. . . of history. Well, we all saw what we saw. A young team make enough mistakes to blow a game they very well should have won. The problem is, the biggest mistakes were by a couple of vets. namely Alfred Morris and Pierre Garćon. Morris actually fumbled on two consecutive plays on the 2 yard line. He of course lost the 2nd one. Garćon dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone a couple drives later to end another drive.
Add to that a drop by Dante Pettis in the end zone that he should have fought for, and a perfectly thrown ball to George Kittle that he misjudged and dropped for a would-be 80 yard score. That mistake was followed by a bigger mistake when Kendrick Bourne ran a hitch instead of an under route, and the ball went inside instead of out for an easy pick 6, and Garoppolo missing a wide open Kittle in the end zone late to settle for another red zone field goal.
The defense played well enough to win this game, but the offense didn’t. Still and all, after the mistakes and fuckups, they still had a shot late to tie. Jimmy ended that thought with a throw into triple coverage.
The good news is the pass rush was solid early, and the defense did its job for the most part.We held their run game in check, and stopped their dink-and-dunk offense well enough to win this one. Minnesota is no offensive juggernaut, but the offense left them hanging more than a few times with the turnovers and missed opportunities. Kittle and Pettis, but for their drops, still both had solid games as Pettis caught a prefect pass from Garoppolo in the back of the end zone for the only 49er TD in the 3rd quarter, and Kittle had 5 catches for 90 yards. 6 for 170 would have been a lot nicer though.
The hope here is that this will be a learning experience. The team HAS to execute much better in the red zone. And they have to stop with the mental errors. Solly Thomas’ jumping offsides on 4th down was beyond stupid.
We come home next weekend for a battle with the Detroit Lions. Hoping for a much better result. Go Raiders! It would be something to see every NFC West team lose in the first week.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
Let’s hope next week we see more Rodgers-like play instead of Favre-like . . .
I rewatched the game and have to concede that Kittle should have caught the ball at the start of the third quarter. He appeared to stumble and/or misjudge the ball and admitted as much after the game. I don’t know if it would’ve gone for the full 80, but it would’ve been a huge chunk play regardless and put Jimmy G over 300 yds for the day all told.
Bourne also admitted after the game that he ran the wrong route on the pick-6 play, something we didn’t know at the time and which Chuck mentioned above. So JG is off the hook for both of those plays. Yes, I came down on him pretty hard yesterday. I don’t watch these games calmly with a cup of tea in my lap, I get into them, probably too much, so it took calming down and watching the game again to sort everything out.
But JG did make a lot of really poor throws. Sometimes his teammates bailed him out and sometimes they couldn’t. The endzone miss to Kittle was one of his worst of the day. It did not go through Kittle’s hand, he barely got the fingertips of his right hand on the ball. The pass was thrown hard and too high. Kittle is up to 250 pounds now and can’t leap quite like he could before, per his own admission. JG also missed him on a wide open seam route at 11:00 of the 4th quarter that would’ve gone for 6, but he had some serious pressure on that one and had to rush the throw. The second pick on a pass to Pettis was awful (14:37 of the 4th quarter) and he had no pressure on that one.
Pettis also stated that he has to go up for the ball that Waynes ended up knocking away. That was a perfectly thrown pass and, in the NFL, HAS to get caught for the TD. Given how good he looked on other plays, I thing Pettis will get that stuff figured out. Any player’s first game in the league has to be quite the spectacle. He runs great routes and has great hands.
Especially concerning was JG’s proclivity for forcing the ball into coverage, including the final pick. That has to change and I’m confident it will. His OL also wasn’t very good after the injuries, and before several times, so fingers crossed that the injuries aren’t as bad as they first looked. Garnett called himself “a warrior” after the game (Pffffft), so I expect him to be available on Sunday. Person didn’t seem overly concerned either. OL depth could really be an issue this year, because Gilliam was not very good yesterday.
The good news is that McGlinchey played a nice game at tackle and had enough moxie to move over in a pinch and play guard, a position he said he’s never played before, at any level. I get the feeling this guy is going to turn out to be one of the best. He’s almost too good to be true, but I’ll take that.
Don’t you just love LJ’s verbosity?! lulz
As for D, there was a lot of good stuff there, but the myriad missed tackles and blown coverages has to get better and it seemed to as the game wore on, which is a great sign. Warner was a revelation and I can’t wait to see him out there with Rueben. Those two could wreak some serious havoc. Speed to burn.
