49ers' Kyle Shanahan surprised by Brock Purdy, Mike Evans' fast-developing...

On Thursday, head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked whether the rapid development of chemistry between Evans and Purdy had surprised him. "Yeah, a little bit. I mean, yes and no," Shanahan said. "Mike has been so obviously that good to anybody who watches him, and especially to me watching him over the years. He's always been right there as the best, and some people can match [up] with him, but he's just such a first-ballot Hall of Famer. "To get him here, just things that we weren't used to doing as much, not having a guy like him. I remember always telling Brock, 'Hey, there's times you're just going to sit there and wait, and Mike will get it done. You don't need to progress, even if your feet tell you to. If the coverage doesn't go there, you just wait and give him time because he'll come down with it.' "I remember saying to him a ton, 'This can be really important that you two have a lot of one-on-one. You guys do that stuff a lot because that's just about you guys talking to each other.' Each one's going to be different. It's not like coach talk and telling you, 'Hey, it's going to be at this yard line or this hitch.' It's stuff you guys have just got to get used to each other." Evans dealt with a quad strain and a groin injury during training camp, raising questions about whether he and Purdy would have enough time to develop their chemistry before the regular season began. Evans made an immediate impact in Week 1, catching six passes for 49 yards and a touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia. Shanahan recalled joking with Purdy about the limited time they'd spent working together before that game. "I remember going up to Brock in the middle of Australia," Shanahan said. "I was like, 'Hey, all that stuff I asked you to work with Mike, are you guys there yet? Are you good?' I did that jokingly because I knew Mike hadn't had any reps in like two weeks, and Brock got all stressed. "He's like, 'Well, I haven't got to yet.' And I was like, 'I'm just joking, dude.' I was like, 'We've ran out of time. We'll see how it goes this week.' That fade they threw in Australia that they scored on, I think we had done that full speed once live, and that's just a different drop and different stuff that we hadn't done. "So those guys didn't get a ton of reps out of it, but it just shows how natural Mike is, how natural Brock is, and that it seems like they've been working on that stuff for a long time."