San Francisco 49ers Forever

So much for Jim Schwartz. He’s still cooling his heels in Cleveland. The Niners on the other hand picked Raheem Morris to run the defense. He being the recent coach of the Atlanta Falcons. That didn’t go very well, but Morris did run the Rams Super Bowl winning 2021 defense.

For me, I’m jazzed about the hire. We have been running a base 4-3 defense since time immemorial it seems like. The wide 9 only rush 4 and pray your players make plays on every damn down drove me nuts. Saleh ran it, Wilks ran it, Sorensen ran it, and Ryans ran it. Of the group, Ryans seemed to do the most blitzing, but it was still a pretty basic short zone cover 2 bend don’t break defense. It worked sort of in its various flavors, mainly when we were healthy, but it still bothered me because it didn’t seem to generate the turnovers other teams got.

Morris on the other hand runs just about every scheme imaginable. 3-4, 4-3, 4-2, even (gasp!) 5 man fronts. Things I’ve been barking about for quite a while. He also plays a lot of press man coverage. Which in the case of teams like Seattle, and just about every other team out there, does well against the quick passing game. And with the departure of Robert Saleh goes Gus Bradley as he followed Saleh out the door today.

I for one am thrilled to see us run a much more aggressive defense. And I think the players will dig it as well.

If you miss the 80s, here’s a pretty big reminder.

Or, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Ol’ Jimbo Harbaugh’s arch-nemesis handshake buddy and erstwhile HC and DC for a bunch of teams, Jim Schwartz is available for our DC spot after being bypassed for the Cleveland Browns HC spot.

He was apparently “visibly upset” by the snub, so sure, let him take it out on the rest of the league. The Browns sucked last year, going 5-12, but not because of their 4th ranked defense. So I get why he thought he had a shot at the HC slot.

He uses the familiar 4 -man front and also uses the wide-9 to get edge pressure. But he is a LOT more aggressive with the 5 man fronts and uses a lot more man coverage. Although he doesn’t do a lot of blitzing, which is what I’d like to see. So, the same but different.

Works for me. Bradley seems like a good choice, but he’s been kinda middling for a good long while.

Huh. Just saw a statement from Dre Greenlaw saying how hard it was to adjust to Sean Peyton’s practice schedule and that they worked out so much harder in Denver. I always heard that the knock on Shanahanalynch was they ran their practices too hard. I guess not. Greenlaw said it took a while to adjust to the new defensive schemes and such, but he really didn’t stand out this year. I also heard that the team doesn’t stretch enough, or prepare for games well enough. These things are unverifiable by me or just about anyone not connected with the organization.

Beyond that, at least these clowns are talking about all the injury problems they have and that maybe they should change things up. If only for change’s sake.

Dre Greenlaw described his transition to the Denver Broncos as “tough” due to Sean Payton’s old-school, high-intensity, and demanding practice regimen, which differs significantly from the fresher-focused approach of his former coach, Kyle Shanahan. He noted Denver’s schedule involves more intensive, three-hour practices on Wednesdays and Fridays and a six-days-on, one-day-off routine.

Back in the old days, they practiced in the Rocklin heat in the summer, went through 2-a-days, and did a shit-ton of outdoor intense practicing. Well, they moved out of the heat, the NFLPA shortened the pre-season, cut games, practices, and hitting scrimmages. To us, all this means is we get hurt. Every season. All the time. Some teams are at the bottom of the injury list. We have been in the top 5 most injured 7 of the last 9 seasons.

Man, this sucks. When I was young, he was my first favorite QB. Our neighbors across the street had season tickets to the 49ers (in the east end zone at Kezar). So I got to go to a game in 1969 vs the Colts. Close game, and late in the 2nd half, the Colts put in Johnny Unitas to try and mount a comeback, and they did late the lead in the 4th quarter. But Brodie got the final TD and the Niners won 20-17.

I went to the Bears game that year as well and was hooked for life. Saw a bunch of Brodie’s games at the Stick as the team rode his shoulders to 3 playoff runs, including the comeback from injury to lead the 49ers past the Vikings only to have our hopes dashed by Roger Staubach’s (fuck preston riley) late comeback. Saw his last game in 1973 as well.

Quiet and steady, he didn’t demand the spotlight like Namath and others but he should be in the Hall of Fame. His numbers are markedly better than Namath’s. But whatevs. He retired from football to become one of the top guys on the Senior Golf tour. When they were still allowed to call it Senior.

So raise a toast to Brodie. A guy who took a lot of shots, had shit thrown at him for half his career by the unruly mobs that passed for Niner fans back in the day, and ended up almost climbing the mountain to the top. RIP John.

All these years seeing that clip and I just realized that it was after the Niners beat the Colts way back when.

Anyhow, I hate all these teams in the playoffs. Seattle and the Rams are right out. Fuck NE and FUCK Denver.

That being said, I guess I could stomach Denver winning. Mainly because they aren’t in our division, and they don’t have 5 Super Bowl wins, and Bo Nix was pretty fricking outstanding. My wife’s cousin is a huge Broncos fan and she and her husband came out here for the Super Bowl 50 pre-game festivities. It would be pretty fucking weird for Denver to win 2 Super Bowls in the mudflats 10 years apart.

