San Francisco 49ers Forever

Not that I really dug Philly winning, but it sure was fun seeing the Fat Walrus blubbering on the sidelines at Mahomes was pressured into mistake after sack all game. Mahomes never got going until garbage time, and Philly just coasted on their defense and took advantage of the early KC turnovers.

I thought it was odd that KC didn’t even bother trying to run, and Philly stressed the run too much to not very much success. The difference maker, Saquon Barkley, made most of his impact catching swing passes and the one wheel route for a nice gain.

But this game was dominated by the Philly D line. In Nick Sorensen’s wet dream, Philly didn’t blitz until it was garbage time in the 4th quarter. Philly’s base pass rush got into Mahomes just about every pass play, and KC didn’t cross the 50 until 5 minutes were left in the 3rd quarter. Telling to me was the fact that Philly’s interior line rarely gave up their gaps, and Mahomes had no room to step up and throw, or scramble for yards.

Say what you want about Philly, but they remade their defense last offseason and it paid off in spades. Hiring Fangio turned out pretty well, too. Zack Baun went from a special teams guy to an All-Pro linebacker under Fangio. They drafted very well as well with Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell manning the slot and outside CBspots next to Darius Slay.

This gives me some hope that Saleh and heir-apparent DC Gus Bradley can turn out D around our defense this year.

Nothing to report about the game other than I hope Saquon Barkley makes the difference for the Iggles. Fuck KC. Fuck Kelce. Fuck mahomes. Fuck the refs.

Other than that, there’s tons of speculation around a bunch of possible players to get, up to and including Myles Garrett. Yeah, he’d be great but I don’t see this team trading any more #1 picks in the next 10 years, so there’s that. Cooper Kupp threw his hat into the trade ring, and he would be fun, but unless we plan on trading Deebo, I don’t see that either.

Greenlaw is heading to the Rams if you believe the BS, and Mooney Ward is heading out as well. Actually I think Ward is gonna go, given his recent tragedy, so that’s understandable. Other than that, it’s just speculate speculate rosterbate.

The draft is still a little less than 2 months away, so here’s to hoping the Iggles (urk) pull out the win.

Rumor still I guess, but hey, sign Kittle. Haven’t seen anything official, but if you do that sign Greenlaw to a incentive-laden one year deal worth his while. Say what you will about his injury problem of late, he’s absolute mayhem when out there. He and Warner are the Willis and Bowman of the previous generation.

Don’t even know what the pro bowl even means anymore, and I watch more obscure shit than most folks, but hey, Jolly Roger is trying to squeeze blood out of yet another unsqueezed turnip.

As far as Super Fux LIX dicks, wll, the media frenzy is coming. Along with the allegations of favoritism among the NFL refs. Say what you will about this shit, but the fix, if that’s what it is, wouldn’t be that hard to do. The cadre of refs involved in games is a pretty small crowd, so juicing just a couple guys would go a long way.

Case in point, the ‘meaningless’ safety that the Chiefs took at the end of the Texans game. KC was up 10, and the lead went down to 9. The spread was 9.5.

Hah!!

Can anyone say Tim Donaghy?

Well, that was a catastrophe. The Bills nce again came up short in their quest to knock off the Kansas City Refs. 3rd and 3 and TE Kincaid catches a pass and falls 1/2 a yard past the line. The line judge moves it back a full yard.

SIDE BAR: If I’m McDermott I question that spot. Kincaid clearly had the 1st down.

Next play, it sure looked like Allen got the necessary yard. The left line judge signalled 1st down. The right judge didn’t. Somehow the right LJ gets the call even though the left LJ had the clearer view.

KC kicked a FG and Josh Allens’s last desperation pass saw a defensive holding flag get picked up and swallowed. Game over.

Sigh

SIDE BAR: James Cook needs to touch the ball more.

So, yeah. another fucking game where the chiefs are magically helped by the refs and the football Gods. In meaningful games against the Chiefs, the Bills are 0-4. We are 0-2. Disheartening to. say the least. Josh Allen is the new version of Jim Kelly. Onve FG from his 1st Super Bowl, and 0-4 in the big one.

