Forty Niners Forever

I tell ya, if I was a Falcons fan, this is pretty much how I felt back in the glory days of 2012 when we left a turd on the 5 yard line to fall short of our comeback. Instead, Atlanta snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by blowing the opportunity to put the game away late by giving up a sack on 2nd and 11 form the NE 23. Of course the refs decided to put the FG out of reach by calling holding on the next play. And calling PI in OT was justy icing on the cake for the bullshit job of tilting the calls toward NE. If that play is PI, then Crabtree’s certainly was, and we win Super Bowl 47.

So 1st and 10 from the NE 23 becomes 4th and 33 from the NE 45. If our new head coach simply called 3 running plays and set up for the ~40 yard FG, the game would have needed much differently. Instead, it’s all going to be about Tom Brady. Blah blah blah. Yeah, he’s a great QB, but a pick 6? He could have been picked off 3 more times, including on that last TD drive in the end zone. He missed guys open, and his WRs dropped a shitload of passes.

Brady played well, but he’s no Joe. Atl’s defense was on the field the while 2nd half, and they blew opportunity after opportunity to salt the game away. Including getting the ball on NE’s 41 on the failed onsides kick.

Blehhhh. When NE made it 28-12 early in the 4th quarter, my immediate thought was NE will tie this, it’ll go to OT and NE wins.

New thread for the last day of the 2016 season. One that was bad, badder, and one of the baddest in the 71 year history of the storied 49er franchise. 2-14 ties us for our worst record ever, and we don’t have a QB or any offensive players to speak of, minus Carlos (ow!) Hyde.

That being said, at least we seem to be moving up from the dregs of the bottom of the barrel. The O and D lines are in pretty good shape, as is the defensive backfield. We need LBs, WRs, and a couple QBs. The Lynch hire may be a shot in the dark, but his hire got us Adam Peters, a very very good talent evaluator. Kyle Shanahan is a great offensive mind. So the onus is on them to quickly draft and free-agent their way to a decent offense.

And offense is what they need to draft. Short the availability of Myles Garret, who would fill a huge pass rushing need, the team needs to focus on the offense. Cleveland holds the card for that first spot, but they are looking for offense as well, so there is the possibility they pass on Garrett. Highly unlikely though. I’m still behind getting Mike Williams of Clemson with out first pick. There are no QBs worth a 1st round pick, and barely even the 2nd pick in the 2nd round. But this team has not had a dominant WR since TO left. And this team BEGS for offensive consistency.

We have 12 picks, so we can take our flier picks on LBs and such. Build the offense. Get Cousins (unlikely) or Hoyer and take a QB high next year.

I mean really, how would you like to be a Raider fan? Your owner shot himself in the feet again trying to leave Oakland for the 18th time, while both St Louis and SD lost their teams. Even Goodie Goodell is averse to teams moving around this much, so it looks like Prince Not-so-Valiant is stuck in his shitty stadium while the fans of the team cling desperately to some kind of Hail Mary from Ronnie Lott.

Super Bowl?

Atl 35 – NE 24

For the first time in about 4 years, there is excitement in the air around the 49ers. John Lynch may be a guy with no front office experience, but he did what hasn’t been done since the Yorks took the wheel and drove Good Ship Niners into a sandbar and caused more than a decade of turmoil and angst. And that is to get a real Executive VP of Football Operations into the building in Adam Peters. He’s a VERY highly regarded talent evaluator, having worked for the Patriots for 8 years as a scout, and the director of scouting for the Broncos for the past 6 years.

If anything, this at least proves that there is a chance that Lynch/Shanahan can bring in talent to fill out the coaching spots. Lots of names out there like Tony Dungy for D.C. who has ties to Lynch.

Works for me. Guarded optimism bordering on quiet confidence. The draft is looking better already. Baalke, for all his faults was always good at stockpiling picks. We have 12.

Well, wee needed a GM, so naturally, Jed picks the guy standing next to him at the urinal during the Pro Bowl. One John Lynch. Say what you will about Lynch, and I did really like him as a no-nonsense hard-hitting strong safety, but really, this is yet another shot in the dark by a team that is making a habit of being passed over by head coaching and GM candidates these past few years. The list of GMs is fairly long this year by guys that didn’t even bother to come over to the building, so this leads to someone like John Lynch. A guy with no experience in any aspect of being a GM, a talent evaluator, or anything related to football operations. He has spent his retirement from football being the color guy for Fox’s B team announcers since retiring in 2008. Yippee. He gets to learn on the job. Which leads to . . .

