Jacksonville Jaguars Media Conference

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Kyle Shanahan

Visitors Postgame Press Conference


49ers 30, Jaguars 10

KYLE SHANAHAN: Injury report. Devonta Harris had a knee sprain. Never came back. That's all I have now.

Q. It didn't probably make the analytics community real happy with your decision there on the first run. What were you thinking?

KYLE SHANAHAN: By not going for it?

Q. Yes.

KYLE SHANAHAN: Just how long of a drive it was, I thought it was closer than one. They have a pretty good run defense there. When you go that long of a drive, if we would have came out with no points, I thought that would just have given them a lot of momentum and got them going. I wanted to go for it bad. It was hard not to.

Q. When you called time-out, was it a look that you saw that forced you to call a time-out?

KYLE SHANAHAN: It was a play more out of emotion, and the longer I got to think about it, I didn't think it was the smartest decision. I wanted to take the points and make sure we got three out of it.

Q. Two weeks in a row we've seen the long drives. I don't know if you are planning it that way. What are you doing in your team in terms of setting a physical following?

KYLE SHANAHAN: I think it does a lot. It's hard to go on the long drives. That's why I wanted to score so bad at the end. We've been running the ball pretty consistently, but I think that had to do with third down also.

When you don't get a big play but you are running it consistently and keep making the third downs, you expect to eventually get in, and I thought we did a real good job at that, but we didn't get the third down inside the 5.

Q. Did you feel like if you gave the Jaguars that opportunity to stop you, that's a complete momentum change? You could at least just kind of --

KYLE SHANAHAN: For it to take the whole first quarter -- it seemed like there was a minute left on the clock to take that whole quarter. If we would have come out without any points, I realized once I called the play, I called it because I wanted to, in terms of with your emotion and your heart, and sometimes you've got to use your brain too.

Q. Were you talking? Were you discussing -- (indiscernible)

KYLE SHANAHAN: Usually it's crickets in those situations because I think everyone feels the same. You never know what's the right answer until after it.

Q. This game had the short week and the cross-country and the early start. What does it say about your team that you put together the stretch you have the last seven days, especially after the Arizona loss?

KYLE SHANAHAN: I mean, I get that's what everyone expects. We didn't expect that. I don't feel like we've ever been that way. I think we've been good on the road and going to the East Coast. We knew how much our backs were against the wall before that Rams game, and we also know that that meant nothing if we couldn't win today. I get how it looks, but I don't think it was very hard to get the guys' attention and ready to play. We know how that felt when we were losing games. We know how much better it felt versus the Rams, and we didn't want that to end today.

Q. Going back to what you just said. You don't know the right answers until after so you feel like that was the right answer?

KYLE SHANAHAN: It's better than the wrong answer. (Laughing) The wrong answer is when you get zero points, so at least we were halfway there, and it would have been closer. I think I would have done it, but I wanted it to be a yard or inside a yard, and I think it was closer to two from what I saw.

Q. You said a lot of people were up in arms about Josh after the Arizona game. You liked the way he was playing. (Indiscernible)

How big is that? Turnovers haven't come a lot for you, but he has been good and has consistently created plays?

KYLE SHANAHAN: He has done it his whole career, and everyone knows Josh has played at a high level. He had close to an MVP season when he was with Carolina and stuff. He has been one of the better corners in this league for a while, and, yes, he is towards the end where it changes a little bit, but the guy still plays the same way. He is a physical guy who loves playing football. He gives it everything he has, and he is the best I've seen at going for the ball with the peanut punch and everything. He gets us in practice all the time. He has gotten everyone in the league for a long time. It's cool when he gets the opportunities and he is by the ball. He gets that ball out a very high percentage of the time, and I'm glad guys are running to it, and Fred got it, right? I think, yeah. It was a huge momentum for us to get on that ball.

Q. After that did you talk with him, or was he just -- he lost his cool. It was a mistake, and you moved on. Did you ever have a meeting with him?

KYLE SHANAHAN: I talked to him the next day about it. He knows what he did wrong on it. That was his first one here. I think that was the first one on our team, which we don't want any, and that is a big deal, but I also wasn't going to be over-dramatic and make an example of someone who had just done it for the first time.

Q. What's your plan ahead of the game to make Deebo a running back of the game, or was that how the game evolved?

KYLE SHANAHAN: We planned on giving him some throughout the game. We usually do, and usually when things work, you come back to them, and we had a couple of different things with it and play actions that we got in the third quarter. I think one off of it, but, I mean, when he runs the ball that well, it's pretty impressive to have. I think he had almost ten yards a carry and eight runs and, you know, as long as it was 24 -- usually when a receiver has done that, it's because they have one 70-yarder, and Deebo is extremely efficient. He got everything and more on those looks, and I think he had one real bad look that he protected the ball and got down.