The Iggles? Fuck ’em but I hope they win. The Commandos played great but just couldn’t hold on to the ball. Their 3 fumbles set up 21 points for Philly. And that’s my worry. The Eagles D wasn’t stopping much but they did force 4 turnovers.

Or, journey to the past, I guess. Well, the stars aligned for us this time. After a season of fuckups, bad timing, stupid machinations, bad breaks, 12,000 penalties, and a ton of injuries, the football Gods threw a wrench into the Jaguars hiring of Robert Saleh as their new head coach.

Liam Coen instead left the Buccos to take over the garbage scow that is the Jacksonville Jaguars after the late and bizarre dumping of our dogshit ex-GM Trent (i-rode-on-McLoughan’s-coattails) Baalke. The dumping of Baalke caused Coen to cancel his interview to stay in Tampa, and that caused Saleh to cancel his 2nd interview with Jacksonville. Fuck the Raiders. That didn’t even come into play, but whatevs.

We have a guy that was pretty damn successful as our HC before and during the Nick Bosa era and he had a lot of success. So, I’m for one, thriled at this news. Sure, if he does grerat, all those new HC positions will open up again, but hey, that]s a bridge to burn at a later date. As we all know, the NFL is about right now, and right now I like our defense a lot more than I did yesterday.

A good draft, a weak-ass schedule, and we should be OK for this season.

As far as Sunday goes, I’m pretty sure a lot of you are pulling for Washington and Buffalo.

I mean, fuck the Iggles and the Refs, uh, Chiefs.

Hopefully the real playoffs start this weekend. Last week’s games were really about separating the contenders from the pretenders.

• The DeMeco Ryans led Texans Curb-stomped the nascent hopes of the hapless-in-the-playoffs Chargers and Jim (rah-rah) Harbaugh.
• The Ravens crushed the woeful (offensively anyway) Steelers.
• The Bills stampeded the no-trick Broncos.
• The fucking Iggles fudge-packed Green Bay and their awful playoff history as well.
• The Rams invaded the Vikings and torched their longboats and they again cry in the face of yet another playoff failure. Sourdough Sam was hung out to dry and was beaten into submission.

Only the battle between the Buccos and the Commandos was any fun. I was hoping Baker Mayfield would get another playoff game as his career has been a whirlwind of bad situations and shit coaching while he rolls along with a smile on his face and a hop in his step. Cleveland couldn’t get rid of him fast enough, and his stints in Carolina and the Rams were awful. Now on the Bucs, hes flourishing.

Anyhow, this weekend brings what look to me like some good games.

Saturday:

• Texas at Chiefs – This will prove if Houston’s defense is for real. I’d like to think Ryans can dial up consistent pressure, but I think KC wins in the end.
• Commandos at Lions – This one also looks to be predicated on the Washingtons getting more out of their defense than previously thought possible. As banged up as the Lions defense is, I think Deetroit takes this fairly easy.

Sunday:

• Rams at Iggles – Don’t like the Iggles, not a Sirianni fan at all, and the Rams are on a roll. But again, this one comes down to how well the Rams defense can stop Hurts and the Eagles offense. The Rams have proven they can score early and often, so this could be a track meet, but all LA needs to do is get a couple stops and they take it.
• Ravens at Bills – This is the game of the weekend. Both these teams are I think the class of the league and could beat any of the NFC contenders. The only big ??? is can Lamar Jackson shake off his playoff doldrums and play a solid game? For all the accolades, MVPs, and psychotic number put up (41 TDs, 4 picks???) he has yet to reach the Super Bowl with his 3-4 playoff record. Buffalo and Josh take it.

So far so suck. I guess this is what you get when you leave the barn door open for a lot of teams to get into the playoff hunt.

Jim Harbaugh led the used-to-be-Carmen-Sandiego Chargers to a slow dull death as Justin Herbert sucked his way to a boring desultory loss, going 14-32, 1 TD and 4 INTs! Juston Herbert is getting paid hard to suck ass. I guess the Chargers thought it would be a great idea to trade their best WRs and replace them with tree stumps. Although Ladd McConkwas pretty good.

