SANTA CLARA \u2014 Kyle Shanahan is back.<\/p>\n
Though behind the scenes, he was never really gone.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Shanahan took to the dais inside Levi\u2019s Stadium for this first time since his July car accident \u2014 for the first time since the beginning of training camp \u2014 to deliver a message to the media he\u2019s been sitting on for at least a week:<\/p>\n
He might have taken his eyes off the road \u2014 fully trusting his Tesla\u2019s \u201cautopilot\u201d mode \u2014 before his brutal car wreck, but he hasn\u2019t missed a thing this camp.<\/p>\n
Sure, he\u2019s not talking to the media or breaking down the team at every practice, but when it comes to the stuff that really matters \u2014 which, for him, is breaking down the film \u2014 he\u2019s at 100 percent and has been there for a while.<\/p>\n
And with the progress he\u2019s made with his injuries, he\u2019s under the full expectation that he\u2019ll be not only on the sidelines for the Niners\u2019 Sept. 10 season-opener in Australia against the Rams, but for Thursday\u2019s preseason opener against the Titans, as well.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s Shanahan learned through this process?<\/p>\n
For weeks, it\u2019s been fair to wonder if the most important man in the franchise would ever be the same.<\/p>\n
Turns out, he\u2019s exactly the same, just with fewer administrative chores.<\/p>\n
The only lingering symptoms from his concussion are headaches and fatigue. (Get in line, brother.)<\/p>\n
Then again, those might also be the standard side effects of watching film of his team\u2019s left-guards so far in camp.<\/p>\n
The truth remains that you couldn\u2019t pry him away from this gig, even if you had the jaws of life.<\/p>\n
A 16-hour flight to Melbourne sounds like torture to a normal human recovering from major head trauma, but to Shanahan, that\u2019s just 12 uninterrupted hours of film study and perhaps a nice nap in a lay-flat seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as like the important stuff, I feel it\u2019s about 100 percent,\u201d Shanahan said. \u201cI\u2019ve really tried to eliminate stuff that kind of is just\u2014I would say just the fake work stuff\u2026 like talking to media, having to break down the team every day\u2026 as far as the film and everything \u2014 the most important things of my job \u2014 I\u2019ve been on those every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
But adaptation is the secret to longevity.<\/p>\n
And Shanahan has been forced to adapt.<\/p>\n
The most hilarious part of this serious ordeal is what it reveals about the illusion of head coaching in the modern NFL.<\/p>\n
There are coaches all across this league and, particularly, at the lower levels of the game, who love to pretend they\u2019re indispensable gods, sleeping on office cots, and personally inspecting every blade of grass at the facility. They want you to think the entire enterprise collapses if they aren\u2019t personally evaluating at a third-string linebacker during a Tuesday walk-through.<\/p>\n
Shanahan\u2019s forced absence proved that\u2019s mostly theater.<\/p>\n
Sure, he felt some insecurity at the beginning of this ordeal.<\/p>\n
And concussions force the issue by making human interaction feel unbearable.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It was] just weird,\u201d Shanahan said. \u201cI joke with my wife, \u201cIt feels like I\u2019m in menopause.\u2019 You\u2019re emotional and things.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s progressed past those silly feelings.<\/p>\n
Back to business.<\/p>\n
With a few changes, of course. Some that might even stick around for a while.<\/p>\n
He already knew that many team meetings, the media availability, practice play-calls, and general micromanagement were fluff \u2014 fake hustle.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why he delegated true general manager responsibilities to John Lynch years ago, why his defensive coordinators operate with near-total autonomy, and there\u2019s always Kubiak to his right, calling offensive plays in the preseason.<\/p>\n
And now that he was forced to delegate even more than he already was, it\u2019s telling that nothing broke. The machine kept humming.<\/p>\n
The 49ers didn\u2019t fall apart without their mastermind calling all the shots. Practices looked the same. Roster management looked the same. The Niners were still getting injured at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n
If that isn\u2019t organizational continuity, nothing is.<\/p>\n
Shanahan built a system so sturdy and a coaching staff so well-drilled that he can operate it from afar, like the director in the Truman Show.<\/p>\n
He remains the brains, the heart, and the nervous system of this franchise.<\/p>\n
He just figured out how to stop sweating the small stuff.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a strange, twisted logic to all of this. A silver lining, if you will:<\/p>\n
A near-fatal accident forced an obsessive micromanager to not just experiment with delegation, but rather fully commit to what was always going to be the next evolution of his career \u2014 to make the changes that he was always going to have to make, but that only a total burn-out would have forced him to do.<\/p>\n
Remember: Andy Reid was fired in Philadelphia, only to reinvent himself as a laid-back football grandpa in Kansas City.<\/p>\n
But Bill Belichick rode his micromanaging style to the very end in New England, where they fired the greatest coach in NFL history. He never received another NFL chance and is now tarnishing his legacy as the head coach at the University of North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Shanahan is much, much younger than those men, but now a decade into his gig with the Niners, their careers represented the angel and devil on his shoulders.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see whose side he takes, but the Reid path seems a bit accelerated.<\/p>\n
What won\u2019t accelerate is his recovery program. Concussions aren\u2019t linear in healing, but Saturday \u2014 and his press conference \u2014 was a big step forward. One of many he\u2019s already made.<\/p>\n
It was a big deal, an accomplishment.<\/p>\n
And that said, as he stood at the podium, answering questions about his mustache \u2014 it\u2019s going to stay for a while \u2014 you could tell he almost missed the days when team doctors would have stopped him at the door.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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