Forty Niners Forever

OJ Simpson died yesterday at the age of 76. Dead of cancer. The feel-good story out of Potrero Hill and CCSF who became a Hall of Fame running back for Buffalo, the first back to rush for over 2,000 yards (in a 14 game season no less), the first black spokesman for a major US company (Hertz), had a pretty strong acting career (Capricorn One, Roots, Towering Inferno), and hit comedy highs with Leslie Nielsen and the Naked Gun series then became a pariah for getting away with murder and ultimately doing time for the armed robbery of what used to be his memorabilia left a crazy legacy as a spectacular athlete, a great friend, a wonderful guy, and ultimately a deeply flawed human being.

Stripped of his Heisman and pretty much shunned by most of the friends he had made over the years, the guy was a phenomenal running back. By the time he came to the 49ers, he was a broken shell of himself. The only good thing he did for the 49ers was convince Joe Thomas to install grass back at Candlestick Park to help his ailing knees.

The car chase, the threatened suicide, and his subsequent trial and acquittal became a spectacle for the ages.

Nope. No Brandon Aiyuk trade bullshit to bandy about here. Like all the hooraw around Nick Bosa last year, and Deebo the year before, this is all a media-fueled frenzy of steaming bullshit. They will sign him.

I will say that my beef with those other signings is the fact it took so long. Why fuck around? Get the shit done in a timely manner. Both Deebo and Bosa suffered at the hands of the dragged-out negotiations. Do the deed and shut up about it. That way, this Twitter-Facebook-Instagram shenanigans will stop. 3-4 guys have restructured their deals, we have room, and Purdy doesn’t need to be signed till after this coming season, so sign the guy and get ready to get that 6th Super Bowl trophy.

And, in other news, the Niners signed tight end Eric Saubert. 6’5″, 250, so he’s a big target at least. He’s also a big blocker in our 12 package (1 RB, 2 TEs).

Erstwhile underachiever Randy Gregory is looking for greener pastures in Tampa Bay as we showed no interest in keeping him, and Brock Wright was matched by the Deetroit Lions, thus depriving us once again of a backup TE that can get more than 3 catches a season. So that makes those mid-season acquisitions look like the shots in the dark that they were. Hey, worth a shot as they did OK but didn’t turn any heads.

As far as backup TE goes, Woerner is gone, flying south to the Falcons, Ross Dwelley isn’t signed, Latu is coming off the IR, and 7th round pick Brayden Willis has had some special teams success, but backup TE is still a bit of a void.

We did however (huzzah!) sign backup RB Patrick Taylor from the Packers.

This hopefully breaks the mold of drafting a worthless RB in the 3rd round a la Joe Williams, Trey Sermon, and Price-Davis.

Well, there is this. The 49ers are trying to address their black hole at back up tight end by offering restricted free agent Deetroit Lions TE Brock Wright a deal. Deetroit’s offer is 1 year at $3 mill. No word on what the 49ers offer is.

And in other news, AA feels ‘disrespected’ by the 49ers offer of 1 year, $8 mill (including) incentives and instead taking the 3 year / $43 mill deal. Despite the fact the 49ers paid him $85 mill over the past few years. Whatevs. This is sort of falls in line with Bill walsh and his famous philosophy of getting rid of players before they went bad. He will likely spend 5-6 games on IR and have a quiet season in jacksonville.

Other than that, it’s the draft in a month. Little to say other than get offensive line help in a big way.

Give Aiyuk his money and stop with the hedging.

Draft offensive line help.

Here we are again trying to sign a budding star to a deal. Lynch didn’t even bother with DeFo Buckner, he waited forever with Deebo and Bosa, to the detriment of both players, and did pretty well with warner and Kittle. I’m sure I’m forgetting guys, but the lesson here obviously has to be get the deal done before it becomes a major distraction.

Lynch has done nothing but praise Brandon Aiyuk, but talk don’t pay the bills. BA has a great connection with Purdy, and these offensive weapons need to be on the field practicing and grooving rather than cooling their heels on the sidelines.

