Forty Niners Forever

I suppose I should wait until after the Chipper presser, but what the hell. The 49ers are in the midst of the regime change being brought about by the hiring of Chip Kelly. Reportedly gone are offensive coordinator Geep Chryst, quarterbacks coach Steve Logan, receivers coaches Adam Henry and Ronald Curry, secondary coach Tim Lewis, defensive line coach Scott Brown, defensive assistants Ejiro Evero and Aubrayo Franklin, and offensive assistants T.C. McCartney and Joe Scola. Not too surprising about the offensive coaches.

On the defense, Eric Mangenius is still here, but his time likely can be counted in hours as Chip is interviewing Texas assistant coach Mike Vrabel, long-time New England NFL linebacker, and acolyte of Bill Belichick, a close friend of ol’ Chip as well. Makes more sense than one of Belichick’s mortal enemies in Eric Mangini, he of the spy-gate whistle-blowing controversy.

Beyond that, we may get a sense of which quarterback on our roster will be the go-to guy. I certainly feel that Colin brings a lot more to the table than Gabbert, and as I said earlier, this could be a sticking point with the front office and the coach, but you’d thin this came up in the interview. but with these guys, you never know.

Kaepernick and Kelly met on Monday to talk things over, and I suppose we’ll hear something about what they talked about later today, but in Chip’s words, he’s looking for is ‘repetitive accuracy.’ the knock on both our quarterbacks could very well BE repetitive accuracy. Both had some success with short shit, but both struggled (last year anyway) with deeper balls.

Thing is though, when the 49ers had a strong line, CK played a lot better. the line did improve somewhat by the end of the season last year, but the run game was flat (being down to 4th string guys might have something to do with that), but not enough to turn Gabbert into anything more than Alex Smith 1.5.

Greg Cosell had this to say.

I COULD EASILY SEE GABBERT BEING MORE EFFECTIVE IN CHIP’S OFFENSE THAN KAEPERNICK. NOW ONE OF THE PROBLEMS THAT CHIP HAS HAD IN THE NFL IS HE LIKES TO GET FIVE (PASS CATCHERS) OUT, WHICH INCREASES THE PRESSURE ON YOUR QUARTERBACK. AND THAT’S NOT GABBERT’S STRENGTH. AND YOU NEED A REALLY GOOD O-LINE, WHICH HE DID NOT HAVE IN PHILLY AND WHICH HE CERTAINLY DOES NOT HAVE IN SAN FRANCISCO AS WE SPEAK RIGHT NOW.

Tom Brady has yet again rolled his way into the AFC Championship, alongside Peyton Manning, who represent the AFC in the Super Bowl for the 9th time in the last 13 years. Throw in Big Ben, and you have 12 of the last 13 AFC QBs.

• Brady has 5
• Manning has 4
• Ben has 3

Yeah, that’s 12, but one of either Brady or Manning will represent this year for lucky 13. That is flat nuts. The outlier of course is Joe Flacco. Urk.

• Anyhow, KC lost a fumble and lost their game. KC once again was waylaid by injuries.
• Green Bay Hail Maryed themselves into overtime, yet fell to AZ on 2 completions to Larry Fitzgerald. Unreal. GB has a shitty team that is beat-up as well but they nearly won through the force of Aaron Rodgers inability to give up.
• Pittsburgh got out-FGed by Denver, and their game turned on a late fumble by Fitzgerald Toussaint. Kind of a blehhh game.
• And in a thrilling game of two halfs, Carolina beat Seattle 31-0 in the 1st half, and Seattle beat Carolina 24-0 in the 2nd half. Nutso game that was nearly the biggest collapse since the 32 point Houston collapse vs Buffalo back in 1993.

Next week?

I think AZ gets beat, and Brady holds his spell over Peyton Manning. The rivalry stands at 10-4 Brady; 8-2 in the regular season, and 2-2 in the playoffs. Curious though is that Manning has won the last 2 meetings, once with Denver Jan 2014, and once with Indy Jan 2007. Brady hasn’t beaten Manning in the playoffs since January of 2005.

Odd, that. But I still think Brady wins.

This weekend we have another football extravaganza. It gets much more interesting with the recent catastrophes put behind us. Cincinnati may not be moving on, but Vontaze Burfict left his imprint on the Steelers by laying out Big Ben, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell. Meanwhile, Minnesota’s FG kicker Blair Walsh visited the 1st grades that sent him letters of support after his miss. I wonder what their parents would have told him.

But I digress.

