After watching Deebo Samuel absolutely go off on the San Francisco 49ers’ special teams duo of Taybor Pepper and Jake Moody after a third-straight missed field goal, grabbing at the former’s neck before swinging at the latter, it set the sports world on fire.
Would Samuel be sent to the locker room? Was San Francisco’s team slowly falling apart? And would there be any post-game consequences, with any of the offending parties being fined or suspended for their extracurricular activities?
Well, while the NFL hasn’t officially ruled on the incident one way or the other – and probably won’t if nothing comes out of it – Kyle Shanahan was asked if he will impose any sort of punishment on his players for being a sideline distraction, to which he provided a very interesting answer to the assembled media.
“No, I fine people for breaking rules,” Shanahan told reporters. “This is just people being football players and dealing with stuff on the sidelines, and I didn’t really chalk that up to a big deal at all.”
On one hand, technically, he is correct; no one broke any rules unless the 49ers have a good sportsmanship clause in their team bylaws. With that being said, one has to wonder if things would have shaken out differently had the 49ers lost their game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or worse, if they did so because of a Moody miss. While winning can cure plenty of issues, the underlying ones largely remain.
Kyle Shanahan wants the 49ers to move past the Samuel-Pepper fight
Discussing the beef between Samuel and Pepper further, Shanahan was asked if he was “satisfied” with how the situation played out, with the latter noting he holds nothing against the former.
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“Oh yeah, totally. I think it was a little bit overreaction and I don’t think, you never want [WR] Deebo [Samuel Sr.] to throw a baby punch or anything on anybody on our own team, but Deebo also wasn’t saying anything bad to Jake, like it sounded. He was meeting him on the field telling him to lock in, the same thing I’ll tell to an offensive player who just dropped some balls or made some penalties or something,” Shanahan told reporters.
“You never sit there and belittle anybody or try to embarrass anyone. You try to challenge guys that you believe in and a way of, that’s how we speak to each other and telling someone they need to focus and lock in because we know you can do this. And I like [LS Taybor Pepper] Pep’s intentions on it, he’s got his kicker’s back. But I think he kind of interpreted wrong what Deebo was doing to him and overreacted a little bit. And Deebo didn’t like that and got him out of his face, and that’s really about where it ended.”
Welp, there you go, folks; all’s well that ends well, right? For now, sure, this is probably the last Shanahan, Samuel, or Pepper – if someone asks him – will talk about the situation unless external fines or suspensions do come down from the league. But keep this entire situation in the back of your mind just in case, as who knows, if the 49ers and/or Moody struggle over the next few weeks, then maybe tension will boil over once more, and the sidelines could become as big a part of a game’s final storyline as what happens on the field.
