SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said he might appreciate one day how many assistants that used to work under him have become head coaches in the NFL.
That time sure isn't this week as the 49ers (2-0) prepare to face his former assistant Mike LaFleur for the first time since LaFleur got hired as head coach of the division rival Arizona Cardinals (1-1) at home on Sunday.
“Deep down probably, yeah, and eventually,” Shanahan said about the pride he feels in seeing his former assistants succeed. "But, it’s more irritation, especially when you have to run into them twice a year.”
With LaFleur taking over the Cardinals this season, all three of San Francisco's NFC West rivals are running offenses derived from Shanahan's scheme. Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay worked as an offensive assistant in Washington when Shanahan was offensive coordinator and the Seattle Seahawks hired former Niners tight ends coach Brian Fleury to run their offense.
That provides the 49ers defense a familiar look, even if it is a challenging one.
“You talk about just all the movement, all the eye candy,” star linebacker Fred Warner. “You’re having to communicate a ton just to make sure everybody’s on the same page. But the beauty of it is obviously that we’ve gone against that for so long, all training camp. You’re seeing those looks and you’re seeing it from the best of the best, obviously, in our head coach and Brock Purdy.”
LaFleur worked under Shanahan for seven seasons, first when Shanahan was a coordinator in Cleveland and Atlanta and then for four years after he took over as head coach in San Francisco in 2017.
He faced him several times the last three seasons when he was offensive coordinator for the Rams but now gets to do it for the first time as a head coach.
“When you’re in the moment, you’re in the moment,” he said. "You’re not thinking about that stuff. I’m excited to see him before the game obviously and say what’s up, but then it’s on. That’s how they’re going to feel and that’s how we feel. I’m sure when all is said and done next February and we get to see each other in the offseason; we’ll talk about it. (Until then) this is the Niners versus the Cardinals.”
Arizona (1-1) vs San Francisco (2-0).
When/where to watch: Sunday, 4:05 p.m. EDT, Fox.
Latest odds: 49ers by 8 1/2.
Against the spread: Cardinals 1-1; 49ers 2-0.
Last week: Cardinals lost to the Seahawks 31-7; 49ers beat the Dolphins 35-13.
Last meeting: 49ers beat Cardinals 41-22 on Nov. 16, 2025, in Glendale, Arizona.
Series record: Cardinals lead 38-31.
Arizona pass defense vs. Brock Purdy. The Cardinals got beat for three TD passes last week by Seattle and now must contend with a San Francisco passing game clicking on all cylinders. Purdy completed 20 of 22 passes for 287 yards and two TDs last week and leads the NFL by completing 80.4% of his passes so far. The 49ers have had nearly as many scoring drives this season (10) as they have had incomplete passes (11).
— The Cardinals have lost seven straight games in the division since beating San Francisco in the 2024 season finale. That’s one shy of their longest division losing streak since joining the NFC West in 2002. Arizona has a 4-21 record against NFC West opponents since 2022.
— Arizona QB Jacoby Brissett has at least one TD pass in 14 consecutive games for the second-longest active streak to Jared Goff's 25.
— Cardinals WR Marvin Harrison Jr. — the No. 4 overall draft pick in 2024 — has just one catch for 33 yards over his first two games.
— Arizona TE Trey McBride has had at least five catches in his last 11 road games for the longest streak ever for a tight end. McBride has caught 12 TDs in his last 14 games overall.
— The 49ers are seeking their 10th 3-0 start in the Super Bowl era. They made the playoffs the last eight times they did it, including four seasons when they went to the Super Bowl.
— San Francisco opened the season with back-to-back wins by at least 20 points for the first time in franchise history.
— The Niners are the only team not to allow a sack so far this season.
— San Francisco RB Christian McCaffrey had two TD runs last week to become the fourth-fastest player in the Super Bowl era with at least 100 touchdowns.
— Purdy is the second player in franchise history with at least three combined TDs passing and rushing in each of the first two games of a season. Steve Young also did it in 1998.