Saturday, Jan. 16

AFC Div. Game 1: Kansas City Chiefs vs. New England Patriots, 1:35 p.m., CBS
NFC Div. Game 1: Arizona Cardinals vs. Green Bay Packers, 5:15 p.m., NBC

Sunday, Jan. 17

NFC Div. Round Game 2: Carolina Panthers vs. Seattle Seahawks, 10:05 a.m., FOX
AFC Div. Round Game 2: Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Denver Broncos, 1:40 p.m., CBS

KC and NE. This is yet another shot for Young Sir Alex to put his stamp on another playoff run. He famously bootlegged his way to an epic win over the Saints, and score 41 points only to lose to the Colts a couple years ago. Would love to see Alex Squeak this one out.

KC 35 – NE 31

Cards and Packers? This will likely be the biggest snoozer as AZ crushes Aaron Rodgers and Co. Green Bay has been shakey all year, and this one is no different. AZ at home will not be denied.

AZ 41 – GB 17

Sunday’s fare includes Carolina vs Seattle. This one looks like the best matchup of the weekend. Seattle is on fire, but dodged a huge bullet in Minnesota last week. They likely come out very focussed. I think Carolina finally gets past someone in a low-scoring affair.

Carolina 20 – Sea 16

Pittsburgh and Denver? This one is a quandary. Pittsburgh is banged-up and battered after their epic confrontation in Cincy last week. Denver is coming off the triumphant return of Peyton Manning handing off the ball a few times to seal their last win, so this one is iffy depending on Big Ben’s status. I find it hard to think he’ll miss this. Another low scoring one though.

Pitts  21 – Denver 16

What do you guys think?

Aaaaak! In a very revolting turn of events, the 49ers have hired Chip K-K-Kelly as our head coach. Sure, I give him a hard time for being percieved as a racist coach who got rid of a bunch of black guys on his team. Those facts are out there for alL to see. What his reasoning was behind all those curious moves in Philly now become front and center with the 49ers. His trade of LeSean McCoy for the eventual signing of DeMarco Murray proved to be an unmitigated disaster. Nick Foles for Sam Bradford yielded little as well. After being traded, CB Brandon Boykin said Kelly was ‘uncomfortable’ around the grown men of his culture. LeSean McCoy of course started this by saying Kelly was “getting rid of all the good black players” from the Eagles.

Be that as it may, I ruminated a couple weeks ago that it would be mildly interesting to see how a Colin Kaepernick/Chip Kelly offense would work. Seeing as Kelly didn’t have the kind of QB in Philly that he wanted in Sam Bradford or Nick Foles, he now has two guys at his disposal who could conceivably run his high-speed offense. I never in my wildest nightmares thought this would come to pass, but here we are.

Frankly, I’d love to see Kappy in the driver’s seat of this, but I’m pretty sure Baalke has other ideas about giving money to a guy who got benched/injured (pick your order) last season. Gabby may be able to pull it off, but he showed his limitations last year as well. And given the underlying tendencies of our newly minted head coach, does Kappy even stand a chance to stay?

Beyond that, since Kelly has a recent track record of demanding more and more control of the roster (he may not have called himself the GM, but he was solely responsible for the personnel decisions in Philly after all), is THAT Jed’s intent? To position Kelly as the instrument of Trent Baalke’s demise? Hey, anything’s possible in this cown show.

Strange Days have found us.

The NFL voted yesterday 30-2 to allow the St Louis Rams the right to move back to LA for the 2016 season. This has been tried and retried for the 20 years since the NFL left LA in the 90s. The San Diego Chargers also get a one-year option to try the stadium. They have til a year from Friday (Jan 15, 2017) to exercise their option. Should they refuse, then the Raiders get the one-year option, lasting til Jan 15, 2018. I guess then the option reverts back to SD. The Rams? They were moved twice by the peripatetic Georgia Frontiere, the wife of Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom, who died under suspicious circumstances in 1979 (he and Natalie Wood are sharing stories in the Great Beyond I’m sure). She moved the team from the LA Coliseum to Anaheim in 1980, and then to St Louis in 1995. I’m sure St Louis fans are pissed off, as well they should be, and there was the usual infighting amongst the city politicos about rebuilding/refurbishing the stadium, ranked as 7th worst in the NFL recently. Owner Stan Kroenke famously purchased 60 acres of land next to the defunct Hollywood Park race track a couple years ago, and poof, the team is on the move.

And therein lies the rub. Mark Davis, son of re-un-dead Al Davis, scourge of the Pete Rozelle, and the NFL in general, is picking up the battle cry to move to LA. Something that he has been trying to do while the City of Oakland hems and haws and forms committee after committee regarding stadiums for both their football team and baseball team. All the while knowing their basketball team is likely leaving as well.

Baffling to me is the fan indifference in Oakland at the hands of their owner, who for all intents and purposes is taking a giant steaming shit on their heads. Yes, there was jubilation as Davis rescinded his request to move yesterday. But, this is a stop-gap move. As seen in the ruling, Prince Valiant still has the option next year. And it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. The Raiders spent 13 seasons in LA (1982-1994), winning their last Super Bowl there in 1983.

