NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former Titans tight end Frank Wycheck told ESPN that he fears a scenario that has played out for other football concussion victims.

“I worry about, I’m scared about the time if I actually get to that point where these guys [who have committed suicide] have snapped,” he said. “What has made them snap? And that is what I am scared of, that there is something that is going to come over me that is going to make me snap.

“I don’t think I am going to do it, but those guys you would never think in a million years would. And that’s the scary part about it. There is no one that can tell you really anything. It’s just, the damage is done.”

Wycheck, who threw the lateral on the Music City Miracle play in a wild-card game during the 1999 postseason, said in a television interview on Fox-WZTV in Nashville, which he taped at least 10 days ago, that he’s certain he has CTE.

He expanded on that in an extended conversation with ESPN.com.

Wycheck is due to have another round of testing done with the concussion lawsuit settled, but said that he hasn’t opened up much about his daily life in great detail regarding his condition and his fears because, “It’s kind of creepy.”

“People don’t want to hear about morbid stuff like that,” he said.

Wycheck plans to donate his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation for study after he dies.

A linebacker and running back as a kid, he played running back in college at Maryland and fullback in the NFL for Washington before he settled in as a tight end with the Houston Oilers and Tennessee Titans. He estimates he was part of 297,000 collisions from the start of his football life at 5 until he retired at 33 and that he suffered 25 concussions.

Despite migraines that he’s sure are a result of concussions and blows to the head and issues with anxiety and depression — for which he takes medication — he said he would not change his life in football. He would have liked more information but would have played even if commissioner Paul Tagliabue and his medical advisor, Elliot Pellman, “didn’t lie.”

“I don’t want this to be a pity party, ‘Oh poor Frank,'” he said. “I wouldn’t change anything in the world. I’ve had a blessed life, great opportunities to meet great people, raise my family and be able to take care of my family the way I could. I couldn’t do that without football. And it was the thing I had as a goal since I was 5 years old.”

Divorced, Wycheck has two grown daughters. He said if he had a son, he wouldn’t have allowed him to play contact football before he was 12.

“I played at 5,” he said. “I remember dings and flashes and stuff like that. That couldn’t have been healthy. But no one knew about it yet.”

He currently serves as a co-host of “The Wake Up Zone” on 104.5 The Zone in Nashville as well as the color commentator for Titans Radio, but he has missed work, including the Titans’ game at San Diego this season, because of his symptoms.

Currently, he is in Pebble Beach for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He’s not playing in the tournament, but Wycheck said he managed to finish a round of 87 there Monday. His neck and back issues frequently keep him from completing a round. Those problems are similar to plenty of guys who had careers in the NFL, he said.

His unwillingness to leave his home in the suburbs south of Nashville is not so common.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — It required time and patience, but the San Francisco 49ers finally got their man.

The Niners announced Monday that they have officially hired Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan to be their head coach. The deal is expected to run for six years, matching the contract the 49ers gave new general manager John Lynch. Shanahan becomes the team’s fourth coach in as many years, replacing Chip Kelly, who followed Jim Tomsula and Jim Harbaugh.

• 

  The 49ers were willing to wait to hire Kyle Shanahan. Now, they must continue to be patient as he works to establish a championship culture.

• 

  Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan struggled to put a finger on exactly what went wrong Sunday in a 34-28 OT loss to the Patriots in Super Bowl LI, in which Atlanta let a 28-3 lead slip away.

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For Shanahan, becoming a head coach is the realization of a dream.

“As a young man, I had the unique benefit of being exposed to the storied history of the San Francisco 49ers firsthand,” Shanahan said in a statement. “From that exposure, I developed great respect for those who created a world-class, championship standard. As this team begins the task of re-establishing that standard, I could not ask for a better partner than John Lynch. He is a man who certainly has personal knowledge of what championship organizations look like. John and I look forward to establishing a strong culture that will serve as our foundation for constructing this team.”

In the process, the Niners became the last of the six teams with head-coach openings to make a hire. It was a deal 36 days in the making.

The 49ers fired Kelly on Jan. 1 and first interviewed Shanahan on Jan. 6 while the Falcons were enjoying a bye week for the wild-card round. The Niners interviewed him again during the bye week before the Super Bowl, also talking to Lynch and two other general manager candidates in the process.

But the Niners couldn’t hire Shanahan until his season ended. That happened Sunday when the Falcons lost in devastating fashion to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI. Atlanta blew a 25-point second-half lead, with Shanahan’s playcalling late in the game coming under scrutiny.

“It’s not really the run-pass ratio that I look at,” Shanahan told reporters of his decision to keep throwing after getting into field goal range late in the fourth quarter. “It’s you stay on the field and you run your offense. We went three-and-out two times, which was huge. I think we had second-and-1 on both of those. To not convert on second-and-1 and then third, it was tough. That’s why we let them get back into the game.”

San Francisco moved swiftly after Atlanta lost to meet with Shanahan and finalize a contract that had been expected since New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels removed himself from consideration on Jan. 16.

“As an offensive mind, I think he stands alone in the National Football League, as evidenced by the explosive and record-setting offense in Atlanta,” Lynch said. “Though he grew up around coaching, what has most impressed me about Kyle is that he’s become his own man in the profession. Our philosophies on football and our visions for leading the 49ers back to being a championship team align in every way. I am thrilled to have Kyle Shanahan on board.”

