Super Bowl week is here, and it strictly kicked off Monday during Super Bowl LI Opening Night in Houston. NFL.com’s reporters get we adult to speed with a hottest news and records from Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots players and coaches holding partial in a annual media free-for-all, including:
» Which Broncos executive is a 49ers’ GM targeting?
» Patriots descent line manager a humorous guy
» Ricardo Allen won’t be starstruck by Tom Brady
But first, did Kyle Shanahan roughly remove his Super Bowl LI diversion devise on Monday night?
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HOUSTON — Kyle Shanahan was so renouned during Super Bowl LI Opening Night that he couldn’t get to his seat. By a finish of his hour-long event with a media, carrying an ungainly place to lay was a slightest of his problems.
Shanahan could not find his backpack after a session, according to USA Today, forcing a Falcons descent coordinator to scour a temporary carpeted building during Minute Maid Park like an pledge detective. It turns out that San Francisco Examiner columnist Art Spander incorrectly carried a bag, believed to enclose a diversion devise for Super Bowl LI. Falcons certainty crew saw a bag Spander left behind and eventually a author was contacted, apologetically returning Shanahan’s cherished possession.
“That would have been bad,” Shanahan told USA Today.
With that predicament and concomitant swindling speculation avoided for a week, Monday’s festivities resolved yet screaming title news or play from presumably team. Players and coaches from both squads avoided wading into a swirling universe outward of football, smoothly responding or completely avoiding questions associated to politics.
Shanahan was some-more blunt deliberating his approaching event as a destiny conduct manager of a San Francisco 49ers. While zero is central with Shanahan and a 49ers, he didn’t try to equivocate a issue.
“I can’t B.S. we guys. we mean, I’m looking brazen to articulate to them after a diversion when this all ends,” Shanahan said.
He reliable that he met with new 49ers ubiquitous manager John Lynch before Lynch was offering a pursuit and was loquacious in his regard for a former Broncos player. Shanahan wasn’t disturbed about Lynch jumping true from a promote counter to a team’s front office.
“I truly trust that whenever we have a intelligent male who is unequivocally gifted and has intensely high impression and has no problem operative intensely tough … if given a time, it’s a matter of time before they figure it out,” Shanahan said. “John is as considerable a tellurian being as there is and has succeeded in all he’s done.”
Shanahan drew a comparison between Lynch and Broncos ubiquitous manager John Elway, who took an untraditional track to successfully heading a front office. Shanahan and Lynch will make for a singular span in San Francisco, yet it won’t get any weirder by Kyle’s father being total to a brew — Mike Shanahan is staying retired.
“We did a understanding in Washington and we wouldn’t take that behind for a world, yet that was flattering most a finish of it,” Kyle said.
For 6 some-more days Shanahan’s concentration will be on earning his initial Super Bowl ring as he closes out his fourth army as an NFL descent coordinator. Shanahan ranked a 6 Super Bowls he has attended as among a biggest practice of his life. Now, he’s coaching in a game, opposite one of his father’s biggest rivals as he sits on a fork of using his possess team.
“It’s only cold to be here,” Shanahan said.
And it’s a lot cooler now that Shanahan has reacquired that bag.
— Gregg Rosenthal
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Saving a agreement speak for another day. A deputy for Falcons using behind Devonta Freeman told NFL.com’s Michael Silver a bar should compensate him top-tier money like a “elite back” he has been this season.
When asked about his agent’s remarks, Freeman pronounced he wasn’t there to plead a “business” side of things and that, “I am here with my brothers and we wish to suffer a experience.”
“I’m not focused on that,” Freeman said. “My mindset is on winning a Super Bowl and that’s it. That’s all I’ve been meditative about. Business is business. That’ll get rubbed later.”
Freeman’s deflection of a emanate was discerning yet it will be engaging to see if it lingers during a week. Falcons players pronounced manager Dan Quinn has stressed to players to not be distracted. Whether this turns into a daze remains to be seen.
— Steve Wyche
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Keeping things in perspective? The pivotal players on Atlanta’s invulnerability have a healthy honour for Tom Brady’s accomplishments over a years, yet don’t design giveaway reserve Ricardo Allen to be starstruck when he peeks into a backfield Sunday.
Asked if it will be surreal to face a destiny Hall of Famer, Allen responded, “It’ll be another quarterback in this league. we went opposite Aaron Rodgers final week. we go opposite Matt Ryan any day. There’s zero that’s, like, over-the-top about it.”
While a Falcons’ true positively conclude Allen’s indisputable proceed to a biggest diversion of his career, he finished certain to alleviate those comments in a subsequent breath.
“Yes, Tom Brady is unequivocally good. He’s substantially one of a best to ever do it,” Allen continued. “And out of honour for that, we have honour for him since he’s unequivocally good during what he does. But … there’s no starstruck. There’s zero of that stuff. I’m perplexing to win a game.”
It will be engaging to see if Brady and Allen take a spotlight with a time circuitous down Sunday night.
— Chris Wesseling
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Niners GM presumably chasing after Broncos executive for his staff. There are some gifted guys on new 49ers ubiquitous manager John Lynch’s list of probable targets to run a team’s crew dialect underneath him, yet there’s another name to watch: Broncos executive of college scouting Adam Peters.