So why are the fans pretty much leaving him alone? Denial? Short memories? I have no idea. Jed (tweets-no-more) York, who is the favorite whipping boy for local team ownership, did what no one else could, and that was to get a publicly-funded stadium built in the Bay Area. Granted, it’s not in SF, and it looks like a 10 year old’s erector set design, but the 49ers are still here (well, 37 miles from here), but that is sure a hell of a lot closer than the 400 miles that will separate the Oakland fans from their team. I guess the Raiders are hoping for the Stadium Fairy to poop out a stadium on top of the old one. It really isn’t that bad a site (well, don’t leave the premises on foot) and, without the Warriors using the Arena anymore, they can add more parking.

Any thoughts out there on the coaching search?

• Is Hue the answer?
• Chud?
• Coughlin?
• Holmgren/Shanny?
• DeFilippo?
• Anthony Lynn?
• Other?
• Unknown brainiac?

I think Hue would be a good hire, mainly because he’s used to clusterfucks as a way of coaching, and he’s got a solid ofensive plan. His one caveat, which may turn him off to lots o’ people, is his huge desire for the Raiders to draft Kappy during that 2012 draft.

I’m of a mind that Kappy still has a lot o to offer. I just wonder it it will be here. And yes I still think we need to try and get Goff in the 1st round.

Strange wildcard weekend, that’s for sure. I picked all the winners, but the strange thing was, all the home teams lost. No fun for the fans, that’s for sure. Kansas City finally exorcized their playoff demons with a convincing 30-0 win over the Hapless Houstons.  And Washington put up a fight before succumbing to the league MVP and the semi-resurgent Green Bay Packers. But really, the cities of Minnesota and Cincinnati must be in a state of mourning once again.

Minnesota (0-4 in Super Bowls) is especially heartbroken after controlling their game against the Seahawks for 55 of the 60 minutes. Cold, brutal, and windy, the game was a field position game that saw little in the way of offense, and mistakes leading to points. Russell Wilson had a pick turned into a FG, a muffed punt snap turned into a FG, and Adrian Peterson (hello, Jeremy Hill) fumbled the ball as Minn tried to salt the game away, leading to the lead-changing FG by Seattle. that Minnesota was able to drive to the 9, only to miss the 27 yard FG is a tough nut to swallow.

Almost as tough as Cincinnati (0-8 in their last 8 playoff games, dating back to 1990, including 1 and done 6 out of the last 7 years) completely losing its cool as time was winding down in their game with Pittsburgh. Cincy managed to turn a 2nd and 10 from the 47 yard line (a 65 yard FG attempt) with 22 seconds left and Pittsburgh out of timeouts to a 1st and 10 from the 32 yard line (a 50 yard attempt) to finally a 1st and 10 from the 17 as Vontaze Burfict and then Pacman Jones committed unsportsmanlike conduct penalties during and after the 1st down pass over the middle to Antonio Brown. I chalk that loss up to the refs letting the game get way out of hand, but that’s little solace to Cincy fans, as they gear up for another depressing offseason bemoaning a season that totally got away. Marvin Lewis has always been under fire for having a team that reacts badly in the face of adversity, and this is the worst example of that in the team’s recent history.

Ouch. Cincinnati fans have to be crying in their Cheerios this morning after suffering a monumentally crushing loss yesterday at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Seemingly in command after going up 16-15 late in the 4th quarter, and getting a pick from the volatile Vontzae Burfict. 1:30 left and in position to run out the clock, or at least go up by 4, Jeremy Hill fumbled the ball away on the very first play.

A wounded Ben Roethlesberger came back from his own injury to lead a drive that included short passes, and questionable actions by Burfict and the always crazy Pacman Jones. Those 30 yards in penalties with 18 seconds left sealed the deal.

There was already heightened awareness around the bad blood between these teams, and both sides were ready to throw down at a moment’s notice. The coaching staff went so far as to create a barricade of sorts between the teams as they warmed up. Yet the refs let things get way out of hand when Giovanni Bernard was knocked cold with a helmet-to-helmet hit by Ryan Shazier. Instead of a penalty, Pittsburgh was awarded the ball on the fumble, but didn’t get the TD that should have been awarded as the whistle was blown.

Thing is, this seemed to wake up the scoreless Bengals as their comeback immediately followed the hit. Unfortunately, Burfict decided to head hunt Antonio Brown on an incompletion over the middle with time winding down, and Pacman bumped a ref while fighting with a Pittsburgh coach.

