Forty Niners Forever

Hmmmmmm, sure seems like a lot of pitchers are struggling with the pitch clock. Webb, Cobb, John (how will you miss me if I don’t go away) Brebbia and others who I can’t remember have given up balls, stolen bases, and generally couldn’t get their shit together. I’m sure this is a problem across the league, but I’m not looking too hard, but a game did end on a bases-loaded time expiration.

Naturally the twitterverse and the interwebs exploded. Yeah, this is gonna be a learning curve for everyone involved, but it sure feels like they are going a little hard in the direction of saving time at the cost of pitchers just pitching. Guys that don’t even take too long to throw have issues.

We will see if this is an ongoing thing but one thing that did crack me up was seeing the Red Sox put a rover into short RF and use a 2-man outfield against Joey Gallo. Too fucking funny.

Next season, the cry will be, BAN THE OUTFIELD SHIFT ! ! !

And it is still raining like shit around here. Good to have, and I got to hit the mountains soon, but I digress. Football is on the back burner for a bit, and the Giants have broken camp. Gonna be a weird year for the Orange and Black as they try to cobble together yet another team that will platoon a little too much for my liking, and be micro-managed by Gabe the Replacer. Got a ittle tired last year of all the AAAA signings, spinning through all the random cast-oofs that were quickly replaced with other castoffs.

A virtual who’s who of who. Lost in all this was something posted today in the Seattle papers about Prelander Berroa, the hard-throwing right hander the Giants got from Minnesota in the Sam Dyson trade. Farhan traded him to the Mariners for Donnie Walton, an injured infielder who was part of the walking wounded when every player seemed to hit the IR.

As one AL scout put it:

“Prelander Berroa for Donnie Walton might have been the worst trade of 2022,” an American League scout told Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times. “And it might not be close.”

They knew what they were getting in Berroa, and they seemed to lose every IFer last year, but Walton likely isn’t here much longer, Sure, it’s early, but these myriad transactions that Farhan and Co seem to specialize in are baffling at best. Moves that serve no other purpose than bringing as many guys through the system as possible, The hoping for finding diamonds in the rough is all well and good, but not addressing things like 1st base with yet another platoon is annoying. Overpaying for Joc was weird as well.

The OF should be better with Joc out of there. At least offensively, but the defense is still a big issue. Davis is gonna play . . . where? 3rd? DH? Flores gets 1st and 2nd. Estrada gets 2nd. Craw gets SS. Luciano backs him up? Estrada? Joc at 1st ? Really? Yaz and his .214 in CF? Villar will hopefully keep rolling. He showed some decent power.

Lots of questions but I think the pitching should be better than last year, even without Rodon. The pen is better as well. I guess.

. . . Oh, the mess I’m in.

Well, so much for a smooth recovery for Brock Purdy. He can’t even get the operation done. Purdy’s elbow is still too swoll to operate on, so they will re-evaluate in early March. Thus throwing the timetable back some. Which means that we have to hope Trey Lance’s recovery doesn’t have any setbacks. Which also means that Lance os gonna get a longer look than originally thought. Which I guess is a good thing.

After all, we need to know what we have in Trey Lance before handing the keys to Purdy, right? I mean, Purdy appears to be the real deal. But so did Jimmy G when he came in and won 5 games in a row. Even Nick Mullens looked like the real deal for a red hot minute. The NFL is a fickle mistress and one who is unkind to most everyone.

_________________

Other than that, I’m pretty interested to see what our local baseball team does this season. The national scribes and local fans have written off the team and front office as being inept buffoons who fucked up wildly. Throw in the National Anthem protest by Kapler, and you have the requisite overreaction and a whole lot of whining by anyone and everyone.

Me? I think the team improved enough to reach the NBA-style playoffs. They gained a couple solid-enough OFers in Haniger and Conforto, the pen got decent by the end of the season, and they added Taylor (don’t call me Tyler) Rogers, a couple starters in Manaea and Stripling, Junis and Hjelle from the farm, Webb and Cobb, and DeScaffolding. From the bunch they should be able to build a good rotation.

The hitting is the main issue I have. Well, that and the defense, Both were sub-par last season. Sure, that has a lot to do with the rotating in and out of a bunch of AAAA guys, and the Misadventures of Luis Gonzalez. He hit well, but was pretty clueless in every other area of the game.

Should be a fun season if only to silence the nay-sayers.

Sure, baseball season is coming. And yeah, the draft is coming in April. But even that is muted as we won’t have any day one picks as our #1 went to Miami for the Trey Lance pick, and the #2 went to Carolina for Run CMC. The upside being of course is that this draft crew seems to hit on a ton of 3rd round and later talent. Unless it is a running back, but that is a different issue. Davis-Price prolly gets released in training camp to follow the path of Trey Sermon out the door.

As it sits now we have 10 picks. 3 in the 3rd, 3 in the 5th, 3 in the 7th, and 1 in the 6th. We got a bunch of comp picks for our black coaches being hired away, including DC DeMeco Ryans, and other things, but I’ll tell ya one thing about Shanahan, he sure knows how to pick a coaching staff.

