Kyle Shanahan explains Christian McCaffrey's injury, liked the Niners fight | Press Conference

the youngin. Not too shabby. How about we hear from the Young guns head coach Kyle Shanahan at the podium? Mason ran with a ton of conviction against a really good defense. What was your thoughts of his performance? I thought he runs like he always does. I mean, when you get him the ball, he breaks tackles, usually gets more than we block, then we block for, when we had the good lanes, he always hit him and got a bunch. But, JP was awesome today. What happened with Christian, just the same stuff that was bothering him all week. There was a little too much today. Game time. Decision he came in just talking to him about it. It was still there, thought it was gonna be smart to keep him out. And glad we did. Jordan said after the game that he was told on Friday night he was going to start. When did Christian start feeling awry? I never told Jordan he was going to start. I told him he had to be ready a bunch, but that might have been Bobby or somebody trying to pump him up, but I knew he was going to have to play a lot and told him that he was going to have to was going to be like usual. He was going to be a number two back. That was splitting a lot of the time, but no, he didn't know. He for sure was doing that till today. And Christian have some sort of a setback on Friday. Is that. No, he didn't have a setback. I mean, it was it was on and off throughout the week. He was able to practice throughout the week. Just, it was always bothering him to a degree. And sometimes it goes away, sometimes it comes back. And today was bothering him a little too much to where we didn't feel good about it. In those situations where if there's any going to linger over the next several weeks, what's that? Is this is there a concern that this is something that is going to linger over the next always? I mean, it's been lingering the last few weeks and but it's getting better and better and hopefully it'll be better next week. Is it one of those situations where if there's any soreness pregame you'll on the side of caution, not any soreness, but there was too much soreness. Performance tonight kind of give you some reassurance that you could allow Christian to maybe heal more than, not really. I mean, we always we, we feel think very highly of JP when he's been in those situations. That's what he's always done. And you know, you always want Christian out there. Well what he brings to the run game also what he brings to the pass game. So it's huge. You have Christian but, we're not at the expense of losing him for more games. What what went on with his team this summer, the holdouts and then obviously a shooting and so much going on in the last few weeks. Did you ever worry about the focus of this team? Did you always understand this is what could be possible in week one? Yeah, I mean our I mean, I'm with our team every day. So I know there's lots of news stories and stuff with holdouts and things like that. And when are people coming back? But our guys have been awesome in practice. They've been very focused. You know, anytime guys don't get a lot of practice in, you know, I wish we could have more. So I wanted to mesh more with those guys who just got here. This week. But being able to get four practices in with those guys, having the extra day and things like that was great for them, we've still got a long way to go today. By no means was perfect. There were some parts that were sloppy, but just overall, all three phases played really well together, being able to score there at the end of the half and what the field goal, run the clock out, score the opening drive of the third quarter, our defense getting the two turnovers, our kicker going six for six for seven runs. I look at that as a complete team goal that we try to do. So I was real happy with just the team overall, do you think? Trent I'm sorry, just Trent and IU look to you, I mean, they seemed fine. I mean, I'm sure we'll see some things when we watch the tape, but I mean, nothing that cost us. What did you think about the defense against the run? I mean, you guys had some changes over the off season on that side of the ball. Some injuries. Obviously It seemed like a strong first impression. Yeah, I was really happy watching the D from the sidelines. I mean, I thought they were running and hitting. That's the thing that jumps out the most. And they got a few big plays on us and a couple drives that got them moving. But for the most part, I thought we were winning most of the downs and, gave up a couple big ones that we got to clean up. But I was real impressed with our defense today offensively. Offensively you guys started three and out and then he scored I think on eight straight possessions after that is that I don't want to say did you expect it to go that productive without Christian. Someone spilled on myself. Sorry. What's that? It's a tough question, I mean, you don't you don't really have expectations like that. You just try to score every time you get the ball. And I don't expect to go three and out ever. But it still happens. So I didn't know that we did that until they just told me and kind of made sense that I don't remember seeing mich very much. And so that did make sense. Not having Christian is huge, but, you know, we got a team that really commits to running the ball. We got ten guys out there who block for whoever the running back is, and we got some running backs and some receivers who know how to lower