San Francisco 49ers Forever

Amazingly, there are 4 other teams without 1st round picks in the draft. The Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, and us. And of those teams, the Broncos, Rams, and Cleveland absolutely suck.

So, those franchises look to be in a bit of hurt for a while. The Broncos tied their fortunes to a quarterback who has seen better days pretty far back in the mirror, the Rams sold their souls to the Devil for a Super Bowl victory, but have now cratered to the bottom of the NFC West, and the Factory of Sadness shall remain the Factory of Sadness.

Russell Wilson cost a fortune but did nothing to fix the ongoing issue of John Elway and Co to find a QB worth a damn. I mean, even Manning was pretty much a shell of himself at that point and simply was tasked with not losing games. It finally ended up in Elway being shown the door. The Rams? Well, they threw tons of money at free agents, and got one decent season out of Matthew Stafford, and if for a dropped pick in the NFC championship game (fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck), would have been a misguided attempt at relevance.

All the up-front money caused the Rams to jettison a lot of talent, and they’ve sunk like a stone to the bottom of the West as Stafford’s propensity to throw picks has come back to haunt the Rams. Cleveland went eve deeper into the seven circles of Hell to drag out the virulent spectre of DeShaun Watson. The guy who was punished for his deeds by getting a 5 year / $230 million contract. He completely lived up to the deal by going 3-3, 58% completion %age, 7 TDs, 5 picks, and a lowly 6.5 yards/attempt in his shortened season.

Miami and the 49ers at least look like they are gonna go somewhere this year. But that isn’t even set in stone. More like sand. Miami is struggling with keeping their QB healthy after some scary shit on the field, and we were even worse at keeping QBs healthy.

Which means of course that we should focus on getting O line help in a big way. The O line eventually settled down pretty nicely. Interior O line at least. The killer Bs in Brendel, Banks, and Burford settled in and became a solid interior line, and the run game did well. The weak link, at least in pass pro, was RT Mike McGlinchey. He of course went to browner pastures (and a greener bank account) in Denver. Our new RT as of now is 3rd year guy Jaylon Moore, our 5th round pick in 2021.

So, we need to draft a RT, a center for depth, and a CB or 3. Get a backup TE, a safety in the Hufanga vein, and QB and WR for depth.

As we know all too well, this braintrust seems to find gold in the 3rd to 7th rounds, and leaves the turds in the first 2 rounds. So I guess we are in the catbird seat.

Well, it finally happened. 18 years after the 49ers passed on the guy, he’s part of another team-altering deal where Aaron leaves the frozen tundra for the swanky suburbs of New Jersey and Tony Soprano. Aaron and the Jets. Oh, it’ll be weird and wonderful. Oh Aaron He is really keen.

The trade includes a swap of first-round picks in this draft. The Packers will pick 13th and the Jets will move to 15.

The Jets are also sending Green Bay a second-round pick (42 overall) and a sixth-round pick (207 overall) in this year’s draft; as well as a 2024 conditional pick that will be a first-round pick if Rodgers plays 65 percent of the plays for the Jets in 2023, or a second-round pick if he does not.

The Jets also receive a fifth-round pick (No. 170 overall) in this year’s draft.

The trade won’t be official until the terms of Rodgers’ contract are hammered out.

Rodgers is scheduled to make nearly $60 million in 2023 but will likely renegotiate that deal before coming to the Jets. Gonna be a fun year for these Jets. They’ve officially given up on Zack Wilson and I’m sure are looking to improve their defense.

Robert Saleh has his work cut out for him. Not a huge fan of Rodgers but hey, the AFC East looks like a fun division. Belichick is floundering like a mofo so the changing of the guard there is imminent. The Bills are the Bills. They win the division but can’t get through the playoffs. Miami looks to be, uh, I don’;’t know. Mike McDaniel looked like Vince Lambari Jr, leading the Phins to an 8-3 record, but then went 1-5 to stagger into the playoffs and lose a hearbreaker to the Bills. Their Jekyll and Hyde season, and their nearly crippled QB Tua look to improve on their weird year.

There’s a nice article in the Chronicle regarding Fresneck State QB Jake Haener. I mentioned this guy a few months ago as a great under-the-radar guy to pick up as our back-up of the future. Problem is, he’s starting to get noticed. He’s starting to get noticed because he bears a resemblance to our one and only Big Cock Brock Purdy. Not sure of Haener’s, uh, dimensions, but he’s 6 foot nothing and weighs 207 lb.

