San Francisco 49ers Forever

A month ago the Niners were 3-4 and staring at the cellar and a tough divisional road game against the defending Super Bowl champion Rams. 3 games (and a new toy in CMC) and a trip to Mexico and the resurgent 49ers are 6-4 and leading the West.

Next up is the New Orleans Saints. A team that has three quarterbacks that are way short of a buck. Andy Dalton has been OK, Jameis Winston has been a disaster (and was benched), and they’ve even given Taysom Hills some throws. But their problem is their defense. 25th in points scored. Still and all, Alvin Kamara is a solid RB, Olave and Landry are solid WRs, and Jauan Johnson is a good TE.

These guys won’t be easy, but if this team can keep up with the recent effectiveness on offense and keep killing it on defense, we should be able to notch another victory. Andy Dalton is not gonna break contain and get any yards running, and they giver up a lot of sacks. But they also get a lot of sacks, so the O line is gonna have to be strong.

I liked the idea of playing CMC early and Mitchell late in Mexico, but I want to see both of them pounding the Saints. They are in the bottom third in run defense and can be worn down. I also dug the quick passes and misdirection runs. Keep that shit up and we should be fine.

Three home games in a row, so we have to keep on keeping on.

Well, it took 11 weeks, but the 49ers put together their best game in quite a while (maybe ever in the Shanny era) as the 49ers got their revenge in a big way on the Cardinals. The local favorites in Mexico City laid a smack-down on the overmatched and gassed AZ Cards to the tune of a 38-10 shellacking. This is the 2nd dispelling of recent mishaps as the Niners earlier beat the (Wilsonless) Seahawks, and took care of the Kliff Kingsbury Kards, who had our number the last couple years.

Yeah, Wilson and Denver beat us, but let’s just treat that as an anomaly at this point. The 49ers played an interesting game with their running backs. In the 1st half, the Niners came out throwing, with CMNC being the major beneficiary of check-downs and swing passes as the Niners scored on three straight possessions to close out the 1st half.

In the 2nd half, Mitchell got his reps as the team switched gears to a running attack. Mitchell had 9 rushes for 60 yards, 6 on the first drive of the 2nd half, and the 49ers took the 2nd half kickoff in for a 24-10 lead. It was a bit of a departure for Shanny as HE was the one dictating the action. I tell you, just having CMC as a check-down is paying off hugely. Shit, even Kittle had a check-down catch.

And I really have to give the O line coaches kudos for getting a semblance of consistency out of the group. In the last 2 games, the line has given up 1 sack, and Jimmy had time to make adjustments and he was able to get through his progressions without getting hit. The 2 biggest plays for Jimmy (to me anyway) was the pass over the middle to Kittle as Jimmy Stepped up in the pocket, and threw Kittle open for the score, and the dart to Aiyuk in the red zone as the play was initially set to go to CMC. Jimmy stepped up, avoided the rush, and hit the target.

The run game was opening up giant holes, and gee, the return of the jet sweep was welcome, as Deebo, who caught 7 passes for 57 yards, had a brilliantly blocked 39 yard score. Best part of the play is center Spencer Burford going 30 yards downfield top flatten Budda Baker at the 3 to finish off the run.

The defense again pitched a 2nd half shutout for the 3rd week in a row. The stifling defense has 3 sacks, 2 picks, and ELEVEN tackles for losses. Dre Greenlaw was his bad ass self, flying all over the field with his LB-leading 9 tackles. Mooney Ward had 10 tackles and was a disruptive force from the opening bell.

Special teams were also solid with Wishnowski pinning AZ inside the 20 twice, and missed a third one by the length of half a foot as McCloud’s foot slid into the end zone for a touchback. Robbie boomed all his kicks into the thin air for TBs, and made his only FG attempt from 39 yards.

All in all, one of the best games this team has played in a while. From the coaching to all phases, a great effort. I will say though that AZ looked completely demoralized as the 3rd quarter progressed. They didn’t want to tackle anyone, and were simply mailing it in. The Cards are on HBO’s Hard Knocks in-season show. Can’t wait to see that one. They were coming off a pretty big win over the Rams, so this was a nice kick in the face to these guys.

Here we go! This is the beginning of the rest of the season. Are we contenders? Are we pretenders? Can we break the streak of the Cards and Colt Fucking McCoy? AZ seems to me to be playing better with McCoy rather than Murray, but I guess we will see for sure tonight. The team is getting healthy and the table is set for the Niners to make a serious run at the NFC West crown. Something that would make the playoff run a bit easier. Win this game and we are one up on Seattle with our previous win over them.

We came out of the Sandy Eggo game fairly unscathed, so there’s that. And we should have Greenlaw the whole game unless he gets another bullshit ejection. I don’t think we get carved up like we did last year against these guys as we were hurting, and we didn’t have Greenlaw or Al-Shaair back then.

