San Francisco 49ers Forever

It’s pretty early in camp, but it is becoming apparent that the offensive line is thin to say the least. Daniel Kilgore hasn’t recovered, and in fact had a ‘clean-up’ procedure to help heal his ankle. As it is now, he’s still in a boot, and isn’t looking to be off the injured list before the end-of-camp deadline barring some kind of miraculous recovery. Which means he’s out the first six games. With AD’s untimely retirement, this leaves the 49ers very thin at RT. Marcus Martin is still learning, but the Niners would love to plant him at RG while Kilgore gets the Center duties. Eric Pear is pretty much a turd from everything I’ve read about the guy. I don’t see him magically being spectacular, but serviceable, even? Hard to say, but it doesn’t look good. They are even trying rookie Trent Brown at RT. At least early in camp.

As of now, Joe Looney is getting the majority of the snaps at C, so that would put Martin at RG. Tomsula has pencilled in Alex Boone at LG apparently in case  Joe Staley goes down and they need a smooth transition. This seems risky as the right side of the line looks to be pretty weak and inexperienced. Brandon Thomas would appear to be the rover a la JMart, just not as sucky.

I think at this point we need to find a RT soon. One better than Pears. If only for depth. Shit, he’s injury-prone, but get Sam Baker. I can’t find out of he’s ready to go or not, but they should look. Oniel Cousins may be the only guy out there worse than Pears, so they can avoid him. Other than that, there’s always the chance they can pick up someone from the upcoming cut-down days.

Not going to bore you with a long post, but day 1 of camp is in the books, and a funny thing happened on the way to the cellar. The team was happy. Smiling. Having fun. For all the talk of Harbaugh and the record, he sure seemed to suck the fun out of the building. “Who;s got it better than us?” became a cliche that I’m sure the team rolled its eyes at. At least among the vets. The heavyhandedness is gone, and according to Matt Maiocco (another glad-handing media type looking for brownie points) the team seemed to be in great spirits and ready to take on the challenge of losing their Supercalafragelisticexpialadocious leader in St. Jim Harbaugh.

I mean really, the team HAS to hit the shitter because of the void left by that gimormous personality. Right. More like Ego. He placed himself into practice as a look-at-me-hang-with-the-guys type rather than be their coach. That’s fine and all, but not when the same guy that wants to be one of the guys suddenly says shit like no cards on plane rides. No loud music in the locker room. No fun other than driving all the players to distraction. You can’t play it both ways.

I said a couple days ago on this very bog that the players being happy campers guarantees zilch in the win column, but it does engender some ownership from the players to push the youngsters to get themselves ready for the bog-time. Harbaugh created and ‘us-vs-them’ attitude ward the front office, but he also put himself above the players by treating them like a college team and this grated on the vets.

I look at it through the lens of a successful coach like Bruce Bochy. He;s not a table-flipping bullshit flinging coach like so many in baseball. For all his country drawl and backwoods rambling lies a very acute baseball mind. He shoots straight with the players, and is forthcoming with the front office. He trusts his vets to hold the fort down, but isn’t afraid to do the necessary things to ensure the team puts its best effort out there.  Behind the scenes. He doesn’t give semi-incoherent rambling pressers, or giving any rah-rah bullshit either.  Tomsula strikes me a a more straightforward guy who will be in that mold rather than the hype generator that Harbaugh was. For all his coaching success, Harbaugh has one Orange bowl victory, and one NFC Championship to show for his chutzpah and bravado. Good luck in the Big House, Jim, but I ain’t gonna miss you all that much.

Saw this sign in front of one of my watering holes (Cooper Street Tavern) when I lived in Colorado.  Spent many an afternoon and evening shooting pool, throwing darts, and playing shuffleboard for pitchers of beer. Alas, tomorrow never came for that free beer at Cooper Street, but here in Ninerland, tomorrow is nigh. The 2015 offseason is officially over. The team can move forward without the overarching presence of Jim Harbaugh and the baggage he surrounded himself with.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is yet to be determined, but hey, that’s what blogging is about.  I’m sure the players will be happy that the Center of the Universe now resides on Bo Schembechler’s old street instead of Addison Ave, but again, this fact alone determines nothing. Happy players don’t necessarily mean winning players.

