As games go, Blaine Gabbert solidified his grasp on the starting QB spot as Colin Kaepernick did little in his first game action since the middle of last season. Kaepernick also decided to not stand for the National Anthem to protest black oppression. Something that is garnering attention across the sports, and non-sports world. To me, this isn’t a John Carlos/Tommie Smith style protest. This is more of a look-at-me protest. For a guy who is ostensibly fighting for his NFL life, it’s curious to do something that will piss off a lot of people, including your own teammates. It might mean a little more if he did this in a regular season game as the starting quarterback, not in a preseason game as a guy fighting for a spot on the team.
Since he lives in a free country, he has every right to protest what he feels is discriminatory behavior. I just think this is more of an attention-getting stunt than anything else. If you want to help, donate your salary to inner-city charities. Other than that? Pfffffffffffft. He’s acting like he wants the team to cut him. Kappy needs to worry about fighting for his job, not casting aspersions on the country or whatever this is.
As far as the game goes, we got dinged up in this one. Ellington pulled a hammy, Carlos Hyde suffered a concussion, Quinton Dial hurt his knee. The 1st looked good as good field position led to a nice TD drive, and a swing pass TD. The D didn’t have some of their starters (Armstead, Bowman) and looked pretty good. They weren’t getting the pressure they had gotten earlier, and they gave up like 8-9 4th down plays, but the defensive backfield played another solid game. I’d hope that the starters will be getting more pressure, and the 3rd/4th down conversion rate isn’t so gaudy.
All in all, a fairly shitty night with the injuries. We NEED Hyde to be ready. Ellington is one of our only experienced WRs so we can’t lose him either.
Forty Niners Forever 
20 passes for 61 yards with 1 interception and 2 sacks
Sorry, I can only laugh.
Pears is cut, see ya.
Finally! WOO HOO
I like Apples better.
Seldom has a pear been so unpopular.
Good riddance!
Don’t forget a swift kick in the ass on the way out to the parking lot.
Let’s say they move to 2 pre-season tilts, and add one more reg season game, and another playoff round, in the next CBA. If a guy rips his Achilles in reg game #1, which would have been the previous game 3 of preseason, is he any less or more out for the year?…
Gorgeous day. We better bring this home.
great self pity song. lol
Pears won’t be missed by anyone here I guess. Another move. Brandon Thomas to the Lions for a slot receiver.
He had 69 catches for 850 yards in 2012 and led the AFC in punt return yds. last year. Has a return for a TD too so we might have gotten a serviceable return man as well.
Serviceable WR and return man !
Good move
It’s going to be long, long season if the Niners settle for “serviceable” players. Ouch!
Oh and Kap will keep on sitting. He should insist on earplugs, that would really piss the patriots off. And throwing interceptions will piss off his coach and the fans!
Like it matters anymore, he is the back up to Gabbert for Christ sake.
I was reading Berger and NJ going back and forth on Baalke last week I think?
Berger was wrong in one thing, I also supported Baalke here, for a very long time. The one area that always bugged me was taking the ACL guys with a view to building a future roster. Particularly when the team was solid and maybe a piece or two away from going over the top.
Reading today about trading their 3rd round O line guy Thomas to Detroit sticks in my craw.
Firstly, taking an ACL guy is risky. The argument goes that they get a higher ceiling guy in a lower round and next year he produces. Sure, but there are two caveats: There is no guarantee any draft pick will work out, in fact less than 50% do, compound that with the chance of an ACL rookie even returning to his pre-injury form before trying to earn a roster spot and we are at a 25% possibility of getting a return on the pick. That is low odds.
The Niners experiment has not panned out very well. Today they traded a high pick, a 3rd round ACL reclamation project, so another low return.
This is entirely at the feet of Baalke.
So there are 3 of us. Still, we are not going to agree on everything. Of course, I never have a problem with disagreeing, I have problems with somebody being a dick about it. I can’t see you ever doing that. We have a mild disagreement here. We wouldn’t have Dial and Tank if we did not draft any injured players. Plus, we just traded another of those players for what looks like a WR who fills a need. Sounds like 3 good selections to me..
You feel all the other ones that haven’t worked out, some taken highly, balances out and the risk/reward was worth it?
They could have taken healthy players that may have contributed sooner at a higher probability factor.