BA IS under contract this year, so the hope is we get this done before camp and the ugly possibility of a holdout rears its ugly head, but hey, them’s the cards. Deebo flat admitted the contract holdout was a huge distraction and fucked up his 2022 season. Bosa’s holdout seemed to take out his legs to the point of ineffectiveness in long stretches, so get this shit done.

This did make me laugh however. Here’s BAs response to Lynch’s praise.

(for the emoji-challenged among you, it says “Money talks, bullshit walks!”

Get it done, folks. This has to be the first achievement of the newly anointed principal owner of the team, Young Sir Jed is taking the mantle from Eddie’s sister Denise.

Spring hit with a vengeance as temps roared up to the mid-70s these past couple days. Good times.

A funny thing happened on the way to the bank. Chase Young signed a one year $13 million deal with the Saints, and promptly discovered he needs neck surgery. He should be ready for the 2024 season, but I’m glad we didn’t keep him here. Decent enough guy who is still young, but I like who we have now.

Other than that, just waiting for the draft next month. Since most of what we did on free agency dealt with the defense, my hope is we draft for the offensive line. Like 5 picks for the line. Throw in a couple WRs and CBs, and an LB and we should be good to go. Lots of good linemen in the draft, so trading up is a distinct possibility.

Baseball? The season started 10 days early in South Korea as the Dodgers beat the Pads. At least Farhan and Greggie opened the checkbook. A whole bunch of 2-year deals, but I guess we have Scott Boras and his outlandish demands to thank for that. JD Davis sure found out the hard way how not to take your agent’s advice.

Plenty of moves this free agency, so let’s just wee what we got.

Gone are a 7th round pick, Arik Armstead, Isaiah Oliver, Oren Burks, Sam Darnold, Clelin Ferrell, and Charlie Woerner.

Here are Maliek Collins, Jordan Elliott, Yetur Gross-Matos, De’Vondre Campbell and Isaac Yiadom.

We have re-signed Flannigan-Fowles, Colton McKivitz, Brandon Allen, and George Odum, and tendered Jauan Jennings.

The glaring thing is to sign Brandon Aiyuk.

And, stop me if you’ve heard this, GET MORE O LINE DEPTH!

Given all the push and pull. I think we are better, if not strictly in depth on the defensive line. Didn’t like to see Burks or Ferrell go, but that is the struggle when trying to balance a shitload of good players on shorter contracts.

Even moreso, I think the change in defensive coaching style will do worlds for this team. The Niners beat the shit out of fair to middling teams, but struggled getting consistent pass pressure on the better teams. All season long I thought we were too passive and soft early. As shown by the numerous early TD drives given up. And the tiring of the D in some of these losses.

I sense we will get more offensive weapons in the draft. And hopefully 3-4 new offensive linemen. Backup TE is still a concern and I’m sure Shanny will go for another RB at some point in the draft.

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Giants News – I have to laugh at JD Davis being bummed out how his ‘winning’ his arbitration case blew up in his face. His agent tried to play hard ball, and in the end lost JD $4 million. They knew the Giants were going after Chapman but still pushed the high number.

Oooops!

I need a fricking scorecard to keep up with the doings on these 49ers. Since Eric Kendricks gave up on his shot to win a Super Bowl and instead picked Dallas, the 49ers signed De’Vondre Campbell, recently on the Packers. Gone is Ray Ray McCloud, AA signed a 3 year/$51 mill deal with the Jags, the Niners signed CB (mainly special teamer) Chase Lucas from the Lions(and yes we need special teams help desperately), and we re-signed Jose feliciano, the only blind NFL player in history. This of course on top of all the other moves from 2 days ago.

The Niners also restructured Jason Hargraves, Fred Warner, George Kittle, and Kyle Juicechick’s contracts to free up $36 million in cap space. Surely the piper must be paid, but that is for 3 years down the road. The future is now, the house is built, the window is open, and we need to kick down the door soon with this current crop of players.

I’m out of house-as-a-football-team metaphors, but you get the idea. All these moves make the team better, but they really (once again) have paid very little attention to the offensive line. And rthe defensive backfield.

