The 1-4 49ers lost their starting quarterback last month, which resulted in them losing a Sunday night game in two weeks against the Rams. 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan understandably is using that to motivate his team for Monday night’s game against the Packers, since any good coach will use every ounce of available motivation.
49ers tight end George Kittle recently summarizes Shanahan’s message like so: “Everyone says we have a lot of injuries and [we were] kicked out of a Sunday night football game. And no one really expects us to win on Monday night. Screw them. And we’re going to do everything we can to show up. We’re going to ball out. That’s about it.”
Shanahan was a bit less candid when speaking to the media directly.
“I think we want to win as bad as anything, so I don’t think there’s anything that can make us want to win more,” Shanahan told reporters on Saturday. “Any time people count you out and don’t think there’s something you can do, I think that challenges a lot of people. I know when you go into something and you want to show people what you can do, you hope the whole world is watching, not just your own state. So, yeah, we like being on national TV. We like to prove people wrong. We’re excited we get to do it this week. That won’t be the case next week, but we’re glad right now that we get that opportunity.”
They’ll actually have three of those opportunities over the next few weeks, with a Thursday night game against the Raiders (ugh) and a Monday night game against the Giants (double ugh) coming up within the next month. And those games definitely would be flexed out of prime time if they could be.