Football leans on tradition, providing convenient cover for the NFL's lenient stance on smelling salts, ammonia crystals that players believe enhance performance when inhaled. Does the olfactory exhilaration also enhance play-calling, amplifying one's grasp of X's and O's? Kyle Shanahan apparently believes so. The San Francisco 49ers coach was caught by a Fox television camera moments before a playoff game Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles taking several whiffs from a small packet before handing it to an assistant.
The 49ers don't come to mind when assessing the NFL's top rushing defenses. They've given ground at 4.3 yards per carry in an area where the term stout isn't used until it gets below 4.0. But the last two games, wins over Indianapolis and Chicago, came against teams that figured to challenge the 49ers at the line of scrimmage and impose their will.
He told me, `Dude, you can be a head coach in this league," Ryans told reporters this week in Houston. "I was kind of shocked, because no one had ever said that to me before . . . Kyle was the guy who believed in me. It just shows you speak life into people. Your words mean a lot. That's what I'm always doing, just trying to speak life into people, speak life into others. Be positive about attacking each day.