Undersized and unheralded until recently, Haener led the crappy Fresno State program (4-8 before him) to a 23-10 record, and a win over the UCLA Bruins 40-37 with two 4th quarter TD passes, and he also led them to the Mountain West Conference championship and a win over Washington State in the (WTAF?) Jimmy Kimmel Bowl (>?).

Sure, he’s a Danville kid who went to Monte Vista and grew up next to a country club, a la Zack Wilson. He threw those two 4th down TDs with a hip pointer and a torn oblique or some shit. He’s ‘country club tough’ according to his high school coach.

Hey. Who knows? All I do know is we need a viable backup after we trade Lance and dump Darnold after this season. Might as well take a shot on a guy who can be viable as a late 3rd pick. We have 3 of them.

Well, per SI, the 49ers are getting a lot of calls regarding Trey Lance.

“The 49ers have been fielding calls from other teams regarding interest in trading for quarterback Trey Lance, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. San Francisco is likely going with second-year quarterback Brock Purdy as the team’s future starter.”

Don’t know how many ways I can say ‘who’s gonna trade for an unknown commodity?’

Here’s the article:

https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/04/19/49ers-fielding-trade-calls-trey-lance-report

Really don’t think the Niners do anything other than wait on how this season plays out. Unless we get two 1st round picks for him. And no GM in their right mind would make that deal now based on the limited playing time for Lance.

Not sure why this endless blather bugs me but, hey them’s the clicks. Well, I do. It;s the same shit over and over.

Good news? Brock Purdy is out of the elbow brace he was wearing on his surgically repaired elbow.

In listening to the reports about his elbow surgery though, John Lynch said Purdy should be fully ready to go by training camp.

Kyle Shanahan said it’s possible Purdy won’t be ready till week 4.

Purdy himself dropped this bomb, saying he’s “not really sure” if he will be ready to play in 2023.

Someone’s story is way off here, but I’m sure this is yet another attempt by Click-Bait Cohn to stir the shit, but Purdy DID say it. Does it really mean anything? Probably not.

Best case scenario is training camp. A longer recovery would be somewhere between week 2 and week 6. Missing the whole season? Doubtful. But who knows? These kinds of surgeries have been successful for pitchers for decades, and some have even gone through the process twice.

That being said, only Mike Clevinger has been even remotely effective as a pitcher after the 2nd TJ surgery. But most of the other guys were on the far side of 30 anyway. But the impetus here being, Purdy had better be fully functional by the time he gets back on the field. Whether training camp, or week 14, or 2024.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Purdy is young and strong and should be able to fully recover from this. The timeframe IS the main issue, but as I said, he likely will be on the field by week 4 at the latest, I’d think.

. . . Trey lance was spotted hanging out (and throwing) with 2x Super Bowl champ Patrick Mahomes and his gaggle of wide receivers. This of course was not sanctioned by the Chiefs or the NFL as that would be verboten, but Lance decided to crash the party and do some throwing of his own.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1644085449755877380

Interesting to note, the one pass they show him throw he uses a higher arm angle and quicker release. As noted by Dave Lombardi. Even Mahomes is at a slightly lower arm angle, but his release is quick.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1644072784664952833

This type of workout would of course be some sort of violation of the CBA so this is all done on their own. Not sure how Lance got invited, but if anything, just watching and learning from Mahomes is a good thing. And the fact that he appears to be altering his motion is a also good thing. His mechanics are pretty scatter-shot, so building a better platform to throw from will be a welcome sight. If he can build consistency, he should be on his way.

Looks like the talking heads have run out of shit to post about our quarterback situation and are rehashing the oldies. Apparently there is ‘chatter among people in the league’ that the 49ers are interested in trading for Kirk Cousins. The ‘people in the league’ being the tackling dummies, apparently. What next? Nate Davis?

All this happened at the combine. You know, a month ago. Naturally, a huge story like this was sat on till now and is now a hot topic.

Mindless blather? Trial balloons floated out by the Whisper Machine inside 49er headquarters to gather info for Lance’s worth? Monkeys throwing darts at buzzwords? No fucking idea, but why in God’s name would we take on Cousins when we have TWO quarterbacks on rookie deals? Lance is far from proven to be a bust. He isn’t proven to be anything but snakebit by injuries at this point, but we aren’t gonna give Lance ‘a fresh start’ somewhere else without giving him a legit shot here.

