San Francisco 49ers Forever

The bad news? The 49ers are going through what could be a lengthy stretch of insignificance. Sure, we look to be in a bit of a quandary with our front office, and the well-stocked team we had nigh 2 years ago is shedding talent like my dogs shed hair, but at least we aren’t the Cleveland Brown.

This is the good news. Talk about a team in the shitter. Going back to (only) 1990, the mistakes by the lake have had 16 double-digit loss seasons out of 23. This of course spans 2 separate teams and 3 seasons without football as the original Browns packed up and left the shores of their own lake of fire in 1995 and set out for the greener pastures of (!) Baltimore. Sadly for Browns fans, the Ravens won a Super Bowl 5 years after leaving the unfriendly confines.

The newly minted Browns got to keep their records and their losing ways.  Barring a trip back to the Otto Graham salad days, and not including the heartbreaking Rutigliano / Sipe years of the Kardiac Kids, nor the Schottenheimer / Kosar close calls among the Elway comebacks, the Browns have been members of their own Dawg Pound. They’ve had 2 winning seasons since 1994, and ’94 was the last year of a playoff win for them as well.

They’ve had their share of great coaches, including the inimitable Paul Brown, their founding head coach back in the AAFC days. A major figure in San Francisco football circles for bad-mouthing and discarding of Bill Walsh as his successor in Cincinnati. Which led to his hiring by Eddie D. Even Brian Belichick was a casualty of the Browns as the team splintered, crashed and burned as the move to Baltimore was announced after the 4th game of the season. The team that had started 3-1 went 2-10 after the announcement.

More good news is Johnny Eightball is starting for the Browns this game. Johnny (peewee) Football is trying yet again to overcome his own stupidity as he was benched following videos of him partying during the bye week.

I’ll leave you with Barry Switzer regarding Manzeil before the 2014 draft:

“I don’t like his antics. I think he’s an arrogant little prick. I’ve said that and I’ll say it again.”

Johnny B. Goode?  Don’t think so. Either way, it’s either redemption time for a bit, or another nail in his coffin.

In a fairly shocking (to me anyway) development, Blaine Gabbert is playing some decent quarterback these days. Granted, the Falcons and Bears aren’t quite the Seahawks or Cardinals, but even in those losses, the Niners looked better than the earlier losses to those respective teams. Not much, but yes, better. In the Cards case, the O moved pretty well but couldn’t score.

I guess i just thought Gabbert would look like he did last preseason, and frankly his whole Jacksonville career, where he floundered around and threw weird passes to no one in particular. Granted, being a starting QB for the Jaguars is no square deal, and he was under the gun wht whole time as the savior and such, but hew appears to be getting his game under control. Sure, he took some sacks he shouldn’t have, and this highly conservative offense is not reminding anyone of the 1988 Niners, but Gabby did finally hit a deep pass in stride to Torrey Smith for the game-winning TD in OT, and he did convert some nice 3rd and long plays. Things that were lacking in Kaepernick’s time at QB this season.

The line is playing nominally better, and Kilgore Trout is back. At TE, mind you. The run game, even with Gabby’s 44 yard scamper (75 total), was anemic. However, Shaun Draughn is proving to be a very solid find off of the scrap heap. He had a nice 26 yard catch and run on a 3rd and 5 play to go with his 1 yard TD run.

The Niners were outplayed, out-hit, and out-hustled for the most part, but the defense didn’t break given all the field position problems the offense presented. At times it looked like no one wanted to win this, but hey, a win is a win. Draft position be damned. This isn’t the NBA, where teams routinely tank for better draft spots. Football is way too easy to pick out the guys mailing it in. I have to give credit to Jimmy T for getting the guys somewhat ready for this, and to Trent Baalke for getting scrap-heap guys like Shaun Draughn, and Gerald Hodges, a couple of in-season finds that have helped this year.

