Why Shanahan isn't worried about offense being behind defense

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SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers' defense has been dominating practices at training camp, but coach Kyle Shanahan is not concerned about his offense. 

While Shanahan was not pleased by the interceptions made by Trey Lance and Nate Sudfeld back in Sunday’s practice, the coach knows the defense usually “wins” practices at this time of the year. 

“I don't think I've ever in my career, except maybe in Houston for two years, felt the offense beats the defense in training camp,” Shanahan said on Tuesday.  “When we were in Cleveland, they had whoever won the day got to wear the orange jersey the next day and the defense won all 18 of them.

“And then one day we let the coaches compete and catching punts and the offensive coaches won that, so the offensive players got to wear orange jerseys one day in all of training camp and it was because the coaches won the punts. But then we came out and we were a pretty good offense that year coming out. It's just different.” 

The offensive coaches are not game-planning through 11-on-11 drills, which gives the defense an advantage. Without disguising and scheming against a specific defense, Trey Lance and Co. are running less exotic plays and sequences. 

The 49ers' defensive front is set to repeat its dominant ways from 2021, and a much-improved secondary has limited the throwing windows for Lance and Sudfeld. Shanahan wants his quarterbacks to know that sometimes they will have to take the check-down, and not force a bigger play. 

“If you throw a pick and you can understand why someone's doing it then it's kind of neat for it to happen in practice,” Shanahan said. “You can talk about it and be like, ‘I saw what you saw, great job ripping it, the throw was off.’ Or ‘Yeah, I see what you saw, but this is what deceived you.”

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Getting a few yards, a neutral play or even a few yards lost is obviously preferable over a turnover. Shanahan emphasized this to Lance and Sudfeld after their interceptions and was pleased to find out that they both understood.

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