Forty Niners Forever

The latest slasher pic coming to a theater near you . . .

And bleeding is exactly what the fans are doing these days. As the Niners play out the string of another lost season, the ownership group hides in the cozy confines of 4949 Centennial Blvd, Santa Clara, CA safe in the knowledge that they built a stadium at the cost of the team that is supposed to fill it up. Jed hasn’t said or released anything publicly since September 8th when he, at the behest of Colin Kaepernick, donated $1 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Yay. Good job, Jed. Since then however, your team has lost 10 games in a row, and there is deafening silence coming from the front office. The last time he spoke, near as I can tell, was before training camp broke on August 1st. Through the slide into oblivion we get nothing. The tiny bits of light are swallowed whole by mounting losses and growing uncertainty.

I’m sure Chip Kelly feels good as he either collects a paycheck alongside the rail with Jimmy T, or gets another shot with a team full of 2nd stringers. A no-lose situation despite all the losses. As bad as the team has looked, it’s kinda hard to pin this on him as there has been nothing of substance added to the team for 5 drafts. Say what you will about the coaching changes, the biggest problem is the fact that Trent Baalke is batting .096 in his last 5 drafts. He needs to go. Period.

If Jed has any balls, he’ll hire a GM and give him carte blanche to build the team from the GM down. Impose restrictions on what the Gm can do and you lose any decent candidate. Chip would be on the block, but not necessarily. Jed has to make a choice and sit back. Not diddle around and push pieces around the checker board.

Strange Days, Indeed. Say what you will about our kneeling non-voter who loves him some Fidel, Colin Kaepernick actually looks like he’s catching on to Chip Kelly’s offense. After a couple shitty games where CK was shaking off the rust of his benching and injury layoff, he’s gone 86-145 for 1100 yards (60%), 8 TDs, and 2 picks. Even with the 2 shitty games, his numbers are improving, and yesterday’s game saw Kap rush for 113 yards as well.

Frankly, they are in a spot where there ain’t any definitive QBs coming out for the draft in 2017. And the free agent market looks like Walmart after Black Friday. Cutler? Fuck that. Ryan Fitzpatrick Fitzryan? Uh, no. Romo? God no to the Nth degree. Trading up in the draft is a non-starter as there is no one that solid coming out. Mortgaging the future for Goff will be the death of the Rams. And they were the blueprint for NOT doing it by seeing what happened to the Redskins and RG III and out. Not that they had any life anyway, but they will continue to circle the drain. The Cards look to be falling back to Earth in a big way. Seattle is pretty fucking wobbly as well.

Believe it or not, keeping Kappy is the best option out there till this team actually has a couple successful drafts. Kappy did well yesterday with nothing in the WR OR TE corps and a defense that gives up 3rd down conversions like a creepy clown handing out candy to little kids.

Beyond that, if this team seriously gets Tony Romo, we will be the laughingstock of the NFL.

Well, Jed fiddles while the 49ers crumble. Not a peep from the pup in charge of the team. It pains me to listen to the Comcast guys as Dennis Brown sits there and says that Jed, Trent and Co. have a plan they are following to rebuild the team. Dennis goes on to say that they need to get some free agents and build the team accordingly.

Ricky Watters however, tells a different story. One that rings much truer than the ‘we-only-need-a-few-pieces format that Dennis Brown puts forth. Rickey said the 49ers are  where the Raiders were 4 years ago. Back when Re-Undead Al was still alive, the Raiders had no QB, a roster full of bloated free agent contracts, and coaches were coming and going like the tide. There was a lack of direction in the front office and no one knew who would be there one day to the next. The Raiders were able to get headed in the right direction by hiring a strong GM and nailing a few drafts. A few free agents helped, but the impetus was the draft that propelled them. Derek Carr and Amari Cooper being big parts of that. Throw in Khalil Mack and you have a nice set of pieces to build off of.

