SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Kyle Shanahan admitted to the guys in the room on Saturday that the story he was going to tell, based on what a Navy SEAL had relayed to him, wasn’t PG. But football’s a game played in dark places, and this one worked for his 49ers.
The soldier was explaining combat, and he emphasized that finishing the job might mean drowning an enemy who was scratching and clawing and fighting for his life. It meant, in the soldier’s words, beating back any resistance, until the last bubble of breath reached the surface.
Because of the nature of the story, the San Francisco players who heard it hesitated to go into detail on it.