Consider 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan unenthused about starting the 2026 season in Australia.
Speaking to reporters at the annual league meeting on Monday morning, Shanahan delivered a response characterized as sarcastic when asked about the team’s international schedule for 2026, which will see the club begin the year in Melbourne as an away team while also going to Mexico City later in the year as a home team.
“I was so fired up. That was our goal, to go 19 hours away to play a game,” Shanahan said, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “I think we’re going back in time or into the future. I think we gain a day or lose a day — I’m not sure which one yet.
“But it is what it is. We’ll deal with it. I think there’s eight international games. We got two of them, so I’m fired up about that.”
Shanahan added he doesn’t see any positives to playing the first regular-season NFL game in Australia.
“No, not at all,” Shanahan said. “I don’t see any pro. I mean, it’s cool for the league to play globally. I think it’s awesome, but as far as the team doing it, there’s not much benefit to it.
“Sometimes it’s nice to get a bye week after, but it doesn’t happen for Week 1.
Shanahan noted teams don’t get much of a say in the international slate.
“No, they tell you, you deal with it,” he said.
The 49ers’ matchup in Mexico City is expected to land much later in the season, potentially in December.
The 49ers have made a number of changes to their coaching staff since the end of the 2025 season and they officially announced all of them on Monday.
Among the new members of the staff are former Falcons head coach Raheem Morris and former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. Morris was fired in January and replaces Robert Saleh as the defensive coordinator. Saleh is now the Titans’ head coach.
Eberflus spent last season running the defense in Dallas and will have the title of assistant head coach defense on Kyle Shanahan’s staff.
The 49ers have also hired seasonal coaching assistant Micah Foerster, defensive passing game coordinator Jerry Gray, defensive quality control coach Angel Matute, and assistant offensive line coach Roman Sapolu.
In addition to those new hires, the 49ers also announced new titles for tight ends coach Cameron Clemmons, run game coordinator Joe Graves, passing game coordinator/wide receivers coach Leonard Hankerson, defensive run game coordinator Johnny Holland, offensive assistant/tight ends Deuce Schwartz, offensive assistant/quarterbacks Jacob Webster, and linebackers coach K.J. Wright.
Todd Bowles will be back as the Buccaneers’ head coach in 2026, but two franchise mainstays will not be in Tampa with him.
Linebacker Lavonte David has retired after 14 seasons with the team and wide receiver Mike Evans left after 12 seasons to sign with the 49ers as a free agent. During an appearance on NFL Network on Monday, Bowles discussed how difficult it will be to move on without the two veterans.
Bowles said that David’s decision “really stung me” because of how much he has meant to the defense over the years.
“He was the guy off the field that got everyone going,” Bowles said. “He practiced that way, he carried himself that way. He was, right now, the cream of the crop of who you want to coach and how you want that guy to play. He was that guy. He was that guy for us for 14 years. I can’t say enough good things about him. He was like a brother to me.”
Bowles called it “very hard to see [Evans] leave sentimentally and professionally” and that they will miss the wideout’s presence on offense, but he also noted that Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan mean the cupboard isn’t bare at receiver now that Evans is in the NFC West.
49ers General Manager John Lynch said in January that wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk has played his final game for the team, but Aiyuk remains on the roster as March comes to a close.
According to head coach Kyle Shanahan, there’s no timeline in place for that to change either. The 49ers voided the remaining guarantees on Aiyuk’s contract last year, which likely contributes to the team’s decision to keep looking for a potential trade partner rather than simply releasing the wideout.
“Don’t have date,” Shanahan said from the league meetings on Monday, via Cam Inman of the Bay Area News Group. “Eventually will resolve itself. Hopefully we can get something for it. We’re in no rush. We have to do what’s right for the 49ers.”
Neither the prospect of the 49ers releasing Aiyuk nor the knee injury that limited the receiver to seven 2025 games is likely to do much to help generate trade interest, but the 49ers are content to keep waiting before making any move to jettison him once and for all.
During the week of the Scouting Combine, word emerged of a potential contract impasse that was described, at the time, as potentially resulting in left tackle Trent Williams being released by the 49ers. It didn’t happen then, it hasn’t happened since, and there’s no sign it will be happening in the future.
Instead, the 49ers seem to be very optimistic that everything will work out.
“We’ve had good communication throughout,” G.M. John Lynch said Sunday, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN. “I would say in the last week it’s kind of intensified and feel like we’re on the precipice of something good happening, but we’ll see. Don’t want to make any statements that, like, ‘Hey, we’re right there,’ because these things have felt like that before, but I do feel like we’re in good communication and hopeful.”
Williams has a 2026 compensation package of $33.06 million. The 49ers didn’t pick up a $10 million option bonus, pushing his cap charge to $46.341 million. A new contract could reduce that number significantly by converting much of his base salary of $32.21 million into an option bonus.
“This one’s never got ugly,” Lynch said. “It’s been very straightforward, direct. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance to that situation. He’s one of the great players, I think, to ever play the game, but there’s a reality with his age. It’s like, how do you thread that needle and how do you find a deal where everyone’s taken care of and happy?”
The 49ers surely prefer not to pay him $33 million this year, none of which is currently guaranteed. The question becomes determining a structure that also gives them the ability to keep him around for 2027, and possibly beyond.
This one isn’t about Williams wanting more. It’s about the 49ers not wanting to pay $33.06 million.
Consider how it all began, with this tweet from Adam Schefter of ESPN on February 24: “With five-time All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams scheduled to carry a $39 million cap number this season, he and the 49ers currently are struggling to find a contractual solution, per league sources. If the two sides can’t bridge their differences in their standoff, Williams would be expected to join this year’s free-agent class, making him one of the premier players available.”
Again, it didn’t happen then, it hasn’t happened since, and there’s no sign it will be happening in the future.
The lack of a deadline for making a large payment or guaranteeing the salary has given the 49ers leverage. They owe him nothing until the Week 1 rosters lock. By the time the situation with Williams comes to a final head (if it ever does), other possible suitors may have made other plans and/or spent their available cash on other players.
Time is on the team’s side. The breathless notion from late last month that a split could be imminent was, if nothing else, a signal to the rest of the league (undoubtedly from Williams’s camp) that it would be wise to hold back some money, in the event Williams eventually becomes a free agent.
