And we are going the wrong way. The Niners started the season well enough, winning two roadies. Granted, the Lions and Eagles are a collective 1-7, and are dogshit, but I digress. I am a little surprised by the Eagles, but whatevs. Who gives a fuck about them? Coming home to the friendly confines of the Great America parking lot, with fans no less, the Niners shit the bed against two guys that have been thorns in our side for quite a while in Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson. Both games were winnable, both games were affected by turnovers and dumb mistakes, and in the end they were simply avoidable losses. The worst kind. Better clock management and Trenton Cannon simply laying on the ball and we could very well be 4-0.
But we aren’t. We are in last place at 2–2 looking up at the 4-0 Cardinals. Our next opponent.
We get to see if this team has any guts. I’m banking on Jimmy G getting the 3 week break, so Shanny gets to devise an offense around his new quarterback, Trey Lance. My hope is last week wasn’t a precursor of the style of play with Lance, because it looks eerily similar to the Jim Harbaugh/Colin Kaepernick 2-back clog the box offense. I don’t want to see read-option, short passes, and the packing of the box like that was. Lance has an arm and we NEED to exploit it. I don’t want to see Kittle getting killed on crossing routes, or Aiyuk ignored because he exited the limited range of Jimmy’s arm. Or bubble screens that don’t work because there are 10 guys up on the line.
You know, the good old days.
1st Q of the season.
Shanny has to pick it up.
AZ is a trip wire.
Definitely a rubber hits the road game. Offense, Defense, and ST all have to stop making fucking mistakes. We will see just how much grit this team has against AZ. I got us winning a close one.
I sure hope so. We need to generate turnovers instead of giving them away. This team misses Greelaw badly.
Matt Barrows from the Atlantic
Jimmy Garoppolo said if he plays Sunday in Arizona against the Cardinals, it probably would be a case of “battling through” the injury to his right calf rather than being perfectly healthy.
And battling through injuries didn’t always go well for Garoppolo last season.
There was a Week 5 blowout to the Dolphins in which he was removed at halftime, in part because of the lopsided score and in part because he was hobbled by the high ankle sprain he’d suffered three weeks earlier.
“You could tell he was affected by his ankle,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said at the time.
Three weeks after that, Garoppolo still seemed limited by the injury when he suffered a second, more severe high ankle sprain in a loss to the Seahawks. He didn’t play the rest of the season.
His current issue is to the same right leg — his plant leg — but is not as severe as last season’s high ankle sprain. Garoppolo said he suffered a calf injury — “It’s nothing too serious,” he said — when Seahawks defender Kerry Hyder’s knee struck the calf while Garoppolo had his right foot planted on the ground and the muscle was flexed. After the game, Garoppolo described losing velocity on his throws because he wasn’t able to push off with his right foot the way he normally does.
It remained problematic enough to keep the quarterback out of practice Wednesday, the day the offense first installs its plays for the week.
Still, Shanahan reported the injury had improved since the Seahawks game and it was possible Garoppolo could play against the Cardinals. The injury also didn’t prevent Garoppolo from taking the podium Wednesday, which is when NFL starting quarterbacks speak to the media. Shanahan has been clear — almost assertive — in stating Garoppolo is the 49ers’ starter and there is no quarterback competition between him and rookie Trey Lance.
Which puts the 49ers in a bind this week: Either they give Lance his first start — in a dome against an undefeated opponent — well before they planned to or start a less-than-100 percent Garoppolo.
“I mean, it could go up to game time,” Garoppolo said of the decision. “We’ve done it before up to game time. And it’s really just about getting the mental reps while I can, see where I’m at (Thursday) and everything. But yeah, just I don’t want to put anything in stone yet.”
Of course, the murkiness also makes things difficult for the Cardinals defense considering that a game plan in which Lance is the quarterback likely will look a lot different from one in which Garoppolo is under center.
Gamesmanship? Shanahan said as soon as team doctors tell him Garoppolo can’t play he’d rule him out for the week. But that hasn’t happened yet.
