Forty Niners Forever

Well, here we are poised to make the final push to the playpoffs. I think we really gave Dallas a big head’s up on how to beat Philly. Attack the LBs. Short passes tore them up all day and through the night. Quick runs up the middle gashed them as well. Philly’s offense was stifled by solid CB play.

Us? We just need to keep the pedal down. No slip-ups. No backsliding. We’ve proven we can win on the road, but I sure don’t want to go to Philly in January.

Gonna be an interesting day regarding the playoffs. Philly could go from 1 to 5. We could be #1. Dallas #3. Deetroit #2. Funny I’m not even really paying attention to Deetroit, but they are in the mix. With their weak-ass schedule.

As of now the 49ers own all the tiebreakers between Dallas, Philly, and Deetroit.

Dallas and Philly because of the ass-whippings, and Deetroit because of our Conference record of 7-1 over their 6-2 record.

Deetroit has 2 games vs the wildly inconsistent Vikings, and the Cowboys, but the rest are patsies.

Dallas has by far the hardest path with Philly, Buffalo, Miami, and Deetroit on their schedule.

Our remaining toughie is Baltimore. A team I have not really seen all year. And Seattle/LA /Wash/AZ should hopefully be gimmies as well.

The remaining games for all of us are as follows.

So, if we can somehow win out (with one Philly loss), we’d be the 1. Even if we lose to Balt, we’d still own the Conference tiebreaker over Deetroit and Dallas should they all lose 1. Philly of course would have to lose 2 for us to get the #1 seed.

This weekend will determine a lot as far as seeding goes. If Philly goes down, they would fall from 1 to 5 should we win. The 49ers have played pretty well on the road, but I sure would like that bye week.

At some point these teams will play back-to-back games, but it seems like we play these guys 5 times a season. But here we are back up against the SeaHawks, and Pete Carroll’s band of misfits. We kinda handled them easily last time, although the Niners did stall out in the 3rd.

This week? Well, the 49ers have GOT to know their last time down this road. They came out against the Browns and sucked badly. They said they got the wake-up call and proceeded to fall flat on their faces against the Vikes and Bengals. So, the old nemesis of Jim Harbaugh Freddy P. Softie punched them in the nut-sack and they licked their wounds and re-grouped during the bye week.

They did come back with a venegance, so, wwe seem to have righted the ship, but we all know how fast that shit can switch.

Because here we are again having crushed a supposed top team in the league by an absolute slaughter, on the road no less, as the team truly wonders what might have been had Brocky B Brock not gotten hurt. And here we are with a couple of flounders on the schedule. The stakes are high though, as the Cowboys have a shot of taking over the NFC East lead with a win at home over the reeling Eagles. Or the illing Iggles.

This of course would give the Niners the #1 seed in the league, home-field thru the playoffs, AND the week off. Dallas would take over the NFC East, and Fat Bastard’s employer would fall to the 5th seed behind the woeful 6-6 Falcons. Hah!!!

The week off is the most important part of this I’d think. Any time you can get a break in these grueling seasons, it is gravy.

So, keep the pedal to the metal. No fucking up now. AZ is next. Another true trap game. I would LOVE to lock up the #1 seed by the time the Lambs come to town.

Well, that was infinitely satisfying. Sure, it doesn’t replace last year’s NFCCG loss, but Philly lost their last game last year, so ha fucking ha. Both teams were in the same boat Super Bowl-wise. We just showed the NFC East just how overrated they are. We did to Philly what we did to Dallas. And that was to drop a 42 spot on them and beat them into the ground with little doubt as to who’s better.

As ugly as that start was, I was very happy the defense held Philly and Hurts to 2 field goals. Very reminiscent of the bad old Singletary days when we would control the clock for29 minutes of the 1st half and kick 2 FGs only to give up a TD late and be instantly behind. Purdy and the offense got off to a slow start, but the last 5 possessions resulted in 6 touchdowns. Domination.

Mooney Ward had another big game, Philly hit some quick slants early, but the relentless pressure and the coverage did their job to keep the big plays to a minimum.

The D was solid all over the field, even with the early bending but not breaking. Dre Greenlaw is really becoming the Draymond Green of the 49ers with his overly aggressive play. But, fuck it. He’s a guy I want on my team every day all the time and three times on Sunday. Thrown out for a finger-poke? Lame. And the refs threw out the sideline schlub and called it even? Please. Fucking joke.

The best response to all that bullshit was our quick strike TD to Deebo. CMC was out-of-this world yet again as Shanahan fianlly remembered after the `1st quarter that he has the leading rusher in the NFL. He will go down as the greatest in-season trade in NFL History, just ahead of the Fred Dean trade in the 1981 season.

But this scenario has worked out just like I wanted it to. For Dallas to beat the Seahawks, us to eat the Beagles, and for next week’s Philly/Dallas game to become eminently important to Dallas, as they could take control of the NFC East AND give us the #1 seed.

Bring it on!

Something like that. Purdy and CMC at least kinda fit the bill. Not much more to say about this one, but take it to them.

FWIW the weather looks to be mild with only a 15% chance of rain.

Time to do to Philly what we did to Dallas.

Can’t get this link to show, but it shows how we contained Hurts in our 17-11 win over Hurts and the Eagles in 2021.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/890364375510239

Say what you will about all the trash talk around this game, and hey, it’s pretty mild at this point, but Vegas calling Philly a home dog (+2.5) speaks to the issues Philly has on defense. Mainly their pass defense. James Bradberry and Darius Slay are not slaying it these days in their defensive backfield. Sure, the defense plays as a unit, but Bradberry has a passer rate of 102.5 against and 8 TDs given up. Slay? 100.5 and 3 TDs. The Iggles are 26th in INTs.

They are 12th in sacks, so they do have that going for them. But the point remains, if our O line does their job, we should be able to light them up in the air. Their run defense is pretty good, but I think that’s mainly because teams simply kill them in the air.

And yeah, they are 10-1. But all their games are close, and their point differential is a measly +65. By contract, the 49ers are +140. the difference seems to be Jalen Hurts. His escapability, especially late in games, seems to be the deciding factor. His 410 rushing yards and his whopping 11 TDs is nothing to be coffed at. They are middle of the pack offensively, but Hurts is most definitely the guy to pay the most attention to.

Hurts and his 18/10 TD/INT ratio is middling as well, so there are ways to slow him down. Mainly keep him in the pocket and not let him run wild. Lane assignments and integrity is vastly important for the defense. Keeping the edges clogged up and the middle filled will do a lot to keep Hurts from scampering all over the place.

Gonna be a fight to the finish. Maybe this is Shanahan’s first 4th quarter comeback. He’s 0-36 so far in his NFL career. Yikies.

Color me unimpressed, but the 10-1 Eagles have been dodging bullets left and right. Dallas would have beaten them but for Dak’s big toe OB on the 2 yard line, KC dropped 10 passes in their loss to the Iggles, Buffalo (Cook) dropped a TD early and backed themselves out of FG range among the billion penalties called against Buffalo. Throw in the wide open pass that Allen missed in OT that would have won the game, and there you go.

Most of their games this season have been a struggle. Shit, Buffalo put up 505 yards on them yesterday. They barely beat the Vikings, the Jets, the Pats, and the Commies, all one-score wins, to go with the sure-fire bullets they dodged.

What does it mean? Nothing really. But it shows a pattern of their not being able to put teams away. But, the big but is, they’ve won 4 games in a row when trailing at the half. Seeing as we sometimes have a struggle putting teams away ourselves, this could be an issue.

Throw in the abject homerism displayed by the refs yesterday, and it could get weird. There were like 3 blatant PIs and that completely ignored roughing the passer call on Philly’s defense that were let go, while Buffalo was tagged with 11 penalties for ticky tack shit. The team needs to inform Dre Greenlaw not to do anything borderline, because the flags will be flying.

We of course had our bit of struggle in our 3 game losing streak, but we hopefully have gotten over that.

If the team can play solid without turnovers (in the wet weather), and avoid the flag-fest, I like us to take them semi-comfortably. Something like 31-20. May not be enough to take the #1 spot now, but it’ll be a step closer to it to get this win.

Never saw the movie, but the 49ers took a big step in at least winning the division. Beating Seattle means a 2 game lead plus the tiebreaker. Not that this is the goal, but it is part of the plan. And, bonus points for passing the semi-unreal Deetroit (paper) Lions. What I thought was very cool about the 49ers victory over the struggling Seahawks was the fact that a lot of the players took the time to look at the Turnkey Day massacre from 9 years ago that saw Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman eating turkey on the logo at Levi’s stadium.

