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Kyle Shanahan hopes home-field crowd can help lift 49ers to 3-0 and shares why a Week 3 win is so important
Sep 20, 2019 at 10:30 AM
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It may seem like the San Francisco 49ers are talking a lot this week about the home-field crowd at Levi's Stadium. That's because the media keeps asking them about it.
It's understandable why. This weekend will be the first home game of the season. Members of the Niner Faithful have shown in the past that they can bring the noise in the team's home stadium. Earlier this week, Shanahan
noted a few instances when that was the case, including home games last season against the Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks.
That isn't always the case, though, and Shanahan understands why. The 49ers haven't done a whole lot of winning up to this point, which hasn't given the fanbase much to cheer about at home games.
Now, the 49ers sit at 2-0 after opening the season with two games on the road. They have a chance to start 3-0 for the first time since 1998. That will be a whole lot easier to accomplish if the fans can disrupt the Pittsburgh Steelers offense on Sunday.
Garoppolo has commented on the home-crowd noise, as has Richard Sherman. Defense coordinator Robert Saleh even went as far as
challenging the fans to get loud on Sunday.
Shanahan
joined KNBR on Friday morning and was, once again, asked about the Levi's Stadium crowd. The coach made it clear for anyone who asks in the future that there is no doubt that a loud and enthusiastic home crowd can be a difference-maker.
"That's what home-field advantage is," Shanahan told Adam Copeland and Mark Willard. "Everyone talks about a home-field advantage in all sports, but football is the one that you have to communicate the most. So it's a fact on home-field advantage, O-linemen cannot hear snap counts, so D-linemen can tee off. Guys cannot hear audibles. You've got to use all the signals. People can't communicate the same."
Shanahan explained that other sports are different because plays don't need to be continuously called as they do in football.
"Football is a different story on home-field advantage," Shanahan added. "When you can't hear, it is a big, big deal. [...] Hopefully, we'll give them more reasons to cheer than we have in the past."
Shanahan also explained why this weekend's game against the 0-2 Steelers is a must-win, despite San Francisco's 2-0 start.
"We feel good being 2-0, but I also know very well that 2-1 going into this bye week will feel the same as 0-3," Shanahan said. "We've got to make sure we win this game. This game is the most important game of the year, right now. We'll say the exact same thing when we play Cleveland two weeks from now.
"It's one week at a time, and you always feel that way because these games are tough. There's not many of them. It's not like basketball and baseball. You can't lose a bunch of games in a row and think you're going to be there in the end. There's only 16, and you can't let one slip away."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Shanahan below.
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