Sources pronounced Lynch is smitten with Peters and he’s not alone. Within mins of NFL Network stating Lynch’s seductiveness in Peters, several executives around a joining reached out to note what a rising star Peters is in a business.
“Adam Peters is a stud,” one executive texted.
Peters began his career as a director for a Patriots and followed Josh McDaniels to Denver, where he has risen by a ranks in new years. Peters is a Cupertino, California, native, so he’d be returning home if he’s offered, and takes, a 49ers job. One remaining emanate is either a Broncos would concede Peters to leave. John Elway’s tighten attribute with Lynch and Elway’s enterprise to see Lynch attain could assistance douse a skids.
— Mike Garafolo
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Dante’s got a clarity of humor. When we asked a handful of Patriots O-lineman what finished Dante Scarnecchia such a special coach, they listed all a things you’d expect: peculiarity teaching, day-to-day coherence and a genuine caring for his players.
Shaq Mason went somewhere else, though, revelation me that “‘Scar’ unequivocally has a few jokes he can trip in now and then,” adding that a 68-year-old partner has a proven ability to poke Millennials.
“He can come in with some dry amusement and everybody will get it, or he can come with an undisguised humorous joke,” Mason said. “We all adore him.”
Asked about his standup abilities, Scarnecchia asked me: “Who pronounced it?”
“It was Shaq.”
“Well, we don’t know if I’m humorous in meetings. we wouldn’t contend like I’m Shecky Greene adult there or something. we only think, we know, we got to get your work finished and whatever we have to do to get it done, we do, and that’s it.”
Dante’s saving a jokes for his players.
— Marc Sessler
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Dante a prohibited topic. Seriously, we couldn’t find a manager some-more dear by his players on Monday night than Scarnecchia.
We’ll puncture into that after this week, yet Scarnecchia — who fast late in 2013 — pronounced he indispensable to consider prolonged and tough about usurpation manager Bill Belichick’s offer to lapse before this season.
“I don’t know if we was prepared to come behind when it was time to come back,” Scarnecchia said. “I never suspicion that we would have a event to come back. we wasn’t even looking for that. You know, a call was finished and my mother and we talked about it for 10 days and we motionless to go forward and do it again.”
Said Scarnecchia: “I’m going to be 69 years aged subsequent month. You know, we like what I’m doing right now and I’m going to continue to do it and see how it all goes.”
It certain sounds like he’ll be behind in 2017.
— Marc Sessler
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From Cleveland to a Promised Land. Alex Mack is one of a handful of Super Bowl participants who once punched a time in pro football’s netherworld: Cleveland. The Pro Bowl core concurred Monday that he once wondered if he’d ever play football in Jan — most reduction for a Lombardi.
“It’s been a long, tough road,” Mack said. “It’s a lot of games. It’s been unequivocally tough to get to this stage. … Early in your career you’re vehement about one day carrying an event to do that — and afterwards it’s tough. … My time in Cleveland, we were only perplexing to get a winning report to make it to a playoffs.”
Mack’s aged teammates positively don’t reason his newfound success opposite him. He reliable that Browns left tackle Joe Thomas was only one of a people to blow adult his dungeon phone after a Falcons slayed a Packers.
“All my friends from prior teams … my whole phone exploded when we won a NFC Championship Game,” Mack said. “Friends, family, former teammates — everybody was unequivocally stoked for me and pronounced congratulations.”
— Marc Sessler
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How to delayed Superman? Now it’s Atlanta’s spin to solve a nonplus that nobody in a AFC has mastered: Stopping Tom Brady.
Falcons defensive coordinator Richard Smith summed adult a best quarterback on earth by saying: “When we get a good personality like that, guys play tough for him. … He does get a round out of his hands very, unequivocally quickly. He doesn’t wish to get hit. Maybe he’s not as mobile as some quarterbacks, yet he does have good arm strength. He’s unequivocally smart, intelligent … and he can make any check during a line of scrimmage.”
To get a correct stone on Brady, Smith’s associate coaches have mined low into a past to find any fragment of diversion fasten featuring Brady confronting a intrigue identical to Atlanta’s.
“We demeanour during any game,” Smith said. “We’ve left behind and (looked at) a years they played opposite Seattle. … There’s not going to be anything entrance in that they’re unknowingly of and there’s zero that we’re not going to be aware. We’ll prepared for everything.”
— Marc Sessler
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Respect for a Patriots’ receivers. The Patriots’ receiving corps competence miss star energy with Rob Gronkowski on a shelf, yet they’re not going to hide adult on a Falcons after Julian Edelman and Chris Hogan total for 298 yards and 3 touchdowns in a AFC Championship Game.
“Oh man, they’re all unequivocally good,” reserve Ricardo Allen said. “You can tell they’re all unequivocally intelligent since they can play in any position on a field.
Allen and manager Dan Quinn any remarkable a receivers’ physicality and gusto for branch brief passes into bigger plays with elusiveness after a catch.
“Number one, it’s a tough and rival group,” Quinn explained. “The speed that they have, a ability to mangle guys off man-to-man and conflict matchups in certain ways, we’ve got a lot of honour for them — and they’re deep.”
Quinn voiced a pinnacle certainty in his possess defensive backs, a group, he points out, with copiousness of “grit” of their own.
“Come Sunday,” Quinn added, “there will be some battling.”
— Chris Wesseling