Forty Niners Forever

12/31/23 – Happy New Years Eve!

Two games left and we have a one game lead. I think we need this bye week as we are the walking dead. AA, Jennings, Moore, and Brown are out. Burks, Williams, Purdy, and Deebo all were full participants so we should be fine on offense.

Unless this was Purdy’s comeuppance. Very curious to see how he does after that debacle last Monday. The Niners moved the ball well for the most part, but there were a lot of bad breaks.

Washington is in full rebuild mode after trading their stud DE bookends Chase Young and Montez Swett. Jacoby Brissett got the start at QB for 5 hours as he promptly pulled a hammy after being named the starter so Sudden Sam Howell will get the start.

Dallas did us yet another favor in beating the Lions yesterday, so a win today would really get the 1 seed that much closer.

And I think AZ can really give Philly a run as their run defense is not very good.

Man, we are the walking wounded as of now. Crawling into the new year like one of my favorite movies, and the last movie I saw at the Redwood City Drive-In, Down of the Dead.

Logan Ryan is next man up at safety as Ji’Ayir Brown is out for an undetermined time, and Hufanga is still down.

Don’t have Friday’s report but I will post it when it comes through. And we all know it is pretty extensive.

The Commies are benching Sudden Sam Howell in favor of the more mobile Jacoby Brissett as Riverboat Ron tries to exploit our struggles with mobile quarterbacks. That all sounds good, but the hope is the pass rush will negate any offensive outburst for Washington.

I mean, come on. Short-handed or not, the Niners pass rush should be able to squash the Commies. If not, our back end is hurting and can be exploited. Trent Williams looks to be progressing to play, so we should be OK in the run game, and the Commies have already started dismantling their defense, so, no hiccups.

Stomp these Commies.

Too much stuffing? Too many mimosas? Too many passes?

Whatever it was, the 49ers fell flat on their faces Christmas day. A promising start led to a late pass picked off in the end zone, and the weirdness ensued. The back judge caused a safety on Lamar Jackson, we got a couple 3-and-outs, and what could have been a 14 point early lead was instead 5-0.

Despite the 3 first half picks (the 2nd one was unlucky, the third was stupid, but it did hit Kittle in the hands), the 49ers were still only down 4 at the half 16-12. Purdy got hit throwing short pass in the 3rd quarter and the rout was on.

For all intents and purposes the defense played as well as they could, given the turnover situation and Wishnowski turning into an Aussie Rules football player and getting a personal foul on a long punt return. We didn’t seem to have issues moving the ball, we just had too many bad tips and bounces. The defense did well for the most part keeping Balt out of the end zone until the picks stacked up like cordwood.

Field position and turnovers killed us, as did the plethora of penalties. Oh well. Still the #1 seed. Just win the last two and we are fine. It’s likely better to play with an edge rather than have everything sewn up early.

Like I said, it’s good to get this game out of the way, but hopefully this is it. Due to the vagaries of the NFL scheduling assholes, we get an early east coast game after a Monday night home game.

Assholes.

Here we go!!! Merry Christmas all!! Hope you are having a happy one.

Dallas did their job snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Limp Dick Nick threw for 411 yards, but also threw 4 picks to blow their game against Deetroit.

We will see what happens with the Iggles today, but they have to be a little bit worried about their level of play. A loss to the Giants would be catastrophic, so let’s hope.

Us? We need to get on top and stay on top. The thing about Baltimore is they are not a big come-from-behind team. Force them to be one-dimensional and keep to your rushing lanes. Contain Lamar and you can beat the Ravens.

Here’s to a Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all! Thanks for being a part of this.

Two 11-3 teams poised to take the #1 seeds in their respective conferences makes for an exciting game. I guess. I should be more worked up about this game, but I just don’t think it is as important as it is being made out to be. At least to me. I’d hate to depend on having to win the last two, but Philly is gagging and Dallas has a tough schedule. Deetroit is the paper lions they appear to be, so they’ll fade. So, even with a loss I don’t think it’ll hurt us bad.

It may even help.

My only concern is the #1 seed. We can skate through this and save our shit for the playoffs. We are down 3 interior linemen, AND Clelin Ferrel. So the run defense looks to be soft. AZ put up 234 on us, and I fear we may not have enough time with the ball to score enough. Kinlaw was a ghost as he was pushed around all over the field all game. Getting help from outside the organization doesn’t appear to be a concern for the braintrust, so why should I worry about this?

But who knows? Maybe we will do to Baltimore what we did to our other supposed big challenges in Philly and Dallas. Even Jacksonville. I just think we will get burned by their run game.

The one good thing (well, two) about Monday night is that we will know what has happened with all the teams chasing us. And we get an extra day of rest.