Well, the one coaching hire that means the most to the 49ers of course is once and was our DC Robert Saleh moving on to the Tennessee Tuxedos. That also means we are hiring another DC yet again. In the past 6 seasons, we’ve had:

2020 – Robert Saleh
2021 – DeMeco Ryans
2022 – DeMeco Ryans
2023 – Steve Wilks
2024 – Nick Sorensen
2025 – Robert Saleh
2026 – ?x?x?x?

That’s a lot of different guys, but they all run basically the same 4-man wide-9 rush in cover 2 that emphasizes talent rather than aggressiveness. I think DeMeco Ryans did it best though as he would disguise coverages and blitz by bringing Warner up to the line or one of the other LBs.

I’d think they are gonna go with Gus Bradley, and for the most part I agree. They aren’t gonna hire from the outside like the disasters that Wilks and Sorensen were. I do want a guy that will take more risks though.

Beyond that, this team really needs to figure out their entire training and conditioning methods to get some kind of handle on the injury situation. This has been the case for 7 of the 9 seasons that this has been a major issue.

In what turned out to be a pretty entertaining season ended with a thud. But you really have to tip your cap to the team for overcoming monumental injuries to just about everyone in a uniform. Except for the guy everyone was worried about. Christian McCaffery.

This ragtag bunch of players, and a lot of rookies, weaved their way through what turned into a pretty tough schedule, beating 4 playoff teams, and even managing to knock off the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles before yesterday’s anti-climactic end.

So one of the positives is a lot of rookies got a lot of playing time. Williams, Collins, Stout, and West all played well. And Sigle showed flashes late. But we all know the issues. Besides the injuries. The O line is in bad shape. We are very thin at WR. We could use an RB, or Kyle needs to use who he has. We did pick up a ton of decent LBs as the team went to 4th string guys, but man, they really need to do something different in regards to training and getting guys ready. The injuries are simply killing us just about every season.

Or maybe it’s the fucking EMFs from the PGE power station next door.

All in all, this was a pretty spectacular coaching job on both sides of the ball, but a season that started out so extraordinary going 4-1 with 3 wins over our division rivals, ended with backups and backups to backups all over the field. ANd it sure looks like RObert Saleh will get another shot as HC somewhere soon.

And to add insult to injury, the fucking Rams beat the Bears in OT. Fuck.

Onward and upward to Seattle. Hate to jinx it but I’m feeling better about this game than the last meeting between these two teams. Mainly because of Trent Williams being here, Ricky Pearsall getting some limited action, Juice filling in nicely for the injured Kittle, and most importantly Robert Saleh trusting his linebacking corps being able to support the run more and play up instead of in no-man’s (zone) land.

Beyond that, Sourdough Sam has his own lingering oblique (obtuse?) injury (and BTW how do you get hurt during the bye week?) but anyway, he has the ignominy of his major crash-and-burn in last year’s playoff in Minnesota to deal with. So, as I’ve said a thousand times, when it is 3rd and long, blitz the fuck out of Darnold. Hit him and he’s skittish for the rest of the game.

As usual, stop the run, and get CMC going. I would love to also see two TE sets with Juice in front of CMC. If Seattle is gonna play their nickel to stop our run, we need to bring the beef and hit ’em in the mouth at the line.

Huh, Seattle released their injury report today, and lo & behold, Sourdough Sam is on it with an oblique injury. I’m sure he’s OK and will play, but hey, hit him early. make him think. Make him hurt.

I’ve said it a thousand times, and I’ll say it a thousand more, hit him early and he gets rattled all game.

I feel much more confident about this game than I did two weeks ago, but that and $12.00 will get you a half-decaf double-chocolate frappuccino with whip. Trent Williams made it through the Eagles game. Pearsall and Dee Winters returned to practice. And Saleh showed a lot of different looks in the Eagles game.

At least in the 3rd quarter. I re-watched the game and by the middle of the 4th quarter we had returned to the 4-man line for the most part. But I REALLY like it when we show 6 man fronts and drop into coverage rather than the soft zone we usually run.

Think we take this one 27-17.

Trent here implying the Eagles tanked on purpose to face the 49ers rather than face GB.

Hah!

In the immortal words of Kyle Shanahan, “We embrace the shit out of doing it the hard way.” Yeah, this is true. This weird season just keeps on getting weirder. In the immortal words of Hunter Thompson, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Well, let’s get weird. Fred Warner has officially been cleared to practice even as the LB corps is gelling into a pretty damn good unit as we have rolled to our 4th MLB with Erik Kendricks manning the green dot and the middle, and the freshly plucked Garret Wallow from Denver doing great things in place of Curtis Robinson.

Throw in the fact that Trent Williams is healthy for this game cracks open the window to victory a little bit. Plus, there’s the added factoid that Brock Purdy has never lost in Seattle, going 4-0 there, and 6-2 overall vs the Seachix.

What does it all mean? Nothing really. My hope is we do what we did in the 2nd half of the Philly game and show a lot more 5-6 man fronts and not give up so many easy runs. I’m sure they will try to burn us deep, but Saleh just has to swallow that bitter pill and somehow generate pressure. The D didn’t allow a lot of point that last game, but they did control the ball for 2/3 of the game. Even the Philly game was 35/25 Eagles.

Speaking of hope, they need to get the run game going somehow. And I would really like to see the occasional slant and some quick passes rather than the constant diet of sideline fades.

In that vein, Ricky Pearsall is limited in walkthroughs today. At least he’s out there. Tomorrow will tell a lot about his status for fucking Saturday. Nice to see the NFL throwing more adversity at us.