In his first year picking a staff as a head coach in 2017, 3 of his assistants are now head coaches in Running Back coach Mike McDaniel, DC Robert Saleh, and Defensive Quality Control coach and DC DeMeco Ryans. Rick Scangarello became OC of the Broncos and Eagles, Mike LeFleur is the OC of the Rams, and Bobby Slowik is now OC of the Texans with Ryans. And this was his first staff. Countless other coaches have been hired away, and Anthony Lynn, our Assistant Head Coach and Running backs coach will likely be hired away soon.

So, day 2 and 3 of the draft is our wheelhouse. April 27th and April 28th.

• Round 3, Pick 99
• Round 3, Pick 100
• Round 3, Pick 101
• Round 5, Pick 157
• Round 5, Pick 166
• Round 5, Pick 173
• Round 6, Pick 216
• Round 7, Pick 224
• Round 7, Pick 249
• Round 7, Pick 255

Not really thrilled about this one as the season ended so badly, but hey, it’s the Super Bowl. Miss the 5 hours of pregame and the 45 minute halftime and it seems like another Sunday.

Seeing as I was a big Chiefs fan growing up, and the fucking Eagles had a pretty easy road through the playoffs, I hope the Chiefs steamroll the Iggles and their doouchey fans. They can cry with their Phillie brethren in being close but not quite.

Flying to Montana today to see the kids and get some skiing in, so we will hit some bar tomorrow to watch the game. Big Sky or bust!!!

Just heard that Brock Purdy is going ahead with the UCL repair surgery, a 6 month recovery; as opposed to the UCL replacement (TJ) surgery, an 18 month recovery. His doctor is the Texas Rangers team doctor, Keith Meister. I guess it makes sense that a baseball doctor takes care of this as these kinds of surgeries are usually in the realm of pitchers, not quarterbacks. The surgery will take place in Dallas on February 22nd as they are still allowing for the swelling in Purdy’s arm to subside.

Purdy can start throwing 3 months after the surgery, say early june, and build his arm strength back up for another 3 months, and be ready early September. The season starts on September 10th.
_________________________

Good hire. Solid guy. Took a shitty Panthers team cutting players (hello CMC) and dumping salary and got them to play hard and go 6-6 to finish the season. His reward? Getting passed over for the head coaching spot. Like the Raiders after the Jon Gruden fiasco last season, Rich Bisaccia came in, directed the team to the playoffs, and was unceremoniously kicked to the curb for Prince Valiant’s drinking buddy Josh (I-suck-everywhere-I-head-coach) McDaniels.

Cue the Raiders sucking hard and missing the playoffs in 2022 despite having the best WR in the game and an offense putting up a ton of points. Couldn’t happen to a more stupid owner.

Anywho, Steve Wilks is a 4-3 guy, which of course is our base defense. He has been coaching for 28 years and had the unfortunate luck of being Josh Rosen’s head coach in AZ for one gloriously terrible season in 2018 when they went 3-13. He was the assistant Head Coach for the Panthers when their defense became all-world, and eventually lost Super Bowl 50 to the Broncos. He’s known for getting the most out of every guy he coaches, so this should be perfect fit for him and the team.

Kudos.

Here’s a good article about Wilks. This was written before he was hired by the 49ers.

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2023/1/27/23574272/steve-wilks-rumors-job-nfl-defensive-coordinator

I’ve gone from ‘fuck the Eagles’ to ‘fuck this game’ to ‘fuck Rihanna’ to ‘maybe I’ll ski that day’ to ‘yeah, I might watch a little’. Watching the Super Bowl after coming so close yet again to the big party really is a fucking drag. The last couple NFC championship games, plus the KC loss just make this painful beyond reason. Throw in the debacle in 2012 and you have plenty of heartbreak and sadness. The only thing that warms my heart about any of this is the fact we have beaten Dallas twice, Seattle, and Green Bay and thwarted their playoff runs.

The game? Meh. Fuck the Eagles. Say what you will about their season, it was full of creampuffs, Daniel Jones, and Josh Johnson. Pisser to it all is this season really came down to the horrible loss to Denver. With that game and we likely have the bye week instead of Philly.

But, fuck that. Can’t go down the woulda coulda shoulda route. Here’s to hoping KC smokes the Eagles and their annoying as fuck fans.

Do we have a quarterback controversy? Whether it’s Tittle/Brodie, Brodie/Spurrier, Owen/Reed (who?), Smith/Kaepernick, Smith/Davis, now we have the threee-headed injury triumvirate of Jimmy G, Trey Lance, and Brock Purdy. And really, at some point do we call into question the blocking schemes?

But that’s a topic for a different thread. Anyhow, we DO know that Jimmy G isn’t coming back. The 49ers have 2 quarterbacks signed next year. And both Lance and Purdy are on rookie deals, so neither is a huge burden at this point. The main drag here is, Purdy’s health. He went from Mr. Irrelevant to emergency starter to #1 QB, to possibly out of the league due to his injury in 8 weeks.

