. . . and the 2022 football season has begun! This is gonna be a crazy season what with a ton of player movement and lots of story lines. Von Miller is in Buffalo, DaVante Adams reunites with fellow Bulldog Derek Carr, Baker Mayfield to the Panthers, Mitchell Trubiscuit to the Steelers, Wetz to the Foreskins, AJ Brown (!!!) to the Eagles, Russell Wilson to the Broncos, on and on.
We of course have our new QB Trey Lance, and our guy who we can’t miss because he won’t go away, Jimmy Garoppolo.
On the line, Spencer Burford is playing very well, and hopefully 2nd year guy Aaron Banks will solidify the middle, along with whoever we put at center.
As far as this season goes, I can’t wait. I think this team right now is about as good as we have been in a long long time. I never felt that way with Jimmy G manning the QB spot. Will Lance soar over the game-management plodding passing game of Jimmy G? Well, the weapons we have seem to say yes. Deebo is back. Aiyuk is tearing up camp and kicking ass. We have speedster Danny Gray, Late-bloomer Jauan Jennings, and of course George Kittle. Elijah Mitchell, and rook Davis-Price should lead the way at RB.
The D looks even better than the last 5 years as we finally have a deep secondary. Charvarious Ward is a bona fide Press cover corner, Moseley is in top form, Jimmie Ward is still bringing it, and Hufanga’s play allowed the departure of Jaquiski (oooops) Tartt. If Verrett bnrings anything he’s found money. Ambry Thomas and Lenoir have some seasoning, and Thomas especially survived his trial by fire to come back strong.
Funny enough, I’m kinda jazzed to see what Derek Carr and Davante Adams do in Oakland. They put up Madden numbers in Fresno.
Another funny thing, Trubiscuit is sucking so hard in Pittsburgh, I wonder if they take a flier on Jimmy.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
I forgot all about that game. I tuned in sometime in the 2nd and most of the scrubs were playing. I just turned it off. Did see Nick play a little though and thought he looked ok. But throwing 5-10 yard passes are pretty safe. The Raiders just might have a pretty good run game to go along with Adams, they should be tough this year.
The Beater is on the Jags. Was hoping to see him in action last night. Good to see BY getting his accolades during the game. One of my favorite Niners.
BY deserved to be a 1st ballot HOFer, he is the perfect epitome of what it means to be a 49er past and present.
Congratulations to BY. One of the best and one of the best Niners. HOF no doubt.
I don’t know why the hell they let Arden Key go. That guy is everything we need. He provides solid depth and a solid rotational guy. Key can make plays off the bench. Not all bench players posses that ability. Sucks that we just let him go. Sounded like we could have had him for cheap and he wanted to be here.
I think Lance will be the real deal. Ok, I’m HOPING Lance is the real deal. I also hope Shanny doesn’t hold back. Weren’t there reports that he didn’t trust Jimmy so he’d call more runs because Jimmy couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn? I thought I heard something like that.
This team is legit. With depth. If it goes nowhere, it will be all of Shanny’s fault. For once I’d love to see them just run through the league destroying everyone in their way, especially the Rams. Just raw dog Mccvay.
Needless to say I’m like you. Excited for the season. Especially since the Twins are fading and the Giants have given up as well.
Congratulations to BY. Class act and one of the best to ever put a Niners uniform on, or any uniform for that matter.
I know I said it in the previous post, but I think this team is a top five team we’ve fielded since 1994. If the QB can play, there is no limit to where we can go. I actually think Aiyuk out performs Samuel. But that could just be crazy talk.
Adams leaving GB had to be one of the dumbest moves. Just ask Randy Moss or any other superstar that has gone there.
A little Trey from the Athletic. hope it works
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — As it turned out, 49ers quarterback Trey Lance needed the extra time more than anyone could have anticipated.
Lance, who proved himself as the starter to head coach Kyle Shanahan during organized team activities, needed every bit of the offseason to get right after a finger injury hampered his rookie year.
The No. 3 pick in the 2021 draft broke his right index finger when it hit a helmet in the preseason finale, and it caused issues that required offseason corrections. Lance got sorted out while working with throwing coach Adam Dedeaux of 3DQB prior to OTAs and again before training camp.
“This offseason was about getting as healthy as possible because we couldn’t really address his mechanics until he was fully healthy,” Dedeaux told The Athletic.
