San Francisco 49ers Forever

This improbable season of weirdness continues with a trip to Seattle and the opportunity to clinch the NFC West. This seemed very unlikely as we stumbled out of the gate by losing our starting quarterback and losing to the 3-10 Bears, and the 3-10 Broncos. Both eliminated from the playoffs already. This team has even overcome losing their once and former leader Jimmy Garoppolo.

So, here we are with our 3rd string guy, the improbable Brock Purdy, taking the NFL by storm and taking no prisoners. Purdy is even coming of an oblique injury suffered early in his first start, against Tom Brady. So, the 22 year old is racking up quite the impressive resume in his rookie season. One that could rival Brady’s epic rise should things go even more improbable.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. As the NFC stands now, we are the 3 seed at 9-4. Win on Thursday and we are 10-4 with the West won. The only thing in play for the Niners would be getting the 2 seed from the Vikings at 10-3. We own the tiebreaker with them, for now, based on our better conference record, but it doesn’t change much as we would play either the Giants or the Redskins, uh, Generals, uh, Commanders in our 1st round game. Either one of those teams is eminently beatable, so the 2 or 3 seed isn’t a big worry. We can’t fall behind the Bucs, so we have a home game regardless. Dallas and TB is pretty much a lock as the 4th seed and the highest WC.

Which means, win this game, and treat the last 4 like preseason games. Give the 1st string offense a few series, and bring in the backups. Same with the defense. I sure didn’t see this coming when we were 3-4 and had just gotten shellacked by the Chiefs.

In the never-ending parade of injured 49er quarterbacks, Brody Purdy joins the list as he is undergoing an MRI on his oblique that he apparently strained during a 2nd possession scramble. I guess we will find out later today, but wow, the fun never ends.

This Seattle game has lost the bigger picture of being one that would determine the winner of the NFC West, but Seattle would be eliminated if they were to lose on Thursday. A win by them would still put them a game back, and even if they tie us, we hold a better conference record so the West is ours to lose. But this is Seattle. A team that always gives us fits. Well, except for earlier this year when Jimmy G came in as savior of the season. The 49ers have exorcized a lot of demons this season, flopping on a national stage, losing to the Cards, losing to the Seahawks, losing to Russell Wilson (ooops, not ALL of them), losing after the bye, so the hope is we can win this one, even if it happens to be with our 4th string QB. One that looks kinda like Geno Smith, the Seahawks QB.

Yesterday’s game was awesome in so many ways, but if we lose Deebo AND Purdy for any length of time, this season may fade away. Maybe Lance can come back? Who knows? The merry-go-round continues to spin.

I really really want to be happy about this win, but as usual, Kyle Shanahan sucks the life out of this win with a needless injury to one of our star players. Jordan Mason, a stud of a running back, who is averaging 5.4 yards a pop, was of course on the sidelines while Kyle Shanahan though, hmmmm, how did I injure my future QB? Oh, yeah, putting him in harm’s way by having him run up the middle against 320 lb defensive linemen.

Unsurprisingly, Deebo got rolled up on by a 320 lb guy and sustained an ankle injury. Don’t know how bad, but Deebo was very upset and crying coming iff the field on a cart. Shanahan is so smart that he’s outsmarting himself. Use your fucking RB to run! What a thought.

I’m sure I’ll feel better about the amazing game that Purdy, CMC, and the defense pitched, but at this point I’m just supremely frustrated that Shanahan thinks he can just use these guys up and let them get ground down needlessly. Fuck.

The Bucs have looke like an afterthought this year, but what with their devision suddenly becoming the worst in the NFL, they are division leaders at 6-6, what with their improbable win over the NOS-aints last Monday. Lucky for us, they come off a short week and have a day of travel. Lucky for them it looks like Nick Bosa is gonna rest up for the Seattle game next Thursday as he is dealing with a hamstring injury. One that caused him to miss practice all week.

Other than that, it’s Tom Brady the Turtle in this scenario vs the speedier Bug in Brock Purdy. I’m very curious to see how Purdy does. His game last week could not have gone much better. He sure moves around the pocket much more confidently than Jimmy does. Did. Can he keep hitting the open guys quick? I mean it isn’t like the game plan is being altered at all. It’s the same quick read, get the ball out, nothing too deep passing game. I kinda wish this is how Kyle used Lance, but that’s a different story.

The Bucs have a pretty solid defense so there’s that. But they don;t defend the run that well, so see the ball control game rear its head. That’s fine with me. As bad as Brady looked last Monday night, he still won the game on two late TD drives.

