Forty Niners Forever

Well, we are officially looking in from the cold in the playoff race. All that good will and great division a conference record just flew out the window with this demoralizing loss to the Rams.

Hard to win when your entire defense is nursing wounds, but here we are at 6-4, 8th in the 7-spot race.

Yeah, there’s a long way, but no, we aren’t getting Bosa or Warner back. Let alone Williams or whatever.

At least we are consistently inconsistent. After our 3-0 start, we are L-W-L-W-L-W-L. We just had zero answers for the Rams today, and the Niners started answering the shootout when we were down 21 points.

Say what you will, but the offense looked really good but for a fucking retarded 4th down call and JJ’s fumble.

I get trying not to give up a bog play, but how many 3rd down conversions do you have to give up before you just send 9 guys on a zero blitz?

Whatever. AZ just goit rolled by the Seahawks, but if we want to have any kind of chance to go anywhere this season, they have to beat the Cards. I don’t like our odds at this point what with the defense just completely overmatched.

Well, as all our players slowly get hurt, no one seems to be recovering. BA, who was a possible starter before game 1, according to the crack medical staff, is now possibly out for the year. Brock Purdy and Ricky Pearsall are both minute to minute to hours to days to weeks to months from full practices, let alone playing a game. Fred Warner will be ready for the Super Bowl, and Nick Bosa is looking at being ready for OTAs in 2026. So there’s that. Yikes.

With that being said, and due to the fact that we are in great shape divisional-wise (3-0), and conference-wise (6-1), and even record-wise (6-3) I was a little surprised we didn’t make moves. For all that we are in 3rd place in the NFC West. We are in good shape but are we in playoff shape?

I just don’t see how this team can compete week to week with all these maladies. Recent taxi squad call-ups Clelin Ferrell and Robert Beal, and recently traded for Keion White are the latest replacement guys for the slew of guys who are out. Ferrell and White actually played pretty well last week, but it was the NYGs. But for all their suck, they have a very solid pass rush. And the O line played well enough to allow Jones to go 14-14 in the 1st half last week on the way to a solid win. With an actual run game.

Good news is Bryce Huff is coming back for this all-important game.

So, hey, maybe there is a chance. We limped into Levi’s South in week 5 and took one from them. Let’s do it again.

So, this is the deal. The 49er brass are in complete hedge-the-bet mode. No need to throw good picks after bad to improve the defense when we don’t know when our #1 QB, #1 and #2 WRs, # 1 pass rusher, #1 linebacker, #1 pick, and the various other guys on the shelf ever set foot on the field again.

So far we have gotten away with Mac Jones as our starting QB and he has done a fairly good job of keeping the team in games, and getting the victories. 6-3 is something I’d think the folks here would call success even before we became the walking dead. The D has been sporadic at times, and Shanny seems to be doing better in the red zone, but it is fairly easy to move up when you are 26th in scoring.

I wanted them to make moves of the low-level variety but I can see why they just figured, why even chase a chip when we have so many players down? A deep playoff run seems like a pipe dream at this point, even taking into account our 3-0 division record and 6-1 conference record. Both tops in the NFL despite being in 3rd place in our division.

Mainly because Brock Purdy remains off the field nursing his toe injury. One of course exacerbated by putting him into a game that was meaningless anyway. One that we lost anyway. But that toe has sailed. They created the jam they are in with Purdy.

Anyhow we are in the same situation that we were in when we played the Rams in week 5. A seemingly tall task that no one gave us a shot at winning. And that was before 5 more critical injuries.

Win this game, and our division record would be guaranteed #1 for any tiebreaker. Lose and we slide into the wildcard pack as both LA and Seattle look to keep their pressure on us the whole season. And we lose our tiebreaker with the Rams.

At this point I think the team really needs to make a mover to bolster the D line. Esp DE. Even with Bryce Huff coming back. He’s best when able to rotate in and out to stay fresh. There are a bunch of guys available including ex-Niner Arden Key, Bradley Chubb, Kavon Thibodeaux of the Giants, and many others. Hendrickson would be a pure rental and way too pricey. Chubb is likely out of their price range as well.

I’ve mentioned Granderson from the Saints as he shouldn’t cost more than a 4th at worst. And there are a lot of mid-rage guys out there. Much like the guy we just got. Keion White from the Pats for a 6th rounder. He looks to get a lot of playing time with the injury to Mykel Williams. And Bryce Huff should be returning from his hamstring injury, but they really should make a move or 2 mainly because of all the injuries and decimation on the defensive line.

Or they stand pat. We will see soon enough.

Not the prettiest of wins, and as usual it comes at a heavy cost as we lost yet another defensive lineman when Mykel Williams tore his ACL by merely falling on the turf, but the 49er offense actually looked fairly efficient and solid as they broke the 30 point barrier for the first time since the Lions loss last season.

CMC has become 1/2 of the offense with another stellar 106 on the ground and 67 in the air with TDs from both. Neither team was taking deep shots, but the 49ers were able to run at will on the worst run D in the league to the tune of 160 on the ground.

Jones was an efficient 19/24 for 243 and 2 TDs. The only black mark being a fumble late in the 1st half that resulted in a missed FG for the NYGs.

