San Francisco 49ers Forever

Well, As the Football Turns throws another giant twist into the already strange and terrible saga of the dark underbelly of football.  Reuben Foster, who was teetering in the vere iog being cut by the 49ers, had his ex-girlfriend,  Elissa Ennis completely recant the story that Foster was the one who busted her eardrum and bonked her in the head 8-10 times.

The kicker is she apparently has video to prove that she got into a catfight with another woman over lasagna recipes or some shit. I don’t really know what the fight was about, or if there even was a fight, but the police showed, she went to the hospital, and there are records of the day’s activities, so I don’t really know if or how or what happens with the case against Foster.

Ennis’s attorney, Stephanie Rickard, said that the injuries, including a ruptured eardrum, that sent the 28-year-old woman to the hospital were suffered in a fight with another woman and there is a video of that confrontation.

“(Foster) did not strike her, injure her or threaten her,” said Rickard. She said Foster tried to end the relationship with her after learning of the fight.“She was extremely upset and told him if he broke up with her she would ‘trash his career,’”

Curiouser and curiouser. Needless to say, I guess they were well served to wait this thing out.

Either that or Ennis got a huge fucking payday to change her story.

. . .and I still have no idea which way they go with this draft. The Foster situation muddies the creek even more, so I got no idea. Thing is, the BPA at 9 very well may be Tremaine Edmunds, a guy who can play ILB or OLB. Seemingly a good fit. I guess. A bunch of prognosticators have him coming to us, anyway.

With Foster’s freeze out at this point, the Niners may still have to cut bait with him, but the thing is, they won’t know anything about Foster until way after the draft, so do they pick Edmunds anyway? Fitzpatrick?  Beyond that, Edmunds hasn’t raised any of the red flags that Foster did so he’s clean in that respect. Plus, the Raiders want him, so maybe we could work out a deal with them.

But we need help at CB and guard. As I said before though, with all the QBs flying up the board, Nelson could possibly fall to us. Denzel Ward stands a better chance of reaching us, but Roquan Smith feels like a bust to me. Too small and unable to disengage. Chubb is my most wanted piece, but I think we’d need to deal up to get him. Again, though it depends on all these QBs and when they go. Barkley is a solid lock to go in the top 6, and there are teams like the Bills and Dolphins that want in to get a QB, so the trades could be fast and furious.

Darnold, Barkley, Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, Josh Rosen for all intents and purposes are the top 5.  Then you have Nelson and Chubb. I think that’s the top 7 on Thursday.

The guys we likely have a shot at are Edmunds, Fitzpatrick, D James, R Smith, or D Ward.

Since we nominally addressed CB with Richard Sherman, I’d go with Tremaine Edmunds. Get guard hel later in the draft. Then get a CB.

There you have it.   Clear as the LA basin on a Friday afternoon.

Yes! The 2018 draft is only one week away! Sure, the NFL has turned it into a corporate clusterfuck travelling circus that spans 6 weeks, or 3 days, or whatever, but it IS actually important. Teams are built and sustained through solid drafting. Just look at Pittsburgh and New England.  They usually draft near the bottom of the 1st round yet remain relevant. To see how not to do it, look at the Jets and Browns. They’ve both been near the top of the draft for years, if not decades, yet trip over their dicks just about every time.

Thing is, the Niners were dick-trippers as well under Trent Baalke. His predecessor however, the irrepressible Scotty McCloughan, has parked himself in Cleveland at his latest stop to resurrect a franchise. He dragged the Niners from the depths of hell with his drafts from 2006 to 2010. 2007 (Patrick Willis, Joe Staley among others) has been rated one of the best drafts in  NFL history for the past 25 years. He then took his services to Seattle, where he turned them into a Super Bowl champion by drafting Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman.

We have our new braintrust in John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan, and while the Reuben Foster pick looks like a trainwreck, well, we got something out of him. Hard as it is to believe, it isn’t especially easy to know when or if one of your draftees is going to snap and end up being convicted of murder (Rae Carruth, Aaron Hernandez), getting away with murder (Ray Lewis), kill by car (Dontae Stallworth, Leonard Little), or be your garden variety wife-beater (Ray Rice, Ray McDonald, Reuben Foster) or sexual abuser (Ezekiel Elliott, Darren Sharper). But I digress.

Salomon Thomas is still a work in progress, and there are solid contributors on the team from last year’s draft, but we do need more. Still have no idea where we go in the first 2 rounds.

