Here we are at the cusp of another San Francisco 49ers football season. The preseason was a mish-mash of success and failure. The 49ers played badly against good teams (NO and Hou) and fared much better against lesser teams (Oaktown and San Diego). The better teams dominated both sides of the line, while the lesser teams were pushed around by our lines. Good, bad, or indifferent, this trend looks to be followed during the season. better teams (Pittsburgh, Balt) should beat the Niners with relative ease, but they should be able to beat the lesser teams like Cleveland and Cincinnati. Division foes for the most part fall into the lesser category. There are teams that they may be able to beat, but aren’t top tier teams. Detroit and TB fall into that category.
The fact that the Niners were able to put forth a decent offensive effort this preseason has to speak to the coaching staff at least somewhat. The run game was solid, and the run blocking was there for the most part. Hunter was flat great in his reps out there. Gore got a few good runs in. Dixon was likely passed by Hunter, except in goal line situations. Norriss is stil on the team for some unknown reason. He did catch the only ball thrown to him. The passing game was a mixed bag. Mainly due to the all-out blitzing of NO in the 1st preseason game, and the horrible blocking in the Hou game. Against the Raiders and SD, the passing game was decent enough.
The newly aggressive defense inder Vic Fangio looked good at times and looked bad at times. Again, this was more the opponenets they were facing. Even still, number 1 pick Aldon Smith looked like the real deal as a situational pass rusher. Fangio said that A Smith wouldn’t start, but would be in the rotation. This is a very good move on his part. There’s no reason to expose hin in pass coverage this early in his career. 3rd and long, 2nd and long. These are the situations to put him on. The D backs even made some picks this preseason. More than in recent history.
Again, though, all this is taken with a grain of salt as SD didn’t start 14 of their 1st stringers (including Philip Rivers), and preseason is preseason. I don’t think they are as bad as NO adn Hou made them look, but not as good as they looked vs the Raiders or SD’s scrubs. Still and all, this looks like a team that is at least moving in the right direction. Will the personnel losses and shortened preseason overwhelm the strides the team has made? Can Jim Harbaugh save Alex Smith? Is the line going to settle in and pass protect? Can the defense stop teams on 3rd down? Time will tell. This team likely faces a lot of growing pains as it makes its way through the season.
Forty Niners Forever 
This is a work in progress . . .
I see this Season starting with lots of motion and ground attack.
Our OL is going to take time to adjust to the new system, however, a WCO should help them once Alex and the WRs get into the necessary rhythm.
Game 1, lots of Gore and Hunter, 9ers win a close one. I do expect Harbaugh to take some deep shots though, VD and Braylon will be a nice duo.
The blog, or the 49ers?
“Can Jim Harbaugh save Alex Smith? Is the line going to settle in and pass protect? ”
I find myself caring less about AS than the OL. Maybe I’ve exhausted all possible lines in the Great Alex Debate. But I want a badass OL. I really do. I hope these run-maulers can be coached up to pass protect. Wouldn’t that be the best of both OL worlds.
Once again, new season, high hopes, mediocre expectations. I think we will see progress on a week to week basis, and that’s all we could ask for at this point.
Hey guys. Thanks for checking this out. Yeah, The run blocking looked good at times, and awful at other times. Pass blocking is really a work in progress.
Welcome back from Blog Hell, Chuck. Should be an interesting game. Hopefully not in the Chinese curse sense. On paper, we should win. Of course, we thought that last year, too. Oh, WTH, once more into the breech?
Hey chuck, I hope Kendall “end zone” Hunter can find his way there a couple of times this week, and that Aldon “don’t call me Al” can pulverize whoever is QBing for the Sea-assholes.
nice site chuck ! like the layout ! this seems much better than the other one ! good luck with it !
ditto
I don’t know about anyone else but I am starting to really hate Seattle’s football team. In fact it’s almost taking on Ram proportions.
wow ! WINDER is right it’s really easy to use , much better than blogger !
cool !
Yeah, I can ban assholes easier as well . . .
Winder, Seattle is the new Rams . . . Throw in the fact that the head coaches don’t like each other, and you have the makings of a nice rivalry.
You KNOW harbaugh is itching to beat the shit out of Carroll. And he the same . . .
Let the asshole banning begin!!
Nice looking site, chuck
Crap, Chuck… if you throw out all us assholes, you’re gonna die of loneliness… 🙂
Good to see you back, Dude!
Nice blog, Chuck. I’ll try to keep the tom foolery to a minimum, until Alex Smith makes me shit my pants …. then all bets are off.
