Of note, we have two Thursday night games, two Sunday night games, and two Monday night games.
No out-of-country games, so that’s a plus. But we start with season with a Monday night game followed by a trip back east to play the Vikings. At east out Thursday games are all west-coast affairs, with one being in Seattle and the other at home.
In the NFL’s laughable nod to player safety, shouldn’t at least one of the Thursday games be scheduled after a bye week?
Well, at least we don’t travel overseas. And Brazil? Wow. Sure glad we dodged THAT bullet. Other than that, here’s the placeholder for the announcement of the schedule. Jolly Roger leaves no chance for a money grab hype fest to go by unmined, so here we are with 32 teams dropping tweets, instacraps, tiktoks, and all other means of social media droppings, so watch the hilarity at 5:00 PM PT for the shenanigans. Shanahananigans?
I’m gonna be building a fence after work, so I’ll find out the thrilling news a bit later.
The way the 49ers paid attention to the WR position in the draft, and even drafting Isaac Guerendo, a speedy pass-catching RB, who would seem to be a niightmare matchup for any linebacker out there, makes me think Shanahan may be looking to open up the passing game more.
But (this is always my big but) what have they done to improve the pass blocking? As the 49ers have shown, they can score points and they can defend. But their biggest losses in the past 6 seasons have all come at the offensive line failing when they need them most. Sure, there are other factors, but our pass blocking has graded out usually around 18th. And yeah we drafted a couple guys that should work out, but I wanted a better RT.
I’d love to see them be more aggressive, even with McCaffrey, Mitchell, and Deebo as running threats, but they have to do something to improve the O line. This has been the soapbox that I’ve been camped on for a while. Design more roll-outs. Mainly to the left side. Because McKivitz isn’t all that good at pass pro. A better RT would give the roll-right play more effectiveness as you look at the last 400 roll-right plays, and the LDE is usually unblocked and in Purdy’s face within 2 seconds.
Anyhow, that’s my take on things.
Just heard 49er Hall of Fame cornerback Jimmy Johnson passed away at 86 years old. He was hands-down ont hpof the best cornerbacks in NFL history. Teams would routinely just not throw to the right side ever. I saw him play in 1970 (I think) with casts on both arms and he still picked off a pass that game.
Took him a while to get in, but he was definitely deserving of the honor. He was always facing the #1 WR and he would rarely get chances to make plays, but he always seemed to make them when quarterbacks dared to throw on him.
Started his career as a WR and CB, he ended up excelling at the LCB position. His brother of course was Rafer Johnson, star of the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.
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I guess the big new is the schedule is gonna be released!!!
May 15th, 5:00 PM PT!!
I’m sure the hype will be subdued and subtle.
The only scheduled game so far is the week 1 game in Brazil. Fucking Brazil!!!
On Friday, Sept. 6 the Eagles play the Packers Corinthians Arena in São Paulo, Brazil. I guess no market is untappable. I wonder who gets screwed out of a home game. Not sure if we are playing somewhere out of the country, but hopefully it isn’t south of the equator.
Soon Elon Musk will be pimping for a game on the moon. Can’t wait for the pre-season extravaganza next year on the South Pole. I’m sure those penguins would be game for some merch. You know, from making money protecting the southern ice wall.
Not much to do now other than speculate about our draft picks and listen to the blather around BA and his imminent contract signing. Or not.
I do like the Mustapha signing. He looks like the real deal.
UDFAs
Cody Schrader, RB, Missouri
Drake Nugent, C, Michigan
Evan Anderson, DL, FAU
Mason Pline, TE, Furman
Tanner Mordecai, QB, Wisconsin
Terique Owens, WR, Missouri State
Hey, at least we got Terique Owens out of the 2024 son-of-a HOF-49er draft class. Well, Gore should be in some time soon.
Brenden Rice went to the Chargers in the 7th round
Frank Gore Jr wen to Buffalo as a UDFA
For once a draft went pretty much how I hoped it would. Focussing on the O line, defensive backfield, and grabbed a couple dynamic WRs to boot. Even the obligatory raRB is a speed-burning mismatch for defenses.
The wonks for the most part, minus Mel Kiper’s disembodied helmet-hair-head, liked our draft. Don’t mean shit, but there you have it. Your 2024 49ers draft class.
Well, after all my bitching and prevaricating about their 1st round pick, the 49ers pretty much did what I wanted in these first 3 rounds. Get offensive line help, corner help, and WR help.
They just didn’t do it in the order I preferred. Pearsall sounds like a solid WR, Green seems to be a guy who has improved markedly every year he plays, and Dominick Puni gave up 0 sacks in over 700 snaps in college. Sweet.
Really like the Puni pick. Trent Williams is great but we need a backup. Puni looks like the real deal. These draft grades are not worth the vapor they are printed on but this looks good to me so far. We have 6 picks today, and since this is when the team usually drafts well, got to wonder what they hit on in these later rounds.
Hmmmmm. Consensus is all over the board on this Rickey Pearsall pick. The guy sounds very good, he played against Purdy in HS, Brandon Aiyuk loved the pick, and he immediately jumps to the 2A WR option. Obviously this is bad news for Danny (the) Grey (ghost), our speed guy who has done nothing in his 2 year career. 13 games, 7 targets, 1 catch. So he’s likely on the scrap-heap with Dante Pettis and Jalen Hurd.
My thoughts (stop me if you haven’t heard this 1,000,000 times) are we need offensive line (mainly tackle) depth and cornerback depth. O line, because Trent Williams isn’;’t getting any younger, and Mckivitz is fairly pedestrian. Would have loved trading up to get a guy like OT Tyler Guyton, who went at 29.
I get the uncertainty around BA, but I’m still in the mode that they aren’t trading either Deebo (a giant cap hit if traded this year), or BA (a cap savings if extended this year), so they possibly could have gotten a guy like Cooper DeJean or Koolaide McKinstry, and traded up in day 2 for Pearsall.
I’m pretty sure we trade up today. We NEED a solid CB and we need one today. Day One saw all the top linemen go, so I don’;’t know what they have on their radar. I’m kinda certain they would have taken Guyton had he fallen to us.
4:00 PM PST – ABC / ESPN
Sign Aiyuk
Draft O line help
Draft DB depth
DO IT!!!
5:00 PM PT on ABC / ESPN
Gunny, the closer we get to the draft, the less and less the pronostispewers go away from the 49ers drafting an offensive tackle. a few sites have us even taking a DE. This after spending the free agency period addressing the defense, the defense, and the defense. They also seem to think we are weak at safety as the Niners were supposedly ‘disappointed’ in Hufanga’s play before he got hurt, and rookie Brown’s after. But sure, depth would be nice.
However, they did mention the CB position and how bad things got by the playoffs. That IS a concern as we were down to a journeyman . Mooney is a stud, Lenoir is a very solid guy, Thomas is decent, but we need to be stronger at CB. Depth is key.
But we still need to (I think) trade up for one of the better tackles. I know the team does so well with lower picks, and they traditionally do this kind of low-level sleeper lineman pick all the time, but the time to invest in the line with some top-grade talent is now.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
We’ll go to our graves hating Dallas and Seattle Chuck.
Just hope I’ll be around to piss on Jerry’s grave. Been on my bucket list forever.