Well, sort of. The NFL in its infinite hype-grinding death machine of hyperbole only releases the preseason schedule and gives out the teams we play. But not the order. So, they dice up every little move coming out of the league office with a hint of anticipation. So, we got:

The teams we play are –>

Home opponents:

• Arizona Cardinals
• Los Angeles Rams
• Seattle Seahawks
• Chicago Bears
• Denver Broncos
• Detroit Lions
• New York Giants
• Oakland Raiders

Away opponents:

• Arizona Cardinals
• Los Angeles Rams
• Seattle Seahawks
• Green Bay Packers
• Kansas City Chiefs
• Los Angeles Chargers
• Minnesota Vikings
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Our home schedule looks like what? 6-2? 7-1? We could conceivably run the table. Shit, that’s a fairly creampuff home schedule.

The away schedule looks like a much tougher row to hoe. Lambeau and Arrowhead (I don’t know what the fuck they call it now, but it’s Arrowhead to me, OK?)  are tough houses to win in. Chargers and Vikes? Not clear on what either are, but Minn is a very tough defense, and the Bolts can play very well at times. TB looks to be the only fairly easy game.

Away very well could be 3-5 if we do what is expected. 4-4 would be about as good as possible. Granted, even with a draft coming up, it’s hard to say what we will have and what the team will look like going forward into the season, but the wildcard certainly is in play. This season.

Since the draft is still a few days away, I might as well write some nonsense. As in why the fuck are people still railing on Colin Kaepernick for his non-violent passive protest? Eric Reid is now in the cross-fire as one of his first supporters, I guess, as he is not exactly jumping to anyone else’s team as a free agent.

Sure, guys like Miami WR Kenny Stills have received little blowback from kneeling, but he got grief during the anthems he kneeled for. His position is as follows:

People always want to make it about Kap. It’s not about Colin. It’s what you’re doing to him.

Frankly, he’s right. This country was founded on protests. Taxation without representation didn’t get anywhere until the protests were greater and more frequent. Michael Thomas, at the time a safety for the Dolphins (now a Giant), is still employed. Shit, the entire Dallas Cowboys team kneeled for an anthem. Malcolm Jenkins, Eli Harold, Olivier Vernon, and plenty of others have done the pernicious deed and still remain employed. What is the tipping point? Certainly Eli Harold is not anyone’s idea of an indispensible player> Eric Reid on the other hand has played very well at times, and one would think would gather interest.

Neither has come to pass as Colin remains on the sideline with his first disciple.

Funny thing is, as NFL attendance falls, both sides blame the other for the reasons why. For every guy that says the kneeling is disrespectful and driving people away, you have another guy saying the reaction of Trump and the blind eye the NFL turns to social issues has driven them away (hello Reuben Foster) from the game. Who knows? Who cares?

In reality it’s the incessant reviews, endless commercials, play stoppages, and the fucking endless stream of penalties on any given game. If you want to fix the game you do 2 things:

• Targeting (helmet to helmet)  is an immediate suspension and game-check fine for that game. Something needs to be done to protect the players that actually has meaning.
• Get rid of kickoffs.

Sorry bout the last one, but I’d say 75% of the penalties come on kickoffs and punts. One has to go, let it be that. They could eventually just say the ball goes 45 yards from the 4th down spot instead of punting, but I’m not crazy about that idea.

Go ahead, NoCheer. Gimme both barrels.

If you haven’t heard yet, Reuben Foster was charged with felony domestic violence for inflicting ‘great bodily harm’ on his girlfriend and for various weapons charges. He’s looking at possibly 11 years in jail. And the Niners track record of drafting pass rushers who run foul of the law continues. We all saw the Aldon Smith re-re-re-arrest the other day as he posted a 0.40 BAC on his ankle monitor. That’s enough to get 3 normal people wasted, 2 heavy drinkers fucked up, and one maniac thrown in jail.

Not sure why these guys are hell-bent to sabotage themselves, but really. Is it that hard to stay out of trouble? I guess it could have turned out like the Aaron Hernandez case of murder. Shit, even Ray Lewis was tied to a shooting in Atlanta, but beating women up? Really? How dumb do you have to be to throw away a career worth 10s of millions of dollars just to smack your girl around? Gangbanging and hood type shit is one thing, but beating up your girl is lame as fuck.