Forty Niners Forever

The Niners played the ‘family values’ card in their desire to hold on to wayward Niner, Aldon Smith. Casting all the extemporaneous bullshit aside, the Niners would have come out on the short end of the stick had they not held on to him for that 5th year. Perceptually, and from purely a business and team standpoint as well. I mean, barring the complete unravelling of Aldon.

Leave him hanging, and you pretty much tell him he was a waste of a pick, and the team disregards his stellar play for the past few seasons. It would write his ticket out of San Francisco and thus on to somewhere else. Most likely Seattle, as they would sign him in a New York minute. It would also look pretty cold to imply that they don’t want him around anymore. To his teammates and the fans as well.

The reality is, for all his foibles, he’s a very rare commodity. A fast, strong, relentless pass rusher who would command a hell of lot more than the $9.75 mill they just put themselves on the hook for for 2015. As much as I’d love to see him turn his life around, and I’m sure he can, the shit he’s done isn’t terribly bad, but he’s definitely heading down a rocky path. He’s young, and he has to realize he’s his own best chance for success, and also the agent of his own doom.

So, the team can look good, they put his needs ahead of theirs, and can deal with his situations as they come up. They are also availed of his talent for the next 2 years, minus the 4 game suspension for weird behavior.  Good move all around.

Well, if we don’t take a wide out with the 3oth pick, the concensus is of course cornerback.  And there are a lot of good ones in this draft. From top to mid-range to the bottom. With that being said, I hear a hell of a lot of chatter re: the Niners trading up. Mike Evans and Juston Gilbert being the recipients of our largesse.

God, I hope we don’t trade up. We can address a lot of depth issues with our first 6 picks, and we shouldn’t be bundling our early picks together. After round 3, trade back to next year, use late picks to move up, whatever. But don’t lose the 6 picks you have in the first 100. Bird in the hand, and all that. There is enough talent through the first 3 rounds to pick up some major additions. As of now, we are weaker since the tragedy that was the NFC Championship with the loss of 3 defensive backs, Bowman’s injury, and the impending suspension of Aldon Smith, and maybe Chris (Grand Theft Auto) Culliver.

The way to instantly get better is through a good draft. Baakle has been hit or miss in the draft. The 2013 draft is still a work in progress. Reid was the best safety to come out of the draft. V McD was thrust into a role he wasn’t very comfortable with, but he’s still looking like he could shape up to be a solid contributor.  The red shirt guys (Lattimore, Dial, and Carradine) may or may not be all that. They get their chance this year.

2012 was a flat disaster. No 1 pick AJJ was unceremoniously traded for another 1srt round flot in Jon Baldwin. LMJ wants out amid his not being used much or right, depending on your point of view. Looney is nominally fighting for the vacant center spot, Daruis Fleming has yet to survive a training camp, and the rest are gone. Cam Johnson did garner a 4th round (?) conditional pick in a trade with Indy.

2011, police blotter notwithstanding, was a brilliant success. 6 of the 10 draftees are still playing for the Niners, and are big contributors. From Aldon to Kappy to 6th round pick Bruce Miller.

Shit. Got sidetracked. So, who do we draft at 30 if we go CB? Since our biggest hole to fill is Rogers’s, we need a press corner for the slot WR. Best guy for that is Darqueze Dennard. He’s excellent at press coverage. Big enough, strong enough, and fast enough to cover most top college guys, he should translate well. Not likely to be there at 30 though. That being said Justin Gilbert is the best overall guy. He can play press or off coverage, he’s big and fast. Again, he’ll be gone by 30.

So who do we get? The name I keep hearing is Jason Verrett. He’s not a press-cover guy, but is an excellent zone defender. The best zone defender if you believe the clippings. With Brock gone, he could step into his role from the get-go. He’s right on the edge of being there, so the Niners could wait, or watch a team like NO or NE pick him out from under them. Kyle Fuller and Bradly Roby are a couple of other guys who may or may not be there.

Beyond that, I still want the Niners to take a shot on Stanley Jean Baptiste. Very big and tough, and plenty of football speed. He’s my sleeper pick of all the CBs.

So, no one gives a shit about Scott McLoughan? Fine. I’m going to steal a cue from NJ’s positional pick leg-work for the what-should-have-started-tonight NFL 2014 draft. Instead there’s a cancelled show or some shit not going on at Radio City Music Hall this weekend. Reminiscient of when the Golden State Warriors were unceremoniously  booted out of their newly built digs next to the 880 freeway by the Ice Capades during the 1975 NBA Finals. Notable in the fact that I went to game 2 at the Cow Palace. 8th grade in 1975? Shit, I’m old.