So, as usual, no glaring mistakes. Limit the penalties. As immobile as Brady is, we can’t let him get comfy in the pocket. They will have to step up w/o Bosa, so it’s all hands on deck. Throw in a blitz to shake Brady up early and he WILL get skittish. Send Hufanga in unblocked to rock hos world and he’ll short-arm shit all day. Gonna be wet, so our run game should be able to grind this one out.

Strange days indeed. The 49ers hope and dreams this season now hang on the young shoulders of 22 year old Brock Purdy. Brock was 4 months old when 45 year old Tom Brady was drafted by the New England Patriots. That’s pretty trippy to think about. As a fan. I wonder how Purdy is holding up wondering how he will do with his first NFL start being against one of the greatest QBs in the history of the game.

Purdy came out playing like a guy who wasn’t scared one bit about the game in front of him. And Mike McDaniel gave him a heavy dose of blitzes to start the 3rd quarter to try and rattle him. Brock calmly beat the blitzes and led the Niners to their 2nd TD of the game to increase the lead to 23-10.

Was this just the workings of a guy who went from clipboard guy to the man and simply rode the adrenaline rush to victory? Can he simply keep playing like he did? Crazy thing is, the players in the locker room give him nothing but respect and accolades as him being a hard worker and a guy who has, as many a player put it, balls. Huevos. Nuts. Cojones.

I guess it’s better to have big balls because Big Dick Nick Mullens got us nowhere. So, next up IS Tom Brady. If anyone watched the Bucs Saints game, you saw Brady underthrow, overthrow, throw behind, and throw picks all night. He looks pretty bad these days, although he did manage to squeak past the hapless Saint with a couple 4th quarter TDs.

So, yeah, Tom Terrifically old can still call upon his arm to win games. But all we have to do is manhandle the Bucs O line and this should not be too hard a game to win. That is, if we can score TDs, unlike the Saints merely knocking on the door all night.

As a side note, the rumors of Jimmy G’s demise are a little exaggerated as word is now that Jimmy doesn’t need surgery, and may be available in 7-8 weeks. Right in the middle of the playoffs.

Playoffs? Playoffs! I guess we will know shortly if Purdy’s game was an aberration or the real deal and we make the playoffs.

Man, this team just can’t seem to shake the injury bug as Jimmy G is the latest guy to go down with an injury very similar to what took out Trey Lance earlier this season. He’s undergoing surgery to his left ankle, which got bent and crush by Jerome Baker on a 3rd down scramble.

So, where does that leave the 49ers in their quest? Very hard to say at this point, but for the rest of the game anyway, Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy, led the team to victory with a couple TD drives, and 3 FG drives. Purdy took shots, made clutch 3rd and 4th quarter completions, and generally kept the offense going as it likely would have under Jimmy’s control. It was enough to overcome the highly-vaunted high-flying Miami offense. And for all intents and purposes, the defense ruled the day.

The defense forced FOUR turnovers on three interceptions and a strip-sack by potential DPOY Nick Bosa that was picked up by Dre Greenlaw for the final nail in Miami’s coffin.

The bigger picture of course is, how badly does this affect our playoff run? I mean really, Purdy did what Jimmy does. And he seemed to do it with a little more style and a little more zip. Sure, it’s only one game, and teams will now scheme for him, but really, he’s a little more mobile than Jimmy, and he made all the throws he needed to. He’s not gonna be asked to carry a huge load a la replacing Dan Fouts, he just has to hit the short to medium routes and keep the drives going.

The run game is essential to our success, as is the defense, but this was true before the injury to Jimmy G. And it will be with Trey Lance at quarterback. I feel bad for the guy as he was having a pretty solid year amid the absolute weirdness of this past offseason, and the team is really starting to gell, but it is next man up. Purdy seems to have the respect of the locker room as he’s the one that runs the scout team offense for the goal line defense practices all season.

Fred Warner had this to say bout Purdy:

“You can just tell by the way he walks, you know when somebody has just kind of got the ‘It,’ you can kind of see it, and I think he does. I know he can take that. That’s how I know he’s prepared, he’s ready. He’s played against the best defense in the league for the past 13 weeks. So, he’s going to be just fine.”

Purdy does have a bit of swagger to his game, and that’s better than seeming overmatched, but this is where we are, and the hope is the 22 year old can keep the team rolling.

And, news flash, Baker Mayfield was released by the Carolina Panthers. He’s a free agent, but I’m sure the Rams will pick him up before we get the shot. He’s better than Josh Johnson, but I suspect the Rams take him so we don’t.