As far as I know, Baalke is the only GM pursuing this practice, at least to the quantities he does. Even becoming defensive about it.
I’m not bagging “hopes for the year” because they had a rough game the other day. That’s a little premature. If they can win 5 games last year with a shit coaching staff, they can at least match that this year with a better staff and more talent.
There’s holes there and there’s talent. For now I’ll choose to focus on the good that could happen. 1980 has permanently conditioned me for that. From 6-10 to 13-3 and the title. Anything can happen. Get rid of the detritus to start with and Pears is a good first move. If Kap doesn’t snap the fuck out of it, but quick, get his ass out there too. Right now he’s a cancer and that’s the last thing this team needs.
And rtfirefly, nowhere near 100 million people die every year because of alcohol, at least not in this country. In 2014 88,000 died of alcohol related causes in the U.S. Way too many, but an infinitesimal figure compared to 100 million.
GO NINERS!
Yeah, I just pulled that one out of my ass. The World Health Organization figure is extremely high, though, I was just too lazy to look it up. I do know that 1 out of 4 males in their physical primes here in The Land of Enchantment will die from alcohol.
My point obviously is the hypocrisy of the league. Its job is to make money, period. From that, you can bet the anthem will be a bargaining point during the next CBA negotiations. Sitting for the anthem just looks awful, bad for business. If it were good for business, the league would fight to require all players to sit.
“Hypocrisy” is the wrong word since the league is not punishing Kap. I was sitting here trying to think of how I meant to phrase that thought, but I give up. The league will be laissez-faire unless it costs money. That’s the bottom line.
More on this swirling Kaepernick national anthem debacle:
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17411286/alex-boone-minnesota-vikings-calls-ex-teammate-colin-kaepernick-decision-sit-national-anthem-shameful
Boone rakes him over the coals pretty good and Rex Ryan basically sums up what Flavor said the other day, about guys like Kap having all the opportunity and money they could want.
In the first episode of Hard Knocks, Jeff Fisher has a scene in which he tells the Rams how it’s going to be when the anthem is played and he leaves no room for interpretation. Stand and show respect or don’t play for the Rams. I’m surprised all teams don’t have a similar rule. Like I said above, players are employees working for an employer, and I know of no employer that has no rules regarding employee conduct at work or away from work.
You want to make a big political statement, one rife with controversy, do it on your own time and on a more suitable platform.
I just cannot wait for the next pre-season game! They’re so exciting! Will Kap sit or stand? Will Harry Edwards show up for some face time? Ain’t sports wonderful?
One player I really wanted draft recently was WR Alan Robinson from Penn St. Some of you might remember me commenting often to draft him. I am seeing he had quite a year last year. I wish I hadn’t seen that, I mean it isn’t like we need a WR, right.
berger- I think he’s the most dynamic WR in the league right now. Don’t exactly know where he went in the draft but I’m pretty sure Baalky woulda passed on him.
Allen Robinson went RD2 to JAX
We took Carlos RD2 that year
Carlos #25 / Robinson #29 – Might have swapped Picks with them? Have to look that one up to be verify –
Yes – several moves that made that happen –
http://tinyurl.com/jxn2gvg
Quite frankly, with Chip here now, I’d prefer he make the calls on WRs.
Leave Baalke to the Defensive side.
lurker john- I think the reason we won 5 games last year was because we played some really terrible teams. To me the Raider game said it all.
Just for the record I like Baalke and think he’s a good GM
12th with respect to the ACL guys, I see it as a GM putting a grade on the healthy player, (pre-injury).
Baalke sees the ‘potential’ at a reduced price of course.
I would however, have to assume the medical staff would weigh in, on the potential recovery factors involved.
Gamble?
Certainly.
But, if there’s no immediate need at the position which said player is Drafted for, it becomes a depth Pick, IMO.
As I stated the other night, Marcus Lattimore seemed the most risky to me, simply because he was a RB and, nerve damage was involved.
I think Baalke reached on that one but, the kid was seen as a dedicated, ‘all business’ sort of reach.
Much in the mold of Frank, who, as we know, beat long odds having come back from several knee surgeries himself.
Win some/Lose some I guess?
He seems to favor RBs/OL/DL and DBs in his efforts to stack the roster depth too.