I see that game last year a lot like the KC game this year. Without our two fastest linebackers in Greenlaw and Al-Shaair, we got cooked on screens, WR screens, and simple dump-offs that our edge guys just let happen by playing into the penetration they got. Our LBs got washed out and every screen pass was a 15 yard gain stopped by the secondary.

The Rams were doing this to us in our last game with them with Kupp (with Greenlaw and Al-Shaair), but the Niners countered by bringing them in closer to stop that shit. Something I think we will do again. One thing I would like to see is Ryans to ratchet up the pressure early. Forget looking to see if the base defense can handle what is going on. In the Charger game we gave up that first TD way to easily by playing base and not dialing up any pressure. Sure there was a couple busted coverages on the big plays, but they did hit a lot of medium to deep passes early with no pressure on Herbert.

We survived the high-flying Chargers by getting a lot of pressure on Herbert, and stifling their run game. Much the same is in order. Sure wish we had AA back, but he’s got a couple more weeks it looks like. If we can stop the run and force them to pass, we should be able to wreak havoc.

The game, as all others this season will go the way that the offense goes. AZ isn’t super explosive, but they have put up some big numbers this season. Shanahan REALLY needs to come up with some different red zone plays rather than simply running up the middle on 1st and 2nd down. The pass that Aiyuk dropped in the end zone was unfortunate, but that should have been the 1ST DOWN play.

Yeah, we have CMC and Mitchell, but we also have Kittle, Deebo, Aiyuk, and CMC as a pass catcher out of the backfield. We HAVE to get on these guys early and keep them down. I think we finally put together a solid offensive game. 31-17 Niners.

Hitting a few prime time and Monday night games, and at least we kept our heads up last Sunday. 2-1 so far in prime time action, losing to fucking Denver, and beating the two LA teams. so, looks like some good games tomorrow. Jets and NE if only for the fact that the Jets have lost to the Pats for about 2 decades.

The afternoon has the Vikings and the Cowboys. Dallas, along with the whole NFC East seem to be paper lions. Just like the actual shit-bag Lions. Then again, Minnesota? Philly? Man, this NFL is now just impossible to gauge as to who is really good and who is not. KC and Buffalo? Real deal. Titans, Dolphins, Ravens, and Jets are all 7-3 or 6-3. Are they real though? Minn and Philly are 8 and fucking 1. I don’t think either team is very good but all these teams are playing the bottom-feeders

We of course are 5-4 but also, the pundits are saying ‘best 5-4 team’ yadda yadda yadda. I still don’t know what we are. We SHOULD be better than 5-4. We should also be scoring more points. I’m really holding my breath for this game as the Cards ALWAYS give us fits. For once I’d love to see this team just beat the snot out of someone.

Might as well be now.

. . . where? Upward? I hope so. But here we are again, coming off a hard-fought victory and running straight into into our nemesis, Kilff Klavin, uh, Kingsbury and the Arizona Cardinals. It isn’t as bad as I thought as Kingsbury is 3-3 against the Niners, but he’s riding a 3 game winning streak, including the brutal beating last year at the hands of Colt Fucking McCoy. A game I saw and declared the worst game I have ever seen live. And I’ve seen some SHITTY teams. Joe Reed? The singing quarterback? Steve Fucking Spurrier? Anyhow . . .

As luck would have it, Kyler Murray is injured again, and Colt is coming off an impressive victory over the LA Rams. 26-37 for 238 and a TD. Of course the Rams were using their backup as well, John (who?) Wolford. Connor, the guy who REALLY killed the 49ers last year, got 69 yards rushing and 2 scores. DeAndre Hopkins continues to wreak havoc now that he’s back, getting 10 catches for 98 yards.

Not sure what the deal is with AZ. They have a ton of talent, they have an explosive offense, a hard-hitting defense, and playmakers all over the place. Kyler Murray, Budda Baker, JJ Watt, Zach Ertz, shit they have our old punter Andy Lee for fuck’s sake! He was on our team 9 seasons ago! yet they continue to never get to where they should be going. Injuries, weird coaching decisions, internal strife, all kinds of weird shit. But they sure seem to get healthy against us.

And yeah, we are coming off a tough victory against another team that can’t seem to get out of its own way in the Chargers. But once again, it was our own ineptitude that kept that game close. 5 trips into the rez zone netted 2 TDs, a dropped TD, a missed XP, 17 runs up the middle inside the 5, and 3 FGs.

22 points is still not the offensive explosion all these wonderful weapons are supposed to provide. Deebo has been disappearing lately as Brandon Aiyuk is getting a lot of action, and granted, he fumbled and dropped a TD, at least he’s getting open. Samuel got open on one play that Jimmy missed, but otherwise had a quiet 2 catches for 24 yards. Kittle? 1 catch for 22 yards. Jennings is getting more action that those guys.