Anyhow, I digress. All the talk over the past off season has been focussing on the need for a WR or three. Fortunately, there are an abundance of them in this draft class.

Heading the class at WR are:

• Sammy Watkins
• Mike Evans
• Marqise Lee
• Odell Beckham
• Kelvin Benjamin
• Davante Adams

In case you’ve been living under a rock (or just not reading this) I’d love to see the Niners get Ol’ Dirty Bastard (aka Odell Backham). He’s not huge, but he’s fast, has great hands, and is a spot-on route runner. He also is a kick returner and would be able to take over for soon-to-be-missing LMJ. Watkins and Evans are too high up to even contemplate, and ODB could even go in the mid 20s, but the intriguing guy is Marqise Lee. He’s the forgotten guy who strugggled through a bit of a down season after putting up eye-popping numbers in 2012 (118 catches, 1721 yds, 14 TDs).

Kelvin Benjamin worries me. Despite his size and strength (he’d be a red-zone dream), he is far from a finished product like ODB and Lee. Pass. Davante Adams is a guy who looks to be better than his draft position indicates. Not quite the speed-burner I’d prefer, but if we are looking to let Crabs walk, they could plug this guy right into his spot. Great hands, may need to bulky up a little to beat press coverage at the line. But likely a solid 2nd round pick that will pay off big for someone.

After these guys are plenty of other viable candidates in later rounds. including:

• Allen Robinson
• Jordan Matthews
• ODB’s teammate Jarvis Landry
• Brandon Cooks
• Martavius Bryant

All these guys bring something to the table. Robinson has the body, but not quite the speed. Matthews is big and fast but has trouble disengaging from the line (big deal inthe NFC West). Landry had a horrible combine, which could drop him, but he plays big and has great hands. Cooks is a guy who I didn’t notice til I saw his 40 time (4.33). Yowza. He’s small but extremely quick. His combine numbers may very well rocket him up the draft board. Bryant is another guy who played upder the radar but very well could be outstanding. Tall (6’3), with some size (211 lb), he put up a solid 40 time (4.42) in the combine. Great hands as well. 

Late round outliers are many and varied. Ones to keep an eye on are:

• Jared Abbrederis
• Paul Richardson
• Donte Moncrief
• NJ’s guy Dri Archer
• Kevin Norwood
• Jeremy Gallon

Richardson, Norwood, Abbrederis, and Moncrief are all big and fast. Archer and Gallon are of the diminutive speed burner slot guys.  Since WR is such a glaring need, and since Harbaugh is hopefully going to give more than lip service to the 3-4 WR sets he is talking about, the opportunity to get two very capable guys is here for the taking. Given the uincertainty around Michael Crabtree and his status after this year looms as well.

My WR picks would be ODB in the first and Abbrederis in the 3rd (with out last 3rd round pick).

Scott McLoughan erstwhile GM of the San Francisco 49ers, and more recently the Seahawks GM, has once again abruptly left his team right before the draft. Whether his work was completed before his departure is a bit of speculation, but I’m sure the leg work is done and his wished are at least duly noted. This happened to San Francisco back in 2010, before the team had even tasted success. The guys he brought in, starting with blog favorite Alex Smith, include the following:

Frank Gore
Vernon Davis
Patrick Willis
Joe Staley
Justin Smith
Ray McDonald 
Michael Crabtree 
Ahmad Brooks 
Dashon Goldson

There was much made about McCloughan’s departureand since most of it is conjecture, it was for ‘personal reasons’ and not job performance. When he left, McCloughan was apparently going through some hard times. He said at the time “I understand now that the job can’t consume your life. I’m still young, and I still love football. But it was consuming my life, and it’s just not as important as your health or taking care of your family.”

McCloughan had become overwhelmed, so he said. “I got almost numb. And I had no one to blame but myself. I was losing my family, and I sat back and had to think about that. As we know in this business, jobs come and go. Family doesn’t. Those three kids, you’ve got a chance to impact their lives, and I wanted to be a part of that.”

The rumors were he had a drinking and marriage problems, but nothing more was said, and with all that swirling around him,  he immediately took the Seattle GM job, and picked up right where he left off to build a winner in Seattle.

Among the guys he drafted for Seattle were Russdell Wilson. KJ Wright, Bruce Irvin, Bobby Wagner, and your friend and mine, Richard Sherman.

Yesterday, he pulled the same stunt. He hasn’t cited burnout or all-consuming or anything, but he did say has was leaving for personal and family reasons. 

His next move is to apparently start his own independent scouting service. He’s going to sell his picks to the highest bidder? Strange, but the guys track record pretty much speaks for itself. And hey, if it weakens the Seahaeks just a little, why not?

I expect the Arizona Cardinals will be making a big push to sign him next month.

