Shane Steichen

Q. How did you feel that QB Jalen Hurts did on third down? There were a few, I guess, where he was pressured but, with third and short where the ball probably needs to come out quick? (Jeff McLane)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I thought he did a good job. I did. There are always things he can improve on. It starts with us as coaches helping him, but overall, I thought he did a good job.

Q. Early on in the game on Sunday, your receivers were really involved and then not so much as the game went on. Do you guys keep track throughout a game, ‘Okay, we got to get WR DeVonta Smith a target, we have to get the receivers involved’? And is that something you talk to Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni about if you notice it’s been a while since a receiver’s had a target? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, those are conversations we’ve had throughout the week leading into a game plan. And then on the sidelines, that stuff comes up and we talk through it.

And, obviously, we want to get everyone involved, right? There’s one football, we want to get everyone catches as much as we can and, sometimes obviously, the coverage dictates where the ball is thrown. So, we want to get everyone involved every week.

Q. I want to ask you a Dallas question. Dallas LB Micah Parsons, their rookie linebacker, played some defensive end. What have you seen from him, and does it present a different kind of challenge when he’s able to float between those two positions? (Ed Kracz)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, that’s a great question. He’s a heck of a player. He had a lot of pressures last week against the Chargers.

He comes off the ball. He’s got a lot of speed, you can see it on film. Good on the edge, he’s good inside, too, as well.

So, he’s going to be a heck of a challenge for us. We got to know where he’s at on the field, be ready for these guys. We’re ready.

Q. On Jalen Hurts, sort of his pass charts for the first couple weeks, there’s been not a lot of throws towards the middle of the field, a lot outside the hash marks. Is that sort of a game plan thing? Is that coverage dictating it? What have you seen from that, and do you guys self-scout that as you look forward? (John McMullen)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, that’s exactly what you said. It’s really what the defense is giving us, right? If we think we have our route combinations, right, then we go into a game plan.

And if they’re giving stuff outside the numbers, that’s where we are going to take it. And if they gave give us stuff over the middle, that’s where the ball is going to go.

So, really, coverage based on those, as we’re looking through a game plan, what they’re playing defensively and where we think the ball is going to go.

Q. I guess kind of along those lines, we haven’t seen a ton of production from the tight ends in the first two games. Why has that been, and do you still think these tight ends can be a really big part of the offense? (Dave Zangaro)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, absolutely. The tight ends are definitely a big part of the offense. We’re in week two right now. We got a lot of football to play. We want to get everyone involved, like I said.

And sometimes, right, we have schemed up routes to the tight ends and sometimes the coverage dictates where the ball goes. But obviously, we want to get those guys involved just like we want to get everyone involved, absolutely.

Q. When you look at DeVonta Smith’s game, in particular, Sunday, he had the two receptions on seven targets. Were the 49ers doing anything specifically to kind of take him away and what kind of things can you guys do to adjust to that going forward? (Martin Frank)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, no, I thought he played all right. Obviously, there’s certain things we can all get better from.

Obviously, as coaches, we got to get better, myself included. We all got to get better. We had some 50-50 balls to him that were up in the air. And, obviously, we can do some other little things with him going forward just like we can with everybody else.

Q. Shane, you know, the decision to go for two down 14 or down eight, rather, after you scored late in the game, is that something that you have done in your past or is that something that’s relatively new to you? (Bo Wulf)

SHANE STEICHEN: That’s something we talked about throughout the week. Obviously, right there, we scored there with the two-point conversion.

And then, obviously, if we go get the ball back and score again, we kick the field goal and win the game. So, I like the decision there by Coach to do that. It was a good decision.

Q. I’m just wondering: Just philosophically, throughout your career as an offensive mind, is it more important for you when you come up with a game plan, or you and the staff, to have a play sheet of things that you do well or specifically what your opponent does not do well? Because those two things don’t always, you know, go hand and hand. So how do you differentiate? (Geoff Mosher)

SHANE STEICHEN: Right. No, that’s a good question. I think a lot of it is what do we do well offensively, what we think, and does that fit with the defensive scheme?

I think that’s the biggest thing. You put the preparation in throughout the week, and it’s a, ‘Hey, we do this really well, does this fit this week?’ And I think you have that kind of mindset and that mentality going in each week when you’re preparing for opponents.

Q. I’m sure this is something you experienced last year. When you have a young quarterback who the league hasn’t seen much, especially in your offense, as games go on, as the season goes on and there is more film, what needs to happen with the quarterback, what needs to happen with the offense, as defenses adjust to him? (Zach Berman)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think you need to, obviously, be able to adapt. I mean, when teams are doing certain things, take certain things away, obviously, you got to through that in your weekly preparation when you’re game planning.

You got to be able to adapt week in and week out to have success on Sundays offensively. Because ,you know teams are going to do certain things to take things away like you said. So, we got to do a great job, as a coaching staff, putting our guys in positions to make great plays.

Q. You guys lost G Brandon Brooks last week due to that pec strain. Does losing a guy like Brandon Brooks change the way that you guys game plan, especially when it comes to the run game? And where do you see OL Landon Dickerson’s development right now as a right guard? (Chris Franklin)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, I think any time you lose a guy like [G] Brandon Brooks, obviously he’s a heck of a player, he’s been a heck of player in this league for a long time. He still is a heck of player. So ,any time you lose a guy like that, it hurts.

But, obviously it’s the next man up. Right? And so, [OL] Landon [Dickerson] stepped up and I thought he did a good job. Obviously, there’s things he can improve on, it was his first time playing. But excited about Landon going forward.

Q. What stood out about T Jordan Mailata’s performance on Sunday? How did he grade out and what kind of performance can that do for him moving forward? (Tim McManus)

SHANE STEICHEN: I thought he had a heck of a game. Obviously, to be one-on-one with [49ers DE Nick] Bosa over there and do what he did against him was very impressive.

So, we just need to continue to stack those on top of each other and keep doing what he’s doing, keep performing and keep getting better.

Q. We haven’t seen RB Boston Scott the first two games on offense. Is there a chance we’ll see him? Does he have a role? Is that dependent on what you guys are planning for the week? Where does he stand right now? (Reuben Frank)

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. He has a role, right? And if we need to use him in the games, we will, right?

Just like all those guys. Everyone has a role and when it’s his time to step up and make plays, I know he’ll be ready to go.