Then again, ego-driven coaches are a dime a dozen. The golly-gee-I’m-happy-to-be-here types are not as prevalent, but then again, Tomsula doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy, despite the chattering nabobs. He’s by all accounts a tough taskmaster who has done wonders with various players that are varying shades of fair to great. The overall defense under Fangio has been very good, but the run defense under Tomsula starting with the dark days of 2007, the run D has ranked 22, 13, 6th, 6th, 1st, 4th, 4th, and 5th. The line has always been very strong under Tomsula. And the current crop of defensive coaches is very strong and experienced.

Regardless of how the national (and even local) media portrays the team, the sense that they are going to be worse than last year is laughable. Barring of course another injury-riddled season. The offense was flat terrible. 20th in total offense, 25th in scoring, and 30th in passing won’t get you anywhere in today’s NFL. The defense held its own despite their injuries, so I have hope there. It has been 26th, 11th, 24th, and 20th under Harbaugh/Roman, so there’s a lot of room for improvement.  Scoring has been consistently fair to middling at 11th, but plummeted to 25th last year. Yeah, there were injuries, but the defense was able to overcome them. The offense was left floundering as the injuries mounted.

So there you have it. A guardedly optimistic look at the state of the 49ers. I think 10-6 and the playoffs is possible regardless of the transitory supposed ‘strength of schedule’ nonsense. Like the weekly ‘power rankings’ these are bullshit numbers applied to nonexistent or stale parameters. Half the teams we play could turn to garbage faster than shit through a goose. Still and all, I can’t wait for that free beer.

Rookies report to 4949 Centennial Blvd today! Huzzah!! There was much rejoicing!!! Or, then again, there wasn’t. The prevailing sentiment is the Niners are circling the shitter ready to take the downward spiral to the cesspool, but who am I to listen to prevailing sentiment? I mean really. If it was outrageous to think they were going to suck this year, I’d still think they were going to do well.

Other than that, these last couple preseasons have been just a clusterfuck of innuendo and animosity. The sooner this starts the better. Lots of talk of the potential of Arik Armstead. A guy getting a lot of talk however is Eli Harold, a guy who some saw as a first rounder. Safety Jaquiski Tartt also sounds like a player, but everyone is an all-pro when training camp starts.  There will be booms, busts, and surprises.

Baalke has just completed his 5th draft. He didn’t draft for obvious need this draft, as WR, ILB, and CB were the prevailing thoughts going into the draft. Instead Baalke went DL, S, and ILB. 6 of the next 7 were offensive players (with a punter thrown in), but the thought is the lower you go, the longer the shot. We have a ton of UDFA WRs as well, along with a QB. Lots of bodies, but we are at the point where Baalke needs to start hitting on some offensive players. The team has a lot of talent, but as we’ve seen, Gore has gotten old and left, and Willis and J Smith retired among the other changes. The talent and experience level from just a couple years ago has decreased, but the team has gotten younger and faster.

The good news is the D line has a lot of decent players, the RB corps looks strong, and the WR group looks better by gaining Torrey Smith and losing Crabtree. We stood pat at QB, as the thought is Kappy has another year of experience to build on, but I was surprised  we didn’t draft a backup along with Gaine Blabbert. Worrisome to me is the O line and CB. We hear a lot of encouraging things out of camp re Brandon Thomas and such, but the proof willl be in the pudding on that fateful Monday night, September 14. Talk is just that.

Well, the wait is (almost) finally over. the new-look streamlined 49ers open camp on August 1st at 7:00 pm pacific time. In these days of truncated preseasons and quick turnaround times, we have out first exhibition game on August 15th in Houston. The home preseason opener is Aug 23rd vs those lovely Cowgirls.

Two weeks of practice and instant season. Is it enough time to assimilate everything? Gosh, Wally! Who knows? There’s been enough blogticulation to fill 666 King James bibles, so I’ll leave that part of the story out, other than to say there appears to be little middle ground on what the future portends. I will say that Harbaugh managed to pull it off back in 2011 with an even smaller window. No reason to think these guys can’t get shit rolling quickly. Unless you subscribe to the myth that St. Jim is otherworldly.

