The San Francisco 49ers will not hold a full-go practice this week. They will practice, but each session will resemble lighter workouts as the team prepares to face the Tennessee Titans on the road while coming off a short week.
Rest will be the focus over the next few days.
"In my experience, and from what I've been told, I think the best thing for recovery is sleep," head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Monday morning via a conference call. "That's why I think we pushed back all the scheduled [to] later, so they can sleep more. That's what we really stress about all the time."
Following Sunday's 31-13 win over the Atlanta Falcons, Shanahan warned his players not to celebrate too much that night, given the short amount of time they have to prepare for their next opponent.
Shanahan added that every day this week contains two days' worth of work. So Tuesday will be a typical Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday will be Friday and Saturday.
"It's a whirlwind," Shanahan noted. "You don't have any time to catch up on anything. So you don't have enough time to waste time as soon as your game's over on Sunday."
The nice thing about the short week is that a weekend off will follow, which is rare in the NFL. And for the 49ers, it will allow the coaches and players to spend the holidays with their families. That's even rarer. But to do that, they've got to take care of business over these next few days.
"Really dedicate your mind and your body and everything to these four days," Shanahan told his players, "because we're still doing all the work, mentally and everything, and the game's still going to be the same, but you've got to cram it all in. And the only way you do that is with extra sleep and rest."
There is another area where the 49ers have an advantage. The coach doesn't feel like his players are likely to overdo it with the celebrations anyway.
"I feel pretty confident they [didn't party]," Shanahan explained. "They played pretty hard. Those guys, they don't have a ton of energy after games. I feel like we've got kind of a nerdy group when it comes to after games. They'll make up for it in the offseason, I'm sure, though."
