49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan handles the offensive play-calling duties, but he will turn it over to offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak on Saturday.
Shanahan said Wednesday that Kubiak will call the plays against the Broncos and perhaps through the entire preseason.
“I haven’t decided for the whole time, but I know he’ll do it this week, and he’ll most likely do it through the whole preseason,” Shanahan told KNBR, via 49erswebzone.com. “But I’ve got so much confidence in Klay, just how good of a job he’s done for us, how long him and I have been working together here, that it doesn’t bother me in the season. There’s times that Klay will call plays; there’s times that I will, and I do think that it’s a little bit overrated on who’s doing it.
“For the most part, not much is going to change. That’s something that I really enjoy doing, something that I’ve always worked at and have a lot of experience of, but we work on the game plans all week together. . . . Usually, when you get to game day, you have an idea of everything that you’re going to call in each situation, and it can be a little bit overrated, but that’s why I have no problem, at any time in this season, letting Klay take a series or two or whatever it is, because I don’t think there’s that much difference in what we’re doing.”
Kubiak will not have many — if any — of the first-teamers Saturday. Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Ricky Pearsall are among players expected to sit out the game, though they will participate in the joint practice against the Broncos on Thursday.
“I’d be surprised if we saw much of them in the first game,” Shanahan said. “I like to not come to my final decision until I see how practice goes tomorrow. But just the guys you mentioned right there, I’d be real surprised. Something would have to happen in practice tomorrow for me to play them in the game.
“I would like to get them in the other two, but we’ll see how it goes. I put a lot more into the practices. Games can be good, but they’re also a little bit more of a pain. You don’t know how the game’s going to play out. You don’t know how everyone’s tied together. You’re obviously tackling a lot more. You’re going to the ground a lot more. There’s a lot more risk of injury, and there’s not that much you need to find out in a game from these guys that you can’t find out in practice. So, you take that all into play. But I’d be surprised if many of those guys you’re asking about will be going on Saturday.”
Read the full article here