49ers’ Kyle Shanahan admits he’s paranoid about pulling starters

Much like his beloved backup quarterback, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan sees ghosts on the field too.

Even as San Francisco clearly had a win against the Steelers in hand on Sunday, many starters remained on the field through the fourth quarter. This included Brock Purdy, who was making his regular season return after getting elbow surgery this offseason, and Nick Bosa, who was supposed to be on a capped snap total. Shanahan told reporters Wednesday that the decision not to pull guys comes from “experience,” later referencing one particular game from his past.

The Niners started the 2021 season in Detroit and got out to a 38-10 lead in the third quarter. Shanahan decided to pull his starters from the game, only for the Lions to outscore the Niners 23-3 in the final quarter-and-a-half. The starters had to go back in to close out the game, and only just narrowly avoided a full comeback after forcing a turnover on downs when Detroit marched to San Francisco’s 24-yard-line with 20 seconds left. Shanahan’s guys won 41-33.

“That was the biggest one that was like, ‘Never again,’ because we took out a lot of people and I still can’t believe how that happened,” Shanahan told reporters Wednesday. “I’ve had to go back and keep watching because it doesn’t sound believable, but it is.”

The Niners coach added that he hasn’t seen anything “as scary as that Detroit one” since, but added that those big comebacks are still “something you’ve got to be aware of.” If there’s anyone who knows about tough comebacks, it’s Shanahan, who was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons when they blew a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl 51.

The paranoia makes Sunday’s decision a little more understandable given that even the final score, 30-7, never grew to as big of a lead as the Niners had back in Detroit (or even as big as the Super Bowl 51 deficit). When a reporter asked Shanahan if he ever gets in his own head, the coach’s response amounted to “get in line.”

“Oh yeah, you should get a soundtrack to our headsets,” Shanahan said to a big laugh from reporters. “That’s all we’re talking about. Trust me, we wanted guys out of there. We want to go put them in bubble wrap, and wait them for next week, but once you start to go there, bad things happen a lot. Yeah, we wish we could’ve gotten there sooner, but we didn’t.”

It’s certainly not the worst problem to have. After all, if Shanahan is being paranoid about pulling starters, it means the 49ers have amassed an enormous lead.