Hopefully, for Week One at least, it’ll be Pete Carroll doing all the pants shitting. 😉
2011 Battle Cry….
Just BEAT Pete……TWICE
“Hopefully” you’ll keep your gay winks to a minimum.
What Spit lacks with the tomfoolery (it’s one word you fucking mook) I’ll redouble with the Tom Collins.
Chuck– excellent job joining wordpress. If you need any help figuring out how to ban certain words, phrases, names, IP addresses etc just hit me up on email. Once you get rid of all those dumb shit talkers who blabber on and on about the same shit for months on end, you might actually get some people to come back here regularly. I will put your link back in my blogroll right now……..
Tom foolery is the guy who almost destroyed the last blog. I’ll keep him in check. The other is “tomfoolery” and those are basic shenanigans, which I’m clearly too good for. BTW, Del, very well played last night sticking me in the 9th slot and then going to the bathroom. “Silly me.” However, you could stick me in the 19th hole (please do), and I’ll still embarrass your squad.
Fuckin’ Mook!
I wasn’t joking about the bathroom. I had just finished our yahoo! draft, and I tried to squeeze in a little dinner and take a piss before our ESPN festivities. When I returned from the head there were exactly three seconds left on my 1st rd pick. I had no idea I was first. You think I wanted to go first? Shit, only a fucking mook would think that.
Thasnks Flav. Yeah, we’ll see . . .
Del,
I don’t know about all the bathroom talk. I agree with Flavor, it’s not necessary.
The big thing about this game against the SeaChickens? Donte Whitner covering my fantasy football man child, Zack Miller. Whomever plays free safety better be able to get some shots on Sidney Rice because Tavaris Jackson will get outside the pocket and throw deep. Can the Niners stop TJ from getting outside and chuckin’ it up? Not yet. When the O gets beat, Jackson will get outside and that’s where Whitner and whomever plays FS need to defend against the deep ball It’s all about Niner safety play on D in week 1.
I’d be more worried about our corners if I were you. T. Brown and Carlos Rogers don’t exactly strike fear into NFL quarterbacks. Not even a fucking mook like Tavaris Jackson.
The pass rush, as it has been since Julian Peterson left, is the biggest concern. Jackson is easy to rattle, so the onus is to get to him early and often.
The DBs? Well they are a work in progress. We don’t even know who’s going to be out there. Seattle will go deep early and often as well given the chance.
I expect Carroll to be pulling out all the stops as well. Deep passing, lots of blitzes, lots of misdirection.
Let’s hope the Harbaugh Era is something we can all be proud of
Was it last year or the year before? I think it was last year. We were favored by 6 in the opener to beat the Seahawks. I hammered the Niners. We got clobbered……..
If I was still betting then, the minute they came out locked arm ‘n arm in Seattle I would have called my bookie and put the national debt on Seattle. All the marketing and flash came to a head right there. That’s the Mike Singletary legacy in SF…. locked arm ‘n arm, military style, then it was touchdowns over the top of Nate Clements and Alex Smith pick sixes until the cows came home to roost …… and drink booze. Drunken cows in the roost makes about as much sense as Singletary as a head coach. “That just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
believe me, I felt like a fool for betting so much on that game, especially as the year wore on. I had to work in the east bay for a week that Summer (FUCK and DOUBLE FUCK the east bay traffic, by the way). I listened to a lot of KNBR. It kept my mind off executing some of the drivers I was trying to avoid. Anyway, I was struck by an interview Sing did where he was discussing Nate Davis and his deficits. He was completely ignorant in the interview. “He got dyslektia. I don’t know what that is or what that means. He’s dyslektic. All I know about is hard work”. That’s almost an exact quote, but it’s from memory so I might have some of it out of context. I was surprised that someone would mispronounce such a mainstream disability, several times in the interview, and then basically make fun of it and end the interview with more “work hard” bullshit. I sat there in dead-stopped traffic, hating my life and knowing I was going to be an hour late for work but not sweating it since there were 10,000 other people in the same boat; and I said to myself “Singletary is just flat out stupid.”. It was an epiphany. It was the clearest thought I could have had in
the middle of that shit-fuck highway. And then 2 weeks later I dumped on the Niners giving 6. So who, exactly, was *flat out stupid*? No need to respond………
Yeah, don’t get me started on Singletary. I can spin a yarn there, boy. The man is a complete douche bag of a human being masquerading as a Christian. It’s like Micheal Lewis’ agent said, “Yeah, good luck with that,” when referring to Sing as a players’ coach.
