The head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Kyle Shanahan, had an altercation with the player director of the NFLPA — the union for former and current NFL players — Dwayne Allen. Coaches altercating with a union rep during offseason workouts is a new one; it’s not usually the kind of impression a coach would want to make.
Kyle Shanahan and Dwayne Allen Get Into Confrontation
Contact is banned at OTAs and is an offense that can lose a team practices. This is not an empty threat either; the NFLPA enforces it routinely. Contact is allegedly what upset Allen and kicked off the upset.
Grant Cohn of Sports Illustrated described incidental contact between Deommodore Lenoir and Ronnie Bell. Cam Inman of the Mercury News said that Lenoir nearly clotheslined Bell.
There are a few different summaries of the confrontation, too (reporters can’t directly quote people during OTAs). Inman described the men as going toe to toe, and Cohn reported Shanahan getting into Allen’s face and yelling.
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Reporters agree that the fight disrupted the practice for a short time. The players were standing silently, watching the confrontation. It seems that Shanahan felt that Allen got a little too involved and repeatedly demanded that he get off the practice field.
Allen, a former NFL tight end, stood his ground. It’s reported that after Shanahan’s outburst, the head coach walked away, and Allen watched the rest of the practice from the sidelines.
The 49ers GM, John Lynch, made nice with the union rep, and allegedly Shanahan had an after-practice meeting with Allen to clear the air.
The 49ers and the NFLPA have not released comments publicly.