“Yeah, it’s always disadvantageous when you don’t know what quarterback you’re planning for, but if there’s no chance (Garoppolo can play) I’ll do that (rule him out),” he said.
The 49ers install their game plan for the week Wednesdays. Thursdays are spent working on third downs, short-yardage and goal-line plays. On Friday they go over red zone plays and review everything else that had been put in place earlier in the week.
To this point in the season Lance, as the backup quarterback, has taken perhaps 20 percent of the first-team repetitions. Wednesday that jumped to 80 percent with Shanahan saying the preparation will be “huge” for the rookie should he make his first-ever NFL start on the road.
Just a week ago, Shanahan was batting away reporters’ questions about why Lance wasn’t seeing more snaps per game, saying he was glad the 49ers had a starter like Garoppolo because it meant Lance wouldn’t be “thrown into any situations” too early.
Indeed, Lance seemed in over his head immediately after relieving Garoppolo against the Seahawks. His first two passes — including any easy one to George Kittle — were well off the mark and he started off 2-of-7 (including a 76-yard touchdown). But after he went home and reviewed the tape, Shanahan said he found “a lot of encouraging stuff” about the rookie, especially how he grew more comfortable as the game went on.
Lance’s final series, for example, ended with a catch-and-run touchdown by Deebo Samuel and an up-the-gut two-point conversion by Lance on a play he ran often at North Dakota State. In the event that Lance starts in Arizona, Shanahan said the rookie will encounter defenses and situations he hadn’t seen before, but the hope is that he can compensate for that with his athleticism, big arm and competitive nature — three of the main reasons the 49ers drafted him with the No. 3 pick in April.
Those were on display throughout the summer. Garoppolo was the superior quarterback when it came to operating the base offense and sustaining drives. Lance’s strengths were gaining chunk plays — with his arm and his legs — and turning broken plays into big gains. He said he liked Lance’s ability to hurt defenses with his version of “backyard ball” but that he didn’t want that to be the approach from the offset.
“When you can run around when (defenses) are playing soft zones, those only can hold up so long,” Shanahan said. ” And when you get into some of those situations — sometimes it’s late in games — you’re down a lot and you can create and make some big plays. But it’s got to be that type of game. You don’t want to force that type of game. And that’s stuff I think we’ll get used to with Trey and he’ll get used to with us.”
Odds and ends
• Tackle Trent Williams (shoulder) took part in the team’s Wednesday walk-through but was held out of the afternoon practice. Also absent from practice were Kittle (calf), cornerback K’Waun Williams (calf) and defensive end Samson Ebukam (hamstring). Alex Mack was given a veteran’s day off.
• Running back Elijah Mitchell (shoulder) was limited in practice but no longer was wearing the blue, no-contact jersey he was in last week. Instead, cornerback Josh Norman (lungs) was in a blue jersey. He was limited, as was defensive lineman Javon Kinlaw (knee).
• Asked whether the 49ers had discussions about just-traded cornerback Stephon Gilmore, Shanahan said the team “looked into all of it, but obviously we didn’t go through with it.” The Patriots had shopped Gilmore to several teams before sending him to the Panthers on Wednesday for a sixth-round pick.
• Special-teams coordinator Richard Hightower said kick returner Trenton Cannon will have competition this week after two big flubs — including a lost fumble — Sunday but that Cannon still had his backing. Cannon also has served as one of the team’s punt-coverage gunners.
“I’m looking forward to seeing that kid,” Hightower said. “I love him. I really do.”
GO GIANTS!!!!!!
Again, if Kyle starts Jimmy G, he should be canned immediately.
George “Brittle “Kittle goes on IR with a calf injury out 3 games as the hits keep on coming!
We just can’t seem to get a break. Fucking calf injuries, I don’t get it.
Last year was ACLs.This year is calfs. Calves?
Fuck it. Got to win this game tomorrow. All about the offense.
New thread is up