As far as the season goes, you have the chicken-littles and you have the guardedly optimistic. No one is predicting a Super Bowl berth with the amount of talent that left, but many (including me) expect a playoff run. The team still has a lot of talent, and they have an experienced coaching staff. Defensively anyway. Then you have the crowd that seems to caper around gleefully predicting the long and hard fall to abject shittiness and decrepitude. No middle ground, no thinking that there may be a bump in the road. It is a decade of downtime. Jed screws the team into the ground for 10 years for some sort of ego bath. Got it. It had nothing to do with the fact that the former head coach was a major league asshole who alienated everyone in the building and took a strong team to be the bridesmaid, but not the bride. A team that went 8-8. Despite St Jim and all those guys that left.

I get thinking the team could possibly have a rough patch, but to devote so much time and energy to spreading the bile endlessly over months and months and ridiculing every move the team makes and inventing reasons for why shit went bad 2 years ago is baffling. The overarching need to get in front of the ‘they suck’ train is a mystery to me.

Like the crazy crab promotions at the Stick years ago (“We don’t do mascots. Please boo the crab!”) , there are people hoping against hope that the team crashes and burns, so they can project their hatred of the owner. A guy who looks and acts just like his predecessor, Eddie.

What’s funny is I remember saying this last year amidst the trade rumors around our head coach, the talk that the GM and HC hadn’t spoken in months, and the innuendo around the Jim Harbaugh insanity whirlwind hyperbole generation machine. Brought to you by Deion Sanders, Jay Glazer, Jayson Stark,  Trent Dilfer, Steve Young, ESPN, Comcast, Fox Sports, and the millions of other media types that weighed in on the state of the franchise as they struggled through an injury-ridden and thoroughly disheartening season.

8-8 at the start of the Harbaugh regime would have been seen as a nice improvement over the previous staff. Fortunately (for the fans) and unfortunately (for St. Jim) Harbaugh took them to 13-3. An amazingly quick turnaround, especially due to the fact that it was a strike-shortened preseason.  The offense was what it was, and the defense was what it was. The numbers all remained fairly similar.

Except for one thing. Wins and losses. A team that couldn’t win close games or win with any consistency suddenly became an NFL juggernaut. From laughingstock to Super Bowl favorites in short order. After coming oh so close in 2012, the 2013 season was another let-down on the doorstep of the Super Bowl. While the team was still considered a contender,  the shit show gained full momentum. Not even going to rehash all that except to say we’ll never know who did what to whom, but it sure seemed like all sides were hell-bent on parting ways. Throw in a forgettable season, and there you go. It played out how it did. Harbaugh and most of the coaches left, and players retired, re-upped elsewhere,  or left via trade.

So where are we now? Well, this is the crux of the biscuit. I’m of a mind that despite the changes and roster turnover, we still have a very good team. Especially defensively. Something that was already a strength. Mangina has plenty of NFL experience and has some HCing (varying levels of success) under his belt. LB coach Jason Tarver has DC experience with the Raiders, D line coach Scott Brown has 35 years in football, and had DCed for Colo St. DB coach Tim Lewis, a great DB back in the day, has DC experience for the NY Giants among other stops in his 21 year coaching career.

So much for the theory that this team didn’t start good coaches.

Offensively we have ex-Dalphin and Raider HC Tony Sparano, tasked with getting VD,  VMcD, and Derek Carrier going after a shit season for all the TEs, RB coachTom Rathman, who has been instrumental in the continued development of the run game, and O line coach Chris Foerster, a guy with a track record of nothing but success in his different schemes that he’s used over his coaching career.  A new set of WR coaches in Ronald Curry and Adam Henry (LSU’s WR coach for Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry) and the departure of Michael Crabtree give me hope for a resurgence among the WR corps.

The big question mark remains the duo of QB coach Steve Logan and OC Geep Chryst. Logan traces his coaching roots to Jimmy Johnson at Okla St, and he head coached the college powerhouse East Carolina winning a couple bowl games along the way and beating Miami 31-6 in their worst home defeat in years. He’s well-versed in the West Coast Offense, and appears at least to be installing an up-tempo rhythm-based offense. All good news to me. The Geepster? He’s the guy I don’t have  any real concept of his game. He was OC in San Diego at a time when the Chargers were dogshit.  I mean really. Jim Harbaugh was his starting QB. Erik Kramer was his backup. They did manage to break even at 8-8. The next year, of course was the Ryan Leaf Experience, and one last gasp  of Jim Harbaugh as an NFL QB. A 1-15 debacle of epic proportions.

