© Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Last week, Kyle Shanahan was awfully dark and existential, not just about Jimmy Garoppolo’s immediate future with the 49ers, but about the general, immediate future of every person on the planet.
Here's the clip of Kyle Shanahan answering if Jimmy G will be on the roster on Sunday: "I can't guarantee that anybody in the world will be alive Sunday so I can't guarantee who will be on our roster on Sunday."pic.twitter.com/KwI1KUmQMI
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) April 26, 2021
Jeez. It was just a bizarre, unnecessarily dark answer from a guy who tends to have a fairly solid sense of humor and perspective. Maybe too much perspective.
Shanahan explained the answer on Thursday night, saying that he realized immediately after the presser how weird his answer sounded. He said on KNBR that the reason he answered that way was because he has a solid, funny relationship with Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle, who asked the question, and was trying to be tongue-in-cheek.
He promptly called Jimmy Garoppolo afterwards, presumably to explain that he wasn’t out to kill him.
Here's Shanahan's explanation of his now infamous "not sure if he'll be alive on Sunday" comment. #49ers pic.twitter.com/PCigSCfBRb
— Kate Rooney (@TheKateRooney) April 30, 2021
Aspiring comedian and 49ers star tight end George Kittle responded on Twitter, saying he’d be giving Shanahan a call to confirm he’s alive.
I’ll call you on Sunday to let you know I’m alive coach
— George Kittle (@gkittle46) April 26, 2021
And according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, Kittle seemed to follow through and got some of his teammates in on the joke, calling Shanahan on Sunday to tell him they had indeed survived.
Take 2 sans typo:
This is tremendous. I’m told a group of #49ers players called Kyle Shanahan today to let him know they survived until Sunday. So good.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) May 3, 2021