Q. Then is Williams eligible?

KYLE SHANAHAN: Almost. I was prepared if he scored for a penalty, which I warned him not to. (Laughing)

It was close. I thought he got tugged a little bit. I know he did. He was calling for it. It just wasn't there.

Q. What were you worried about the last couple of weeks coming back after the Arizona game?

KYLE SHANAHAN: After that Arizona game, it was pretty low because we were embarrassed on how we looked. When we watched the tape, we saw a lot of stuff that we felt we could fix. It wasn't as discouraging as it felt during that game, and I was happy with the guys that instead of getting discouraged, they kept it real and just watched the tape and saw the stuff that we could improve on, and I feel like credit to the guys and some of the coaches that they didn't get down when it's easy to get down. They just kept focusing on trying to get better and practicing and just trying to detail stuff up, and I think we've done a better job with that the last few weeks.

Q. Did you have a goal for number of carries for this game?

KYLE SHANAHAN: No, I never gave them a goal.

Q. Does it shock you that they had as many?

KYLE SHANAHAN: It does. That's a real good run defense. They commit to the run really well. I know that first drive helped out a good amount, and I know it's good on third down and helped out a lot too.

Q. Was part of Deebo being so active in the run game a support for Jeff Wilson just him coming back?

KYLE SHANAHAN: Not really. It's what we did last week too when Elijah and Jeff were up, and I think we had four running backs up last week. He was just good at it. It causes problems for the defense too when there's a receiver you don't know where he is going to be.

Q. When you look at the games that Brandon Aiyuk has had the last few weeks. What does it say about him as a player and just how he has been able to get through the adversity?

KYLE SHANAHAN: I think it says more about him as a person as anything because we all know B.A. is a talented dude, but it takes a lot of stuff to be able to play in this league week in and week out, and he started out behind this year, and I know I road him hard and his coach did, and a lot of us did, and I just thought it was impressive how being younger, being new to this league, and when things aren't going your right way and people are putting pressure on you, not just outside, but inside, it a lot of guys tend to point the finger and feel sorry for themselves, and that's what worries you, and you have to wait until the offseason to bring him back. He wasn't like that. He kept working, kept trying to get better, and I know everyone has seen it the last couple of weeks, but you could see it happening in practice too. He didn't always get the results and targets and stuff, but we don't really plan that.

I thought Deebo would get more targets today. It just comes out the way it does, and when you got Aiyuk out there playing like a true starting player, Deebo, Kittle, I think it's the first time we've had those three three weeks in a row. I don't know if it's right, but it seems like since in two years almost. I don't know if they've ever been out that many times week after week, so it's been good. When they're like that, they're out there more consistently, I think we just get better as a whole with the quarterback. Everyone would be more consistent.

Q. I know it's not a top goal of yours, but have you and Trent talked about getting him a TD or a catch and where is that --

KYLE SHANAHAN: He has been talking to me about it since the day I met him, and he has never had one, and he keeps telling me that, and he probably is as good of a tackle that you could ever have to run a route. It's tough. It's my first time really doing it, and it didn't work, and when you report as eligible, you can't go in the next play, so calling that is somewhat risky. That's why Trent had to come out, and you don't ever want Trent to come out, but I told him, "You didn't get open like he always promised me he would," so he has to keep practicing that route.

Q. He came in, and he had to go out?

KYLE SHANAHAN: Compton or Jaylon Moore, whichever one was not in at the time.

Q. (Off microphone)

KYLE SHANAHAN: Deebo?

Q. Yeah.

KYLE SHANAHAN: I thought he did it last year. He didn't get to play. He was in and out all of last year. They didn't count it as carries because you catch the ball, and you toss it three inches to him, but he ran seven of those versus the Rams last year in the first game, and I think he ran four of them the second game, but they all count as passes. I mean, he has been running the ball here when we started to realize how good he was during the second half of his rookie year. We haven't tossed him, so he gets more running stats, and he is continuing to get better at it, and so we're continuing to do more.

Q. Emmanuel came out of the game late. Is he okay injury-wise?

KYLE SHANAHAN: He was all right. Yeah, he was a little shook up on that. We took him out to see if he was all right. He was fine. We just wanted to get am Ambry some reps too.

Q. Trey Lance is okay on his quarterback sneak?

KYLE SHANAHAN: I assume so. I haven't asked him. Was he limping off or anything?

Q. A little slow.

Q. (Off microphone)

KYLE SHANAHAN: I thought he played well. I thought he was efficient and made the right plays. Protected the ball, most importantly. Did what he had to do for us to win. All right, guys. Thanks.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
114995-1-1878 2021-11-21 22:21:00 GMT

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