QB pressure was inconsistent after the first quarter, but MN 3-and-out four straight times in the 4th quarter, so there’s not much to complain about there. They gave the team every chance to win the game. Outside of Thomas’ insanely stupid offside gaffe, there was a lot to be happy about defensively. Good fight, and no quit on either side of the ball.
I hope like hell that Quise can heal up quickly. Injured on a play that wasn’t even going to him. It was encouraging seeing him move around on the sideline, but those deep contusions are incredibly painful and his legs are his game. It always seems like our best guys are the ones getting hurt.
We will probably see a Jimmy G interception in every game. He just takes chances and in the long run I think it will pay off for us. It does make the game interesting and to me it’s better football than rolling right and thowing it out of bounds (all the time aka alex smith),
And Russell Wilson, king of the throwaway. Interceptions are also often back-breakers in the NFL, just like any other turnover, so I’m not sure why that’s a good thing. 16 picks a year? Doable if he’s putting up 30-40 TD’s, but that’s a lot of TD passes.
I agree interceptions are not good and game changers, I am just saying the style of ball Jimmy plays is often throwing into coverage, some are gonna get picked. I never said it was a good thing.
I should’ve said “an acceptable thing.” I don’t think it is, gunslinger or not.
Yeah, we are learning on the fly. Like I said, I’m very pleased we didn’t shoot ourselves with stupid penalties. Except for, well you know. The pisser is that used to never be called if the guy didn’t make contact with the opposite guy, and got back before the snap.
Be that as it may, fix the fixable problems, and we should be in good shape.
And yeah I don’t sit quietly sipping tea, both my son and I were swearing at the walls, but the pick 6 was an obvious miscommunication. As for the drops and misses? they happen. But they have been happening to the Niners way too much even before the current regime.
Hah, that’s pretty much me to a T. Makes my cat nervous sometimes. I try to convince him I’m yelling at the TV, not him.
I have the 49er app, good article called 10 take always from the game. Too long to copy and paste. Go check it out
Found the web page
https://www.49ers.com/news/10-takeaways-vikings-24-49ers-16-in-week-1
A pick a game might be a bit excessive, but Jimmy G needs to do a better job of knowing when not to make a throw. He CAN hit tight windows, but the high and wide slant was an easy pick. As was the downfield one.
Pretty sure there will be a few games without picks. Most QB’s get between 14/16 a season.
I think we’re all hoping he’ll end up being a lot better than most QB’s. He’s being paid like a franchise QB, so he needs to play that way. Personally, I’m ready for the next in line after Montana and Young.
I think he’ll bounce back in a big way this week against what looks to be a much weaker Lions team.
I think we need to remember this kid has 7 starts. He clearly has the arm talent and mostly makes good decisions but only experience improves the decision making process. I think you are being way too judgmental based on his contract instead of based on his experience. I can’t think of many QB’s who have started out as well as this kid has so far.
5 picks in 6 games last year,3 to start this year.Yeah it’s alarming but he’s a gunslinger like Farve used to be, so you take the good with the bad at times..
That line can pretty quickly turn into an excuse. There were plenty of times over the years when Favre was flat out awful. JG is also nowhere near as mobile as Favre was, so he needs to play his own game, make good decisions and be accurate.
I’m hoping for more Rodgers and less Favre!
Shit I already said that. I looked for it and couldn’t find it. Duh.
As of now though Goodwin is questionable for next week. As are Person and Garnett. Person’s injury didn’t look as bad, but who knows at this point?
The official injury report comes out tomorrow so we’ll see.
The Lions finish the half with -2 yards total offense. A record in the making?
oops 1st qtr
Darnold is looking pretty good so far.
He’ll get a real chance here after the Lions 10 pt. comeback.
Based on what I’m seeing tonight, the Lions are in for a serious beatdown on Sunday. The Jets are kicking their ass right now.
They’re pros with some pride. They will not play like this next week.
And they’ll still probably get beat down.
They hopefully won’t have a choice.
I was mostly happy with what I saw from the 49ers. The D-line was stout against the run and OK in pass rush. Fred Warner looked fantastic, Pettis looked good.