Hey, I don’t know. When the season started, I didn’t see this as any kind of significant game. But here we are. The 49ers, after struggling mightily have somewhat righted their ship, and have crawled back up to the top of the division at 7-4. Miami on the other hand has been cruising on the arm of Tua Tagovailoa. They are neck and neck with the Buffalo Bills in the suddenly highly competitive AFC East and they carry the advantage now with their win over Buff in week 3. Miami hit a blip on the road when Tua got blasted into oblivion and missed 2.5 games in the concussion protocol, but he’s 8-1 as the starter while the backups are 0-2.

So what does it mean? Well, this will be a test of our ability to keep the high-powered Miami offense off the field. Shanny knows this. And I’m sure McDaniel does as well. The Miami run defense isn’t all that, and neither is their defense in general, but the ability to score from anywhere on the field at any time mitigates their defensive shortcomings.

As we saw in the Atl and KC games, we aren’t exactly built for shootouts. Especially when we are kicking field goals and they are scoring touchdowns, so yeah, our best bet is to keep their offense on the sidelines as we grind out (hopefully) touchdown drives.

But as I said, I’m not gonna really sweat this this game. We gave up our shot at being the #1 seed a long time ago, so winning the division is our goal. Losing to an AFC team isn’t gonna hurt as much as losing to Tampa Bay even. I mean, I seriously don’t think this team will run the table, but we go 5-1 we win the West.

So, barring something catastrophic, I’m not gonna get too disappointed of the Niners don’t pull this one off. Granted, Miami is the one traveling 3 time zones west, and we are relatively healthy while Miami is struggling with injuries, so that may help some. I would love to see us take these guys, if only to prove to themselves that they are legit, and that we can scheme out a plan and execute it successfully. As with most, this game will be won in the trenches. If we can disrupt Tua and get him off his marks early, we can dictate the pace of the game and slow down their passing game.

I would like to see the defense come out aggressive and blitz early rather than wait to see how things go with the base defense. I noticed Ryans likes to use the first couple drives to see how things progress, but a lot of teams have scored early on us while we see how the pressure is or isn’t working off of the base defense. Wonder if we try nickel/dime packages early as well. They may come out running on us.

Certainly a lot of strategy in this game given the similarities and overlaps in these teams.

Irregardless of the Twitter bombs of Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson, the 49ers as a team seem very excited to play their ex-teammates now in Miami. This includes Mostert, Wilson, WR Trent Sherfield, and of course their head coach Mike McDaniel. Our ex-OC has Miami at the top of the AFC East, tied with Buffalo but they have a win against them in their pocket.

Beyond that fun, this is a matchup of the #1 defense against the #3 offense. Miami has a big-armed QB in Tua Tagovailoa, super speed at wideout in Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, and a solid run game with Mostert, Gaskin, and now Wilson. They don’t run a lot, but their yards per carry between Mostert and Wilson is a solid 4.8 yards per carry.

Miami’s defense on the other hand is solidly in the bottom third of the pack. 19th in points given up, 17th in yards, 22nd in passing yards allowed, and 10th in run yards allowed, 0 in turnover +/- , and 18th in sacks.

What does this mean? Well, this looks like a shootout. If the defense can get sustained pressure on Tua, and we can keep him somewhat contained in the pocket, then it bodes well for the Niners. But this is gonna be a challenging game. But this game, like the KC game earlier, will not be won kicking field goals. The 49ers need to figure out how to score touchdowns in the red zone. Yeah, the Saints have a strong defense, but still and all, like the Charger game, 2 TDs in 5 trips to the red zone isn’t gonna cut it.

All that being said, this game isn’t any kind of must-win type game. The important games on the schedule are the Seattle and AZ games. We aren’t gonna run the table, and Seattle certainly isn’t as well, so if we can take care of our remaining division games and the couple conference games, we should take the West.

We will worry about these guys in the Super Bowl.

Just when the team starts getting its players back, shit goes south. Elijah Mitchell is turning into just about every other running back picked up off the scrapheap by the ShanaLynch express. IOW, hurt. Like Mostert before him, Mitchell can’t stay on the field. He is out 6-8 weeks with an MCL sprain in his left knee after missing the first 10 games with a right knee sprain. Our new guy, Christian McCaffrey is also hurting, with what Shanny calls ‘knee irritation.’ Not sure how that is going, but I assume we will hear more tomorrow.

Kinda makes the Jeff Wilson trade look dumb as both these guys appear to be made in the mold of the original, Crystal Todd Shell. That being said, Wilson wanted out, as he wanted to be a starter, so whatevs. We get a 5th round pick. Our wheelhouse for drafting. But both these guys going down isn’t too far a bridge to cross so maybe they were a little hasty in trading Wilson to the Dolphins.

