Forty Niners Forever

Need I say more? A rivalry for the ages, but one where there rarely seems to be a time when both teams are among the league leaders. I mean, for all the years and games played since 1950, this will be the 150th game (SF leads 77-68-3), they’ve only faced off in the playoffs twice. 1989 saw the 49ers stomp the Chris Everett led Rams 30-3 in the 1989 NFC Championship game. We won’t talk about the one we lost (fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckshannyfuckfuckfuck)

That being said, the Rams are coming off a fairly impressive win over what was supposed to be a contending Seahawk team. A team I’ve been saying should be cratering for the past 4 years. Maybe now it is happening. I was surprised that the Seahawks stuck with Geno Smith, as I really thought his 2022 season was an outlier. As it was, he went 16-26 for a paltry 112 yards as the Rams held Seattle to 185 yards total, and turned a 13-7 halftime deficit into a 30-13 win.

What worked for the Rams was their going 11/17 on 3rd down. We won’t give that shit up. The Rams defense stopped Seattle 7 of 9 times on 3rd down. The Rams held the ball for a whopping 25:14 in the 2nd half to 4:14 for Seattle. LA’s D got 2 sacks. Nothing crazy.

Seeing as this will be a home game, the Niners should win this going away. As far as petty goes, the 49ers are even going as far as to wear their home red jerseys for the game.

Hah!!!

Good game tonight. Vikings vs the Iggles. The Vikings have to be pissed to lose to the lowly Bucs. And The Eagles narrowly escaped Foxborough with a rainy day victory over New England. Picking the Vikes to cover in my pick ’em league.

Not that you can draw too much from the first game of the season, what with the shortened preseason, shortened training camps, less two-a-days, and the general idea that teams aren’t quite settled into the grind of the season and shaking out the kinks, but the 49ers sure looked like a well-oiled machine despite a few too many penalties. Pittsburgh is reliving the awful issues with their offense that they thought they fixed, and we handled their defense, despite a good game from TJ Watt, handily.

My usual prediction of Seattle crashing to Earth was flipped this offseason as I thought they drafted extremely well, and were poised to be at least a WC contender. But the Hawks could not have looked worse losing to the lowly Rams in a game that wasn’t as close as the 30-13 score indicated. At home no less.

Same with Cincinnati. They came out flat as a pancake against their Ohio brethren Browns and lost 24-3. Joe Burrow is coming off a calf injury and the offense looked awful and out of sync. KC lost to Deetroit, the Jolly Rodgers-less Jets beat the Bills, who suffered through 4 turnovers by Josh Allen, the perennial close-but-not-quite Chargers lost yet another heartbreaker 36-34 to Miami, and Dallas shut down the hapless Giants 40-0.

Of all these weird games, I have to say Seattle and Cincinnati looked the crappiest. At least of the teams that were supposed to be good.

Is Dallas for real? The early hype machine says yes. Reality? Who knows? Jerry’s Jerks get the Jets, coming off their emotional win over the Bills, so they look to fall back to Earth so Dallas will be the gigantic story of the NFL if they go 2-0.

The Niners will be just the usual methodical team who should dismantle the Rams and quietly go about our bidness.

Is Cincinnati toast? They get a tough home matchup with the Ravens. 0-2 is likely. Is Seattle finally getting their reckoning? They have a roadie in Deetroit, they themselves coming off an emotional win over the Puer Bowl champs. Could be. They also could fall 0-2 early on. KC looked sloppy and unconnected without Travis Kelce, and his status for Sunday’s game vs the Jags remains in limbo, but they did sign Chris Brown to a one-year deal, so there’s that, but KC on the road becomes a big early game.

Six months (and change), the 49ers left Pennsylvania bloodied, battered, and beaten. Young phenom Brock Purdy was knocked out of the game on his first possession, and the 49ers dream season came to an abrupt end.

Opening day for the 2023 season saw the 49ers back in Pennsylvania hoping to exact revenge on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, they did. Brock Purdy was repaired, quick in his decisions, and his uncanny sharp self, CMC tore the Pittsburgh line to shreds, Brandon Aiyuk shredded the Steelers secondary, and the defense shut down what was supposed to be an offense on the rise.