Games are:

Lions @ Vikings – 10:00 am Sunday – Lions suck on the road – Vikings win
Cowboys @ Dolphins – 1:25 pm Sunday – Cowboys get run over by Mostert and Co
Giants @ Eagles – 1:30 pm – Monday – Eagles blow this one, they are a cooked goose

Ravens @ 49ers – 5:15 – Monday – We are beat-up on the D line. Gonna be tough

My kingdom for a defensive lineman! I think the 49ers need to call Ndamukong Suh NOW to bolster this defensive line. AA and Gravedigger are likely out, and backup Kalia Davis is also out with a high ankle sprain. As the AZ game wore on last week, Givens and Kinlaw were worn down and not effective at stopping the run. To the tune of 234 yards.

Sure, Baltimore’s leading rusher is also their QB, but still, they need a big body in the middle to slow their run game. Which is #1 in the NFL. I think we can slow them down but we need a couple bodies for the rotations. Suh would fit the bill. Always liked his intensity.

It’ll probably happen by Friday.

Hey, if no one wants to talk Giants, I get it. And since the Flap is on hiatus, here we go. But I just have to say I’m really disappointed by Buster Posey’s sentiment that lends creedence to the statement that the Giants cannot sign free agents because of the negative image of San Francisco.

BULLSHIT!!!

Ever since the Stonehams dismantled the great teams of my youth, the great teams of the late 60s and early 70s, they have been crying about not being able to sign free agents because of:

The weather
The taxes
The lifestyle
The politics
The freaks and hairies
The dykes and fairies
The ballpark (the Stick AND Oracle)
The wind
The parking
The housing prices
The rent
The poop

Now we have Buster saying “crime” like LA is a bastion of civility. Philly is candy-land. NY is utopia. Houston and St Louis aren’t the most crime-ridden cities in the country.

Yay, we signed a prayer type guy in Jung-Hoo Lee, a Korean ball player who is solid defensively in CF and pretty much a doubles hitter. Will he hit ML pitching? This is a big unknown, but the kid is young and we NEED young fast defenders. So I like the signing even though the consensus is Korean ball is somewhere around the AA-AAA level.

But they NEED to go after Yamamoto or Bellinger or Montgomery or Strohman or Bader or Hader or Chapman or Hoskins or any number of guys who can help this team NOW. Otherwise we have another season of praying the pitching somehow holds up through having 2 great starters and a back end of middling relievers.

Kind of a weird game, but AZ games are always some kind of freak-show weird-ass game. It never really felt in doubt, despite a couple gigantic breaks in the form of two overturned fumbles. One of which was a TD the other way. We NEED Ray Ray back!!!!

And there were THREE huge scares when CMC went out with what looked like a knee injury, Purdy, who went under the blue tent with what was a stinger, and Nick Bosa who went out when a Cardinall rolled up on him after a play.

They all returned, and all seemed fine. But man, that was some scary shit. If this team can stay healthy, they are really looking like the best team in the league right now. 

So, even though the defense gave up a ton of yards on the ground, and AZ was moving the ball pretty well, the 49ers played well enough on offense to keep AZ pretty far back in the rear view mirror. Purdy was his usual solid consistent self. 16/25, 242, 4 TDs. So, since Dak tripped over his dik with his 135, 1 pick performance, all the talk was why Brock shouldn’t be MVP. Even though as of now, he’s thrown 29 TDs with 7 picks and leads the league in just about every QB metric.

Now of course, Lamar Jackson is now the darling of the NFL with his 16/6 2,900 yards. And I heard at least 8 different guys go on and on why Purdy shouldn’t win this. Even Purdy thinks his bud McCaffrey should win it, which to me make me think Brock deserves it even more.

But whatevs. All these talking heads don’t seem to believe what they are seeing with their eyes. And that is that Purdy has played 21 NFL games, has 2 playoff wins, and is beating a shit-ton of good teams.

As long as we keep winning, keep underestimating Mr. Irrelevant, folks. We’ll take that shit al the way down Market St.

Let’s hope Brock shows out for his family and friends as he grew up about 20 miles fromGlendale and the giant cactus the Cards play in.

Get healthy and stay there. that is the name of the game. Got to keep stacking up the wins as we are in the driver’s seat.

Last I heard, Mooney AND Gravedigger have a chance to play. I’s keep their reps way down and try to get them healthy for the stretch run and playoffs.

In my head this would be a great game to start Sam Darnold. Get him some live-action experience. But luckily I don’t run the team. That being said, this is an easy game to overlook as the 49ers have the big bad Ravens scheduled for our Monday night Christmas skirmish after this one in Phoenix.

Yeah, they are 3-10. But they flat stomped the Cowboys, beat the Steelers, and squeaked by the Vikings. Three probable playoff teams. Weird. They rode the Josh Dobbs train till he took a different track to Minnesota. Kyler is back, and they always seem to be a bitch and a half for the 49ers to figure out, but hey. Those days are long gone. Hopefully. Stop Conner and you;ve slowed them down enough to beat them.

We are on a roll so the impetus is to keep it going. Build up an early lead and get the backups in. It’s rarely that easy, but hey, we’ll see. Stay clean and keep rolling.

Other games of note? Cowboys / Bills Super Bowl rematch. And Seattle / Philly on Monday night. Be nice to put a couple games between us and our chasers. The Bills and Seattle are fighting for their playoff lives and they are better than the teams currently above them.