Laremy Tunsil is fired up about the Texans’ decision to hire DeMeco Ryans as their new head coach and the left tackle from Ryans’ former team also thinks the team has made a winning choice.
Trent Williams didn’t play on the side of the ball that Ryans coached during their time with the 49ers, but he spent the last three seasons facing off against Ryans’ defense in practice. He was left with a positive impression of Ryans’ coaching acumen and he believes that 2023 is going to be the start of an extended run of good things in Houston.
“Yeah, I think they got a steal ,” Williams said, via Aaron Wilson of KPRC. “He can be a staple for this organization for a long time. He’s a very talented coach. Obviously, has pedigree, played this game for a long time, played it the right way and he coaches it the right way. I think he’s going to have a lot of success out here.”
The Texans also hired offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik away from the 49ers and Williams called him “a brilliant mind” who will do an “excellent job” in helping Ryans steer the Texans toward better days.
John Lynch finally made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the Class of 2021, in his ninth year of eligibility and his eighth year as a finalist. Hall of Fame receiver Terrell Owens said he believes Cowboys safety Darren Woodson should be in Canton over Lynch, a safety for the Buccaneers and the Broncos in the same era as Woodson.
“I’m thinking about a guy like Darren Woodson that’s not in the Hall of Fame, but John Lynch is. How in the hell do you quantify that?” Owens asked rhetorically, on Fubo Sports’ Getcha Popcorn Ready.
Hall of Fame receiver Andre Reed, who appeared as a guest with Owens, agreed that Woodson “no doubt” should be in the Hall of Fame.
Woodson and Lynch’s careers overlapped by 11 seasons. Woodson was named All-Pro three times to twice for Lynch, though Lynch’s nine Pro Bowls were four more than Woodson. Neither was all-decade. Woodson won three Super Bowl rings and Lynch one.
“When I got with the Niners, like I said, I didn’t know anything about no rivalry with the Cowboys and the Niners, I knew nothing about that,” Owens told Reed. “But when it comes to the game plan [it was about where is Woodson]? Granted John Lynch did some great things here and there, but I’m not looking for John [on the field]. I wasn’t. But when I played from my rookie year on, and I played against the Cowboys, I had to identify [where Woodson was]. Just because a guy starts on a defense and he is the No. 1 guy back there in the secondary for that defense, for me overall in totality, that doesn’t mean he’s impacting what I’m going to be doing. Yeah, he has to be accounted for that day because you’re game planning, but I wasn’t scared of No. 47 (Lynch]. And when I was with the Eagles and he was with Denver at the time [shrugs].”
Woodson got a step closer to Canton this year, becoming a finalist for the first time.
After going 2-14 in Chip Kelly’s only season as coach, the 49ers were looking for stability. They had gone through three coaches in three years as they began their search in 2017.
Offensive tackle Joe Staley, one of the team leaders that season, went to 49ers CEO Jed York to advocate for Kyle Shanahan as the 49ers’ next head coach.
“I was like, ‘You have to make this happen,’ ” Staley said during an appearance on the Mojobreak Media podcast last week, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “ ‘Everything I’ve heard about from a player’s side, management side, he is the next big thing . He is an unbelievable coach, the way that he sees the game. You need to -- whatever you can do -- try to make this happen.’ ”
The 49ers hired Shanahan on Feb. 6, 2017, after the Falcons blew a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI. But it has proved to be a good move for the team as the 49ers have had three playoff appearances the past six years. All three playoff appearances resulted in trips to at least the NFC Championship Game, with a Super Bowl appearance in the 2019 season.
“That’s why I was so behind Shanahan, because I saw the system, saw what he was trying to build, him and [49ers General Manager] John [Lynch],” Staley said. “And it was the first time in my career, since probably before [Trent] Baalke and [Jim] Harbaugh, that I felt a connect from the top level down -- ownership, General Manager, head coach, support staff -- everything was on the same page, and I knew what they were going to build from that point on.”
Staley retired after the 2019 season that ended in the loss to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. San Francisco has yet to get back there, but Staley said the team’s sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy is only a matter of time. That’s how much he believes in Lynch and Shanahan.
“As long as they’re there, [the 49ers are] going to be unbelievable,” Staley said.
The 49ers have all but said if Brock Purdy can return to health by the season opener he will start. The question is: Will he?
Purdy earned the right to start this season with the way he played in an emergency last season. Still, the 49ers have Trey Lance, the No. 3 overall pick in 2021, and free agent signee Sam Darnold, a former first-round pick, standing by in case.
Quarterback is the biggest question for the 49ers as they head into training camp as one of the favorites in the NFC.
49ers players are as eager as everyone else to see what happens.
“At the end of the day, it’s up to [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan],” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said Friday on The Rich Eisen Show, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com, “and with Brock recovering from his injury, he can’t really be in a competition during OTAs and that sort of thing. We’ll see when we get back for training camp how much he can do. But from my understanding, it seems like Brock has the upper hand , and I don’t know if that’s the official word.
“At the end of the day, we all have to win our spots when you come into training camp. So I’m sure that’ll be the case, and we’ll see who can go out there and perform the best when we get back. And I think it’s really going to be as simple as that.”
Purdy took advantage of his playing time as a rookie after injuries to Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo. He completed 67.1 percent of his passes for 1,374 yards, 13 touchdowns and four interceptions in seven games during the regular season. Purdy completed 65.1 percent of his passes for 569 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions in three playoff games, injuring his elbow early in the NFC Championship Game loss to the Eagles.
“When I describe Brock to people—and truly, this is the biggest compliment that I could ever receive—I say, ‘He’s a football player,’” Juszczyk told Eisen. “The guy has just played a lot of ball. He started since he was a freshman at Iowa State, so he played a lot of games. When you’re playing that position, especially a quarterback, you just need those reps. You need those live reps, those live bullets, and just certain little things, timing things, natural reactions, they just get ingrained in your head, and you’re just not thinking as much out there. You’re just reacting.
“And I felt like that’s what he was doing, is he was just going out there, and he was reacting. He didn’t have to think about it as much. It sounds so much easier than what it really is—to have the confidence to do that as the last pick of the draft, rookie, you’re in the first year in this offense, to have the trust in Kyle to [say], ‘All right, this is what Kyle told me to do during the week when we did the install. I’m just going to go do that, and I’m going to react. I’m not going to overthink it.’ And I felt like that’s what he really did. He was so well prepared that he didn’t have to overthink things, and he really just ran the offense. He didn’t try to do too much. He trusted in the playmakers that he had. He’s got a plethora of weapons in our offense, and he didn’t try to take on too much. He just went out there, and he reacted.”
As long as Brock Purdy remains in rehab mode for his elbow, the 49ers will have a competition between Trey Lance and Sam Darnold for the starting quarterback job.
The 49ers acquired Lance with the third overall pick of the 2021 draft, so he has spent three years with head coach Kyle Shanahan in the team’s offensive system. Darnold was with the Jets and Panthers before signing with the 49ers this offseason, so he’s had to get a handle on the offense while also trying to show that he can run it well enough to play this fall.
During an interview with Jennifer Lee Chan of NBCSportsBayArea.com at teammate George Kittle’s Tight End University, Darnold gave an update on how that’s going.
“Yeah, it’s been a work in progress ,” Darnold said. “I thought I got better throughout camp and just got more comfortable with the system, so still got to study and go through the process of continuing to learn the system. But I’m excited for it, and it’s been really fun so far.”
Word from the 49ers and Purdy has been that he’s on track to be ready for the regular season, so Darnold’s work might be put toward a bid for the No. 2 job when all is said and done.