I guess that’s impetus right there for Chryst to get off to a hot start.

Yeah I know. Another national writer looking for a free meal,

but here’s Daniel Jeremiah with  a look at our offensive weapons.

Super Bowl bound! 4-12? Shit, who am I kidding. I have no clue how this season turns out. Despite the naysayers and those that laugh and predict doom for jettisoning St. Jim the Wolverine, the team still has talent and the offense will hopefully move out of the 70s.

The defense? Well, shit should be fine, if not a little thin in the defensive backfield. Which leads me to believe we will be a little more aggressive with the pass rush. Ahmad Brooks still remains a 49er, albeit that depends on the charges brought forth by the woman who brought down RayMac. Cutting him at this point would only save $1.5 mill against the cap, so he’ll probably stick around if these charges go away.

If anything, both Ahmad Brooks, and his bookend OLB Aldon Smith have a lot to prove with their recent travails and issues. The defensive line should still be fairly stout as Justin Smith hasn’t been himself the last couple years, and the rest of the crew, plus Darnell Dockett should be good to go. These OLBs (Lunch included) can wreak some havoc if the D line takes care of business. Eli Harold has been seen as a high-value pick where we got him.  Arik Armstead? He’s got the ‘potential’ tag laid all over him. The positive being Jim Tomsula has done very well as a D line coach with a lot less than AA.

Inside LB? Well, there’s the rub. Bowman is by all intents coming along just fine, but his injury was horrific and he is a question. Wilhoite has shown decent game, but his  ceiling isn’t very high. Moody and the rest? Ehh. Have to wonder if someone will fall off a team after cut-down time.

The secondary is thin as well. Even with the signing of Jaquaski Tartt, heir apparent to Antoine Bethea. The only question is when.  The corners were left thin by the Cully and COX departures, but Brock should be healthy. Johnson came on very well last year, but he’s a question as a starter and Shareece Wright isn’t all that. They did sign UDFA Mylan Hicks (Mich St) to a 3 year deal so they see something there.

As far as the coaches go, they have a lot of guys with a lot of time in the game. What does it mean? Little to nothing in itself, but Mangini is on the right side of the line now at least.

Well, the full doldrums have set in. At least in the football world. I tell ya though this is a pretty golden time to be a Bay Area sports fan. The Giants are reigning World Champs, having won 3 of the last 5 World Series, the 49ers were oh, so close in the Super Bowl a couple years ago, and the Golden State Warriors just finished their improbable run to their 2nd championship in California by beating King James and his court of backups. Some are already casting aspersions on the Dubs as they didn’t have to face a) San Antonio or b) the Clippers, and every team they faced has point guard injuries to deal with. Well, tough noogies.

If San Antonio was so good, they shouldn’t have lost to LA. If LA was so good, they shouldn’t have lost to Houston. The Clippers BTW showed absolutely NO guts by blowing a 20 point lead in game 6. You play with the cards you are dealt. Were the Cavs crippled by injuries? Yeah, somewhat. But, again, tough shit. Tristan Thompson played defense about 100% better than Kevin Love could ever dream of. Did they miss his offense? Maybe, but shit happens. Did they miss Kyrie Irving? Sure. Could he have played defense like fucking Dellavedova did? Possible, but he certainly would have brought more offense. Thong is, you don’t know. If both teams get together at full strength would shit be different? No way to know.

Part of what helped the Warriors during the season was he fact that they had a strong bench. They had role players that could step in when needed. Lee, Bogut, Green, Thompson, and even Curry (and others) missed some time this year due to injuries, but they entered the playoffs fairly unscathed. This however, was tested when both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson both suffered head injuries vs Houston. Steph appeared to struggle for a few games after his injury, and Thompson certainly wasn’t his usual self during the finals. Everyone is banged up at this point in the season. You deal with the grind of the season, and the extra grind of the playoffs. At this point, the NBA should really think about shortening the regular season, as the playoffs are such a long haul.

Kudos to Steve Kerr and the Warriors for a truly epic season.  Let’s hope the Niners pick up where they leave off.