AP Sports Writer David Brandt in Tempe, Arizona, contributed to this report.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. greets head coach Mike LaFleur, right, before an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur talks into his headset during the second half of an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Kelley L. Cox)
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Energy Department said Thursday that it will spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation's aging and stressed power grid, as President Donald Trump's administration steps up efforts to avoid blackouts amid skyrocketing energy demand spurred by artificial intelligence.
The money will go toward 31 projects across 26 states that are expected to produce more than 23 gigawatts of additional electricity capacity — enough to power 16 million homes. The projects will use new technologies such as sensors to measure real-time weather conditions to ensure safe transmission or direct power away from congested paths, the department said.
The upgrades could improve power reliability and lower electricity costs for about 100 million Americans, officials said.
“This is a quick way to lower electricity prices and increase reliability: using fibers that are already in the transmission lines to analyze what’s the temperature out, what’s the wind out, how can we use this transmission line to distribute more power, but safely and only in the right conditions," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a news conference promoting the grants Thursday at a PPL Corp. facility in Allentown.
The eastern Pennsylvania electric utility says two data centers in its territory came online this year and six more are under construction, with enough other data centers in the advanced planning stages that its peak electric demand could quintuple by 2032.
PPL said it is receiving $71.5 million to modernize an existing high-voltage transmission line across roughly 30 miles in northern Pennsylvania.
The announcement comes amid warnings that AI’s voracious demand for power is threatening to overwhelm U.S. power supplies, as massive new data centers come online faster than new power plants can be built. It also comes as electricity bills rise faster than inflation in many parts of the U.S., blamed in some areas on demand from data centers.
The snowballing opposition to data centers in communities across the country has thrown a wrench into the plans of the world’s richest companies and transformed the midterm election landscape.
Trump continues to stick up for data centers, even as politicians from both major political parties criticize them and many communities try to block them.
In the meantime, Congress and some states are trying to push utilities to expand their use of new technologies to make grids more efficient and to lessen the need to build new power plants.
Julia Selker, the executive director of the WATT Coalition, a trade association for grid-enhancing technologies, said both the projects and the scale of the investment are significant. Utilities in the U.S. are lagging places like Europe in adopting the technologies, despite federal investment in the past to develop and test them, Selker said.
Still, Drew Maloney, CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit utilities, said America's electric utilities are making a “significant investment” every year in new technologies to strengthen the grid and reduce outages.
Wright said that work on the projects should begin right away and that he hoped some efficiencies are in place before this winter to tamp down price spikes when extreme weather sends demand skyrocketing.
Wright said he didn't know whether the projects would have gotten done without federal funding. Many, he said, had been under consideration before the grants were offered, but the grant recipients hadn't “quite pulled the trigger” on them.
Projects being announced Thursday will involve component enhancements on more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of transmission lines and technological enhancements across nearly 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers), the department said.
Projects were prioritized based on those that can be put into operation quickly, officials said. Money for the grants comes from the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted by Congress under then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat. The government's $1.9 billion in funding will be matched by $3.35 billion from the recipients, the department said.
Recipients include utilities, cooperatives and four state agencies. The state agencies — in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma — were the biggest recipients, collectively drawing $810 million, with the Colorado and Oklahoma projects promising improvements to regional grids.
Trump has vowed to “unleash” the nation's energy sector in his second term, aiming to drive up record-setting domestic oil and gas production, strip away pollution restrictions on power plants and keep expensive coal-fired power plants operating past their retirement dates.
The administration also has pledged nearly $4 billion to buy back offshore wind leases as Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.
His administration meanwhile has pushed to help tech giants build and connect data centers to power plants and high-voltage power lines and convert Cold War-era uranium enrichment plants into data center and power plant complexes.
Daly reported from Washington.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks at a news conference at a PPL Corp. facility to announce that the Energy Department will spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation's aging and stressed power grid, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)
Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks at a news conference at a PPL Corp. facility to announce that the Energy Department will spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation's aging and stressed power grid, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)
Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks at a news conference at a PPL Corp. facility to announce that the Energy Department will spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation's aging and stressed power grid, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)
Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks at a news conference at a PPL Corp. facility to announce that the Energy Department will spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation's aging and stressed power grid, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)
United States Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, talks to the media during a press conference on the sidelines of the annual General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)
