SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan isn't quite all the way back to full coaching duties following last month's car crash. But he's close.
Shanahan said that he has been at or near full strength for a little bit and that he intends to coach the preseason opener Thursday against the Tennessee Titans.
On Saturday -- for the first time since the July 14 collision that left him with a concussion, three broken ribs and a broken left hand, among other injuries -- Shanahan stood at the lectern and publicly answered media questions. It was the latest step in Shanahan returning to full coaching duties after ceding some of them to assistant head coach Chris Foerster and his coordinators as he recovered from the concussion.
"As far as the important stuff, I feel it's about 100%," Shanahan said. "The biggest thing I have learned with this stuff is just when you deal with fatigue and headaches and stuff is if I kind of do everything, I kind of pay for it in some ways later. That's like the routine that I found out. I really tried to eliminate stuff that I would say is just the fake work stuff."
According to Shanahan, the accident and ensuing concussion has helped him home in on the biggest parts of the job, which include hours of film study, going over things with the coaches and players, being in on occasional team meetings, and being at the practice periods where the whole team is involved.
Until he's all the way back, Shanahan has cut down on how often he leads team meetings as well as ancillary parts of his job such as meeting with the media. He said getting back to some of that will come in the near future.
"I try not to come in here every single day because I feel like, if I did, I wouldn't be able to pull off my normal routine, which is watching hours and hours of tape and getting to walk through the night being able to watch stuff after that," Shanahan said. "Eventually I will get there."
As for how he is recovering, Shanahan said most of his bodily injuries have healed. He is still wearing a cast on his left hand and is looking forward to that coming off. He added that his ribs feel better except when sneezing and, perhaps most important, that his concussion symptoms have slowed.
"My head feels so much better," Shanahan said. "Concussions do linger a little bit. All the things I really deal with now is just headaches and fatigue, but that's why I'm not always exactly in the same routine, but pretty damn close."
Now, nearly a month removed from the accident that he says happened when he dropped his phone under his seat and took his eyes off the road before colliding with a 21-year-old female driver in Palo Alto, California, Shanahan offered another detail about what happened in the crash.
Shanahan noted that he was using the autopilot feature in his Tesla Model S when his phone fell down while traveling south on Alma Street. Shanahan said he has had autopilot in some form for nine years and is "pretty comfortable" using it. He added that he wasn't sure whether it malfunctioned or he knocked it off when reaching for his phone.
"Anytime you cause an accident that can be avoided, you feel pretty stupid, especially when you have a chance to hurt someone else," Shanahan said. "Who knows what happened when I turned around, whether [autopilot] malfunctioned or whether I knocked it off I don't know yet. But regardless, it's always your fault. Whether you're on autopilot or not, you can't take your eyes off the road. It's a partnership, driving, you don't just turn it over to a computer."
Since the accident, the concussion has been the primary thing preventing Shanahan from handling his normal workload. He has delegated some responsibilities to Foerster while coordinators Klay Kubiak (offense), Raheem Morris (defense) and Brant Boyer (special teams) have also taken on larger roles.
Shanahan said the recovery from the concussion hasn't been linear. On his road to recovery, Shanahan points to the team meeting he ran about a week ago as a turning point when he began to feel better and thought he was "out of the woods" before he felt worse the next day.
The lingering effects of his concussion, including increased emotional reactions, have given Shanahan a new perspective on head injuries for his players.
"I've been told so much by these guys don't compare sports concussion to an accident like this," Shanahan said. "I'm starting to realize that now. ... Each one's a little bit different. And I definitely can relate to how scary it is if you don't know if you will feel right again. But it's definitely made me more educated on it."
Last week, Shanahan said he decided he was ready to do a media session but then felt worse when he woke up the next morning and was glad he didn't do it.
Even on Saturday, Shanahan said he didn't decide to speak to the media until he made it through practice with no issues and felt like he was ready to do it again. He joked that he didn't fully make the decision until he tried to talk to Kubiak about practice and Kubiak ignored him to prepare for his own media session.
"I just felt like doing it," Shanahan said. "I want to do it. I want to get back to fully 100% being normal."