49ers beat: Shanahan sticking with normal schedule to keep team ready.
Kyle Shanahan sounded confident about his team’s Super Bowl preparations as of Friday.
“If we had to play Sunday, we’d be ready,” Shanahan said.
Instead the 49ers will board a flight to Miami on Sunday, with their arrival (scheduled for 4:10 PST, 2½ hours after the Chiefs) kicking off the weeklong leadup to Super Bowl LIV.
The 49ers kept their schedule this week as normal as possible. They held their last official practice in Santa Clara on Friday and will hold a walkthrough Saturday to go over redzone plays before descending Sunday into the whirlwind of Super Bowl week.
“We’ll start over Monday and Tuesday where we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Shanahan said. “We know what we have. But we have a week of tape where we can clean some stuff up or take some stuff out, and if some more stuff comes to us we can put some stuff in.”
Shanahan delivered his game plan to players earlier this week but said Friday it shouldn’t have contained many surprises.
“You never store plays in the vault,” Shanahan said. “No one ever really saves a play. There’s not the magical playbook.
“I would be very surprised if anyone in history going forward can ever come up with a new play. There’s only five eligible (receivers), and it’s probably been done before. So it’s how you mix up those five guys and how you set stuff up.”
Injury report: Running back Tevin Coleman (shoulder) was the lone player to carry an injury status on the 49ers’ game status report.
Coleman did not practice this week after sustaining a dislocated shoulder against the Packers in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. Shanahan said Coleman did take part in walkthrough sessions.
Shanahan said an MRI exam on Coleman on Monday delivered “positive results. So we’ll see how he is next week. But he wasn’t able to go” Friday.
Linebacker Kwon Alexander (pectoral), defensive end Dee Ford (quad, hamstring) and safety Jaquiski Tartt (ribs) were limited Friday. Linebacker Dre Greenlaw (ankle) and receiver Dante Pettis (illness) were full participants.
The Chiefs also issued a status report Friday with defensive tackle Chris Jones (calf ) and safety Jordan Lucas (illness) listed as questionable. Lucas was the only player who did not participate in Chiefs practice on Friday. Jones and tight end Travis Kelce (illness, knee) were limited.
Good call: Shanahan was asked Friday about predicting a pass interference penalty against the Packers in the NFC title game and downplayed the moment.
In a clip captured by NFL Films, Shanahan told side judge Eugene Hall that Packers safety Will Redmond would commit a penalty covering tight end George Kittle on a fourthquarter route. Redmond, indeed, held Kittle and was flagged by two officials.
“I think it’s pretty common for all coaches,” Shanahan said of talking to the side judge. “When it’s mantoman coverage, you hope the play’s on your sideline so you can help alert guys to stuff. Sometimes it’s tough for those guys, especially when you have switch releases and receivers moving in and out. So you just try to give them a headsup where we’re looking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
This time, it worked. Fullback Kyle Juszczyk, meanwhile, said Shanahan seems to have a knack for being right often in those situations.
“There’s unquestionably multiple times every week when he goes through install and he’ll tell us exactly how the defense is going to react just because he has such a good understanding of what defenses’ rules are,” Juszczyk said.
“The only time that he’s usually wrong is if that defensive guy has a mental error. And then what are you supposed to do about that?”