Kyle Shanahan salivating over his shot. He has said from day one that he’s balls-to-0the-wall excited to coach this team, mainly because he is the man. Everything goes through him now. Like his father, he’s a control freak. Which in this day and age is a good thing I’d imagine, from a football operations point of view. His GM has no experience, and the 49er front office is a clown-car of suits and bean-counters. I’d imagine at some point Shanahan pulling something akin to Harbaugh’s infamous “the men are in here” line to denote where the real power lies, because at this point there is nothing the suits can do. Not with 4 HCs in 4 years, and a revolving door/trap door policy regarding the assistant coaches and staff.

The thing about Shanahan is that as far as we can see, he is a very good offensive coach. And he KNOWS he has the power, so there’s the fact that if he turns it around he’ll be hailed a hero. And he has a couple years to play with. As with Singletary and Harbaugh before him, the TEAM is not as bad as the collective players are, and there ARE some good points to this misbegotten franchise.

The team is young.
The team is flush with cash.
The team has a great head start in the trenches.

The needs for the team are many, but We have a nucleus of good young players on both sides of the line. Enough to be optimistic? At this point, no. There are too many holes to fill before camp even starts, so we get to wait and see how both these guys, neither with ANY experience at their new positions, will do with the draft, free agency, and trades. The good news is the suits are pretty much in a position that they CANNOT meddle in any of the team affairs as there will be massive revolt if there’s even an inkling of meddling from the Yorks or our infamous red flag bearer, Paraag Marathe.

Not much to report on this, but there are 2 candidates that the Jedmarathe dynamic duo of dipshittedness have narrowed the search to. The candidates are George Paton (no not the general), and Terry McDonough (no not Terry Donohue).

The good news? Fuck I don’t know. None. The bad news? John Clayton reports that George Paton isn’t likely to want the job, and the word on McDonough is that AZ wants him out and would love to dump him on us due to his “hard to deal with” nature and him “not being a good guy.” They are talking him up to get him out.

Joy. Might as well talk to Mike Shanahan. If they get some dipshit GM, I wonder how long it takes Shanahan and McDonough to cross wires?

I think  now we have separated the wheat from the chaff. Pretenders like Houston, Detroit, and Miama have been dispatched with ease and alacrity. The remaining teams are the real deal.

The NFC matchup looks to be a high-flying offensive bonanza as Aaron (All Word) Rodgers faces off against Matty Ice. A fairly underappreciated QB who is having a phenomenal (MVP-worthy) year. Hard to go against Rodgers though as the MVP as he has the strongest will of any player in the NFL. He by the force of his personality and guts has won probably 5 games on his own that GB should have lost. It is very hard to bet against him, but I will:

Atl 38 – Green Bay 33

The AFC? Meh. NE at Pittsburgh looks to be a bit of a slog. Pittsburgh’s defense will slow down Tom Terrific, but not enough to win. I think Big Ben comes up small and throws a couple picks. Brady and co will do enough to take this.

NE 27 – Pitts 20

What do you think?

Or is he? Kind of excited? Sort of guardedly optimistic? Shit, I don’t know. We were in this situation a couple years ago when hotshot upcomer Adam Gase was 3/4 of the way through the door to be our new head coach. Seemed like a great idea at the time as he was young and new. Not a retread like Kelly or even a never-was like Jimmy Bag-a-donuts.

So, here we are on the precipice of signing another young coach with a bright future in Kyle Shanahan. He of the Atlanta Falcons high flying offense. Of course they are still playing, so nothing can be signed, but it is supposedly all but a formality. So was Gase. My point being, until the ink dries, it isn’t. The ghost in the machine (or the rat in the bell tower) may still have some wrenches to throw in the process. Least of which is to get a GM.

Eliot Wolf is out. He, like HC prospect Josh McDaniels,  used the vacancy to get a raise. I’m supremely glad McDaniels isn’t coming, but Wolf would have been nice. He was mad that GB didn’t let him interview for the Detroit job last year, but GB wants him to take over for GM Ted Thompson, who is retiring soon. They like him so much he’s gotten 3 promotions in 5 years. The guy on the radar now is Brian Gutekunst. In fact, the Green bay Gazette reports that Wolf wasn’t really considered because Gutekunst was the front-runner all along.

Sources there report that Young Jed said of Gutekunst “The owner says he’s Scot McCloughan without the drinking problem.”

Stay classy Jed. Jesus.

If last week showed anything it’s that the WC teams weren’t very worthy. The divisional round however brought some very good football.

And of course Mike Nolan still looks like an idiot for passing on Aaron Rodgers. Although Not so Young Sir Alex got close yet again to that elusive Championship game he’s been after since Kyle Williams fucked up so horribly.

