Forty Niners Forever

Tough early test for the Niners today. Fairly important in the fact that they are likely gonna be fighting for the 1st round bye with the Niners and the Eagles as well. There are many games to go, but as we all saw last year, we got pretty far behind the 8-ball with those early losses.

But to say we are inside their heads is an understatement. After knocking them out of the playoffs these last couple seasons Dallas is treating this game like their Super Bowl. In week 5. This is pretty much another game for the 49ers. Yeah, I would love nothing more than to crush these guys, but I don’t think we are gonna run the table, so a loss would not be a killing blow.

That being said, I think we will outlast them. Yeah, they have a talented team, but I think we can score on that defense. And I certainly think we can get some turnovers off Dak. Containing him in the pocket and limiting the scrambles is huge. Bosa comes up big today. We get a couple turnovers.

Lots of hype around this game, and hey, any time Dallas and the 49ers meet, there’s tons and tons of history. We of course have stopped their last 2 playoff excursions in 2021 and 2022. Now? It’s the 4-0 Niners vs the 3-1 Cowboys. You can say Dallas hasn’t beaten anybody tough, but then again neither have we. Pittsburgh was supposed to be an early challenge, but we dispatched them with ease, despite their vaunted defense. Which is 29th in yards allowed. The Rams? Well, they are 2-2. Kind of a Jekyll/Hyde team. They looked real good vs. Seattle but cratered vs. 1-3 Bengals, and looked decent in the loss to the Niners, and blew a 23 point lead only to beat the Colts. The Giants? Please. Still don’;’t know how they came back v the Cards. They should be 2-2 as well.

Dallas has beaten the 1-3 jets, the 1-3 Giants, and the 1-3 Patriots. The bit of a shocker was Dallas lost to AZ. AZ played us pretty well with their sustained drives, and they killed Dallas’ defense with three plays of over 44 yards, so you know we have some good footage of how AZ beat ’em. Dallas out-gained AZ 416-400 but AZ had a whopping 222 yards on the ground. Led by Sarah Connor’s 98 yards, and Dobbs 55. And all AZ did was stop Dallas in the red zone. Of Dallas’ 5 trips to the red zone, they got one TD, 3 FGs, and the ubiquitous red zone pick by Dak. Dallas has struggled in the red zone all season.

So, the blueprint is pretty much set. Run, play-action, keep them out of the end zone. I really wish Elijah Mitchell would be ready for this game as we need to pound the ball down their throats. CMC should be able to run over this defense, but having Mitchell behind him to add to the pounding would be excellent. I do dig Jordan Mason’s game as well. Mix it up with the three, and run 2-back offenses, and put CMC in motion. Get real creative with him. Having CMC on a linebacker is like taking candy from a baby. If they play us heavy run, simply go play-action and beat them over the middle.

I think we can wear down this defense and put points up. The defense plays big in this win. 1 pick and a fumble recovery. 34-14 Niners.

Nice solid win against a pretty decent team. playing as well as they could. CMC went wild with 106 on the ground + 3 TDs, and 71 in the air with one TD. Brandon Aiyuk had a monster game catching 6 catches, including 2 perfectly thrown deep balls, for 149 yards. Purdy was a flat amazing 20/21 for 283 and a TD, with a rushing TD thrown in there for the final score.

The defense was fairly pedestrian, though. Like we didn’t want to show too much to Dallas. We didn’t blitz, we gave up a 4th and 7 on a Dobbs scramble, and gave up a 4th and 4 on a fake punt. No turnovers generated, 100 on the ground, and 265 in the air. Their one sack, by the Grave Digger, did come at a very opportune time, as AZ was trying to put the pressure on in the 3rd quarter on a 3rd and 8 play near midfield.

Of the 3-0 teams, the Niners won, the Eagles squeaked out a 31-28 win over the Commies in OT, and the Dolphins fell hard vs. Buffalo 48-20.

On the flip side, Minnesota got their first win over the no-win Panthers 21-13, the Broncos eeeeked out a win over the hapless Bears, now 0-4. The only 2 remaining unwinners.

The Rams once again flip-flopped and looked like a decent team, beating the Colts in OT 29-23 after blowing a 23 point lead. McVay is riding Stafford into the ground, but hey, that’s all he trusts I guess.

Seattle looks to go 3-1 as they go against the NY prep-football Giants tomorrow night.

Oh yeah, the Cowboys? Well, they got their ya-yas out after losing to AZ by stomping the living shit out of the Patriots 38-3. Brian Belichick’s worst loss in his history. Jeeeeez, Jac Mones? 12/21 150, 2 picks. Dallas, offense isn’t blowing anyone away as they are 11th in yards, (2nd in scoring), but they are leaning heavily on their defense and are #2 in yards, and #1 in points per game. For compare the Niners are 6th in yards, and 4th in points allowed.

Big early game coming. Fuck Dallas.

Got a busy day. Kyle is stilll only 5-7 vs. AZ. No more Kliff Klavin though.