Well, the 49ers made it through the Easter Week with nary an arrest or terrorist threat. Halleluia! Maybe they were all sufficiently contrite, and are thus on the path of righteousness. Easy peasy. No need for suspensions. Thanks, Jesus! You da man!

Like they say, there are no atheists in foxholes, and no guilty folks in prison. We still don’t know who is going where when jail- or suspension-wise with Cully or Aldon, but our newly minted blog polarizor with the familiar name (yes, A. Smith), has a court date set on April 29th for the various charges that came out of his Animal House style party in 2012, plus the DUI single-car accident in October last year that prompted the rehab stint. They rolled those separate cases in to one bundle of fun set for next week.

So, at least the legal ramifications should be ironed out (plea deal for the weapons [fine, wrist slap] and time served in rehab for the DUI, promise to be a good fellow [not a Good Fella {see POTD}]) before the May 3 deadline of buying out his 5th year (2015) option. I don’t promise to know what they are thinking, but the scuttlebutt around the team is there are a few things unknown to the general public that paint Aldon in a worse light beyond the stuff we know. Their stance right now is he’s standing at the end of a bamboo bridge soaked in kerosene with a road flare in his hand. In other words, they don’t pick up his option. Which in my mind is stupid. They can make hay trying to rehab the guy (and thus still have his services) or let him walk with $3 mill of the Niners money in his pocket, and he’ll be free to re-start his career with someone else come 2015. And if recent history is any indicator, it would be Seattle. They would LOVE to do to the Niners what Dallas did to them with Charles Haley back in the 90s.

Culliver? He’s already got the hit-and-run pled down to a misdemeanor. The felony brass knuckles charge should be thrown out, or at least pled-down hard. He’ll hopefully keep his cool as the team comes back into the fold, so I don’t think he gets any kind of suspension.

Jed should just stay in the background at this point and wait for the legal system to make their pronouncements, then come up with a statement about the horrors of trying to manage 53 raging lunatics. Or, you know, a mea culpa followed by the we-will-do-our-due-dilligence-in-getting-things-under-control-while-we-draft-11-more-‘character’-guys-in-May.

I mean in the past 3 days. The only recent news is Kilgore Trout was cleared of his drunkin’ public deal. Other than that? Just waiting for the draft. Jason Verritt appears to be the popular pick in the mockumentaries out there. Plus my son thinks we should go with him.  Hey, he’s fast, explosive and athletic. I’d still go with Beckham given the shot. Since these never go how I ever imagine they will, except for 2008,  I wonder. The thing is, there are a lot of great players that could slip down to 30, from NT Louis Nix to Beckham to to CB Dennard to any number of other guys.

No, no. Not posting any Sonny and Cher here, but, Jesus Christ on a bicycle, what in the wide wide world of sports is going on here? 49ers are getting arrested at the rate of once a week these days. Are these you father’s Cincinnati Bengals? Or maybe your father’s Jail Blazers? Your brother’s Seahawks? Well, we had 2 ‘suspicious’es last week. Not quite an arrest, but an investigation. Culliver? Yeah. Anyhow, Aldon Smith is again under the microscope for uttering those verboten word in an airport, ‘la bomba!’

He was promptly detained by LAPD and posted his $20,000 bail. He now has a very busy schedule keeping all these court dates straightened out on his calendar. If it’s Tuesday, it must be the weapons charge case. Or is it the DUI? Uh, reckless endangerment? Now all the hooraw will swirl around the type of team this is. Why are they drafting all these criminals? Well, as good a question as that may be, no one so far as I can tell can see into the future to determine the future actions of any of these draft choices. I mean, Rae Carruth was a troubled guy, but I don’t think anyone saw him trying to kill his pregnant girlfriend when he was drafted. Aaron Hernandez may have had a checkered past, as do a lot of these players, but rarely does it get to the point of mayhem. DUI, aggro assault, or otherwise.

But where does the blame lie? Who knows? Is Aldon going to get preferential treatment by the team because he’s such a talented player? Did he already get it last year? You can say the Niners were trying to help the guy out. Or they merely put him out there and said ‘kill kill kill!’ 2 days after his DUI arrest. Even Aldon seemed to be doing well after his stint in rehab. But therein lies the problem. These guys are grown-ass men. They have personal lives outside the game. They are people like you and me (if you happen to be 6’3″ 275, and faster than a f*cking gazelle). They get into normal human trouble. Alarmingly so, at times.  Plus, you know Seahwak fans are already roasting Harbaugh over last year’s comments regarding the Seahawks and all their drug/PED-rel;ated issues these past couple years. My thought has always been, let sleeping dogs lie. No reason to stir the shit unabated. That shit usually comes back to bite you squarely in the ass. Little breezy in the khakis all of a sufdden, Jimbo?