While the 49ers waited for Shanahan, they watched as all of their other candidates took jobs elsewhere or pulled out of the hunt. The Los Angeles Rams hired Sean McVay, the Los Angeles Chargers chose Anthony Lynn, and the Buffalo Bills reeled in Sean McDermott. When McDaniels stepped aside and the Niners focused their attention on Shanahan, Seattle assistant head coach Tom Cable also opted out.

While Shanahan has never coached in San Francisco, he’s no stranger to the organization. His father Mike was the offensive coordinator for the Niners from 1992 to 1994, pressing the buttons of an offense that led the franchise to its most recent Super Bowl triumph in 1994 before becoming the head coach of the Denver Broncos.

More money was bet on Super Bowl LI at Nevada sportsbooks than any other Super Bowl in history.

Nevada books won $10.93 million off of a record $138.48 million wagered on Super Bowl LI, the state’s gaming control board announced Monday.

The $138.48 million wagered beats last year’s record mark of $132.54 million. The books held 7.9 percent of the amount wagered and recorded their seventh-most lucrative Super Bowl ever, when the New England Patriots erased a 25-point deficit and beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in the first overtime game in Super Bowl history.

Since the Nevada Gaming Control Board began tracking wagering on the Super Bowl in 1991, the state’s regulated sportsbooks have come out ahead in 25 of 27 games. The books are up a net $173.6 million on the Super Bowl during that span, capped by this year’s big win.

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Patience finally paid off for the San Francisco 49ers as they hired Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan as head coach Monday.

History and hindsight might one day offer a different view, but in the here and now, the Niners’ willingness to wait appears to have landed them one of the best and most qualified coaches in this hiring cycle.

At least that’s the view of general manager John Lynch, the man who will work with Shanahan to rebuild the Niners.

“He was the catch of this head coaching cycle,” Lynch said. “It’s one of the best years I’ve seen a coordinator have. But, when I talked to [Falcons quarterback] Matt Ryan and the players on this team, they spoke of the leadership and the presence that Kyle had in front of that room. I think that in this league, again, I get to see a very global outlook of the league and there’s a lot of really good coordinators, but there’s some that really separate themselves. I just thought Kyle, he really did that this year. He has impressed me for a long time. This year he put it all together. And it wasn’t just calling plays. It was setting up plays and he was doing things and as soon as I got in front of him and saw the other part, his philosophies and how they marry with mine and all those things it just got me really excited.”

There were plenty of twists and turns in Shanahan’s pursuit and head-scratching moments along the way, but the process isn’t nearly as important as the 49ers pulling it off and what happens next.

In surveying the landscape of available head coaching candidates, this year’s group didn’t come with much sizzle. Before teams even began firing their previous coaches, Shanahan and New England’s Josh McDaniels were the two names that moved the needle most in league circles.

So, how did the Niners, without the benefit of a stacked roster, a franchise quarterback or any kind of recent stability at the position, find a way to get Shanahan? Simply put, they were willing to wait. In total, they waited 36 days between the firing of Chip Kelly and the hiring of Shanahan.

A lot happened in the meantime in a process that was far from perfect. Although Niners CEO Jed York said he had no preconceived plan for hiring a general manager or a coach first, the Niners ended up putting all of their eggs in the Shanahan basket after McDaniels backed out in mid-January. McDaniels, who was believed to be the team’s top choice, withdrew his name after the Niners failed to interview New England executive Nick Caserio for the open general manager job.

Despite the curveballs — three of their candidates took other head coaching jobs and two more pulled out of the running — the Niners finished with Shanahan. He was the only coach available who combined a longtime NFL pedigree with an extensive history of success as a coordinator at multiple stops with multiple quarterbacks and an element of exuberant youth that should allow him to relate to a young roster.

Of course, Shanahan has plenty to prove as a head coach. It’s a job he has never held and many great coordinators have gone on to flop as head coaches. The combination of a pay raise and paranoia has seen many a first-time coach get caught up in the minutiae instead of focusing on what matters. There will be growing pains along the way; one needs only to see the Falcons’ fourth-quarter playcalling in their devastating Super Bowl collapse for evidence.

But Shanahan looks like the type of first-time coach who can have success, provided he’s given time and resources to see through a plan for rebuilding the 49ers and doesn’t get caught up in internal power struggles.

Ryan, who struggled with Shanahan in 2015, turned into the league MVP in 2016 and sees the characteristics of a successful leader in him.

“Obviously, I’m a big proponent,” Ryan told Atlanta reporters last week. “Kyle will do a great job if he does get the opportunity. I think he’ll be an excellent head coach. … Whenever he does get his opportunity, he’ll do a great job.”

Shanahan has spent the past nine years as an offensive coordinator with stops in Houston, Cleveland, Washington and Atlanta. In six of those nine seasons, Shanahan has called the plays for an offense that finished in the top nine in the league in yards per game.

All of that coalesced this season when Atlanta led the league in points scored (540) and yards per play (6.7) and was second in yards per game (415.8). As the maestro of that offense, Shanahan was named the NFL’s Assistant Coach of the Year.

Shanahan has the added benefit of father Mike, who won two Super Bowls as Denver’s coach, as a sounding board when things get difficult. And things will get difficult at some point as Shanahan feels his way through his first head coaching job with a first-time general manager alongside.

In San Francisco, Shanahan won’t have access to a roster loaded with the likes of Ryan, receivers Julio Jones, Mohamed Sanu and Taylor Gabriel or running backs like Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman.