San Francisco 49ers Forever

We are apparently ‘close’ to signing defensive MVP DE Nick Bosa. Color me unimpressed as close don’t mean shit unless you are playing horse shoes, throwing hand grenades, slow-dancing, or trying to get your rocks off.

But I digress. At least Bosa isn’t say Deebo Samuel, a guy who lost a season, out of shape and hurt due to, in his words, HIS hold out. Bosa is pretty much a ‘pin-the-ears-back-and-kill-the QB’ guy who keeps himself in maniacally good shape, so the worry shouldn’t really be about his working himself into game shape. The goal is simply to get him SIGNED for fuck’s sake.

The longer this drags out, the stupider this organization looks. And this has been a pretty stellar effort for the team this last offseason to look like a bunch of dart-throwing monkeys. You have the Trey Lance fiasco, which if not for Brock Purdy, would have really hurt the team if Lance is as bad as he appears to be, the 3rd round kicker pick who is hurt, the 3rd round TE pick who dropped passes and then got hurt, Javon Kinlaw, and their misuse of top picks overall in their tenure, the Jimmy G jerkaround, Jet McKinnon, Aiyuk’s doghouse benching, Solly Thomas, Reuben Foster . . . on and on.

But this isn’t about throwing stones in glass houses, it’s about signing Bosa. GET IT DONE! I want him to be available for every game this season.

Man, I leave the state for a few days to hike around northern Montana, and all hell breaks loose! By the way, Glacier National park is pretty fucking amazing, even if the glaciers are almost gone.

The 3rd round curse continues with the loss of Cameron Latu, our 3rd round kicker is still hurt. Reddit believes that Nick Bosa is about to be traded to an unnamed AFC team, Trey Lance is a Cowboy, dogs sleeping with cats, it’s armageddon time!

Shit, I don’t know. The boatload of promise for this season seems to be hitting rough waters already, and we haven’t even started. Even my favorite UDFA CB D’Shawn Jamison was nabbed by the Panthers off the waiver wire. Puzzling as we always seem to be short a CB or 3 by mid-season. Then again, Jasen Verrett is gone.

Actually, the latest of late news is that Bosa will be “Available for the Pittsburgh game” as a deal is “soon to be finalized.” A couple days according to Jason Dumas, who is pretty solid in his reporting.

Color me shocked. Stupefied even. The original trade in the would get a lot of GMs fired. Then stringing him along and dumping him for a 4th round pick is a bit more wild. Their saving grace, as it is with most all of their late round picks, is the drafting of Brock Purdy. The guy coming odd a major arm reconstruction.

That the Cowboys picked him up is a huge fuck you to the ghost of Niners past. They are getting an unknown quantity for nothing. One that we bet the farm on. I was convinced they’d simply sit on him until needed, or the season ended. It’s not like we beefed up the line any.

Oh well. I’m sure there are a lot of pissed off fans out there who will instantly vilify Lance, but none of this was his doing. Shanahan is the mastermind of this debacle. He dicked around with Lance even before he was drafted. Hinting he wanted Jones, waffling on Fields, and now dumping him for peanuts. Throw in running him into the line 3 times in the 1st quarter of his 2nd game, and boom. Season-ending injury.

This WILL bite him in the ass at some point.

And even more good news. Continuing Shanny’s folly in the 3rd round, our kicker is out with a pulled quad. Our kicker. Our rookie kicker. This training staff has to be the worst in the league. Can they keep the waterboy healthy?

Man, this team is really weird. It seems that every guy the brain trust trades up for (Trey Lance, Trey Sermon, Javon Kinlaw, Brandon Aiyuk, Reuben Foster, Joe Williams) has either been dog-housed for months, cratered, been cut, traded, or otherwise washed out.

Word out of camp is Sam Darnold has been named the #2 quarterback. Throw in the fact that Trey Lance isn’t at practice today, so the prevailing sentiment is the 49ers are in the process of trading him.

Man, I don’t know about this. Unless some given team is a) desperate or b) crazy, I don’t see the 49ers getting much for Lance. Unless that last showing really wowed someone. We would take an $11 mill dead cap hit trading him, and if he really does stink on ice, we won’t sign his 5th year option and he becomes a free agent.

I mean, really. Unless they get a 2nd and 3rd at the minimum, trading Lance would be a waste of the time and effort already invested in him. Gauging by the reaction to last weekend’s comeback vs Denver, the players love Lance, and everyone around him thinks the world of him. So, this could piss off a lot of guys.

And as we know all too well, the Niners can’t keep a good QB up for a whole season (think Jimmy G in 2019 and most of 2021) and they continue to ignore the glaring problems with the offensive line. The situation seems to follow that regardless of who is where, Lance would get some starts.

I think this would be a terrible move. But hey, that’s why I write blog instead of running a football team.

Nick Bosa, who erased his sketchy Twitter past, and is not one to post much, posted a pic of New York City. Coincidentally, where his agent’s office is. I guess it means something. I hope it means something. All I know is I want him with his teammates getting ready for the season. I don’t like these holdouts.

And while his job is basically ‘see QB, kill QB’ him getting hits and being hit would seem to be an important part of season prep. No it isn’t like Deebo, who missed all of camp and was out of shape and out of sync with the offense, and who blamed his shit season last year on that very holdout, but still, I would be much more happy with him chilling with his guys.

I’m sure he’s dying to get out there as well. 19 days till kickoff. Sign the man already. He’s the reigning defensive MVP. He’s in his prime, and he wants to get out there and have a better season than last year.

Get it done.

The 49ers beat Russell Wilson! Yeah, whatever. Still and all, some needed good news for a few guys on the team. Namely Trey Lance, Cameron Latu, and Nick Moody. Ronnie Bell has solidified his spot as a backup WR and ST guy as well. Even though he pulled his ooopsie stunt for another int. This one charged to Sam Darnold.

Lance and Latu exorcized their demons on the same play. Early in the 4th quarter, after an ugly pick on a screen pass that may or may not have been caught, and facing a 3rd and 12 deep in our territory, Lance hooked up with Latu for a 14 yard gain that jump-started the team on their way to 2 scores and a comeback win over the Broncos. In the end Lance went 12-18, 173, 1 TD and 1 pick. Cameron Latu had 3 catches for 46 yards, and 1 TD. An Nick Moody kicked 3 FGs, 20, 43, and the 32 yard game-winner (barely).

Ronnie Bell had 7 catches for 114 yards, and the team had 15 different guys catch a pass. The line, which played awful against the Raiders, was a little better blocking but had 5 penalties called on them. Yeah, it’s the backups, but still, tighten that shit up.

Is that enough to shoot Lance over Darnold? Sure. I guess. Shanny said after the game that Purdy would (surprisingly) start Friday’s game against the Chargers. I guess we’ll get a little more from his as he looked totally comfortable throwing the short to medium passes as he was 4-5 for 65 yards. Darnold was 11-19.

Maybe Shanny has learned something, Nothing insane was asked of either Purdy, Darnold, or Lance and they all went 27-37 for 342 yards. 2 TDs, 2 INTs. 99 yards rushing isn’t spectacular (14-75 by the RBs), but this game was about passing.

The defense was solid, stopping Denver twice on 4th and shorts, and one of Denver’s TDs came on a short field due to D’Shawn Jamison’s muffed punt.

Speaking of special teams, they weren’t. Beyond the missed FG, and the muffed punt, Jamison had 2 other returns for 0 yards, and Mitch Wishnowski had 3 terrible punts that averaged 32 yards per.

In the end, a nice win and some confidence-boosting for some guys that needed it.

Aaaand, invisible WR Danny Grey got hurt on the kickoff and looks to disappear for yet another season.

Well, here we are at Game II of the exciting preseason shitstorm that is the 49ers QB situation. Reports are Purdy is either ‘likely’ or ‘not likely’ to play tomorrow, because you can’t tip off the opponent regarding who will play. In a preseason game. And you can’t garner enough leadlines around who will be where in the pecking order. This team is becoming the Dallas Cowboys West what with all the garish headlines around Darnold and Lance. And even Brandon Allen.

As of now, it sure looks like Darnold is the provisional #2, and he probably gets the start tomorrow. There’s talk of playing some starters as well. Lance will bring up the rear and play the Walmart brigade in the 2nd half. If he can’t play well against them, then there really is trouble on his horizon.

Granted, I’m not one for conspiracies, but it sure looks (a little) like Shanny is paving the way for Darnold to be successful and for Lance to not. I guess we’ll see who’s playing on the line tomorrow, but if the starters get a few series’s’s, then it’s already a little tilted in Darnold’s direction. And I wonder if Shanny will tart Darnold with 9 straight passes to start the game.

And it’s hard not to avoid the scrolls as Grant Cohn sez “after stinking up the joint, Lance has his best practice of the preseason” as everyone else takes turns shitting on the kid. I feel bad for Lance, as he’s had an even more fucked up start to his career than Alex Smith. People are coming out of the walls to take their shot at him. Where it goes from here, we all get to watch. I hope it all goes well, but your guess is as good as mine what the outcome is.

Hey, I don’t know. But seeing as the Trey Lance hope train is losing steam, let’s take a look at the draft record for the current brain trust. My contention is the fact we gave away the farm for Lance isn’t the crippling debacle it could have been. Our high draft pick record is spotty anyway, so the hit is not as damaging as it could have been.

I won;t grade this year as they haven’t played. So . . .

2022

• 2-61 DL Drake Jackson, USC – So far, meh. Lots of room for improvement
• 3-93 RB Tyrion Davis-Price, LSU – So far, meh. Lots of room for improvement
• 3-105 WR Danny Gray, SMU – Waste pick. Has done nothing.
• 4-134 OL Spencer Burford, UTSA – Solid pick. Rounded out into a long-term starter
• 5-172 CB Samuel Womack, Toledo – Decent player. Good get where he was drafted
• 5-187 OL Nick Zakelj, Fordham – Could be a good pick if he’s a decent backup
• 6-220- DL Kalia Davis, UCF – 3rd stringer.
• 6-221 DB Tariq Castro-Fields, Penn State – Gone
• 7-262 QB Brock Purdy, Iowa State – Draft steal of the century? Much still to prove, but

2021

• 1, 3 – Trey Lance, QB, North Dakota State – Still waiting
• 2, 48 (from LV) – Aaron Banks, G, Notre Dame  – With Burford, a long-term starter
• 3, 88 (from LAR) – Trey Sermon, RB, Ohio St – The usual 3rd round waste pick
• 3, 102 – Ambry Thomas, CB, Michigan – Solid for where we got him
• 5, 155 – Jaylon Moore, OG, Western Michigan – Struggling to get it
• 5, 172 – Deommodore Lenoir, CB, Oregon – Hot and cold. mainly cold but a 5
• 5, 180 – Talanoa Hufanga, S, USC – Dude looks for real, Great start last year
• 6, 194 – Elijah Mitchell, RB, Louisiana – Great for where we got him, Injury prone

2020

1, 14th (from Bucs) DT Javon Kinlaw, SCar – Still waiting. Injuries may kill career
1: 25th (from Vikes) WR Brandon Aiyuk, AZ State – Total baller. Breakout season coming up
5: 153rd (from Miami) OL Colton McKivitz, WVa – This season we’ll see. 5th round steal?
6: 190th (from Eagles) TE Charlie Woerner, GA – Solid 6th round pick. Nothing great
7: 217th (from Lions) WR Jauan Jennings, Tennessee – Tough as nails. Could be starter. Keeper

2019

1:  Nick Bosa, DE, Ohio State – Pay the man. Worth every penny
2: Deebo Samuel, WR, SCar – Paid the man. Worth every penny
3: Jalen Hurd, WR, Baylor – Waste pick. Retired
4: Mitch Wishnowsky, P, Utah – Too high for a punter, but hey, he’s still here
5: Dre Greenlaw, LB, Ark – Great pick. Phenomenal hitter
6: Kaden Smith, TE, Stanford – Gone and forgotten
6: Justin Skule, OT, Vandy – Drifted to Tampa Bay
6: Tim Harris, CB, Va – Out of the league i think

2018

1 (9) Mike McGlinchey, OT, ND – Good pick, not great. Priced off the team
2 (44) Dante Pettis, WR, Wash – Waste pick but still in the league on ST
3 (70) Fred Warner, OLB, BYU – Possible HOFer. Spectacular pick
3 (95) Tarv. Moore, S, S Miss – Decent guy. On the Packers
4 (128) Kent. Street, DE, NC St – Decent pick for 4th but injured and now an Eagle
5, (142) D.J. Reed, DB, K State – Great pick. Solid DB we let get away
6 (184) Marcell Harris, DB, Fla – Backup. FA.
7 (223) Jul. Taylor, DT Temple – Bounced around the league. Done.
7 (240) Rick James, WR M Ten St – Good pick at 7. Solid special teamer.