Purdy is Purdy. Sure, he’s young and coming off a pretty significant injury, but we aren’t gonna throw down on a 34 year old QB with an abysmal playoff record just because some drunk team exec was talking to a potted plant.

Purdy already has more playoff wins than Cousins and Prescott to name a couple, and Purdy should be fine by October at the latest so, the hamster wheel of stupidity coming out of the national media is gonna spin like mad. I said the grist mill around the 49ers is gonna be a full-tilt-boogie and here we go.

Simply an excuse to throw on some Hendrix? Sure. Always down for that. Anyhow, John (I’m not simply Kyle’s mouthpiece) Lynch gave a ringing endorsement to Brock Purdy as the starter once healthy.

Really? No shit? The guy goes 5-0 in the regular season, and goes 2-0 in the playoffs before getting hurt, taking down Seattle and Dallas in convincing fashion? And thus equalling Dak Prescott for playoff wins his Brock’s one abbreviated season?

Hah! Bold shit there, John.

This feels a little like the scenario when Colin Kaepernick took the league by storm when Alex Smith got hurt. Two very good QBs who both are nominal starters. I said sort of. We still have to find out what we have in Trey Lance. And, of course Brock has to recover, and recover fully, from his ligament damage, but this kind of surgery has been done millions ot times and it shouldn’t be a problem.

Sooooooo, the ideal situation is for Lance to come in and play to his projected level as Purdy heals up. Lance can only enhance his value should he come out and not fall flat on his face. And we would have the scenario where our backup becomes a coveted starter for the 2024 season.

I mean, even if his performance isn’t spectacular, there are enough teams willing to take a shot and give us something in return. The wasted draft picks? Pffft. Don’t really give a fuck at this point as Lynch and Co have wasted plenty of first-day picks themselves.

Thing is, the Niners will have a decision to make regarding Lance and his 5th year option. This will be his 4th season, and he will finally get his shot. Unless Kyle goes the stupid route and runs him up the middle repeatedly, but that’s a different story. A solid season from him and we would be in position to do a sign and trade. A mediocre season, would we simply cut our losses? With Purdy becoming Joe Jr. the possibility exists. I still think we would try to sign and trade him, but the prudent thing may be to just walk away if lance is still struggling. Truth is, he’s very green even 3 years into his NFL career. He’s started 5 games in the last 3 years, and one of those was the in the 2020 BCS.

As usual, the Niners are coming into the season with a truckload of offseason dilemmas. Through all the weirdness we have become ESPN/Internet fodder for massive speculation and endless blather.

As Hunter Thompson said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

– HST

To San Dawg as his San Dawg State Aztecs hit the Elite 8 and try for a Final 4 appearance tomorrow against the Creighton B Jays. Gotta say, I’m actually getting psyched for these games as it is a bunch of teams that haven’t gotten this far. As I’m typing this, the Florida Atlantic Owls just knocked off perennial powerhouse K-State. In fact, all of the #1’s were ousted by the Elite 8 games. A first since the 64 team seeding in 1979.

All we need now is for the Zags to take down UConn. Texas/Miami sounds more like the BCS National Championship football game. Hey, we’ll see.

And baseball is 5 days away! The rotation actually looks pretty strong. The pen has settled down the closer we get to the real thing. Hitting? Defense? That is the question, and that is the question.

Not really watching this, although it is kinda funny people are up in arms because guys major leaguers like Trayce Thompson get to play for different countries (in his case Great Britain since his dad was born in the Bahamas) and it is such a farce. Whatevs.

The only thing noteworthy to come out of this is Edwin Diaz tearing his patellar tendon celebrating his win as part of Team Puerto Rico in their win over the DR. As stupid baseball celebrations go, it wasn’t as dumb as your usual major league strip off the jersey and douse the guy with water, but . . . .

Oooops.

At least he wasn’t separating frozen hamburger patties with a knife or playing with his kids a la Jeremy Affeldt. Still and all, I’m not really paying much attention to this as it is filled with guys who will never see the light of the majors scattered around the various major leaguers who snuck onto some of these squads. But, the Mets are screwed as their closer hits the shelf for the entire season. Not sure why they decided to play this tourney right in the middle of spring training, but that ain’t my call.

Than again, baseball runs from March to November so, when else? Maybe do it in Australia in December.

Other than that, love the Javon Hargrave signing. Bummed we lost Moseley and Ebukam, but we have so many free agents that we were bound to lose a few.