I get that Kittle has to block as Mike McGlinchey is a shitty pass protector, but man, we have to get him involved in the passing game. Elijah Mitchell had a very strong game running, CMC had a fairly quiet game but caught everything thrown his way and had some nice runs.

The problem? Give ya ONE guess. Our scaredy-coach Kyle Shanahan. I don’t get the absolute refusal to do ANYTHING other than run up the middle inside the 5. Most of the plays that got us there were inches away from being TDs. And the ONE TIME Kyle passed, BA dropped it. Thing is, that should have been the FIRST DOWN play. Not the 3rd down play. Throwing on 1st down at least puts it in the defense’s head that hey, they might not run up the middle EVERY FUCKING TIME.

Sorry, but it drives me nutty to see the offense do the same thing over and over and over and the results are the same. Run, run, sack FG. Run, run, scramble, pick. Run run run, FG. We don’t even do any misdirection anymore. Fuck it. Just do QB sneaks when you get close.

Man, got to tell y’all yesterday was quite the day. I’ll let the photos tell the tale of the pre-game festivities, but what a thrill it was to get onto the sidelines before the game. The pre-game spread in the VIP lounge was pretty awesome as well. Turkey, salmon, prawn cocktail, beer and wine, all on the house.

The largess was due to James Cregg, Assistant Offensive Line Coach for the 49ers. His father Jim is friends with Diana (seen pictured below) who has known my wife since 6th grade.

Went to the 49ers museum, and I got to say it is pretty fucking cool. The statues alone are great, but there’s a ton of old memorabilia and all kinds of cool things.

Here are some pics.

Pregame Walk with Maggie my 10 year old Lab

Joe and Bill

Me telling Bill to tell Joe to throw to Dwight

Me and TO sharing 81s while Dwight saves the day

Jerry’s 208 TDs

The Trophies

Deeeeebo!

Assistant O line coach Jim Cregg and his father. My new best friend. Jim came from the LSU coaching staff and has a National Championship ring.

Glad I brought my hat and Sharpie to the game. The GOAT

Jerry, Diana, me, and Burns

The football Gods have smiled on me. A friend of my wife is a huge Niner fan and has two extra tickets for the game tomorrow. I’ll be going with a friend of mine, and she is flying up from LA with a friend of hers Suhnday morning. Her friend knows one of the coaches, so these tickets have VIP access to the field before the game, and whatever pre-game activities there are. She has never been to a game before so she is psyched.

I’m pretty psyched myself to be able to get on the field, but the pregame stuff should be fun too. I’m just hoping against hope this team gets their collective shit together and plays a good game. The very good news is that Dre Greenlaw and Azeez Al-AShaair are both back on defense. And of course just about everyone else is back as well. No AA, but this is as healthy as we have been in quite a while.

These guys have to prove sooner or later that they are actual contenders this year and not just pretenders.

Let me start this by saying I feel bad for the city of San Diego. They had an absolutely dedicated fan base and a team that was mercurial to say the least. Through their entire existence they have been an exciting team From the get-go in 1960 and the high flying AFL days of Sid Gillman, John Hadl, Tobin Rote (who won them their one and only championship in 1963), Dan Fouts and Air Coryell, and one of my favorite WRs in the game ever, Lance (Bambi) Alworth, the Chargers were always pushing the limit of offensive firepower. Even up to the Drew Brees/Philip Rivers era they always scored and scored a lot.

But they seem to always fuck up. A more snake-bit team you can’t find. They have lost more games in weird ways while STILL winning a ton of games. The most infamous being the 2006 playoffs against The Pats when, on 4th and 5, Brady threw a pick to Marlon McGree with 6 minutes left and the Chargers up 21-13. Instead of just laying there and sealing the win, or even dropping the ball as it is 4th down, McGree gets up, gains 2 yards and promptly fumbles the ball. Brady gets the pats int the end zone, converts the 2-pts, and SD eventually loses 24-21.

The Chargers lost a game when Philip Rivers was trying to spike the ball and kick the winning FG, and instead fumbled the snap, KC recovered, and kicked THEIR game winning FG 20 seconds later. The Chargers lost a game to the Broncos when they were up 24-0 at the half and turned the ball over on 5 out of 6 2nd half possessions, losing 35-24. Blowing a 4th and 29 against the Ravens, on and on.

Now? Same shit different era. The Chargers are always competitive, but lose close games all the time. With Justin Herbert, they are once again an offensive powerhouse but the same weird luck still dogs them.

Now of course they have a head coach hell-bent on losing games for his team. Brandon Staley single-handedly kept the Chargers out of the playoffs last year with multiple ludicrous 4th down failures. Down the stretch they lost to the Raiders and Chiefs in games they should have won.