Curious to me is all the justification from Simms and the other idiotic announcers that the hit was clean on Bernard. There was a play earlier in the 3rd quarter where a Pittsburgh WR got hit after catching a ball over the middle. He took 3 steps and was leveled with a hit high on his shoulder. Thing is, the play was entirely in front of him. He saw the defender coming. Penalty? No. Bad call. Bernard was hit on his play with his back to Shazier, and Shazier closing at full speed. He caught it, turned around and was speared in his facemask. No penalty? Ridiculous. I’m as ambivalent as a lot of folks around the over-flagging of the game, but that was as blatant a spear as you can see. The refs then viewed the replay, not to check for the spearing, but for the fumble that ensued as Bernard was knocked unconscious. To me, this opened up the door for more head hunting and more reckless play. Which came to pass, to the detriment of the Bengals.

The NFL talks about player safety, but allows shit like this. If that was Brady/Manning running down the field, Shazier would have gotten the heave-ho. So, as bad as the fumble was, the refs played their part in this galling loss for Cincy. Cincy did themselves no favors by coming unglued, but both sides were over the line with late hits and shit.

And yes, the context for the fumble is, of course, Preston Riley, and Roger Craig. Two plays I still haven’t gotten over.

Yeah, the Niners are out of it, but for football fans, these next two weekends are quite simply the best. Four games that should be barnburners.

Saturday we have:

Houston Texans (9-7) vs. 5 – Kansas City Chiefs (11-5)
1:25 p.m., ESPN/ABC

Cincinnati Bengals (12-4) vs. 6 – Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6)
5:15 p.m., CBS

KC hasn’t won a playoff game since Bush 1 I think. It has been eons. Joe Montana was their QB. Houston is such a non-descript team, so I’m pulling for KC.  Go Alex!

KC 28 – Hou 17

The Bengals suffer yet another early playoff exit, unless the curse of Ginger is lifted since AJ McCarron is their QB. Who am I kidding? Cincy’s defense is solid, but Pittsburgh wins a defensive battle.

Pitt 17 – Cincy 12

Sunday is:

Minnesota Vikings (11-5) vs. 6 – Seattle Seahawgs (10-6)
10:05 a.m., NBC

Washington Redskins (9-7) vs. 5 – Green Bay packers (10-6)
1:40 p.m., FOX

Minn vs Seattle? Would love to see Minnesota pull off the upset, but it won’t happen. Even at home.  Seattle wins going away.

Seattle 24 – Minn 13

Skins/Packers? Green bay is floundering and Cousins is flying high, but for some reason I don’t think Wash pulls this off. Playoff jitters?

GB 35 – Wash 26

Another year, another coaching search. It’s early yet, but the coaches that have gotten fired are:

• Cleveland’s Mike Pettine (plus GM Ray Farmer)
• Miami’s Joe Philbin (and interim coach Dan Campbell)
• Tom Coughlin (resigned? Fired? Who knows, who cares?)
• Philly’s Chip Kelly (and his replacement Pat Shurmur)
• Titans Ken Whisenhunt (and interim HC Mike Mularkey)
• Jimmy (bag-a-donuts) T

Detroit’s Jimmy Caldwell is likely going to get the heave-ho, but Detroit is looking for a GM after firing Martin Mayhew (and prez Tom Lewand) after their disastrous 1-7 start).

But as the situation unfolds, it is apparent the Niners are in a tough position where it comes to hiring a coach. They have completely whiffed on their own evaluation of their team when they fired Jim Harbaugh. They thought they had a good team and a solid coaching staff in place for the 2015 season. Well, 5-11 is not a solid effort, despite the tough schedule and all the injuries. RB was decimated, and ILB took a lot of injuries as well, but the offense was atrocious and the passing attack, whether Colin Kaepernick or Blaine Gabbert, was anemic. Granted, money talks in this regard, but the Trent Baalke/Jim Harbaugh battle of wills has to put potential hires off. I mean, if Trent is that inflexible about his draft picks, who in their right mind would walk in to that situation?

In this regard we look like a tougher sell than the Brwons. A team that hasn’t had a decent QB in eons, and has a new and confused front office clusterfuck of their own. Guys like Mike Holmgren and Pat Shurmur have tried and failed to revive the mistake by the lake, and they have rolled through QBs and HCs like me through a case of Firestone 805’s.

So, the interview process has already gotten underway. We have Hue Jackson, former Niner Anthony Lynn, former OC Mike Shanahan on the list so far, and we’ve expressed an interest in Sean Payton. Payton is my choice, and Jed promised that he will rein in Baalke’s iron-fisted ways regarding his draft picks (and Payton will cost us our 2nd round pick), but of all the guys out there, Payton has the pedigree of developing QBs and running a Super Bowl winning program.

Expectations would be high, but that isn’t a bad thing. Thing is, though, baalke has to really nail a draft. This team has bled talent since the 2011 draft.