–After head coach Kyle Shanahan chatted with veteran wideout Pierre Garcon about what appeared to be inevitable, the 49ers made no moves at the trade deadline.
“I communicate with P on everything,” Shanahan noted to reporters as final minutes were ticking away before Tuesday’s deadline. “He’s still here and there’s 21 minutes left. So I feel pretty confident that he’s going to be here. I’m excited about that. Pierre’s excited about that.”
Garcon sat out the Week 8 loss to Arizona with knee and shoulder issues. Some thought it was insurance against suffering a more serious injury with the trade deadline looming.
Not surprisingly, Shanahan announced that he expected Garcon to return for Thursday’s matchup with the Oakland Raiders despite the short week of practice.
Shanahan admitted that while he’s happy to keep Garcon around, he understands what the organization was thinking when he was discussed in trade talks.
“I do worry about that stuff a lot,” Shanahan said about trading a likable player. “But no matter how soft you can get in that type of area, and you can relate and understand, you’ve always got to go to block that out and what helps our organization. What helps us now, what helps us in the future.
“You can communicate with everyone and you’d love to explain yourself to people. You always know people won’t always understand. Myself, (general manager) John (Lynch), our No. 1 responsibility is to this organization. Every decision that we make is going to be in the best interest of the organization, and I hope that can tie into the best interest of individuals, also.”
–The 49ers will be playing the Raiders on Thursday night for the first time since 2014 and for the first time ever at Levi’s Stadium.
Especially with the Raiders one foot out the door en route to Las Vegas, the matchup is less of a rivalry than in the past.
In fact, it’s more of a happy reunion in some ways for Kyle Shanahan, whose first NFL coaching gig was under Jon Gruden with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2004.
“I grew up in a football house, being the son of a head coach. But that was the first time I ever worked in a building from a football standpoint,” Shanahan gushed this week. “It was as good of a place as I could ever go. They were one year removed from winning the Super Bowl, went there with Jon, who was just doing a ton of things offensively. I was the quality control, so I had to do all the grunt work and draw all the playbooks, break down all the film.
“Every building is different. You’re a product of your environment, but it was such a good place for me to go to because Jon was doing everything. It wasn’t just his stuff. He was always on top of it with the film, which everyone is now because of the computers and everything, but he was one of the first guys doing that stuff, probably being a little bit younger than most guys at that time and just introduced me to pretty much every play known to man. I had to draw them all, had to make books on them. That’s where you pay your dues and do all that stuff.”
Among the others on the Tampa Bay staff at the time were Monte Kiffin, Mike Tomlin, Rod Marinelli, Joe Barry, Raheem Morris and Joe Woods.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “I know our guys are working their tails off. They’re on the phones, and they’ll be doing that all the way up to the time.” — 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, on the final minutes before Tuesday’s trade deadline. The 49ers made no moves.
BY THE NUMBERS: 167 — The numbers of games Joe Staley will have played for the 49ers should he take the field Thursday against the Raiders, the fifth-most in franchise history among offensive linemen.