I still harken back to the days we could have had Rodgers AND McCarthy but I digress. Rodgers yet again made  sick throw across his body under pressure on 3rd and 17 to give his kicker the (2) chance(s) to win the game.

On the flip side is Alex and Andy Reid fell short yet again. Always a bridesmaid and always coming up short. I wasn’t sold on KCs defense but they did more than enough to win that game. Reid and co fell short by going away from their primary weapons in Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. Pittsburgh is not slouch on defense but there was no adjustment to get those guys the ball more often.

Ahhh well. This just makes us look bad in the end. Both those QBs in the infamous 2005 draft  are still  playing ar a high enough level to reach the playoffs and at least make some plays.  I don’t think Rodgers gets any further anyway, but that was a hell of a game from him yesterday.

The cesspool that is LA just gained another team. The San Diego Chargers pulled a figurative Art Modell and moved the Chargers to LA this morning at an NFL owners meeting that was supposed to be to grease I-5 for Prince Valiant sliming the Raiders to Vegas. Instead, we get Dean Spanos greed-heading his way north up the same I-5 to pile more gold bricks into his already fat coffers. La dee fricking dah. These guys are compensating for something.

Thing is, both LA teams hired head coaches. The perennial sucking Rams hired an offspring of one of our greatest execs, which pisses me off to no end, in Sean McVay. Grandson of John McVay. The man who worked hand-in-hand with Bill Walsh to build the dynasty that became the 49ers. I guess Yed (Cabana boy) York is too busy getting hair plugs to actually hire someone before all the coaches are gone.

As that happened, the newly minted LA Chargers hired our once-upon-a-time draft pick Anthony Lynn, a guy whose name has come up a few times what with all the recent coaching searches around here.

The Jags hired Doug Marrone. No biggie in itself, but their cagey move was to hire Tom Coughlin, their original coach, and 2x Super Bowl winning coach of the New York football Giants. Denver hired Vance Joseph, the defensive guru out of Miami. A bit curious with the offensive struggles in Denver. Buffalo hired Sean McDermott, another defensive coach, sort of the anti-Rex Ryan,  who evaluates what he has instead of forcing his team into his system. Another odd choice, as Anthony Lynn had the Buffalo offense clicking, and now they need to find an OC.

Meanwhile, we sit around and wait for our under-the-cabana troll to do something. Still waiting for the right moment (weeks?) to hire that GM? There’s no competition to finding someone so it shouldn’t be taking this fucking long, Jed.

If anything, this weekend’s helping of football pleasure should provide a little more excitement than last week’s bowl of turds. And at least the BCS game was fun last night. Mike Williams stock should get a little bump. As well as Deshaun Watson’s. Given my druthers I’d pick Williams in a heartbeat and worry about a QB later. He can make a mediocre guy look good. Just throw it up high and he’ll go get it. Who will be the thrower remains to be seen, but there’s the faint hope DSW is there at the 34th pick. Might be worth a shot. I mean, we have no QBs signed for next year and we have to start somewhere.

At some point this team needs to draft for offense. The last 6 defense-heavy drafts have netted the 32 ranked defense. Huzzah. We may not be as bad as things appear (and that’s on Browns exile LB coach Jim O’Neill), mainly because we have a decent D line, and solid DBs. It’s our weak LB corps and lack of a pass rush that really killed us.

Anyway, about those playoffs. I went through much the same last year. I picked all the WC games correctly, and then missed 3 of the next 4. With that being said:

Saturday:
Hawks at Falcons – As much as I feel like Seattle is finding their sea legs for this playoff run, I think Atlanta’s offense will kill a banged-up Seattle secondary. Matty Ice for the win – Atl 33 – Sea 20

Texans at Pats – ‘Nuff said. Pats 85 – Texans 6

Sunday:
Steelers at Chiefs – Though I want to pick Pittsburgh, and they probably will win, I hate them too much to go with my brain on this one. Young Sir Alex pulls one out. KC 28 – Pitts 24

Packers at Cowboys – This is a very intriguing matchup as you have the old vet QB in Aaron Rodgers, who yet again figured out how to pull a Hail Mary out of his ass (and kudos to the Giants defense for their abject cluelessness in that situation) and win another playoff game. Dallas on the other hand (another team I can’t stand) looks very tough, with their rookie tandem of Dak Prescott and Ezikiel Elliott tearing up the league. Again though, at the risk of being wrong (and yeah, what’s ever stopping me there?) and going with my heart instead of my brain, I have GB 35 – Dall 27