You can look at the numbers to see how bad the domination was, but needless to say, those who thought the Niners might come out slow were sadly mistaken. That includes a lot of talking wonks. Including Patrick Peterson, who said he saw a ‘tell’ in Purdy’s game, and he would get a pick or two. Instead, he gave up 3 passes in 5 targets, and two TDs (to Aiyuk). Ooops.

391 yards to 239.
37:23 to 22:37 time of possession.

The only things that were an issue were penalties and some miscues on the O line. The 49ers had 11 penalties for 85 yards. Spenser Burford had a hold to kill a drive, and a false start, and Colton Mckivitz had his hands full with TJ Watt. The Niner O line gave up 3 sacks, and a lot of hurries. Still and all, the Pittsburgh D line is one of the top D lines in the league, and Purdy was able to hot his guys for the most part.

The 49ers D came out playing fast and furious. Pittsburgh’s first 5 drives were four 3-and-outs, and one pick. Our base D was relentless pressuring Pickett, and Pittsburgh didn’t get anything going until under 2 minutes in the 1st half. Drake Jackson led the charge with 2 early sacks to stifle 2 Steeler drives.

All in all, a resounding victory. One with what looked like an injury-free day. Williams did go out for a bit, but it looked to me like he just had the wind knocked out of him.

Here we go. Game one. On the road. Upstart Steelers. Young QB. Punishing defense.

A great test for the 49ers to kick off the season. And we are the road favorites, getting 2.5 points.

The 49ers come in fully loaded and fully ready. Bosa is back in the fold and I would be real surprised if they limit him much. Kittle is questionable, but I suspect he’ll get in there. We still can’t seem to find a backup TE that can do much more that take up space, as Woerner and Dwelley had a combined 3 catches last season, and Cameron Latu injured his knee and may miss the season.

Mooney Ward is also questionable, which is worrisome, as Pittsburgh is going to attack the Niners secondary deep if we don’t get off the blocks and get pressure early and often. DC Wilks likes to be more aggressive with the blitzing, and I’m happy to hear that, because the Niners need to rattle Pickett and get him uncomfortable. Early. The longer Pittsburgh thinks they can hang with the 49ers, the better shot they’ll have.

They also have local phenom Najee Harris to lead their running attack. He’s as tough as the come.This game ain’t gonna be easy, but I think we can wear them down in the end. All about the mistakes and penalties. Purdy needs to pick up where he left off last year and make the plays in front of him.

Well, they dragged it out as long as they could, but the 49ers and Nick Bosa reached a deal that will give Bosa $170 million over 5 years, with a whopping $123 mill guaranteed.

Glad the front office finally got their collective heads out of each other’s asses and got this done.

Sure, it’s a gigantic deal that will be hard to work around next year, but the NFL is all about now.

Stay healthy, Nick.

Let’s get this shit STARTED!!!

We are apparently ‘close’ to signing defensive MVP DE Nick Bosa. Color me unimpressed as close don’t mean shit unless you are playing horse shoes, throwing hand grenades, slow-dancing, or trying to get your rocks off.

But I digress. At least Bosa isn’t say Deebo Samuel, a guy who lost a season, out of shape and hurt due to, in his words, HIS hold out. Bosa is pretty much a ‘pin-the-ears-back-and-kill-the QB’ guy who keeps himself in maniacally good shape, so the worry shouldn’t really be about his working himself into game shape. The goal is simply to get him SIGNED for fuck’s sake.

The longer this drags out, the stupider this organization looks. And this has been a pretty stellar effort for the team this last offseason to look like a bunch of dart-throwing monkeys. You have the Trey Lance fiasco, which if not for Brock Purdy, would have really hurt the team if Lance is as bad as he appears to be, the 3rd round kicker pick who is hurt, the 3rd round TE pick who dropped passes and then got hurt, Javon Kinlaw, and their misuse of top picks overall in their tenure, the Jimmy G jerkaround, Jet McKinnon, Aiyuk’s doghouse benching, Solly Thomas, Reuben Foster . . . on and on.

But this isn’t about throwing stones in glass houses, it’s about signing Bosa. GET IT DONE! I want him to be available for every game this season.