The Steelers looked way overmatched as they went from 10-3 and flying high to 5 losses in a row, and one-and-done. A pretty much foregone conclusion under Mike Tomlin these last 8 seasons as they haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season.

The upstart Broncos tripped over their inexperienced dicks and lost a snorefest 31-7, and the Packers proved yet again to be pushovers at the hands of the fucking Eagles no less. A team I really can’t stand. Although Saquon Barkley is just a true bad-ass out there.

Only the Commandos and Buccs provided a game worthy of watching. The ghost of Cleveland’s monumental stupidity, Baker Mayfield, gritted, ran, threw, and gutted his team to what could have been a gigantic victory, but a botched jet sweep/fumble ended up being the key play/turnover of the game. His going beast-mode on Bobby Wagner no less was a thing to behold.

Tonight we see the resurgent Sourdough Sam Darnold face off against his one-toime rival LA Rams.

I sure fucking hope he wins. Darnold looked absolutely spooked vs the relentless pressure of the Lions last week. Something I’m Sure LA noticed.

No news on any hires. Hopefully the playoff football improves next weekend.

Where do I start? The fact that Klay Kubiak’s promotion is nothing more than a different title on his bidness card? Per Kyle the chicken-hearted:

“I thought he did an awesome job. Klay’s role is going to be the same as it’s been, which has been the offensive coordinator. He just hasn’t had that title, yet.”

Shanahan said the promotion is more about recognizing what Kubiak already has contributed to the offensive side of the ball.

Wow. Brilliant. I can see that they may not want to lose Kubiak, but how about actually giving him something more to do than what he’s doing?

Then there’s the Sorensen debacle. Week in and week out with the Wide 9 prevent defense. No run stopping, no blitzes, way too much 3rd down success for the opponents. And no changes in philosophy.

Now there’s talk of Sorensen taking over special teams. Be still my breaking heart. Move your incompetence over to that office.

My hope for the defense is they bring in someone from the outside who can give the team a completely new look and a new perspective. Given this crew, they’ll bring back Greg Manusky.

Hell, I’d be happy with Ken Norton Jr. He or Ulbrich would be fine with me. I really don’t think Saleh would came back, but hey, as long as they recognize the personnel that we have doesn’t fit the scheme we currently run.

Super Bowl hangover
Front office shenanigans with BA and Trent Williams
The injury problem
The drafting of Ricky Pearsall
The shooting of Ricky Pearsall
The ultra-soft defense (#1 issue)
Repeated special teams disasters (#2 on the issue list)
Play calling
Red zone play calling
Shanny’s dependence on the stars
Shanny hoping CMC would save the season as he rode him into the ground
The inability of Shanahan to spell his RBs
Shanny’s force-feeding of Deebo to the detriment of the rest of the team
Shanny forgetting about Kittle for too many games
Shanny playing it safe on 4th down
Illegal formation penalties
False start penalties
Penalties in general (13-1 in yesterday’s game!)

The pisser to me in this list is the same fucking problems were all readily apparent yesterday.

Week 18!

And the team did NOTHING about these recurring problems.

The front office didn’t shit-can Brian Schneider after week 4
The coaching staff didn’t tell Nick Sorensen to change his defensive style
The penalty situation never changed
The play calling didn’t change enough
The red zone offense didn’t improve

The biggest pisser to me was the fact that if the 49ers had beaten the Rams, they were prepared to sell off the team. They had Kooper Kupp on the trading block, and had they gone 0-5, they likely would have pulled the trigger. But no, we had to give up the fake punt that destroyed the entire season and the Rams end up winning the division.

They blew all 3 of the divisional games that would have won them the division.
They have the players
They need a better coaching staff

This harkens back to the Chip Kelly/Jimmy Farts-a-lot lost seasons where the 49ers were a talented team, but severely rudderless. Harbs came in and got the guys on the beam and they were a playoff team.

Funnily enough, Harbaugh took a talented but rudderless team in San Diego and poof! They are a playoff team now.

I really wish they’d think about getting rid of Shanahan. Sure, it might end up like Andy Reid, but hey, Philly won their Super Bowl 2 years before Reid and the Chiefs did.

Huh. It only took 18 weeks to blitz Warner.

Last Game-day thread. Guerendo already wasted.