When 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan last faced Lions head coach Matt Patricia, both men worked for different teams.
Shanahan was the Falcons offensive coordinator and Patricia was running the Patriots defense when New England came back from 28-3 down in the second half to win the game. Patricia coached 19 more games with New England last year and one game with the Lions on Monday night, but that didn’t stop Shanahan from going back to that fateful night when it came time to prepare for this Sunday’s 49ers-Lions game.
“I’ve been watching a lot of stuff,” Shanahan said, via the Detroit Free Press. “Not just over the last couple days but over the summer and things like that. We’re always watching film and you love to watch the players that we’re going against, but when you have limited tape you have to go back to whoever the coordinator was, where he was the coordinator last, so you can understand all the scheme stuff. And that’s what you see.”
Shanahan said that Patricia’s scheme in Detroit is “very similar” to the one he came up against in Houston in the Super Bowl, although the results were a lot different on the field against the Jets in Week One.