FOX Sports Digital
Coach Kyle Shanahan walked onto the practice field and stood next to general manager John Lynch, watching his San Francisco 49ers practice for about 30 minutes. Shanahan's presence that has been a constant the past decade was a welcome sight on Sunday for the first training camp practice, coming less than two weeks after he got into a car crash that left him with a concussion and other injuries. "I know he can’t stay away," star linebacker Fred Warner said. "I know he’s given up his duties for a little bit, but that guy’s obsessed with ball. I’m sure of course he’s going to be around." While Shanahan made a cameo appearance at practice on Sunday, the Niners began preparations for the 2026 season without their leader in charge. Shanahan has ceded responsibility over the team to assistant head coach/offensive line coach Chris Foerster temporarily as he recovers from the crash he got into on July 14 in nearby Palo Alto. Shanahan suffered a concussion, broken ribs, a broken nose and broken hand in the crash and won't be back running the team until the concussion symptoms subside. Shanahan had a cast on his left hand, sunglasses to cover up his black eye and a new mustache that prompted Warner to complement him on his "disguise" as he watched practice. Shanahan interacted with a few players, including Warner, Kyle Juszczyk, Christian McCaffrey and Dre Greenlaw before leaving the field. "I knew it would be tough to keep him away from there," star tackle Trent Williams said. "It’s going to be hard for him to get his rest. He’s not that type of person. It doesn’t surprise me at all to see him out there." With a veteran-laden team and several coaches who have been with the organization for years, Foerster and Williams said it's almost as if the team is on "auto pilot" and not thrown off by Shanahan's absence. The training camp practice plan was put in place long before Shanahan's crash with the opening stretch of camp essentially a repeat of the installations from the offseason program. Foerster said he is leaning heavily on his assistants, especially coordinators Klay Kubiak, Raheem Morris and Brant Boyer. He said not much has changed other than he had to break the team after practice, he did a news conference and he got to make the call on small parts of practice such as whether to repeat or skip a play following a pre-snap penalty. Foerster has been in the NFL for more than three decades, starting as an assistant offensive line and tight ends coach in Minnesota in 1993 and had little problem taking command of the entire team. "He’s been doing this longer than everybody in that locker room been alive, probably except for me," Williams said. "It’s like a hand-in-glove fit. Me personally, I’m so proud of him just watching him even just be a head coach for a day, or no matter how long it is. We go...