Which led to the turduckenfest on the sidelines of Sofi Field where George Kittle stole the entire turkey. This kind of stuff is usually only noticed by the fans, so it’s good to see the players getting involved.

Fun times in Ninerland. Despite a bit of a let-down in the 3rd quarter, the Niners dominated this game. So, now we have 10 days off before the return trip to Philly to take on the 9-1 Eagles. A win by Buffalo tomorrow would raise the stakes even higher. And if there’s a team due to get their shit together I guess it would be Buffalo. They are on the outside of the playoff picture now and looking to gain on Miami, so they need to pull this off. It would make for an even more epic battle come December 3rd.

Here we go with another short week and a roadie. In Seattle no less. Seattle is coming off a desultory loss to the semi-woeful Lambs, 17-16 on a missed FG as time ran out. Sounds familiar. Amazingly, the Rams have beaten Seattle twice out of their 6 wins. Thanks. They lost to the woefuller Packers. The Ravens crushed them, and Cincy squeaked by them. They’ve beaten even more woeful teams like Carolina, AZ, and the New York-we-forgot-how-to-play-football Giants.

But, they did beat the Deetroit Lions. AND the Cleveland Browns. So, this team is hard to figure. Pistol Pete has them playing over their heads, and they are extremely young, so they are learning on the fly. Geno Smith is playing kinda middling football. He is 13th in yards, 17-18 in whichever rating system you prefer, 12 TDs, 7 picks. They are18th in offensive yardage, 16th in points, 25th in rushing, and 13th in passing. Their run game is fairly quiet with Kenny Walker leading the way with 613 yards,

Defense is much the same middling stuff. 23rd in yards given up, 21st in passing, 19th in rushing defense, and 19th in points. Their claim to fame is they are 10th in turnovers at +3.

But they are the Seahawks. Always a fight, Always a challenge. Metcalfe and Lockett are never easy to deal with. BUT, Russell is gone, and Geno is a unreasonable facsimile., and the Seahawks are banged up pretty badly. Geno is questionable but he’ll likely play. Still, I think we can outlast these guys. But the usual stuff has to be watched. Stupid pre-snap penalties, holding calls, PIs. Win in the trenches, win the turnover battle.

But they NEED to tighten up their 4th quarter game. They cannot fade like they did against TB. That would be a disaster in Seattle.

Color me worried. Yesterday’s game saw the offense play pretty well, the defense pretty well, and special teams pretty well. The offense had a nice robust 420 yards of total offense – 305 in the air, and 115 on the ground. Purdy had a flawless game ratings-wise, posting a 153.8 with 3 TDs and no picks. Rushing saw CMC get 78, and Mitchell 24, and it was nice to see him in the 2nd quarter.

Defensively, the 49ers only gave up 287. 221 in the air and 66 on the ground. 1 TD given up and 1 pick of Mayfield.

Special teams was solid, with a Wishnowski 60 yard punt, and 2 FGs & 3 PATs for Moody.

It all seemed like a fairly solid win, but the big buts are (aren’t there always big buts?) worrisome to me. Once the 49ers got the game to 27-7 late in the 3rd, the offense sputtered badly. The three 4th quarter drives saw two 3-and-outs, a 4th and 1 stop, and a two 1st down drive.

Defensively in the 4th quarter the Niners gave up a 6 play 75 yard TD drive, a 17 play 68 yard drive that ended with a turnover on downs (had TB scored, the game would have been 27-21), and gave up a 51 yard punt return to set Tampa Bay up on our 15 yard line. That drive ended up as a pick in the end zone, but the point remains that if TB converts those two drives the Niners are down a point.

After the pick, the offense did manage to get two 1st downs, but yet again gave the ball back to Tampa before the 2 minute warning.

Shanahan and his inability to close games out is a really big issue to me. Good teams don’t blow those opportunities like Tampa did. Or maybe they do. But if you don’t close out teams, someone WILL but you in the ass and take a game. Our losses weren’t of this comeback variety, but I don’t want this to continue to be Shanahan’s calling card. He HAS to figure out a way to keep drives going and stop letting teams hang around.