Inside the 49ers’ halftime locker room: Bananas, bathroom trips and study time for Brock Purdy

Inside the 49ers’ halftime locker room: Bananas, bathroom trips and study time for Brock Purdy

Matt Barrows
Dec 30, 2022

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — “The hell you doing here?”

It’s taken fullback Kyle Juszczyk exactly five seconds to notice there’s an intruder in the 49ers locker room. Kyle Shanahan has given me permission to observe halftime of the Dec. 11 game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. He agrees the resulting story might be a good explainer of what really goes on behind the closed — and closely guarded — doors of a halftime locker room.

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The cliche involves soaring speeches and players getting whipped into a frenzy before the third quarter. And while there’s certainly a rah-rah element to the intermission, no one is delivering “win one for the Gipper” sermons in the NFL. There’s no time. Halftime lasts only 13 minutes, and the players might be inside for roughly 10 minutes.

“When you’re watching on TV, it feels like the halftime is an hour long,” said running back Christian McCaffrey. “When you’re playing, it feels like the snap of a finger.”

There’s no chair-throwing or pounding on metal locker doors like there is in “Any Given Sunday.” There’s simply too much to do. Halftimes are strictly business. And by the time Brady and the Buccaneers have made their visit to Santa Clara, the 49ers have become very good at taking care of business.

They haven’t lost since Oct. 23, when the Chiefs throttled them 44-23. That game was tight at halftime, but Kansas City went on a 30-10 run after the break. The beating was a wake-up call for the 49ers. They’ve been dominant ever since, pitching four second-half shutouts and outscoring opponents 117-37 in the third and fourth quarters.

An ideal scenario for Shanahan is to win the pregame coin toss, defer to the second half, then send out the offense to begin the third quarter. That doesn’t happen in Week 14. Tampa Bay wins the toss and elects to receive the second-half kickoff. But on this day it doesn’t matter who gets the ball first. The 49ers are on a roll. Deebo Samuel scores on a 13-yard carry on the opening drive, and San Francisco pours it on from there. When Brady kneels down to end the half, the 49ers are up 28-0 and linebacker Fred Warner and his defensive mates sprint into the south tunnel of Levi’s Stadium that leads to the home locker room.

The half hasn’t been perfect. Samuel, the team’s MVP from the previous season, was carted off the field after he was bent backward awkwardly at the end of a short run. And just before halftime, defensive back Dontae Johnson, one of the team’s longest-tenured players, suffered what turned out to be a season-ending ACL tear. Both are out of sight in the training room, which is adjacent to the main locker room, when halftime begins.

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Still, there’s a confident energy among the players. Many grew up watching Brady. He’s got god-like status in the NFL, and he’s managed to get beyond the 50-yard line only twice so far. That has everyone buzzing. It’s like the locker room is a massive pinball table with 53 players pinging this way and that.

The 49ers stormed out to a 28-0 halftime lead against Tampa Bay, with Brock Purdy throwing two touchdown passes and running for another score. (Kyle Terada / USA Today)

They have the first four minutes to themselves. Defensive end Nick Bosa, who’s been dealing with a mild hamstring strain in the run-up to the game, makes a quick stop in the training room before heading to his locker. Tight end Charlie Woerner picks up a massage gun and presses it into his upper hamstring as he walks around the room.

Many players change the tape on their wrists and ankles; some change their gloves or at least take them off to let them air out. Receiver Jauan Jennings takes off his cleats and walks around in his socks.

“It’s a reset,” he said when asked about it later. “Your foot isn’t even supposed to be in a shoe to begin with, so it’s a grounding type of thing.”

Most players take advantage of their free time by addressing the most important business of all.

“I normally sit in my seat, put my helmet down,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said when asked about his routine. “Then I make sure I use the restroom.”

If it’s been raining, players will change their socks and cleats. If it’s hot or the game’s in a high-altitude city, a handful will pop into the training room for IVs the way a race car makes a pit stop during the Indy 500.

“I usually don’t get one at halftime because I get one the day before the game, and then I get one on game day before the game starts,” McCaffrey said. “When I was in Carolina and it was humid and you’re on turf and I had maybe 15 to 20 touches in the first half, I had to get one.”