Funny thing is, Gabbert was rated the worst BACKUP in the league at the start of the season. Now he’s 2-2 as a starter.  Imagine that. I guess that $2 mill a year was well-spent.

Much will be made of this game, seeing as the Bears coaching staff could have pretty much been ours had Jed apparently  not stepped in it.  Bears fans are encouraged by their 5-6 record while we are, well, where we are.

Jay Cutler is apparently reborn with his stellar 5-5 record. Whatever. The song remains the same in this one. If the road defense remains vastly incompetent, then we will lose big. AZ, Atl,  and GB certainly have better offenses than Chi-town, and we were able to throttle them. If the D can keep us in the game, and it could be our first roadie. As usual it comes down to the line play. Protect Gabby and get some pressure on JC.

Or is Young Sir Jed simply hiding behind the latest scapegoat in his brilliant attempt to fold, spindle, and mutilate a once proud franchise? I have no idea, but on the surface, this appears to be a good move to me. There are NO football people in high places within this organization. This isn’t a prerequisite for greatness, but it sure seems to help.

For once in Jed’s (or Denise’s, or Dr. Dorkian’s) life, I’d like to see him clean out the front office and hire a football savvy GM who can then craft the organization in his image. Not this hodgepodge of pieces and parts that got lucky with 5 years of high draft picks by a guy dismissed as a drunk, and later hiring a head coach to improve a talented but rudderless team. For those not paying attention (you know who you are), that would be Scott McLaughan and Jim Harbaugh). The current GM, Trent Baalke has not done nearly well enough to replace the talent that Scotty assembled. And Jim Tomsula  certainly isn’t reminding anyone of Bill Walsh.

Jed has done things like hiring his head coach before hiring his GM, hiring coordinators before head coaches, and, if you believe the pre-season talk, nixed the hiring of Adam Gase because Gase wanted to keep Fangio, but Jed wanted Tomsula as the DC.

Which brings us to Paraage Marathe. He has worked his way up the organization for 15 years as Jed’s sidekick and confidante. Is he falling on the sword for Jed’s ineptitude? Is Marathe really the source of the leaks, as proposed by various other ‘sources?’ Is he Jed’s mouthpiece for disseminating his leaks?

Either way, I’m glad to see him gone. And he will be gone after the Super Bowl. How this all plays out is a mystery, and Jed sure has a lot of ground to make up to get anywhere NEAR being thought of as a competent owner, but could this be the first step?

Let’s hope so. Again, this whole org needs to be gutted and retooled. Start with a GM that has a clue. I’ve mentioned Scott Pioli. Maybe there are others that could come in and do some good. And don;t say Tuna or Holmgren. They’d be nice as advisers, not GMs.

Hard to come up with positive stuff when your team is apparently on a crash-course to oblivion, but news out of the locker room is that the team is getting behind Blaine Gabbert. Paul Gutierrez of ESPN is reporting that the players are impressed with his taking advantage the second coming of his career. Granted, Gabbert is 1-2 in his short starting stint as the Niners signal-caller, but he has grasped the offense and ran it fairly well. His win vs Atl was against a defense with no pass rush. However, Gabbert played OK against two very tough defenses in Seattle and AZ. Not too many mistakes, but also a lot of not being aggressive. Gabbert has struggled with the deep ball, but this could be rust. he certainly has a strong arm but has left most deep balls short.

Both teams seemed to be looking past us, but that is neither here nor there. Point being, the Niners have four very winnable games to close out the season with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and StL coming up. Of course they are all on the road (except for the Rams, and Cincy at home should be a loss), so you have to think this throws a wrench into the best-laid plans of getting in the top 5 picks). The defense seems to crater on the road and play well at home, so I guess we just have to hope they get their rest and remember how to tackle away from Santa Clara.

Of course this plays in to the draft implications, but seriously, if they can’t win a couple of these games, this is more impetus to jettison everyone. I think this should be done anyway, but unfortunately my name isn’t Jed York. Who know how he will react to the team going 4-1 to close out the season?