Catch you all on the flip side.

Go Niners!

Well, the Thursday Night Football injury blues hit the Niners pretty good as Dre Greenlaw twisted his ankle late in the win over the Giants, and Deebo Samuel bruised his ribs and tweaked his knee in that game as he pounded the Giants into submission. Brandon Aiyuk, who missed the game, is practicing, limitedly in his non-contact jersey.

The good news is Greenlaw and Aiyuk look like they will be ready. Deebo’s status is less settled as he’s missed all week (and change) of practice. To add to the issues, Jauan Jennings is dealing with a shin injury and has missed the latest practices as well. Still waiting to hear who practices today but our WR ranks have been thinned. Ronnie Bell and Ray Ray McCloud will get a lot more snaps.

Here we are at week 3 and the 49ers are only one of three teams undefeated. The other two being the Iggles and the Miamis. The Phins have had a pretty easy go, beating the 1-2 Chargers, the 1-2 Patriots, and the 0-3 Broncos., and they have amassed a whopping 1650 yards in their 3 games. The Dolphins have the biggest challenge to stay undefeated with their game on the road vs. the Bills

The Eagles have beaten the 1-2 Pats, the 1-2 Vikes, and the 2-1 Bucs. They are struggling with their new OC and DC but they have managed to win their games. They have a pretty easy game vs. the Commandos at home.

Then there is us. Our biggest win was the shellacking of the Steelers in their yard. They are 2-1 and have a pretty strong defense. The Rams and Giants are both strugglers and we dispatched them with relative ease. Which brings us to the Cardinals. They are riding high on their win over Dallas last week, and could be 3-0 themselves but for two late come-from-ahead losses to the Commies and the Giants. They blew a 16-10 4th quarter lead to Washington, and the infamous 28-7 lead they blew against the Giants.

These guys are ALWAYS a thorn in our sides, so we can’t take them lightly. Even at home. James Connor had one of his best games ever against us a couple years back and they still run the ball well. Especially with the Cowboys looming on the horizon.

Not sure how AAZ fucked up those leads with their solid run game, but hey, get on them early and get them out of the game. Josh Dobbs is playing pretty well but Nick Bosa is worming up and we should be able to throttle theor offense.

Color me surprised that the Cards beat the Cowboys the other day. Hype notwithstanding, the Cowboys shoulda pulled that one off. But what do I know. I’m 13th out of 30 in my Pick ’em league. Joshua Dobbs isn’t tearing up the league, but he has played surprisingly well as he tries to make the long-suffering fans forget they coulda had Nick Bosa instead of Kyler Murray.

But anywho, this is the 2nd of 3 home games in a row, and yes, Dallas is the 3rd game., so Shanny better be stressing to these guys that they need to take care of this one first. They barely lost to the Commies, they coughed up a big lead to the Giants, and of course the Cowboys win.

But they are not very good. They are 18th in offense and 27th in defense. They do run pretty well, but that’s about it. James Connor kicked our ass sideways a couple years back so you never know, but the Niners can’t take this game lying down. The Rams were tougher than expected, so you hate to say TRAP GAME, but in today’s NFL (sorry Flying V) parity is king, and any given team on any given Sunday and all that.

Still and all, the team is healthy, playing at home, Brandon Aiyuk is back at practice, the team got their mini-bye week, and they should be ready to lay it down.

Kinda weird seeing all these games (thanks Streameast) without any 49ers, but wow. Miami puts up a 70 spot on the Broncos, the Cards face three NFC East teams in a row, and beats the best one of the 3 in the Cowboys, Chicago continues to be a joke, Minnesota and the Chargers played a game that no one wanted to win (Minnesota wasted 14 seconds on 1st and goal and after wasting al that time, Cousins threw a pick in the end zone), and Seattle looks better than they showed early, so really, the NFC West may be better than I thought.

Got the Raiders and the Steelers in the Sunday night, the old rivalry of the 70s, and so far this season, Jimmy G is looking pretty good. He’s hitting his mid-range stuff, but the Raiders are the Raiders and they are very adept at shooting themselves in the foot.

As I say that, Jimmy G hits Davante Adams for a 31 yard TD strike on 4th and 1. Fun times.

No, it wasn’t the prettiest of wins, and it won’t be winning any Oscars for the beauty of the game, but it was a nice reminder that the 49ers can simply out-will their way to a win. To their credit, the Giants came out swinging and blitzing at any and every opportunity. Say what you will about Wink Martindale, but he’s of a mind that he will bring pressure on every play. And it sorta kinda worked as we stalled out on 3 drives in the red zone and were held to 3 FGs on those drives.

Unfortunately for them, we also scored three touchdowns. Two on long passes where Brock Purdy was able to get get ball out just in the nick of time to hit his receivers. Both plays were well-covered but Purdy hit the marks. Which quieted the ‘he can’t throw deep’ doubters. The game saw the Giants getting chippier and chippier as they were baiting the Niners to retaliate. Notable was Deebo getting hit in the head (to no call) on a crossing route, Deebo getting tackled 5 yards out of bounds to a no-call, Clelin Ferrell getting facemasked on a pass rush, CMC getting facemasked on a carry up the middle, and Dre Greenlaw getting an unsportsmanlike on a fairly questionable call.