On this day the temperature at kickoff is 54 degrees. And while it starts to rain in the fourth quarter, the first half is dry and there isn’t much uniform maintenance. All of the players gulp down cups of Gatorade and most have something to eat. Juszczyk downs half a banana.

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“I don’t want to get too full,” he said.

McCaffrey said he’ll have half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and either a whole or half a banana depending on whether the offense will have the ball to open the third quarter.

It’s during this initial period that some players notice me. Shanahan’s only instruction was to be a fly on a wall. So I’ve tucked myself into a corner and am standing behind the massive, red boombox with which the players strut onto the field before the game begins. Apparently I still stick out. Maybe it’s because I’m taking notes.

Juszczyk, Jennings and safety George Odum ask me what I’m doing, though not in an aggressive way. They’re more inquisitive — “What are you doing here?” — which underscores the sanctity of the halftime locker room. Mike Anderson, the director of team security, also checks me out. When I explain that Shanahan has given me one-time-only permission, that suffices, and I’m in observation mode the rest of the way.

Halftime in the 49ers locker room is about functionality — grabbing a snack, using the restroom — and second-half preparation. (Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images)

A few minutes in, the frenetic atmosphere changes.

During pre-game introductions, the equipment staff began transforming the locker room, which is a 3,600-square-foot rectangle, into two classrooms. In the southeast corner, they set up four rows of folding chairs in front of a big whiteboard. That’s where the offense meets. In the opposite corner, the setup is the same for the defense. A few former defensive coaches have gone over film at halftime, which requires video equipment to be set up, too. But the current staff doesn’t do that.

Some players, like longtime veteran tackle Trent Williams, make beelines for the chairs as soon as they walk in and don’t bother stopping at their lockers. After three or four minutes, everyone has migrated to either the offensive or defensive sides, and the locker room settles down. This is when halftime turns into a lecture hall.

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The offensive side is more intense. It’s like an advanced-level math seminar condensed to six minutes. Shanahan is on the left side of the whiteboard, scribbling down the eight or so pass plays he likes for the second half. On the right side of the board, run game coordinator Chris Foerster and tight ends coach Brian Fleury do the same for the run plays.

The players silently look on as the coaches write. There’s not much discussion on that side of the room. Shanahan expects everyone to concentrate on the board. None studies it more closely than quarterback Brock Purdy, who is making his first NFL start that day.

Shanahan said he spends the entire run-up to the game thinking about what he’ll call in the second half.

“You’re constantly going in circles in your head about how things will play out in a game,” he said.

He scripts the first 24 plays of the game and any leftovers could get called in the second half. He’s also made calls in the first half specifically designed to set up other plays in the second. He considers all of that as he walks off the field.

“I always get a water and I sit there for about two minutes as I gather all the stuff I’ve been writing,” he said. “That’s why I hate doing (halftime) interviews — just having to talk to the sideline people. It’s nothing against them. It’s because I’ve really got work to do.”

Shanahan consults with Foerster and Fleury. A public relations staffer also hands him the individual statistics from the first half. He said it’s easy to get wrapped up in the play calling and lose sight of whether a running back has had an uncommonly high number of carries. Is the run-pass ratio where he wants it? Does a wide receiver need to be worked into the attack more prominently? Looking at the stats helps clarify that.

He also wants to hear from passing game coordinator Bobby Slowik, one of the nine assistants who watch the game from the press box level eight stories above the field. They take an elevator to the ground floor just as the first half is ending, then are whisked by golf carts to the locker room. It’s the same process when the 49ers are on the road.

“It’s real tough if we finish the half on a two-minute drive or something like that,” Shanahan said.

Halftime is all work for Kyle Shanahan as he refines the 49ers’ second-half game plan. (Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)

The other side of the locker room is more lively.

Warner is the first player in the halftime locker room for the Tampa Bay game, perhaps because he was on the field when Brady took his kneel down, which gives him a head start on everyone else. He also seems like the player who would try to out-sprint teammates to the locker room doors. The middle linebacker is the loudest, most energetic player on the field during practices. He’s at the center of the pre-game huddle during warmups. And he continues to encourage, cheer and chatter during halftime.

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“That’s normal,” defensive end Drake Jackson said. “Fred — he’s our hype man. He gets us going.”