The D did enough to slow down the slow Giants offense with some pressure, a couple sacks, and stifling a fairly mundane offense.

But hey, a win is a win, we lose another starter on defense, and we get to wait and see if anyone gets healthy this week as we prepare for the very important Rams game.

Here we are at week 9 and it is a very crucial time for the 49ers. Another dreaded trip to the east coast, another dreaded trip to the stadium that took out Solly Thomas and Nick Bosa a few years back, and another attempt to try and build momentum for the rest of the season. At this point 6-3 would be worlds better than 5-4. A loss Sunday would be a big hole to dig out of.

As for the team, the two main guys (well 3 counting BA) are still on the shelf. Purdy is limited yet again, and Pearsall is a DNP entirely, BA’s window hasn’t opened, so he’s a long way off. Huff is out one more week at least, but Burford is back, for good or ill. And Dee Winters was a full participant so that’s good. Jones and Jennings as well are full participants. Oft-injured Yetur Gross-Matos and Ben Barch are limited as are DTs Jordan Elliott and Alfred Collins.

In other words, another day in Ninerland.

The Giants have their own slew of injuries, what with the latest being Cameron Skattebo, who had what looks like the same injury suffered by Fred Warner.

I’m sure Marc was psyched for this game, so at some point, raise a glass, throw a quick prayer, or simply give a knowing head nod to Marc, our friend and fan.

Don’t know if you guys saw the end of the last thread, but Marc (NJ 49er) Hadzimichalis passed away last weekend. We traded emails over the past 15 years, and he was a true Niner die-hard and friend who wore his emotions and his loyalty on his sleeve, literally, with his Niner tattoos. He was a fan, a father, a husband, and a good guy. And my son has one of his t-shirts that he made.

Wish I could post the pic he sent to me of him skydiving while showing off his latest Niner tattoo but he did send me pics from 2016 when the Niners visited the Meadowlands and he got to hang out with Matt Maiocco and Matt Barrows in the parking lot. Like I said, he was very passionate about the Niners.
PS. Totally digging that his son is sporting a Rathman jersey.

RIP NJ49er. You will be missed.

Yeah, I’m stumped. I guess we are just too hurt to play any kind of consistent football. Against Atlanta we controlled the lines and win fairly easily. Yesterday we were dominated ginormously on both sides of the line and lost pretty badly to a 2-5 Texans team.

Yeah, they have a good defense, but our defense decided to go back to the tried and true soft zone with a 4 man rush. All that resulted in was a bunch of long-ass drives that led to scores.

Still and all, if the offense could have done anything fucking right, they could have put up a fight. I don’t know. Purdy and Pearsall may never play football again based on “they’re getting closer” but I guess they are crawling out of the trainer’s room. Jones is getting tired of getting slammed on just about every drop-back and isn’t hitting his spots. The run game vanished again.

Can’t really understand how the Texans are sucking so bad with that defense. Seattle made them look silly with pressure and spotted Houston 4 turnovers and still won handily.

As good as Shanny and Saleh coached the Rams and Falcons games this year, they equally sucked balls in this game and the Tampa Bay game. Not sure where we go from here. Other than New York. Another sub-.500 team. Another east coast game. That seems to be a challenge for us.

. . . seems to be receding. Are we going backwards? Or are we in the math conundrum where the train never gets out of the tunnel? The theory is, when the train is half way through, you cut that amount in half. Then when it gets halfway through that, you cut it in half again. And again, and again. If numbers are infinite, the train never gets out.

Just like Brock Purdy and Ricky Pearsall never get out of the trainer’s room. They are halfway to the door, then another half, and ano . . . you get it. Both are scratches from the (WEEK 8!) Houston game. The good news is that Kittle came back and had the wherewithal to bring the run game with him on his return. And we have new injurries to Renardo Green, Jake Brendel, and Bryce Huff.

That being said, this game coming up should be a cakewalk. At least that is what you would think for a 2-4 team that is going nowhere offensively. But as we have shown, we can play down to the worst of them level-wise. They have a fairly stout defense under our previous DC DeMeco Ryans. 4th in YPG, and 1st in points/game. They defend the pass well, but that should play into our suddenly successful run game.

Their offense on the other hand is a bit of a mess. We should be able to shut them down better than they can shut us down.

But as usual turnovers and special teams go a long way to determining winners in these days of parity.

24-10 Niners

Well, add Bryce Huff and Jake Brendel to the injury woodpile. In a season where no good game goes unpunished, both Huff and Brendel suffered hamstring injuries and both will miss ‘a couple weeks’ per Shanahan. Didn’t see when Huff went down, but Matt Hennessey did pretty well in Brendel’s absence.

In other news, Purdy likely misses another game with his bad toe. No word on Pearsall but Kittle made it through the game OK.

Star of the game was Tatum Bethune. He being a 7th round (almost Mr Irrelevant himself) pick last year who replaced the irreplaceable Fred Warner had 10 solo tackles and called a great game as the defense shut down the #1 rush offense. Bethune of course is the reason that 3rd round pick Nick Martin has been relegated to healthy scratch.