My biggest issue with that of course is the fact that Dennis completely disavows the last 6 drafts. Rickey himself said that Baalke’s last good draft was 2011. He said that ain’t cutting it. My point exactly. the fact that we are revolving through coaches and players isn’t an indictment of Trent Baalke, it is an indictment of Jed York. The massive stream of talent that has left the team is shared by both of them, as they didn’t do what they promised Colin Kaepernick when he signed his team-friendly deal, and that was to keep the good players here. It didn’t happen. They cheaped out and let Iupati, Crabs, Boldin, and plenty of others go.

And here is where Baalke is culpable. He did not restock the talent. He has 6 drafts under his belt and has gotten little to nothing from it.  Eric Reid is solid. Even Jimmie Ward is proving to be good. But nothing on offense. NO QB. No WRs. No linemen. He has been drafting defense-heavy for six years, and we are last in points allowed.

It is VERY hard to parse this in any other way than Jed needs to get rid of Trent Baalke.

The problem? Who will take the job with the caveat that he can’t fire the sitting head coach? We already stumbled over this roadblock when Jed insisted that almost-hired Adam Gase (funny enough, we face him on Sunday) was told he had to keep Jimmy T as his DC when Gase was set to keep Vic Fangio on as his DC. The deal blew up after that was laid out there.

Jed shotgunned the hire for no reason that I can figure out. It makes absolutely no sense that the owner would hamstring a possible hire over some asinine stipulation like forcing a coach on the new hire. Getting rid of Trent would impose another stipulation that the new GM MUST keep Chip Kelly as the HC as Jed is already on the hook for Jimmy T and Chip Kelly, in addition to the new hire. Jed (and mommy and daddy) don’t roll like that.

Beyond that, this is yet another game that I saw with my son where the Niners beat Miami and now the turkeys are coming home to roost.

NE has no pass rush. We keep up. Niners by 6.

30-24. Carry on

Damn. It was nearly 4 years ago that the 49ers rolled into New England on a cold clear Foxboro night and withstood a huge Tom Brady comeback to beat the Pats 41-34. Both teams, while still utilizing the same QBs, had much different supporting casts. Aaron Hernandez was yet to murder anyone, and the Niners defense was ferocious. Kappy threw 4 TDs/ 1 pick that night, to Brady’s 1/2 (221 to 443 in yards though) including the clincher to Crabs after an Aldon Smith interception to put the game out of reach.

Now? Well, NE has retooled their team on the fly, as they always seem to do, and won a Super Bowl. We have shedded parts like a redlining 1973 Pinto on bald tires rolling down I-5. We have a gleaming new stadium that sits half-empty on game day. It has the ambience of a doctor’s office waiting room, and is on the wrong side of the Bay Area.

But I bet there’s more people that come to this game as this is likely the last time that Tom Terrific (nee of Serra High School in San Mateo (Go Padres! Class of ’79!)) plays in his home stadium.

Is incremental improvement losing by only 24?

Hmmmmm. Couldn’t beat the Cards in our house with their backup QB Drew Stanton going 11-28, so coming in to their house with their team at full strength doesn’t bode well.

The offense at least got some yards last week, albeit against a shitty defense, but you have to look hard for positives. That’s all I got.

Cant even switch over to the Raiders to watch a solid team this Sunday…

The lost and sinking ship that is the 49ers is traveling slowly through the Mojave Desert (yeah, ships don’t travel over sand, but work with me here) down I 10 to settle down in the warm confines of Phoenix. A place that gets it’s name from a bird that burned up and was reborn as a harbinger of renewal and good fortunes.

Well, the Cardinals resemble a phoenix in its ashy state right about now. A team that the pundits picked to win it all, and one that I called to crash and burn, is somewhere closer to the damaged and crispy stage. They are 11th in the playoff standings at 3-4-1 and they’ve beaten also-rans Tampa Bay, the Rams, and us. Even playing in this weak-ass division, they are sucking. Their defense is still top-notch, but their offense is on the fair to dogshit side of things. Even still, we got beat by the backup, so there’s little hope here for anything resembling yet another demolition. So, even though this ‘contender’ was set to roll, they can’t even take care of the lowly Rams in their own house. So, they look to be in another long hibernation of 1,400 years when the phoenix shall arise again. At least that’s how the Bidwills are running it.

