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Kyle Shanahan explains why 49ers hired former Dolphins coach Chris Foerster
Aug 24, 2019 at 3:28 PM
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On Friday,
ESPN's Jenna Laine reported that the San Francisco 49ers hired former Miami Dolphins offensive line coach Chris Foerster for an undisclosed role, saying that he "assists the coaching staff with game-planning."
Foerster, of course, resigned from the Dolphins back in October 2017 after a video of him snorting a white powdery substance surfaced. He hasn't coached in the NFL since that point.
Later on Aug. 23, head coach Kyle Shanahan told
NBC Sports Bay Area's Jennifer Lee Chan why he made the decision to bring Foerster back in a consulting role.
"We found out about it [the video] when the whole world found out about it," Shanahan said. "When it happened, we were as shocked as anyone, from my wife to anybody. It's nothing I'd want to stick up for. These are extremely bad things that I know he's not proud of, and I'm not proud of.
"He did something extremely stupid, and since then, he has hit rock bottom. He went to rehab for 60 days, and then he was in a 90-day outpatient rehab. For the last two years, he's been in a 12-step program that he's been to every single night seven days a week."
Foerster served as San Francisco's offensive line coach between 2008 and 2009, then again in 2015. But the link to Shanahan stems from Foerster's time with the Washington Redskins, during which he served in the same capacity between 2010 and 2014. Shanahan was the offensive coordinator there for the first three years of that span before moving on to the Cleveland Browns for 2014.
According to the report from Chan, Foester had been serving in this consulting role since 2018, yet he was never officially announced to the coaching staff.
"If he was fully on our coaching staff, going to practice and going to games, I understand that it's something that I'd have to address, but he's not," Shanahan continued. "He's in a consulting role. A lot of teams have consultants. I understand the ramifications of that, and why people will ask why I didn't say anything about it.
"He is still in a consulting role because I do understand the seriousness of this matter. We're trying to ease him back in. I understand how big of a problem he did have. I also understand what he's doing in committing to fix that problem. We're trying to give him a chance to get back on track."
Shanahan also admitted the team is holding Foerster to a high standard. And while he's not allowed to be on the field during games, the Niners do have him participate in film-review sessions and team meetings, per Chan.
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Written by:
Peter Panacy has been writing about the 49ers since 2011 for outlets like Bleacher Report, Niner Noise, 49ers Webzone, and is occasionally heard as a guest on San Francisco's 95.7 FM The Game and the Niners' flagship station, KNBR 680. Feel free to follow him, or direct any inquiries to his Twitter account.
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