He needs to stay FAR away from WR Picks though.
I’m hoping Chip can improve that position with his input on the Offensive side of things.
Maybe these 2 can have the relationship I’d had hoped Baalke and Harbaugh were capable of having, (once upon a time).
NJ, I understand his reasoning, I don’t see at as having worked out sufficiently. Looks to me like the Niners lost out on a lot of healthy pics with very few successes. This last one, in essence they swapped a 3rd rounder for a 5th and were lucky to do that since cut downs are here.
I think as a policy for drafting it has been a mistake.
NJ that’s the problem. Baalke CAN’T stay away from WR picks. Or QB picks. You can’t simply build one side of your team and expect to get anywhere. I mean if I (or you or Bergs etc.) can say Keenan Allen for example is going to be a solid WR pick based on seeing his college games, the why can’t they see it? They have 10x the film we do and more bodies watching as well. I get so tired of hearing that he can only draft defensive guys. Chip runs a WR-based offense. We didn’t really build that up this offseason OR the draft.
I think Chip runs a running offense. He uses 3 WRs wide but that can be interchanged with a TE or two. The alignment is more to help the running game than the passing game.
Agreed, running team with play action from spread formations.
Right. But we still need WRs that can get open and catch the ball. If we don’t have any WRs, then we will end up looking like the Jimmy Hat short passing game offense. Teams will scheme that shit away by playing everything tight to the line. No matter how spread out they are
Personally, I would have drafted Allen Robinson instead of Carlos Hyde. I even said it back then. Doesn’t mean I don’t like Hyde. It’s just that I watched Robinson continually winning the 50/50 ball match-ups and he had an over 40″ vertical leap. Some stat people got scared off because he wasn’t a burner. What I saw on the field was a good football player. I wanted him with our 1st pick, we could’ve had him with our 2nd round pick. IIRC, I think I wanted Funchess with our 2nd or 3rd pick if we did not get Robinson. He’s another win the 50/50 ball WR.
He went in the 3rd round for Gods sake. He was even coming off a knee injury. That’s his fucking MO.
Well, the hypocrisy tag goes to all the people coming unglued at Kappy’s actions. The idea of living in a free country means doing things that you believe in without fear of retribution. Tommie Smith and John Carlos took their very unpopular stand on the podium in the Olympics. It only took 45 years for the rest of the world to catch up to their sentiments. It isn’t the same fight, but it is similar.
I have no problem with him making his point, I have a problem with how he made his point. Disrespectful.
You don’t think there will be consequences to his actions? I’m certain he does. Are consequences for offending a lot of people retributions? Does living in a free society mean any action that is likely to cause offense should be free of consequences? He is not being imprisoned for it, or arrested. He will lose his endorsements and become persona non grata, both things he is well aware of. In short, he is reaping what he sowed exactly as he knew he would.
I didn’t say that, 12th. The only ones who really have a right to punish him is the team. He did it as a member of the 49ers. Possibly the league as well. The league MAY come down on him. But for what? Being a douche? Convicted felons get to play. As do any number of wife-beaters and drunk/drugged/steroid addled athletes.
I don’t agree with the Klan, but they have a right to hold rallies and shit. Offensive? Yes. Should they be punished for their views? No. Guys making the sign of the cross don’t get penalties, but the one guy who mimicked a Muslim prayer drew a penalty. That’s hypocrisy.
Again, I think this is a stupid way to draw attention to the ‘oppression’ of blacks or whatever his call is. But I don;t disavow his right to do so. The whole idea of we live in a free society yet we punish people for unpopular views (see Tommie Smith/John Carlos) is the height of hypocrisy.
I don’t think the team or the NFL will punish him. The free market will. His endorsements, sales of Jersey’s, signed memorabilia, his starting QB prospects, will all suffer because he chose a way to bring attention to his cause that is widely accepted as disrespectful.
Some look at him doing it as a courageous act considering he will likely lose a lot. I think that pales in comparison to the offense he caused to many.
There are a ton of avenues for a star such as him to defend a cause and he has every right. Disrespecting the flag and the society that gave him all he has was a very poor choice IMO.
I can only speak for myself but I am done with him.
LoCo Sr had an interesting piece on these events but I can’t put a link to it because a paywall appeared this morning.