Trent Williams, his hate of all teams NFC East still intact, got in a shove and a punch as the 1st half closed. Fun stuff. Best part about it was Deebo and Kittle simply ran over all the would-be tacklers for at least 50 extra yards after initial contact. Very fun stuff. Ronnie Bell had a nice game replacing Brandon Aiyuk as he caught the first TD on a real nice deep out route to the pylon. Deebo had the other deep back shoulder fade TD after Purdy came out a little rattled by the early pressure. Still and all, 25/37 for 311, 2 TDs and no picks is stellar work as the Giants sacked Purdy twice, and blitzed on 33 of the 39 pass attempts. So, the O line gets kudos keeping Purdy relatively clean among all the pressure, and they even ran for 141 as CMC ran for 85 and the forgotten Elijah Mitchell got in some solid action and ran for 42.

The defense was solid as usual. Nick Bosa got a gift sack, likely the easiest one of his career as the Giants simply left him unblocked and Jones rolled right into his path. The only glitch was the special teams as the Niners got a holding call on a punt return, got stuck in their end zone, and interfered with a fair catch, giving the Giants the ball on our 35. Breida the cheetah scored their only TD.

Sure, the score should have been more lopsided as the 441 to 150 yards and 40:00 to 20:00 TOP would indicate, but it is good to see the 49ers can play nasty in the trenches smash-mouth football and kick some ass like the NFC East seems to think is their purview.

Bring on the Cowboys and the Eagles.

3-0.

Here we go with the nightmare that is Thursday night. For all the posturing by the league office, Thursday night football is up there as one of the most injury-causing things out there in the game. Football isn’t easy under the best of circumstances, but cutting 3 days out of the recovery time needed by these players, and putting them into the fray is counter to any health related benefits the NFL is trying to tout.

But hey, I guess it is better to get it over with early. Oh yeah, we play on Thanksgiving as well. Somewhere along the way, the league decided it would be perfectly fine to let teams play twice on Thursday per per year. So, we get doubly fucked by the league in the name of money. Ask any player how they feel about Thursday football and they will tell you they hate it.

To make things even worse, due to the plethora of shitty Thursday games last year (and there were a ton), the league wants to be able to flex in games of their choice, thus making things even more difficult on the players, let alone the crews that broadcast these games.

Jolly Roger is a fucking whore.

But anyway, back to football. The main reason I’m worried about this game is the same reason all the teams playing on Thursday are. You never know how your players are going to react when given the short recovery time. And the injury factor goes way up without the 3 days of rest taken away.

On that front, Brandon Aiyuk had a scare on his first catch of the Rams game as he thought he broke his clavicle, but the MRI came back negative. He was hurting throughout the game and missed some plays, but he gutted it out. He didn’t practice yesterday, so his status remains day-to-day. Since it isn’t a break, I guess he isn’t at risk for further injury, but we’ll see how the team plays it.

But this should be a good game for Brock Purdy to bounce back from his fairly wobbly game. I say that even though he did a great job avoiding pressure, did not force passes into traffic, or come close to throwing any picks. Ball security is a very important deal, and as we saw vs the Rams, it turned the game in our favor.

Crazy game that was hard-fought and very much in play down the stretch. I have to say, I REALLY didn’t see the Rams playing this tough. The lost a ton of talent, and picked up a bunch of draft picks, and they came up with a very hungry young team that did a hell of a job on their O line. We are supposedly the cream of the crop with our base 4 man rush, but for the entire 1st half, the Niners did nothing against their pas rush, and LA played our game of quick passes and runs inside.

If not for our late TD on the last play in the 1st half, the 49ers would have been down 7. As it was, the Niners offense did well enough to tie the score after taking the opening kickoff all the way for a touchdown, and watching LA turn a 10-3 deficit into a 17-10 lead.

The 2nd half saw the 49ers, and Wilks in particular, dial up the pressure on defense, and force a ouple Matthew Stafford specials and put the game away 30-23.

For this being this tough a game, we came away pretty unscathed, Deebo and Aiyuk both had stellar games amid being battered and bruised in the process. I’m hoping they aren’t too hurt. Mainly because we have the quick Turnaround tThursday night game agaisnt the NY football Giants. Who somehow overcame a 28-14 4th quarter deficit to beat the game but hapoless AZ Cards.

It was a bit concerning that LA had their way running and throwing on our defense most of the game, but they beat up on what I think is a pretty good Seattle team as well. Still hard to tell who is what in this new NFL season, but the Rams suddenly look like a pretty solid team.

Still and all, opening 2-0 on the road is a good start for the 49ers.

Get our home opener on Thursday. Onward and upward.