So, we are possibly down to Tyrion Davis-Price, the latest invisible 3rd round running back pick, and the guy who I like, Jason Mason, the undrafted guy that will eventually lead to the jettisoning of Davis-Price. Mason looks like the real deal. He’s got size and power. DP? Who knows? He looks just like Trey Sermon. A nothingburger.

My biggest concern with these guys is, can they block? The line has been playing well (side-eye to McGlinchey) and Spencer Burford’s ankle injury seems to be minor, so I’d imagine Juice may see more time in the backfield providing protection.

I think it’s kinda funny that the team that gave both Mostert and Wilson their shot are sniping about shit the team supposedly did to them. Funnier still, Mostert is (shock!) injured. Wilson missed time as well last game with leg issues.

But in the grand scheme of things, this is not an important game for us. We aren’t gonna be the top seed. All we need to do is take care of the division, Sure, it would be nice to beat these guys, but NFC games, and even more so, NFC West games are the bigger deal.

I mean, we ain’t gonna run the table, so a loss here won’t kill us. But for all the whining, from Mostert especially, fuck ’em. Throw in the fact that Miami is basically the 49ers East Coast version, it’ll be interesting to see how the student (Mike McDaniels) does against his teacher (Kyle). They are the ones flying across the coast, so hopefully we can get on them early and keep them down.

Our defense is playing great, but this is a team a lot like KC in that they have speed at WR, Tua Tagovailoa is killing it, and they are the 3rd best offense in the league. They don’t run a lot, mainly because they don’t have to, but their yards per carry with Wilson and Mostert averages out to about 5 yards a carry.

Miami’s defense? They are middle of the pack or worse in most stats, and they don’t have a particularly strong pass rush, and their pass defense is bottom third, but they did go and get Bradley Chubb from the Broncos. Although his 1.5 sacks in 3 games isn’t quite lighting it up. But we do need to account for him.

In a game that saw the New Orleans Saints get a lot of their injured defense back saw a monumental struggle for scoring by both teams. The 49ers got into the red zone 4 times, getting 1 TD, 2 FGs, and a 4th down fail from the 1. Say what you will about the Saints, they have a very strong D line, a solid pass rush, and they harassed Jimmy all day (but only 1 sack-on the 4th and 1 from the goal line), and kept our run game in check, keeping us under 100 yards.

Our defense was even better, though, giving up nothing as NO was fairly effective at the field position battle, and moved the ball pretty well at times. The 49er D forced a fumble on Kamara on the 1st drive, which led to the early FG, and even though NO had pretty favorable field position after pinning the Niners deep in their own territory, kept NO out of scoring range all through the 1st half.

The 2nd half saw NO miss a FG from the 30, and Alvin Kamara get absolutely blasted by DPOY Talanoa Hufanga on the 1 and force a fumble recovered by Dre Greenlaw. After the Niners couldn’t get out of their own end zone, NO had another drive reach the 4. Amazingly, or maybe because of the earlier fumbles, NO threw SEVEN times from the 10 (with a defensive holding call thrown in) and only ran once with Taysom Hill as Dalton was sacked by Nick Bosa on the 4th down play. The Niners then ran the clock out to seal the game.

Jauan Jennings make the play of the day on offense when he caught a pass that was tipped straight into the air by Honey Badger, and kept himself on the field as the ball fell to him in the back of the end zone. The refs seemed fairly intent on keeping NO in the game with a plethora of bullshit calls. Most notably, a PI call on a play that could have resulted in a safety as NO was called for a facemask as Dalton was throwing out of the end zone, Kittle got called for holding on the Mitchell 11 yard TD run,and Bosa was called for roughing the passer on a play were Bosa was on top of Dalton when the pass was thrown.

That being said, the 49ers were the beneficiaries of 2 calls that absolutely changed the game. Jimmy threw an incredibly bad INT to Alontae Taylor (don’t know if the WR broke wrong or what) that was negated by the infamous illegal contact call, and a Hill pass to rookie stud Chris Olave down to our 8 yard line early in the 2nd quarter was overturned as incomplete despite looking to me and all the Saints fans like a completed pass. After a holding call and 2 incompletes, the Saints were out of FG range.

As far as injuries go, well, our RBs are beaten up as Elijah Mitchell has a knee sprain, and CMC has something going on as well. Since Wilson is gone, the job falls to Jordan Mason. I’m sure Mitchell will be out a couple weeks. CMC I don;t know. But we kinda knew that both these guys were fragile, but traded Wilson away anyway. I think Mason is the real deal though.

Don’t really miss Wilson yet. But Mitchell is following the career path of Raheem Mostert. His first name will soon be “Oft-injured”. Jeff Wilson left the game with some kind of injury, but his didn’t look serious as Miami romped over the Houstons.