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Why Morale is the Top Story of 49ers Training Camp

Last year, the top story at 49ers training camp was Brock Purdy's rapid recover from UCL surgery and the backup quarterback competition between Sam Darnold and Trey Lance. This year, so much more is at stake.

Grant Cohn

Jul 27, 2023; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ronnie Bell (10) and members of the offensive squad huddle between drills during training camp at the SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 27, 2023; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ronnie Bell (10) and members of the offensive squad huddle between drills during training camp at the SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports
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Last year, the top story at 49ers training camp was Brock Purdy's rapid recover from UCL surgery and the backup quarterback competition between Sam Darnold and Trey Lance.

This year, so much more is at stake.

Position battles still matter and the rookies always are intriguing, but the 49ers just lost another Super Bowl. It's their second Super Bowl loss under head coach Kyle Shanahan. How will they respond? What will their morale be like?

Last year, their morale was incredibly high. They believed they would have won the NFC Championship game the previous season if Brock Purdy had stayed healthy and they were determined to prove that. And they did.

This year they have to prove they won't fall victim to the Super Bowl hangover.

Just look at the Eagles last year. They were coming off a Super Bowl loss, and they were mentally fragile all season. One bad loss to the 49ers completely sunk them. Will one bad loss sink the 49ers?

They're already starting training camp with drama. Brandon Aiyuk is expected to hold out because the 49ers haven't offered him a contract extension that he feels is fair. Will his absence affect the rest of the team?

Do the players still believe in Kyle Shanahan or do they begin to tune him out? Very few head coaches are effective with one team for more than seven seasons, and Shanahan is entering his eighth with the 49ers. And he just lost the Super Bowl partially because he didn't seem to know the playoff rules of overtime. So how does the team respond to him this year? Does he fall apart like Eagles head coach Nick Siriannia fell apart last season?

Stay tuned.

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Grant Cohn

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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