the doubt.
“I am not involved with the defense a lot,” Shanahan said in January 2020.
Shanahan’s hands-off approach (that’s the nicest way I can phrase it) has led to peculiar moments over his tenure.
For instance, the 49ers’ handling of Josh Norman Sunday.
After Norman’s ridiculous first-half taunting penalty, which gave Arizona three points, the Niners cornerback was benched.
It made all the sense in the world.
Except to Shanahan. The Niners’ head coach said he wanted Norman to come to the sidelines to “cool down”, but then he wanted him to go back into the game.
Norman did not go back into the game.
“It wasn’t my decision, but I was ok with it,” Shanahan said Sunday and reiterated Monday.
Yes, you read that right, it “Wasn’t my decision.”
I guess we should blame “them”.
Who knew there was someone more powerful in the Niners coaching staff — the entire football department of the team, even — than Shanahan?
Now, no one is advocating that Shanahan rule with an iron fist — it’s good to empower your employees — but “it’s not my call” is a limp-wristed handshake of an excuse to come from a head coach.
If you’re going to throw your defense under the bus in the press conference, do it with some gusto.
But apparently, the buck apparently doesn’t stop with Shanahan when it comes to those other things football teams have to do outside of possessing the football.
It makes you wonder what kind of hijinks special teams coordinator Richard Hightower could get up to in Santa Clara. No one is watching, after all.
Is the solution Shanahan becoming more involved with the Niners’ defense? Probably not. Shanahan’s absentee coaching could well be justified — in recent years, he’s joked that whatever ideas he has put to the defensive coaches are often openly shot down.
At the same time, it’s hard to say that this team isn’t hurting — just a bit — from the absence of former defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.
Yes, the Niners’ biggest issue on defense right now is talent — they’re playing street free agents at cornerback and are down to their second and thirdstring safeties going into Monday’s game against the Rams — but DeMeco Ryans is both a first-time defensive coordinator and someone doing the job under little — if any — supervision.
That’s a great way for small mistakes to spiral over the course of a season, and there’s no doubt this Niners defense is spiraling.
But that’s not Shanahan’s problem.
No, he’ll let “them” worry about it.
After all, he’s only the head coach.