Man, I leave the state for a few days to hike around northern Montana, and all hell breaks loose! By the way, Glacier National park is pretty fucking amazing, even if the glaciers are almost gone.

The 3rd round curse continues with the loss of Cameron Latu, our 3rd round kicker is still hurt. Reddit believes that Nick Bosa is about to be traded to an unnamed AFC team, Trey Lance is a Cowboy, dogs sleeping with cats, it’s armageddon time!

Shit, I don’t know. The boatload of promise for this season seems to be hitting rough waters already, and we haven’t even started. Even my favorite UDFA CB D’Shawn Jamison was nabbed by the Panthers off the waiver wire. Puzzling as we always seem to be short a CB or 3 by mid-season. Then again, Jasen Verrett is gone.

Actually, the latest of late news is that Bosa will be “Available for the Pittsburgh game” as a deal is “soon to be finalized.” A couple days according to Jason Dumas, who is pretty solid in his reporting.

Color me shocked. Stupefied even. The original trade in the would get a lot of GMs fired. Then stringing him along and dumping him for a 4th round pick is a bit more wild. Their saving grace, as it is with most all of their late round picks, is the drafting of Brock Purdy. The guy coming odd a major arm reconstruction.

That the Cowboys picked him up is a huge fuck you to the ghost of Niners past. They are getting an unknown quantity for nothing. One that we bet the farm on. I was convinced they’d simply sit on him until needed, or the season ended. It’s not like we beefed up the line any.

Oh well. I’m sure there are a lot of pissed off fans out there who will instantly vilify Lance, but none of this was his doing. Shanahan is the mastermind of this debacle. He dicked around with Lance even before he was drafted. Hinting he wanted Jones, waffling on Fields, and now dumping him for peanuts. Throw in running him into the line 3 times in the 1st quarter of his 2nd game, and boom. Season-ending injury.

This WILL bite him in the ass at some point.

And even more good news. Continuing Shanny’s folly in the 3rd round, our kicker is out with a pulled quad. Our kicker. Our rookie kicker. This training staff has to be the worst in the league. Can they keep the waterboy healthy?

Man, this team is really weird. It seems that every guy the brain trust trades up for (Trey Lance, Trey Sermon, Javon Kinlaw, Brandon Aiyuk, Reuben Foster, Joe Williams) has either been dog-housed for months, cratered, been cut, traded, or otherwise washed out.

Word out of camp is Sam Darnold has been named the #2 quarterback. Throw in the fact that Trey Lance isn’t at practice today, so the prevailing sentiment is the 49ers are in the process of trading him.

Man, I don’t know about this. Unless some given team is a) desperate or b) crazy, I don’t see the 49ers getting much for Lance. Unless that last showing really wowed someone. We would take an $11 mill dead cap hit trading him, and if he really does stink on ice, we won’t sign his 5th year option and he becomes a free agent.

I mean, really. Unless they get a 2nd and 3rd at the minimum, trading Lance would be a waste of the time and effort already invested in him. Gauging by the reaction to last weekend’s comeback vs Denver, the players love Lance, and everyone around him thinks the world of him. So, this could piss off a lot of guys.

And as we know all too well, the Niners can’t keep a good QB up for a whole season (think Jimmy G in 2019 and most of 2021) and they continue to ignore the glaring problems with the offensive line. The situation seems to follow that regardless of who is where, Lance would get some starts.

I think this would be a terrible move. But hey, that’s why I write blog instead of running a football team.

Nick Bosa, who erased his sketchy Twitter past, and is not one to post much, posted a pic of New York City. Coincidentally, where his agent’s office is. I guess it means something. I hope it means something. All I know is I want him with his teammates getting ready for the season. I don’t like these holdouts.

And while his job is basically ‘see QB, kill QB’ him getting hits and being hit would seem to be an important part of season prep. No it isn’t like Deebo, who missed all of camp and was out of shape and out of sync with the offense, and who blamed his shit season last year on that very holdout, but still, I would be much more happy with him chilling with his guys.

I’m sure he’s dying to get out there as well. 19 days till kickoff. Sign the man already. He’s the reigning defensive MVP. He’s in his prime, and he wants to get out there and have a better season than last year.

Get it done.