The biggest problem I saw was that the Minnesota defense was excellent and caused us to make a lot of mistakes. We shot ourselves in the foot many times but their defense had something to do with many of the mistakes. You make a little mistake against most defenses and you go to the next play, vs the Vikings it is magnified. Like fumbling at the 1 yard line. We needed that TD badly.
I told my friend I was watching the game with that the WR ran the wrong route as soon as they showed the replay on the pick 6. The WR did not read the all out blitz. He should have been the ‘hot’ and he went outside. When Kittle was running with his arms up and barely missed the huge gain I immediately said that was a perfect pass, he miss-judged the ball. Putting his arms up too soon slowed him down a half step. I did not think Pettis dropped that TD, I thought it was a nice play by the DB. He could have high pointed the ball better but it is his first game. I thought he did very well. Garcon’s drop should have been a pass interference call. He got hit well before the ball got to him.
Jimmy missed a couple of throws but their receivers were catching the same balls our WRs were not catching. I think JG was off a little because he was under a lot of pressure and was hit often. I thought he handled it OK, he did not fall apart, he just could not get much help from his teammates. One must remember, this is only his 8the start and defenses have a whole fresh off season to get the book written on him. I believe he will be a fantastic QB.
Overall, I’m OK with what happened yesterday. It was a great acid test and we were still in it at the end. I see JG more of a timing QB than a gunslinger. He does have a little gunslinger in him but he is mostly a tactician. You give a little time for the QB and receivers to learn each other’s tendencies and watch out.
I’m more worried about our DC allowing wide open safety valves out of the backfield too often.
I agree with almost all of that. I mentioned the Favre gunslinger bit only in the risk/reward area, meaning he is very confident he can fit it in. I agree he is more cerebral than just a gunslinger and he looks like the real thing to me.
True. A lot of what looks like gunslinger/taking chances is nothing more than some of the receivers not being at their spot. Once they get on the same page it will look pretty!
telling stat, which kept us in the game was Minn 0-6 on 3rd downs in the 4th quarter. For all the smoke getting blown their way, they sucked late.
Even after Solly’s gaffe, they only ran 30-35 seconds off the clock, with the inexplicable incomplete pass on third down.. The Niners still had about 2 minutes, so yeah they sucked in the 4th quarter.
I thought the D line rotation was excellent. If you add the 8 minute offensive drive in the 2nd half, our D-line was fresh in the 4th quarter. Chuck’s comment reminded me to mention this.
I have to amend what I said earlier about most QB’s and interceptions it’s not 14/16 even though a lot had those numbers it’s more like between 8/13. I hope the fucking Raiders can pull this one off.
Carr looked pedestrian tonight with the endzone pick, the late pick-6 and 3 overall and some mediocre play in the 2nd half. Stafford threw 4 picks and the Lions 5 overall. Jimmy G certainly didn’t have the worst opening game of the QB’s in the league. The Lambs are going to be a problem. They didn’t even play all that well and are walking away with the win.
The Raiders suck. Like Buffalo, they are not much of an indicator of anything. They have no defense, and are only going to beat shitty teams. They lost too many pieces. They will be lucky to get to .500. And Chucky gets his $100 million for riding herd over the fiasco. Prince Valiant may be the first owner in a loooong time to fold his franchise due to stupidity and greed. Paying Gruden and not paying Mack is ludicrous.
Yeah, Sunday’s game is a reminder that this is a young team finding its way. The hope is they do find their way this year and string together some wins. Still very optimistic but I hope we avoid any more serious injuries
Yeah, with so many new faces it might take awhile to really click. Once again our O-line is in trouble. I like what I have seen so far. This team could go far with a couple of brakes. I am so glad we got Jimmy instead of 90% of the other QB’s. Now that he has tasted losing I think we can get down to business.
I’n optimistic too and excited to see how the team improves over the course of the season. Just listening to Kyle in the video below is enough to give you confidence about the team. He’s on it and so is Lynch. I agree about the injuries. So far they haven’t been good and they always seem to happen in key positions. The OL is once again on shaky ground.
I think we get the first win of the year Sunday. The Lions may bounce back, but I don’t care how professional or prideful they are, they’re also not very good and the Niners will be at home and champing at the bit to put the Vikings game behind them. I’m sure the Lions will play tough, but they’re staring 0-2 right in the face. 31-20 49ers.
New thread is up . . .