Speaking of shitty owners . . . The Bidwill family has been running the team for 87 years, and have 7 division championships, one conference championship, and 1 NFL championship. So, 1 championship in 1947, and a 7-9 playoff record under the Bidwills. That’s some serious sucking. They’ve had recent success, but they appear to be backsliding.

Us? Well we have a nice young owner who apparently has absolutely no idea how to make any moves as to how to run this shit. The decisions being made are bandaids on brain injuries, and there’s little to give hope that even if we lose out, we’ll have any success in the draft should the current ship of fools be kept in  place.

Go AZ . . . And Go Browns! Big game tonight for them. What’s funny is Hue Jackson had a choice between SF and the factory of sadness. They are a collective 1-16.

Woof!

In the inexorable death march to whatever this offseason purge portends, we have reached the mid-point of the season in worse shape than last year. Huh? How is that possible? Why? Well, a steadily dwindling pool of talented players is the biggest reason. Throw in injuries to what few good players we have, a revolving door approach to coaching hires, and lack of attention to the offense for the past 6 drafts, and the slide continues.

I have no idea what happens at the end, but if the results are going to continue on the current trend, what is there to do? 8 more losses and we’ve done the impossible and made Jimmy T look like, well, Monte Clark. Instead of himself, which is how the front office portrayed him  as they tossed him aside. As if they weren’t the ones that hired him in the first place. Granted, Adam Gase, Hue Jackson, Jim Harbaugh, or God himself couldn’t win with this collection of 2nd and 3rd stringers.

So my hope is for fly-bys, protests,  and more and more bags . . .

Yeah, this should be good. In what has become an inexorable death march to the depths of hell, the 49ers host the Norlins Saints. A fair to middling team coming off a home victory over the Seahawks. Which likely means another high scoring affair. From them, anyway. Us? Well, hopefully we can put together more than just one good quarter, and play something resembling a complete game. But I digress.

I’m more hoping for the paper bags to come out in full forces. My son and I got a pretty strong reaction from fans, and about 50 pic requests. So, I’m thinking it sparks more reaction. There’s also talk of fly-bys as fans are crowd-funding “Fire Trent” and “Jed Go Home” banners.

At somer point you have to wonder when Jed will cut mommy’s apron strings and run the team without Dr. Death looking over his shoulder. Maybe then he’ll start making sound decisions. Or not. At what point does he become a complete laughingstock? His brand new stadium is already 1/2 empty on game day, and fans are suing for their set licenses back.

Like it fucking matters, but really. At some point, Jed needs to act like he knows and/or cares about the team. Otherwise, he should sell the stadium to the Raiders, and sell the team to Steve Young and Brent Jones.

Bye weeks are no fun. Unless you are a 49er fan. Now it is an inexorable crawl to Palookaville. It’ll be interesting to see how the Raiders handle the Bucs. A team that the 49ers should have beaten, but instead reverted to sloppy ineffectual play. Hard to believe the Jimmy T team looks to have a better season than this year’s version, but that is squarely on the defense that Trent Baalke has been drafting for lo these past 6 seasons.

Other than that, I got nothing. This team is going nowhere. And it is going backwards. Everyone not in the building cannot understand why Trent Baalke still has a job. Unfortunately the only guy in the world that likes him is Jerry Jed Jerkoff Junior.

I hope to see more bags, and fly-bys, at the next home game.

The stands are already half-empty. It’ll be a ghost town by the end of the season. I can’t even get excited about the prospect of a top 3 pick if we have the same fucking idiot making the pick next year.

The Browns, the Niners, the (very surprisingly) Panthers, and the (NOT surprisingly) Bears look to be the scum-sucking bottom feeders of the NFL for the remainder of the year. Hopefully by then we’ll have traded Colin Kaepernick for Shaun Hill looking to return to the glory days of 2008.