Kyle Shanahan experienced a first as an NFL head coach on Thursday at Levi's Stadium when San Francisco linebacker De'Vondre Campbell refused to play.
role changed with the return of Dre Greenlaw this week, and when the latter exited the game in the third quarter with some soreness in his Achilles and knee, Campbell refused to play when Shanahan asked him to take Greenlaw's place and instead went to the locker room."He said he didn’t want to play today," Shanahan told reporters after the game, noting that had never happened to him before with a player."... He was going to go in when Dre came out.
"I mean, he's a professional. He's been playing for a long time. If he didn't want to play, he shouldn't have dressed out," cornerback Charvarius Ward told reporters in the locker room."He could have told that before the game. So I feel like there was some sucker s--- that he did that definitely hurt the team, because Dee went down and we needed a linebacker, and I think was banged up, too.
Tight end George Kittle didn't hear about Campbell's departure until after the game, but said he wished he had known when the 49ers were still on the field. "Is that the reason we lost? Absolutely not, but it's hard to win football games when someone doesn't want to play football .. especially when you lose two linebackers and could have suited another one. ... I've never been around anyone that's ever done that, and I hope I'm never around anyone that does that again."
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