I’m sure Purdy will recover, as thousands of baseball pitchers have comeback from UCL surgery, but the immediate concern is what surgery will Purdy get? The UCL reattachment is a manageable 6 month recovery. The UCL replacement is of course TJ surgery. More like an 18 month recovery.

This timeline of course dictates our future regarding the quarterback position for 2023. If the UCL replacement is needed, we can rule Josh Johnson out. And Tom Brady. Rodgers would need to be a trade, and taking on $140 mill in salary is no bueno. As is the thought of going after Derek Carr. He’s under contract for 3 more year, and we have no picks to trade with anyway.

Lamar Jackson is of course available, but that price tag will be monstrous and way too long for our need. Which is of course the same boat that Jimmy G is in. He’s waiting for a big payday, and he looks to be moving north to Seattle if I were to guess as to his destination.

So, since there aren’t any Dan Marinos or Joe Montanas just lying around waiting to sign with someone, Getting the likes of Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Teddy Bridgewater, or Andy Dalton doesn’t really warm my cockles, so I guess the answer is to draft a late-ish flier QB, and (gulp) pick up one of those stiffs to be the spot starter till Purdy comes back.

The hope against hope is that Purdy can do the reattachment rather than the replacement.

We will find out soon enough. Ouch.

The 49ers once again are crushed by the injury bug. Sunday morning, the 49ers went from a team on the precipice of reaching their eighth Super Bowl with a surprising young QB and a very bright future to a team back to square one regarding our starting quarterback. Say what you will about the injury to Purdy and the looking for additional opinions, this injury looks very much like it will require Tommy John surgery. Which means Purdy is out for all (or most) of the 2023 season.

Which leaves us with Trey Lance as the only healthy quarterback signed for next season. Sure, he hasn’t had a proper look as a starter, but Purdy, in his rookie campaign, looked a lot more in charge of the offense than Lance has. Granted, there is a growth process for most QBs, Josh Allen springs to mind with his uneven rookie year, but this will be year 3 for Lance. He needs IMMEDIATE results to leap off the page and command this team next year if he wants to be the starter. We don’t have a big window for learning the ropes.

The 49ers are built to win it all right now with a strong defense, and a myriad of offensive weapons. Except the most important one. Can Lance do it? We don’t know. He has looked solid at times, and lost at times. Purdy was looking like Joe Jr. out there hitting quick passes and scrambling out of trouble to extend plays. Jimmy G was looking solid doing the simple task of throwing to check-downs and limiting the turnovers.

So, what do we do? Let me start off by saying no to Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Brady might give us a decent deal, but he’s erratic and old. Rodgers is better, but he would cost a LOT more and he’s erratic, old, and crazy. Matty Ice? He’s at least very familiar with Shanahan, and is not someone that would cost too much. He wouldn’t be horrible to get as a stop-gap.

Free agents include Lamar Jackson, and Derek Carr, but I don’t think we are gonna go that route as these guys are gonna want a lot of money and extended deals. Carr intrigues the hell out of me though as he is a damn good deep passer. Aiyuk and Deebo would have big numbers with a guy like Carr playing. maybe do a one-year make-good deal?

I mean, it’s either that or we go back to Jimmy G!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaak!

And they WILL draft another QB. This kid looks pretty solid as a Purdy type guy. Not huge, but he makes all the throws accurately. Jake Haener from Fresno St.

It was over nearly when it started. After the non-catch by DeVonta Smith catch wasn’t contested, and Philly got their gift TD, Purdy went out in his first series as unblocked LB Hassan Reddick smashed into Purdy’s arm as he tried to throw a pass. Fortuna being a fickle bitch, the play added insult to the injury as the play was a fumble, not a pass. Josh Journeyman Johnson lived down to his name and was ineffective until he himself was knocked out of the game in the 3rd quarter.

Crap end to a great season.

Still and all, despite yet another NFCCG loss (we lead the NFL in that category with 10), we have found our QB of the future in Brock Purdy.

But even that is in question as Purdy’s arm injury very well could be a ruptured ulnar ligament, which would require Tommy John surgery and a likely stint on the IR for next year. His MRI is going on now, so we will know later today what his recovery will be.

Other than that, It’s another off-season of close-but-no-cigar.

As it goes I really hope KC takes it to the Eagles and stomps them flat.

__________________________

This article came out before the Cowboys game. From Caesar’s Sports Book head bookie Adam Pullen.

“Despite losing Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo — their first- and second-string quarterbacks — to injuries earlier in the season, San Francisco has emerged as a real Super Bowl contender under rookie quarterback Brock Purdy. The 49ers secured the No. 2 seed in the NFC and easily dismantled the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Wild-Card Round.

Vegas now finds themselves in a sticky situation as they face the possibility of dealing with the consequences of that drastic change. 

Caesars specifically listed the 49ers as high as +1600 earlier in the season. As of Friday, that number had dropped as low as +380, behind only the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
___________________________

Food for thought if anything.