2017

1, 3. Solomon Thomas, DE Snodfart – High 3rd rounder at best. Bust at #3
1, 31. Reuben Foster, LB Alabama – Head case. Bust at #31. USFLer now
3, 66. Ahkelo Witherspoon, CB Colo – Inconsistent, but not terrible. Solid 3 pick
4, 104. C.J. Beathard, QB Iowa – Forever backup. Fine for a 4th
4, 121. Joe Williams, RB Utah – Waste pick of all their waste picks
5, 146. George Kittle, TE Iowa – Another huge steal this low
6, 177. Trent Taylor, WR Louisiana Tech – Solid at 6. STer and good possession WR
7, 198. D.J. Jones, DT Mississippi – Yet another late-round steal. Priced out of here
7, 202. Pita Taumoepenu, LB Utah – On the Jets. Other than that, ?
7, 229. Adrian Colbert, CB Miami – On the Bears. Other than that, ?

There you have it. Looking at the list:

1st round pick starters – 2 – Bosa, Aiyuk (McGlinchey starting for Denver)
2nd round pick starters – 2 – Banks, Deebo
3rd round pick starters – 1 – Fred Warner
4th round pick starters – 2 – Burford, Wishnowski
5th round pick starters – 4 – Kittle, McKivitz, Greenlaw, Hufanga (honorable mention DJ Reed)
6th round pick starters – 1 – Mitchell
7th round pick starters – 1 – Purdy (honorable mention to Jauan Jennings and DJ Jones)

Agree or disagree with my thoughts on these guys, but more often than not, this team hits their starters at 4 and below. When you look at teams that have sold the farm for a shot as a QB, the fucking Rams spring to mind. They traded their first-round pick (2016), two second-round picks (2016), a third-round pick (2016), a first-round pick (2017) and another third-round pick (2017) for Jared Goff.

Yes, the same Jared Goff they traded to Deetroit for Matthew Stafford, two 1st round picks (2022, 2023), and a 2021 3rd round pick.

So, they cut their losses with Goff, and traded MORE #1 picks to get Stafford. Granted, the Rams are a disaster now, but they did manage to squeeze out a Super Bowl victory in all that mess.

Pretty sloppy effort all around today, but hey, it’s all backups all the time. Shanny did no favors for his young QB by telegraphing the fact that every play was gonna be a throw to start the game. It wasn’t until the fourth drive before we ran the ball. Once we ripped off a coupe runs, Lance was able to move the team. Pretty? No, but some of it looked fine. He sure doesn’t look like he’s processing the field fast enough. A step behind throwing out of the pocket, and late in breaking contain.

As I’ve been complaining about, the offensive line depth is non-existent. Lance had little to no time to throw, and when he did he seemed indecisive and slow to throw things away. Still, it’s game action. Game action that he needs to progress. Darnold was Darnold. More than a few nice plays, and a couple piss-poor ones.

And the rookies fared pretty poorly. Automatic Moody missed a 40 yard FG attempt, TE Cameron Latu fumbled the ball on the 49er 12, and WR Robbie Bell dropped a pass for a pick. All in all, though, Bell looked pretty solid with a bunch of nice catches. With Ray Ray McCloud out, D’Shawn Jamison looked very good as the new punt/kick returner.

Too many penalties, the Raiders drove up and down the field, and the only TD scored by the red and gold was on a sure pick thrown by Lance that was tipped around and caught by Dwelley.

Lance gets a full half. Will he last through the quarter? I guess the question is, will Shanny use Lance as a runner? Like he said he woouldn’t? I haven’t railed on Shanny’s (mis)use of Lance lately, but the point remains. Leave him in the pocket for fuck’s sake. Let him build a rhythm and some consistency in the pocket before trying to run him.

Funny that we play Jimmy G in his first game as a Raider. Haven’t heard if he’s gonna play or not, but to my thinking, he should. If only to get hit by the guys he used to play with. And Derek Carr is shredding the KC defense as both teams are going at it with their starters.

We won’t be. Purdy apparently struggled through the practice sessions with the Raiders, and if we war making the Raider defense look good, well that don’t bode well. Still and all, preseason means nothing, if only to solidify the starters.

Guy to look out for is UDFA CB D’Shawn Jamison. He’s only 5’9″ but is getting rave reviews from everyone on the team, including Charvarius Ward, who said he’s learning how to backpedal better from him. High praise for an undrafted rook fighting for a spot.