A Group Of 49ers Players Had A Message For Kyle Shanahan

“First of all, I’m glad you asked about Jimmy. I totally bombed that on Monday,” Shanahan told reporters. “I hated how that came off. I talked to Jimmy about it right away. I didn’t realize that when I did it. A person I have a relationship with who sometimes when he asks me what I think is a silly question, sometimes I mess with him back, and that’s kind of what I was doing. That was between me and that guy, had nothing to do with Jimmy when I said, I didn’t know if we’d be alive on Sunday. I was just trying not to get my typical answer of, ‘Guys, anybody can be traded if you get a bunch of ones, John should trade me, and I shouldn’t be here on Sunday.’

“That’s the answer for every person on our team, but Jimmy’s situation is, if he isn’t here on Sunday, I would be disappointed because Jimmy is a quarterback who’s played one year and took us to a Super Bowl and played at a very high level. He’s had some unfortunate injuries, but I believe in Jimmy as a person and he’s shown what he can do on tape. Now, we made this move, so it’s obvious what I hope and what I believe in with this guy coming in, but it would be a very tough situation if Jimmy’s not on our team. I want Jimmy to be here and I want [Lance] to be brought along. I want to see how he does and if it turns into a competition, it turns into a competition. I’d be excited about that if he showed he was ready for it and stuff, but we know where Jimmy’s at. He hasn’t played football in a year. He hasn’t been to an OTA. I’d love to get him out here. It’d be very hard for me to picture a situation [where] Jimmy’s not here on Sunday, because that would be, I think, very stressful for us because Jimmy is a very good player and I think we can win with him. So, we’ll play that by ear, but I expect Jimmy to be here, and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.”