The big rallying cry for Singletary was that he was a master motivator, which isn’t necessary in the NFL. Guys are motivated. They want to win so bad they would rather take less to go to a contender. Motivation isn’t the issue, it’s smart coaching the players respect. And that’s always what it’s about. And then the man doesn’t want to fool anyone on offense, and now Niner fans think Frank Gore is fragile? Come on. No team wins slamming the running back into the jaws of the defense. Frank Gore is a savage. It’s all trickeration these days. I hope Harbaugh and Roman throw in some trick plays. If I was still a betting man, I’d take all the dogs week one, and maybe parlay all of them to the under. The short pre season probably means offenses are even further behind than normal which leads to less scoring and closer ball games – equaling more dogs covering.
Well, they are home for this one, where they shellacked them last year.
Del,
Do I need to school you on everything? TJ isn’t a short, accurate passer with a quick release who puts pressure on our corners. Tj is a hand off, slow release to find the TE over the middle, or get outside the pocket and throw deep kinda qb. That’s his game. The corners will have somewhat of an easy game. The safeties, guarding Miller and providing help deep against Rice, are the ones to worry about … that and Alex Smith sharks with lasers from two feet away. High and behind, sharks with lasers, slow a foot …. gee, where’s my program? I’m so excited. I’m already ready for Scott Tolzien. And no, I don’t want David Garrard. David Garrard is about winning now. Scot Tolzien is about winning tomorrow.
Fuck David Garrard. He’s not about winning in the past, present or the future. But I think this Tolzien kid has a chance to be a winner. In fact, I think Tolzien ends up a bigger winner than Kaep. I am not on that kid’s bandwagon at all…hey, speaking of another winner, I’m watching “North Dallas Forty” on Versus at the moment. Great flick. Mac Davis was just explaining to Nolte the importance of his OL. “You may keep me on the sports page, but Joe Bob keeps me from the obituaries.”
Like the layout, Chuck…Smith doesn’t need “saving”, he just needs a scheme that fits, he’ll be fine. If he’s hurt, just get ready for the Luck sweepstakes.
Why the animus for Garrard? He’s one of the few guys whose names get thrown out who is a respectable back up or even number 1. They currently have no one behind Smith who is ready to play in the NFL
This is gonna be a problem.
Don’t start… you keep it clean, I’ll keep it clean. There is no problem if everyone stays cool.
So we should all be like Fonzie? Fonzie’s great. But Authur Fonzerelli would flip a lid, bag the jukebox a little too hard and give Mrs C a heart attack if Ralph Malph walked in and said, “Alex Smith is winner.” All men have their limits.
See, you can do it.
Chuck, great job on the new blog . . . Not certain I will comment on the Niners much, but I may consult with you on my 2 FL teams (grin). See ya on the other side (i.e., The Flap).
Go Niners!
Hey Spit, not for nothin’ but, U need an avatar of some kind my friend.
A cute little green snowflaky thing named Spitblood isn’t cuttin’ it.
At least Del landed a Col Klink on Skeebs’ site, maybe Chuck can hook you up with something from the default vault?
Hey look who’s up there, Winder’s up there! I remember that dude from back in the day when I made the Insider my personal latrine and Kevin Lynch kept e-mailing me I was a very smart douche bag. Ah yes, the ‘Cider. What’s up, Winder? Aren’t you in Seattle?
Hey spit, good seein u. Naw, I like Seattle but hate their fucking football team. I have always been around, but i honestly thought before the lockout that we were finally through with what’s his name at QB. Anyway, should be a fun year, unless of course it isn’t. I still think Kaep has more intangibles than Tolzien but just doesn’t have the pro game down yet. But hey, I was the guy that wanted to get Colt Brennen.
Good seein’ you too, Winder!
I haven’t been real impressed with Kaep. I think he has a long way to go. The interesting thing is, whether it’s plan or by design, or it’s just because the front office couldn’t get it done with a veteran, it’s likely we see Kaep this season. Premature E-Kaepulation. If it’s by design and Harbaugh wants to get Kaep some playing time in the regular season starting a rookie at qb during a rebuilding process nobody wants to admit to, that’s a smart move. Getting Kaep a decent amount of playing time this regular season is important, even if he’s a long way from ready. It expedites the process. And one thing I always pay close attention to always is the qb interview. I think you can tell a lot about a person by how he interviews. To me, Kaep’s interviews are impressive. Far more impressive than his play on the field thus far. I guarantee you Kaep can handle failure and build off it without having nightmares. I hope Kaep gets a lot of playing time this year, even if he’s not ready.