SANTA CLARA, July 30 -- Nobody required Kyle Shanahan to say it. The Palo Alto police had already ruled out drugs and alcohol. The other driver, a 21-year-old in an SUV, was physically unharmed. There was no investigation bearing down on him, no pending citation, no legal mechanism demanding he identify himself as the cause of the collision. He said it anyway.

The San Francisco 49ers head coach confirmed last week that on July 14, in a neighborhood near his Northern California home, his phone slipped from his lap. When he reached down for it and sat back up, the airbag deployed. His car crossed into oncoming traffic. The young driver's vehicle took the impact.

This is not just a coach going to the hospital with a broken nose, three brok...