The Raider game had the infamous timeout called by Staley at the end of OT. The Raiders were going to let the clock run out as they had the ball at mid-field and the tie would have put both the Raiders and the Chargers into the playoffs. Instead, Staley calls a timeout. The Raiders decide to go for the win and get it with a FG. The Chargers fall 0ut of the playoffs.

Derp. This year of course, Staley has revretted and punted late in games where he should have gone for it.

I just hope we keep the streak going. The Chargers ALWAYS play hard and they always play close, but they somehow pull bad juju out of thin air.

Is the glass half full? Is the glass half empty? Is there whiskey in the glass? We have reached the midway point of the season at the middle of the glass. The good news for our 4-4 record is that we are only 1.5 games behind Seattle. Yeah, fucking Seattle. The team that won’t go away. Say what you will about their old coach, their shitty defense, and their journeyman quarterback, they are winning games and have the lead.

The good news is we are 3-0 in the division and already have a win against them. The other good news is that we are getting our playmakers back in Deebo, Elijah, and Juice to go along with the newly acquired Christian McCaffery. So, the glass appears to be half-full of some excellent 25 year old small-batch whiskey. A nice Angel’s Envy.

The not-so-good news? Well, it’s not really news, it’s more of a question as to how the drivers of this offense continue this season. The inconsistency of Jimmy and Kyle cannot be understated. Sure, some of this is due to the myriad injuries and backups all over the place, but the penalties, interceptions, fumbles, and self-inflicted mistakes has cost the team 3 games. The questionable play-calling down the stretch of close games is also a big concern. So, the glass may be half-full of Old Crow out of a plastic jug.

Me? I’m mildly optimistic that this team can get on a roll. Shanny has a new toy in CMC and we are getting healthier with this bye. Can we go 7-2 to finish the season? Sure. If the team doesn’t make dumb mistakes and play their usual inconsistent brand of football. There are NO scary teams in the NFL this season, except for Buffalo, and even KC. Stupid thing about KC is we were in that game late and should have been way ahead but for multiple failures in the red zone early.

Shit, even going 5-4 would likely keep the 49ers in the 7th spot, barring some other team getting hot. Playoffs shouldn’t be a big concern with this team. Playing consistent football week to week is. Our schedule is fairly tame, but it is the same for the rest of the league. Beat Seattle again, and the west should be ours.

Thew biggest stumbling block may very well turn out to be the Cardinals. A shitty team that has Shanny’s number much as we have McVay’s.

These bye weeks are just a little bit bluer, but hey, the team needs this break. It comes at a great time where attrition is the name of the game in the NFL and we have a boatload of players on the IR.

The good news is Deebo Samuel, Elijah Mitchell, and Kyle Juicechick will be back for the Chargers game. Trent Williams is getting a much-needed break to healthy up, and Colton McKivitz is ready to step in and replace an inconsistent Mike McGlinchey. The big surprise on the line as of now is the play of Aaron Banks, He has blocked well for the run and has not given up a sack. Kudos to him.

Can’t seem to find anything recent on Greenlaw and Armstead, but getting those 2 guys back will be huge. The defense has struggled mightily on screen passes and delays without Greenlaw’s speed, and Armstead’s presence in the interior cannot be understated. Jason Verrett should be healthy (?!?) and if he is, it’ll be a good thing. Emanuel Moseley isn’t coming back, so it would be nice to have Verrett playing well. That, of course is a long-shot, but we will see.

The D did a great job of adjusting their game plan last week at half time vs the Rams when the LBs played up closer to the line, and Ryans blitzed to rattle Stafford. They took Kupp out of the game and shut out the Rams in the 2nd half. And hey, we scored in the 4th quarter!! Kudos to Kyle for using the new weapon and closing a game the right way.

As far as the game go, the most important ones are of course the Seahawks @ Cardinals, and the Rams @ Tampa Bay.

A win by Pete Carroll’s crew would put the 49ers 1.5 game back from Seattle, and the Cards would be a distant 3-6. The oppo of course would simply tighten up an already tight division. We’d be 0.5 back, and AZ would be 0.5 behind us.

Then there’s the Rams @ Tampa Bay. Both teams are struggling mightily. Brady has never been 3-5, at least not that I can remember, but whoever loses is really behind the 8 ball in reaching the playoffs.

Other than those games, the morning game to watch (hello Streameast) is Robert Saleh’s upstart Jets taking on the high flying Bills. Despite the 5-3 record, there is rumbling around the Meadowlands that Zack Wilson is not quite making it as the elite guy he’s supposed to be.

Wilson:

If Trey Lance had put up these numbers this season (we will never know but you’d think he’d do better than that), the howling would be incessant. And this is Wilson’s 2nd year.

These numbers are pretty awful no matter how you slice it. To add a little more fuel to the fire, Robert Saleh demoted Joe Flacco and promoted Mike White to the #2 QB for the rest of the season to give him “the opportunity there” according to Saleh.