It certainly wouldn’t save the jobs of most of this coaching staff. But that’s a given. My problem is the management. Baalke’s latest draft has proven to be another head-scratcher as the immediate needs at CB, O line, and ILB were not addressed. Wilhoite has been a disappointment, and OLB Eli Harold a work-in-progress. The young CBs Acker and Reaser have struggled. Marcus Cromartie, a UDFA who has bounced around Cleveland’s and SF’s practice squads, has outplayed them both.

Beyond that, the rest of the glad-handers club that Jed has built needs to go. They need, for once in their lives, to hire a football guy and not these bean-counter types.

Get a GM like Scott Pioli. A guy who was VP of player personnel in NE for their 3-ring run from 2001 to 2008. He’s been around the game as a coach, a talent evaluator, and a GM since 1988.

Get something right, Jed.

Shit, it beats the Blaine Gabbert QB non-controversy. Or where Colin Kaepernick (Philly) will land. Once again, the refs are the major back-story for a lot of disgruntled teams this last weekend. The Niners crew of Pete Morelli was dismissed from working next Sunday night’s Cowboys/Redskins game in favor of some backwater game because of their myriad fuckups last Sunday.

The NFL admitted last Tuesday that Sammy Watkins got out of bounds in the closing seconds of what turned out to be their loss to the Pats last week. What should have been a 1st down with 0:02 seconds left was instead ruled by the ref that the clock should run. Since this was the last play of the game, I guess there’s no replay allowed. Everyone runs away. This game also saw the worst call I’ve ever witnessed in my 45 years of watching football, and that was the whistle blown by the side judge DURING a play. It took a TD away from New England, and took the refs nearly 5 minutes to figure out how to fix. Which they didn’t.

The Niner game was yet another game in a litany of horribly officiated games, but we all know what happened there. I will add Bruce Arians’ comment, though regarding explanations for their multiple errors: “They were just running out of them,” he said. “It was a FUBAR on their part. They can try to explain it. They’re wrong.”

Now we get last night’s game. One where a very questionable offensive pass interference call on Gronkowski negated a 10 yard completion on a 3rd and 5 play. Seeing as this was late in the 4th quarter, this completely changed the game. Much like the phantom roughing the passer call on Quinton Dial.

If the NFL is going to keep the refs going in this manner, there will be another revolt similar to the replacement ref fiasco of 3 years ago. Look around NFL sites these days, and half the articles are about how bad the officiating is. What the NFL needs to do is either get these guys full time jobs so they can learn how to collectively and singularly do their jobs better, or put these game-changing calls under review. A couple more reviewable calls won’t change the length of games too much, and maybe these fuckers will get this shit right.

Either that, or the darker side of all the money swirling around betting, DFS, and point spreads is quietly altering games to their advantage.

Saw Mad Max with the kids the other day, and Road Warriors (0-5)  these guys aren’t. In a familiar turn though, the home 49er defense was stingy and tough as it rattled and shook (and was hosed by a shit call) and stuffed the vaunted AZ Cardinals offense. This one saw the defense make plays time and again, including an 8-play ‘drive’ from the 3 yard line punctuated by 3 (!) PI calls. The laundry was flying all over the place, and the Niners got their share of bad ones. They were pretty much legit, but my beef with those calls is Vance McDonald got called for offensive PI on a play that looked exactly like what Eric Reid got called for on Larry Fitzgerald.

Like the Chicago and AZ games last year, these calls played a big part in determining the outcome of the game. The worst however, was the roughing the passer penalty on Quinton Dial. On a clear shot where Dial led with his shoulder, he sacked Palmer. A typical straight ahead play. Alas, the laundry came out and dinged Dial. So, instead of 3rd and 18 from the AZ 24, it was 1st and 10 from the AZ 47. This lead to AZ keeping the ball for an extra 5 minutes, and the game-winning touchdown. On that same drive, Palmer clearly got the snap off after the play clock had expired, so the play should have been blown dead. Instead, he connected on a 34 yard pass down the middle to set up the Palmer score.

