As the San Francisco 49ers pursue their sixth Super Bowl, head coach Kyle Shanahan is getting tips from his father, three-time Super Bowl winner Mike Shanahan.
Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area shared a short conversation he had with the younger Shanahan ahead of Saturday’s divisional-round matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. In it, Shanahan shared that his father is set up to remotely watch every single practice, team meeting and drill, thanks to team director of video operations, Michael Bracken.
“It blew his mind,” Kyle Shanahan said. “He thought he was going to have to fly out here or get Beta tapes sent to him or whatever, but Mike Bracken, our video guy, is on top of everything. Usually about a half-hour after we’re done, my dad has an iPad and he can watch it, too.”
Not surprisingly, the elder Shanahan offers insight into what he sees that Kyle Shanahan shared is invaluable to him and his staff.
“It’s kind of neat for me to have it where when he watches something or sees something, he tells me, ‘Hey, you guys should’ve done this or that.’” Kyle Shanahan said. “I look into it what he says. And it’s nice to have another set of eyes. Where, ‘Hey, I missed that.’ I’ll go back and check that. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don’t.”
Of course, not everyone is exactly happy about this arrangement.
“My mom doesn’t like it, though, because he’s still working at their house, and she doesn’t get why he won’t come out of the film room,” Shanahan said of his father’s infatuation with staying plugged into the 49ers.
The 49ers earned the No. 1 seed in the NFC with a 13-3 record this regular season. They’re opening up their postseason with a home matchup against the Vikings this Saturday. If some of the offense you see seems familiar to you, now you may have a better understanding of why that is.