Kyle Shanahan’s car accident has transformed into the NFL’s biggest mystery

Kyle Shanahan was involved in a car accident shortly before training camp began. That is the lone fact we know with certainty. What began as a seemingly routine traffic incident, one that should have made minor waves, has turned into a quagmire as numerous layers of attempted cover-ups, media favors, and altered facts have quickly transformed a snowball into an avalanche of speculation.

The most bizarre element of all this is: Why? The official version of the incident is really quite benign, ostensibly saying that Shanahan was distracted, looking for his dropped phone and caused an accident. It’s reckless and dumb, but something that happens thousands of times every day across the United States. If that is truly what happened, then why have the 49ers and everyone in their orbit gone to such profound lengths to hide the details of what occurred, treating the incident with the same gravity as an international incident, rather than a serious fender bender?

On July 14 police responded to a traffic accident involving San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan in Palo Alto, California. Shanahan was driving a Tesla, and crossed over the center line into oncoming traffic, at which point he was involved in a head-on collision with a 21-year-old who was driving an SUV.

The young driver was reportedly unharmed, but Shanhan sustained numerous injuries, including a concussion, broken ribs, and a head laceration, which required stitches.

It’s here that things get bizarre, because for the next 11 days there is no mention of the accident by anyone. Local news had nothing about the accident, 49ers team beat writers say nothing, and it isn’t until July 25 — a full 11 days after the accident that the Niners release a statement. Two minutes later ESPN posted an official write-up of the news, seemingly indicating that they had the story early, but held it while waiting for the 49ers to release their statement.

Tim Kawakami, 49ers beat writer for the San Francisco Standard says he knew about the accident prior to the 49ers’ statement as well, but decided not to share any information because he didn’t have the full story.

This raised huge questions about access journalism when it comes to NFL teams. It’s certainly understandable to wait for the full details of a significant event, like a death or an arrest — but Kawakami had extremely weak excuses for not reporting basic details, or digging to find out more. Instead he spent the bulk of the 25th attacking people on Twitter who challenged why he didn’t report on the team he covers, instead waiting to echo ESPNs nation write up.

At best it looked like a sloppy job, at worst there was speculation that the 49ers asked Kawakami not to report on the accident, and he obliged.

There is an online database of every significant traffic accident that occurs in the state of California. People began looking into these records in the wake of the Shanahan news, trying to garner more information about an incident which the team seemingly worked to cover up.

The official crash records named the other party at fault in the accident, essentially absolving Shanahan of responsibility. It’s unclear how anyone in law enforcement could have found another party at fault when it was the 49ers coach who crossed the center line and struck a vehicle in the ongoing lane.

Shanahan held a meeting with a small group of reporters in his office, where he clarified that the database entry was incorrect, accepted blame for the accident, and explained that it was his fault for searching for his phone. This meeting was behind closed doors, unrecorded, and reportedly contained many comments which were off the record, adding to questions about the nature of this whole mess.

Police acknowledged that Shanahan was at fault, blaming the incorrect entry in the crash database on a “clerical error.” This raised even more questions, because it was revealed that police elected not to charge or cite Shanahan at the scene, using “officer discretion.” While certainly within their right to determine whether or not a citation is issued, this raised even more questions. It’s highly unlikely that an accident of this severity would have resulted in no police response had it involved an ordinary citizen, and the accident taking place in Northern California certainly raised eyebrows if Shanahan got preferential treatment exclusively because he is the coach of the football team.

Compounding matters was the June 30th decision from the Palo Alto police department to bury all information regarding the accident. The California Post and TMZ reportedly asked the police for body cam footage of the incident, but were told by police that all video, audio, and the crash report itself was being withheld and kept private. The excuse from police was that they were protecting the other party, regardless whether or not Shanahan wanted the information released.

This is a level of secrecy typically withheld for much, much larger incidents. It seemingly adds another layer to the whole situation that make it appear if numerous people from a variety of angles were all colluding to ensure information didn’t go public about what happened with the traffic accident.

We don’t know, because parties with a vested interest don’t want us to know. The details of this accident are being intentionally withheld or buried, but it’s unclear what the motive is. We’re left with the only public account coming from Shanahan, filtered through a select group of hand-picked journalists he invited into his office. The police are closing ranks and explaining why Shanahan wasn’t cited, while having excuses when it comes to an incorrect database entry as well as body-worn camera footage of the incident.

While we don’t precisely know why so many people are going to lengths to cover up what happened, we do know that what has unfolded has been incredibly unorthodox. It’s not normal to have an NFL team run DeflateGate-level interference over a traffic accident, especially one that only harmed the driver at fault. While the incident as reported by Shanahan was careless, it’s fairly minor — especially considering he is okay now.

The explanation of this could be extremely simple: Perhaps the 49ers just wanted Shanahan to have privacy for some time to recover from his injuries, which is fine — but the layers of complicit behavior in towing this line really add room for rampant speculation. It’s not up to the 49ers to get to control the message, which it appears they were able to do. Even now the 49ers could come out at say this was the case.

There is something about this accident that is being withheld from the public. Information is likely to come out sooner or later, but until then we’re left with what should have been a minor issue getting blown up into a mammoth mystery.