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Kyle Shanahan was a fish out of water during the 49ers' preseason-opening loss to the Tennessee Titans last Saturday.
The 49ers coach gave up offensive play-calling for the first time, turning over duties to offensive passing game specialist Klay Kubiak.
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The one-time switch was a different feeling for Shanahan.
"It was a little weird," Shanahan told Tom Tolbert and Adam Copeland on KNBR 680 on Thursday night. "I was excited about it because Klay's done a hell of a job and I wanted him to be able to do it and I'll tell you … I was much more personable to people. I actually could carry conversations with people who came up to me. I could talk to the refs a lot more when they came over even though you're not really talking about anything, but you're not trying to carry 1,000 thoughts in your head while pretending to be social to somebody. So that was kind of nice.
"But it definitely isn't quite as fun. You're just sitting there and you don't want to sit there and talk about plays all the time because a guy wants to get in the rhythm and it's not just about what play-call you make, it's how you kind of set up the whole game and it's always different in preseason too to where I told Klay before it."
While Kubiak has experience calling plays at lower levels of football, Shanahan still had to give his assistant advice ahead of the game in Nashville, Tenn.
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"I'm like, 'Hey, I know you're calling plays and obviously you want to do a good job, but the preseason just remember, it's not about calling plays,' " Shanahan told Tolbert and Copeland. "It's more about, 'Hey, we want to see this guy here, we want to see that guy there. All right, we need to get out of it as fast as possible because we're down someone and we can't get someone hurt for next week.' So there's so many variables that get it go into it.
"It's not always the most fun to call preseason plays because even when a play is really cool and it works and, you know it's not going to work in Week 1. So you have mixed emotions about everything. So it was nice for me to not really have to go through that and watch someone else go through it, but I'll get back to it this week and get back into that rhythm and stuff because it is needed and you also want the quarterback and stuff to be used to it going into Week 1."
Kubiak enters his fourth season on Shanahan's coaching staff. He first joined the 49ers in 2021 as a defensive quality control coach before transitioning to assistant quarterbacks coach for the last two seasons.
Shanahan has a history of grooming his assistants for future coaching roles, oftentimes with other organizations -- most notably with Robert Saleh (New York Jets), Mike McDaniel (Miami Dolphins) and DeMeco Ryans (Houston Texans).
So, giving Kubiak the chance to call plays was all about setting him up for success down the road.
"I just think it's good for anyone to get practice for their future," Shanahan told Tolbert and Copeland. "I remember when I was a receiver coach and a quarterback coach, I'm always calling the game in my head. No one's really letting you do it, but you're always preparing for that because that's your goal. I would have loved the opportunity to get it before I actually had to do it.
"When I became coordinator, all my practice [was] in practice and stuff and then you got those preseason games, which was great and I felt ready by Week 1. Our guys don't get that as much here with me being the head coach and me calling the plays. So I thought it would just be cool opportunity for Klay to do it, something that could help him for the future and things like that. But he did that in high school for a long time. He's been here at our level. He worked with DeMeco on defense for a number of years. He's been with me for the last five years and he's more than ready to do that."
Shanahan will resume calling plays when the 49ers take on the New Orleans Saints in their second preseason game at 5 p.m. PT on Sunday at Levi's Stadium.
Shanahan's conversations with Sunday's referees will have to wait for another time.