Should they merely cut Smith and let him fend for himself? Doubtful given the money they’ve already invested in him. And the talent he carries around with him. But it sure makes the contract negotiation parameters a little better for SF here. Lost in this arrest was the fact that there was no test done for alcohol. This is something the 49ers would like to know, but now that isn’t going to happen. The LAPD said he was drunk earlier but it wasn’t an issue at the time of arrest. Unfortunately they didn’t specify a time frame. How’s that for prognosticating? They could have been referring to him drinking 6 months ago. Smith was acting hung over? Or was Smith just pissed off at the TSA for being weenies? WTF does that even mean? Yet another tid-bit fo squirrely info to file away for the upcoming back-and-forth.

As usual, the instant news cycle gives us the news before the squad cars even leave the airport. I mean really, TMZ has people that just hang out at the airport waiting for shit to happen.  Surprise, surprise, it did. Within 15 minutes of his arrest, the video was posted of him being led away in cuffs. At some point in our self-saturated lives, everyone will walk around with GoPros strapped to their heads. All thewnews will soon be coming from live feeds from witnesses (and victims). And even perps.

Let the spin cycle begin. Again. And so it goes, Tralfamadorians . . .

Well, TMZ comes across looking stupid in the Kappy affair. But do they care? No. They are merely a tool for generating buzz around the flimsiest of stories and generating hits on their web site.

Me? I wouldn’t stoop so low. Anyhow, the more that comes out about this, the less there is to the story. The girl said nothing happened. It appears that she got too high, and one of the 3, or any combination of them, took her to the hospital because they were worried about her. So, she naturally filed a police report 4 days later. Maybe she got mad that they didn’t stick around til she slept it off.

Since nothing happened, the hospital released her without any apparent injuries to report, and she herself admitted that Kaepernick didn’t bang her, what are the charges going to be? They let her party too much?

Granted, there are some question marks to deal with. How did she get to the hospital? Who signed her in? Any other drugs involved? Whatever. As it is, there are no charges filed, and no reason to expect anything to change. In the good old days, players could already be hanging out at team HQ lifting weights, shooting the shit, and trying to stay out of trouble. As it is now, teams can have no contact with players, and the facilities are off limits til later this month. So they are left alone to their own devices for too long?

The reason this seems fishy is these guys get drug-tested all the time (hello Brandon Browner), and pot isn’t something that gets out of the system quickly. It takes a month for a marijuana test to come back clean after smoking a joint. If these guys were doing bong rips, they’d certainly test positive for pot in the near future.

Careful what you ask for, eh? Erstwhile starting QB and local lightning rod Colin Kaepernick, along with teammate Quinton Patton, and ex-teammate Ricardo Lockette, have been implicated in  what’s being called ‘suspicious’ activity in Miami. Seriously, though, isn[‘t everything in Miami suspicious?

It apparently involved a little party they were having at Lockette’s apartment, and it involved drinking shots, and hitting the bong. The girl got light-headed and went to lay down. She says Colin undressed her and left her in there. She woke up in the hospital not knowing how she got there. She also said there was ‘no sexual activity’ even though they had a previous relationship. Sounds pretty tame for Miami standards.

So, now we have a few of the southern belles that frequent this blog all in a tizzy over this alleged deal. Shit, Colin’s a hero for taking the OD’ed girl to the hospital. She should be thanking him instead of trying to extort money from him.

Time to roll the thread over. Not much happening til the draft in a month, so what do y’all want to talk about? Not much in the football world, unless you count the fact that RG III-XIII came up with his own personal logo, and Johnny Manzeill patented a couple of phrases.

1. Obviously: “Johnny Football”
2. Is the hugely dickish: “The House That Johnny Built”

Really? Hopefulluy he gets drafted by the Raiders, and he’ll change it to the masoleum that Johnny failed in.” Talk about painting a big giant target on your back, Johnny. No wonder 3/4 of all football fans want to watch you crater like the most recent flash in the pan, Tim Tebow.

Then again, I was kinda hoping Tim Tebow would come out of retirement to coin the phrase: “The Quarterback That God Built.”  Who said God was infallable?

Made the mistake of listening to Scott Bayless for 45 seconds this morning, and his quote was “All I know is whenever I see Johnny Football, he’s winning games. There’s no reason to doubt he won’t do that in the pros.” Skippy of course was the guy driving the Tim Tebow bandwagon. Straight into purgatory. Or the ESPN announcer’s booth. Kinda the same thing.

Perhaps Skippy forgot that Tebow (and Tim Couch, JaMarcus Russell, Vince Young, Ken Dorsey, yadda yadda yadda) all looked  like winners in college.