Warner and the other linebackers take over the front row as defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans writes down assignments on the defense’s whiteboard. He’s consulted with his top assistants and also has checked in with safeties coach Daniel Bullocks and defensive quality control coach Andrew Hayes-Stoker. They’re among the assistants who watch the game from above. Hayes-Stoker has been charting the Buccaneers’ offensive plays.

“I want to see, in the run game, which runs have hurt us, the style of runs, if they’re attacking a certain side or a certain scheme,” Ryans said. “I talk to (defensive line coach Kris) Kocurek about the rush plan and where the center’s sliding and what the protections have been. So I’m just taking all the information in. And the time is going fast” — here he quickly snaps his fingers three times — “and I know I still have to talk to the players.”

On this day, there isn’t a lot to correct. Brady and the Buccaneers have managed no points and five first downs by halftime. Still, the fact that Brady is on the opposite sideline is a recurring theme. The 49ers watched him engineer a dramatic, come-from-behind win against a strong Saints defense the week prior, and Ryans is certain the Buccaneers will go into two-minute mode in the second half, which they do the first time they have the ball. He’s intent on making sure his defensive players aren’t content with themselves and that no one relaxes.

“Let’s go be great!” he shouts as Shanahan is studiously penning plays on the other side of the room. “Finish! Finish! Finish!”

Then both he and Shanahan turn things over to Warner, who gathers all the players in the center of the locker room. Ryans doesn’t have to say anything more than once during halftime because he knows Warner will amplify it. After the game, Warner even sounds like a coach. The 49ers grab two interceptions and a fumble in the second half, but they also allow Brady and the Buccaneers to score a touchdown on a deflected pass both Warner and fellow linebacker Dre Greenlaw have a shot at intercepting. Warner is still talking about that play two days later.

“Honestly, we could have held them out of the end zone in that situation,” he said. “Even in that fourth quarter when (the coaches are) starting to have that conversation about sitting guys out. It’s, ‘Well, we’ve got a short week coming up and we need to rest guys.’ And I’m like, ‘No! Don’t take us out! It’s Tom Brady!’”

The 49ers were intent on not letting up against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. (Cary Edmondson / USA Today)

With about three minutes remaining before the second half starts, Warner wraps up his rally and the players begin filing back out onto the field.

All except one.

Purdy has been standing just to the left of the whiteboard the entire time, and he remains there, his left hand gripping the collar of his jersey while he stares at the offensive plays, for a minute after everyone else has left. He looks like Will Hunting transfixed by a math problem in a quiet hallway at MIT.

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Shanahan doesn’t just write down second-half plays the team has practiced that week. He might add something the 49ers installed on July 30 or something they ran in 2018.

“Oh, yeah,” Juszczyk said. “He’s the king of that.”

For this game, it’s a run play that Purdy hasn’t seen that week. San Francisco’s play calls are notoriously wordy, and Purdy needs to make sure he can articulate them.

“When it comes to the second half, you’ve got new plays in and new verbiage that they might throw in,” Purdy said. “I just like to go over it one more time. Because I don’t want to go out there and start fumbling words or anything like that.”

He doesn’t fumble words or footballs. And he doesn’t throw any interceptions. Instead, he completes 76 percent of his passes, throws two touchdowns and outplays Brady in the 35-7 win. The halftime scene seems to underscore Shanahan’s faith in the young quarterback — there’s no extra time spent making sure he’s ready for the second half; the head coach leaves Purdy alone — and also how aware Purdy is of the unique situation he’s been thrust into.

The 49ers have the NFL’s most talented roster and expect to win the Super Bowl. And it may be up to Purdy, the last player picked in the draft, to guide them there. He will never be underprepared.

“But honestly, that comes with the game and that comes with playing in this offense,” he said. “And it makes me challenge myself and makes me grow. It’s not just studying something and then you go out and run exactly that. You have to adapt. That’s what I like about it.”

(Graphic: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; photos: Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images)

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Matt Barrows

Matt Barrows is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the 49ers. He joined The Athletic in 2018 and has covered the 49ers since 2003. He was a reporter with The Sacramento Bee for 19 years, four of them as a Metro reporter. Before that he spent two years in South Carolina with The Hilton Head Island Packet. Follow Matt on Twitter @MattBarrows