Sure, whining about the refs is all verboten and shit, but fuck that. The refs were atrocious. After a penalty on the Niners for 12 men on the field early in the game, it took the refs 6 minutes to determine the correct down as beleaguered ref Pete Morelli ran around putting on and taking off his headphones  trying to figure out the down and the distance. As it was, they got it wrong. What should have been 1st and 5 from the 10 turned into 2nd and 3 from the 8. AZ lost a down and ended up kicking a FG.  As Bruce Arians said, “I mean, they can’t count to three.”

The second FG by AZ was marred by another stupid display of ineptitude. On a pass where the AZ WR went OB and came back and caught the ball, a flag was thrown for illegal catch. The refs mistakenly gave AZ another down. It didn’t matter as they didn’t convert that one either, but things like down, distance, and basic penalty enforcement should be easy to figure out.

Throw in the bad roughing call, and the insane laundromat posse on the goal line, and you have a shit-fest. As is becoming more and more apparent, the refs and the league are ruining this sport with stupid rules (explain ‘football-move-after-a-catch’ to me again. 2 feet down, and getting hit OB, and the ground can STILL cause an incomplete pass?) and the random enforcement of PI, roughing, illegal use of hands, and many other penalties leaves me to think the refs and the league are looking to control some aspects of the game that should not be in their control.

time to see who’s staying and who’s going. Player wise. The front office and coaching staff should be jettisoned come Jan 5th.

Yeah, I know. Back to the trainwreck, back to reality. The front office is playing the rest of the season trying to minimize the extent of the losses, it seems. This of course is based on the fact that the team, when down by a couple scores, refuses to take chances on 4th down, or kicks field goals when they should be going for touchdowns.

The philosophy now seems to be for Blaine Gabbert to be careful rather than take the risk of an int. Don’t throw in the end zone when inside the 10. Just check that bitch down. The problem with this is, well, the defense often lets teams score early and often, so the way they are playing it is nothing but a slow-down technique. The safe route. You know. What Nolan and Singletary preached to Alex Smith.  To me, this looks an awful lot like they are minimizing the point disparity to bolster their decision to bench Colin Kaepernick.

No one in their right mind feels that the 49ers will beat the Cards, so I guess our intent will be to try and stay within 17 points. Yay! Moral victories are so sweet. Go Niners! And take Baalke and Marage with you.

Apropos of nothing, just thought I’d interrupt the hurricane of doom following the 49ers to bring y’all the news that the Golden State Warriors are poised on breaking the record for most consecutive wins to start a season. They are tied with the Houston Rockets, among others, with 15 wins to start s season. Better yet, they can beat the record against their down-state rivals, the LA Lakers.

A better team to demolish on their way to a record I can’t imagine. Other than them, maybe Charles Barkley can come out of retirement to get a facial from Draymond Green. For the past 1.25 seasons all we hear is that a 3 point shooting team can’t win the championship. The Dubs lucked out because they didn’t play the Clips and Spurs.

Know what? Tough shit. If the Clips were so good, how did they lose to Houston after being up 3-2 with a 20 point lead in the 3rd quarter, at home (gutless)? Same goes for San Antonio (old). If they were the team to beat, they would have made it through their preliminary rounds. Waah waah waah! Sir Charles can suck it as well.

What the national wonks, and most of the east coast media, fail to see is, for al the treys, splash brothers hype, and outside scoring this team does, this team scores a lot of points in the paint. All the dirty work that Bogut, Green, and Thompson (and now Curry) do on defense and on the glass. The offensive boards that the Black Falcon grabs. Let them all twitter and fume while this team keeps rolling and winning. After all, this is the best defensive team in the NBA.

Someone tell Sir Charles.