The 49-week season was reborn last week with a surprise win over the division-leading Rams. To continue the San Francisco Renaissance until December, the team hopes to make the most of its investment in the Phoenix-Area Renaissance for at least the next three weeks.
San Francisco is expected to depart for Arizona on Wednesday, the home of its stadium and team facility, Santa Clara County has issued new COVID-related bans banning contact sports for three weeks. The 49ers announced Monday that they will play the Week, Week 13 and 14 games against the Buffalo Bills and Washington football team at the State Farm Stadium, home to rival Arizona Cardinals.
San Francisco coach Kyle Shanah told reporters Tuesday that 49 players live and study in a multi-block radius in Glendale, Arizona, before and during those competitions.
“Our hotel will be our new Levi’s stadium,” Shanah said. “When we’re done with work, people have to go back to their hotel rooms.”
That hotel, Glendale’s Renaissance Hotel, which is to throw Pigskin out of State Farm Stadium, won’t be the venue for a “bonding” experience, Shanah explained; The coach noted to reporters that the last COVID-19 outbreak in San Francisco 9 weeks ago was the result of office fees among players. The 49ers’ work trip out of state is not a vacation, or an excuse to go around and around Glendale.
Shanah noted that the team has to be more careful because, ironically, the covid-infection rate in Arizona’s Maricopa County is currently higher than California’s Santa Clara County.
“We’ve become smarter,” Shanah said, according to CBS5 Arizona. “We are not thinking of going anywhere“
Joining the 49s, he is nowhere to be found but his hotel and practice area will be relocated to his Phoenix rivers, such as George Kittle and Jimmy Garoppolo, who will not return to the field soon – although Shanah said he is “getting out” of both of them. Hope for a return – but will be unable to rehabilitate in a San Francisco facility in Santa Clara.
Injuries to the Kittis and Garoppolo were reported to have sunk the San Francisco season in mid-November, with 4-6 49 people running a three-game losing streak in their left. But Sunday’s win over the Rams pulled San Francisco back into the game of argument with five games to play.
The ruling NFC Champs, despite being dismantled and displaced in 2020, is still alive.
“It’s easy to get through the grind when you finally get a chance to get into that tournament,” Shanah said.
