If Thursday night's game between the San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers had been postponed to Sunday or Monday, head coach Kyle Shanahan would likely have had more to work with. There's nothing he can do about it now, though. The game was played, despite the 49ers missing multiple wide receivers and their left tackle because Kendrick Bourne tested positive for COVID-19 this week.
Bourne's next two tests returned negative. As did the tests for the three teammates who joined him on the reserve/COVID-19 list due to close contact with the receiver. Of course, all of that is after the Packers beat an undermanned 49ers team, which had to pull from its practice squad just to field an offense.
Shanahan isn't bitter about the situation, though.
"I dealt with the disappointment yesterday," the coach told reporters via a conference call on Friday. "Finding out that it was negative today, I was glad for Kendrick and those guys. They don't have to worry about at least being sick right now. We dealt with that yesterday.
"Part of this protocol, it's part of everything. I know it's frustrating, but it is what it is. That's what everyone in this world's got to deal with right now. They're doing that for the safety. Unfortunately, it wasn't necessary, but I get why it did happen. So, got to deal with it, and we obviously dealt with that last night. So, hopefully, it won't happen going forward."
There was a report that the NFL is investigating Kendrick Bourne for possibly failing to adhere to the league's COVID-19 protocols surrounding face masks. The team might face discipline should the NFL find there were violations.
The Las Vegas Raiders were just fined $500,000 and stripped of a sixth-round draft pick in 2021 for violations of the league's COVID-19 protocols. Coach Jon Gruden was fined an additional $150,000. That comes after several previous fines for violations.
Shanahan was fined $100,000 after Week 2 for improperly wearing a face mask. The 49ers were fined an additional $250,000 for the violation.
The coach sounded confident that the NFL wouldn't find any further violations by the 49ers.
"No, I don't expect any to," Shanahan said. "I think when anything comes up, and they think people have COVID even though it's negative, they're going to look into it hard. And I'm glad for that.
"I think we're doing what we think is as good as we can, and when they look into it, I'm sure they'll find ways we can improve. Whatever they tell us on how we can improve, we will. We've got a guy sitting out of every single meeting, passing out disposable masks to anyone who doesn't have one or doesn't have it. We're doing that non-stop.
"We've got trackers on all the time. We're making sure guys have them. We don't frisk the guys, so we don't know if they have them in their pockets or not, but we make sure that we're handing them out, and they're using them. I think we're doing a very good job. I'm always interested and want to know how we can do better."