I’m very happy with these moves, mainly because AA was on his last legs, and we saved a ton cutting him before June 1, but we NEED offensive line help, if not more help in the defensive backfield. Ji’Ayir Brown played very well when thrust into the starting role with Hufanga’s injury, and having both of them available will be great, but Gipson is 32, Ambry Thomas is inconsistent as all get-out, and CB is another spot that has been fairly neglected but for Mooney Ward. Like Trent Williams on the O line, one big spend and ignore the rest.

It seems like every draft I scream “O line help and CB depth!!!” To no avail. And I’m talking since the Nolan era.

For a team that had one of the top defenses in the league last year, the 49ers front office isn’t sitting on their hands. Gone is Steve Wilks. Replaced by Nick Sorensen and Brandon Staley. Gone are Javon Kinlaw, Clelin Ferrell, Arik Armstead, and Isaiah Oliver.

The recent signings are OL Ben Barch, DE Leonard Floyd, DE Yetur Gross-Matos, DT Jordan Elliott, and LB Eric Kendricks.

Kyle Juicechick restructured his deal to get back $1.8 mill in cap space, George Odum, Colton McKivitz, and Brandon Allen signed deals, and Jauan Jennings was tendered a one-year deal. So the Niners have first refusal rights to sign him should he get an offer.

All in all, I think the Niners did themselves well. Kinlaw and AA have been injury-prone and inconsistent. Although AA was a stalwart for a long time on the D line. Darnols is Darnold. We weren’t gonna keep him at $10 mill per. Floyd and Kendricks are bona fide studs and should fit right in with the reconstituted defense.

As usual I would like to see more action on the O line. The draft is coming, and there is still time to make moves.

Free agency is coming, and with it a LOT of QB moves. Some have already happened. Jac Mones is now a Jag. He was traded for a 6th round pick by the Pats!

Baker Mayfield is staying with the Bucs.

Really thought the Raiders would go hard after Russell Wilson, but he’s a Steeler now. Real curious to see how that works out. Real curious to see what the Raiders do at QB as well what with Jimmy being unceremoniously cut. Brilliant work by the Raiders front office BTW!!! Trade the better QB, get a lesser QB, keep the shitty coach, fire the shitty coach halfway thru the season, and can the lesser QB. If you didn’t see that coming, you must work for Prince Valiant.

The big deal that will determine a lot is Kirk Cousins. He of the 35 year old snapped achilles. He’s more than likely staying in Minn as he’s a $29 million cap hit if he’s cut/traded. He was playing well when he got hurt, but he has been the master of getting in to the playoffs, but nowhere once there. He has till Wednesday to make the call. Atlanta is the likely spot if he does move.

Speaking of Mac Jones, his compadre in that 2021 draft, Justin Fields, is on the skids in Chi-town and looks to play somewhere else. The Giants? They are off Danny Dimes as he’s throwing more bricks than coins these days and he’s hurt for at least a month of the 2024 season. But he’s a $48 million cap hit either way. Ouch.

Got to wonder if the Bears are looking to Sourdough Sam Darnold to be their bridge QB if they draft Caleb Williams. The Redskins and Pats look to draft Qbs at 2 and 3, so Darnold might get interest from a few teams to be a Steve DeBerg.

The 49ers did announce they signed Brandon Allen. Woo hoo. With all those picks, we’ll likely take another flier on a QB late in the draft if Darnold gets a shot to start somewhere.

And I’m waiting with baited breath to see if the Cowboys throw a dump truck full of money at Dak Prescott (ihopeihopeihope). Dak isn’t the sole reason for the Cowboys playoff failures, but he’s a pretty big part of it. Granted, the biggest issue in Dallas is the culture of instant gratification and headline-grabbing that starts from the rotted head down to the players. Micah Parsons spent the whole season complaining about being held, being the best defender in the NFL, about the Cowboys being the best defense in the NFL, about Dak not getting respect, and too many other things to list. And this is after playing the 49ers and getting 0.5 tackles while giving up 42 points. He disappears in the big games, and makes hay against the cannon-fodder that is the Giants and Redskins. Even the Eagles.

If Dallas somehow moves on from Dak, I wonder how long it takes for Trey Lance to pop back up on the scene.