IN SPORTS: 49ERS HAVE BIG GOALS
SANTA CLARA — Kyle Shanahan is on stage, calmly sitting before an audience of diehard, rowdy fans. Their incumbent coach — the 49ers’ first since Jim Harbaugh — is asked about this season’s goal. One fan after another shouts: “Super Bowl!”
“Without me saying it, and everyone else said it, you know what our goal is every year,” Shanahan responds.
That was two months ago, when the 49ers held a raucous State-of-the-Franchise event at downtown San Jose’s California Theater. A 6-10 season wasn’t cause for glee as much as the 5-0 finish.
Enough optimism abounds that, from last summer to this summer, they’ve
gone from 200-to-1 Super Bowl long shots to 20-to-1 candidates.
“We turned a lot (of the roster) over last year, grinded hard, had a lot of ups and downs, but we finished as a better team,” Shanahan said on a stage he harmoniously shared with general manager John Lynch. “We’ve added players in the draft and free agency. We’ve put ourselves in a situation to be a lot better.”
As the 49ers officially report to training camp Wednesday, just know these aren’t your woebegone, give-’em-a-shot 49ers. Basically, half the starting lineup is different from last summer’s camp, and so are the expectations.
A slew of players arrived early this past week to get a jump on workouts, including quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and linebacker Reuben Foster, the offseason’s biggest newsmakers (for contrasting reasons).
Garoppolo, who signed a then-record contract for $137.5 million in February, knows he and the revised offense need these coming weeks to enhance chemistry and naildown details.
“You learn how to trust one another in practice,” Garoppolo said at last month’s minicamp.
So who can you trust? Who, indeed.
When comparing last summer’s starters to this camp’s, the newcomers are: Garoppolo, running back Jerick McKinnon, left guard Laken Tomlinson, center Weston Richburg, right guard Jonathan Cooper and right tackle Mike McGlinchey, with a nod to tight end George Kittle, who made Vance McDonald expendable via trade last August.
“I don’t know what the numbers will be,” Shanahan said last month. “I think we’ll be a better offense. I feel pretty confident in that.”
Defensively, the starting secondary is most overhauled. Last training camp, it featured cornerbacks Dontae Johnson and Rashard Robinson with safeties Jimmie Ward and Eric Reid. This camp: cornerbacks Richard Sherman and Ahkello Witherspoon with safeties Adrian Colbert and Jaquiski Tartt.