The broken finger wreaked havoc on Lance’s mechanics. He admitted that he couldn’t straighten the finger for much of the season, so he wasn’t able to properly grip the ball. And because of that, he changed his throwing motion to overcompensate, which caused undue stress on his arm.
Lance essentially had to reset his fundamentals.
“When you start changing the way you throw to compensate for a lack of grip, your arm takes a beating,” Dedeaux said. “There were elements of that for him last year. Not only was he dealing with the (finger) injury, but his arm would get sorer than normal having to essentially manipulate the way he throws so he could be more efficient.”
Lance began working with Dedeaux prior to the 2021 NFL Draft, and Dedeaux traveled to San Francisco a few times last season to help with his mechanics. This past offseason, Lance reported to 3DQB in March and was placed on a strict pitch count. They made sure his arm was fully healthy before he could really get into his throwing mechanics, which in turn improved his confidence. Dedeaux pointed out that health and confidence are directly tied together.
Lance was there for more than a month before reporting for OTAs in a much better place. He had the opportunity to monopolize first-team practice reps while Jimmy Garoppolo rehabbed his surgically repaired right shoulder in Los Angeles, and the second-year QB took advantage of that time.
“We got into the offseason, and the thought really was this is going to become Trey’s team. We go through OTAs and all of that, and he really just asserted himself,” general manager John Lynch told The Athletic. “Those decisions are Kyle’s. We obviously talked a lot about it. It was somewhere in there in OTAs when we just felt very comfortable (with naming Lance the starter). It was, all right, let’s do this.”
Lance essentially reinforced the attributes that led the 49ers to trading up for him in the draft. He processed quickly, made plays with his legs when the play broke down, showed command of a complicated offense and leadership in the locker room.
Shanahan’s offense is tough to learn, but Dedeaux had the tools to accelerate the process. Dedeaux recalled working with then-Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan in 2016 — going into his second season in Shanahan’s system — and Ryan noted how much smoother it got for him after that first year.
Lance, of course, was an apprentice as a rookie, save for a couple of spot starts when Garoppolo was out. It’s tough to compare Lance in year two to Ryan in year nine, but the Niners were intent on making Lance’s rookie season a productive one even with the absence of playing time.
And throughout this yearlong buildup, Dedeaux acted as an extension of the 49ers coaching staff to assist the learning curve. Dedeaux remained in communication with Shanahan, quarterbacks coach Brian Griese and assistant quarterbacks coach Klay Kubiak. And John Beck, who works with Dedeaux at 3DQB, played for two years under Shanahan in Washington, so he has also been able to provide knowledge of the offense.
It’s all been part of the effort to get Lance ready to start a full season — the first time he’ll do that since leading North Dakota State to an undefeated, national championship campaign in 2019. There will undeniably be struggles as there are with any young and inexperienced quarterback, but it’s a small victory that Lance has earned the chance to supplant Garoppolo on a roster that is still talented enough to contend for the postseason.
“He is everything we thought he was and a little bit more,” Lynch said. “Quarterbacks in this league who are playing for the first time, they go through their struggles, too, so we’re fully aware that those are going to come. But we believe enough in his makeup, what he brings to the table in terms of abilities, but also just his mental makeup, who are you as a person, how are you going to work through adversity. We believe in Trey and all those things.”
Lance worked to get himself to this point, overcoming an injury that was more troublesome than many realized. He now has his shot to validate the Niners’ belief in his potential.
“He worked hard this offseason,” Dedeaux said. “He worked hard throughout last year. Obviously now, he has to go prove it in live games, which he knows. But I think the goal of an offseason is to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Have I done everything I can to prepare for this moment?’ I think he can. I think he can look himself in the mirror and say, ‘I grinded all offseason. I’ve done what’s been asked of me, and now it’s time to go and show what I’m capable of.’”
I’ll say this again, and even Maurice Jones-Drew mentioned this on the NFL Network the other day. When he came up with the Jags, he said when you practice against a top 3 defense, you get battle-tested pretty hard just practicing. He said that by the time he wa playing real games against other defenses, it was a lot easier than playing against his own.
Granted, he’s a running back, but the point remains, Lance is getting a lot of experience breaking contain and making plays. It falls on the O line to give him better protection to work on plays from the pocket.
Good stuff. Didn’t know how bad the finger was, Winder. Which goes to show, these guys don’t tell anyone shit about anything.
New thread is up.