San Francisco 49ers Forever

. . . and the 2022 football season has begun! This is gonna be a crazy season what with a ton of player movement and lots of story lines. Von Miller is in Buffalo, DaVante Adams reunites with fellow Bulldog Derek Carr, Baker Mayfield to the Panthers, Mitchell Trubiscuit to the Steelers, Wetz to the Foreskins, AJ Brown (!!!) to the Eagles, Russell Wilson to the Broncos, on and on.

We of course have our new QB Trey Lance, and our guy who we can’t miss because he won’t go away, Jimmy Garoppolo.

On the line, Spencer Burford is playing very well, and hopefully 2nd year guy Aaron Banks will solidify the middle, along with whoever we put at center.

As far as this season goes, I can’t wait. I think this team right now is about as good as we have been in a long long time. I never felt that way with Jimmy G manning the QB spot. Will Lance soar over the game-management plodding passing game of Jimmy G? Well, the weapons we have seem to say yes. Deebo is back. Aiyuk is tearing up camp and kicking ass. We have speedster Danny Gray, Late-bloomer Jauan Jennings, and of course George Kittle. Elijah Mitchell, and rook Davis-Price should lead the way at RB.

The D looks even better than the last 5 years as we finally have a deep secondary. Charvarious Ward is a bona fide Press cover corner, Moseley is in top form, Jimmie Ward is still bringing it, and Hufanga’s play allowed the departure of Jaquiski (oooops) Tartt. If Verrett bnrings anything he’s found money. Ambry Thomas and Lenoir have some seasoning, and Thomas especially survived his trial by fire to come back strong.

Funny enough, I’m kinda jazzed to see what Derek Carr and Davante Adams do in Oakland. They put up Madden numbers in Fresno.

Another funny thing, Trubiscuit is sucking so hard in Pittsburgh, I wonder if they take a flier on Jimmy.

I thought this would happen the way it did. and it did. We didn’t lose Jimmy yet, but Deebo got a 3 year, $73 million extension. All the media BS and the blathering going on now about why did they wait so long, Deebo wants out, yadda yadda yadda, the deal was he was concerned about how much he was being run. And Shanny wasn’t shy about using him up the middle.

I also think the reason we went RB in round 2 was a direct result of making Deebo see that the team was serious about getting and fielding a deep enough RB corps so he won’t be run up the middle 10 times a game. So, we’ll get to do this is again in 3 years, but hey, Deebo is the real deal, and he is imperative to be on the team and hitting all the practices now to get him going with Trey and the offense.

Bring it on!

In a move that surprises no one, the 49ers are reporting that Lynch and Shanny met with Jimmy G and said happy trails. Don’t come to practice, you can work out on your own. He’s got his physical today and he will apparently be able to start throwing soon. The hope is once he proves his arm is able to throw those 12 yard curls, he will get traded. Texans? Falcons? Giants? Jets? Bucs? Who knows. Who cares. Who loves ya, baby!

In other slightly encouraging news, Deebo Samuel reported to camp today, ending speculation in my head that he might decide to sit this one out. Good for him. I get that some of these wr types are prima donnas, but I felt all along, and even before he deleted his social media accounts earlier, that his main complaint was how Shanny was using him. Sure, we had injuries at the RB spot. But that doesn’t mean hey, let’s run Deebo up the middle. Dumb dumb dumb. Walsh would have been crucified if he put Jerry Rice in harm’s way like that.

But hey! Today is opening day!! Training Camp had officially started!

Brought to you by Quacker Oats. Like I said the other day, according to the weboscribes, there are 31 teams interested in the services of Jimmy (who, me?) Garoppolo.

The next team on the hit parade is the New York (we barely play) football Giants. It could be that I’ve even posted this before. But whatevs. I’m just still on hold waiting for this interminable offseason to end and for the season to start. Even the preseason. Where we get to wonder how long Trey will play in any given game. You’d think a lot to give him much-needed reps, but who knows what the powers that be are thinking. Minimizing risk SHOULD be high on the list, but seeing how Kyle treated Trey last year, it was pretty much a clusterfuck nightmare of runs and (too many) hits.

And to make things even worse, we have the all-star break. The slowest time of the sports year. Hey, maybe Joc Pederson wears hit pearls and hits a home run. huzzah

Treat me the way you do . . .

Jesus. Arm fatigue? Really? That’s what the mole is leaking now? How much more can trickle out of 4949 Marie DeBartolo Way in Santa Clara? Camp has apparently gone well by all the accounting of the local scribes, and the people actually witnessing the practices. But yet again, there’s another rumor from colin Cowherd AND Mike Silver that he need rest as the team is rebuilding his motion.

FUnny as this wasn’t an issue last year. Or it was under the radar? I don’t know. The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen asked a coach at practice today and he said “I’ve never heard anything about that…” so there you go. More grist for the bullshit mill of sportswriters. Funny thing is, Grant Cohn, the guy who shits on every 49er, has little to nothing to say about it. And at least he’s local.

So at some point soon, Trey will take the field and the world will see what we have. It’s funny that some scribes still point to the fact that Jimmy is on the team. As if we aren’t trying like hell to get rid of him.

No word on Deebo but at this point no news is good news. He’s under contract for the season, and we will work out a del at some point. Like 10 minutes after Jimmy G is traded to the Falcons.

Well, the rumor mill keeps churning along as Jimmy Subway Shill Capicola is ‘progressing’ in his rehab from shoulder surgery and is ‘on schedule’ to start throwing next week. I guess showing he can still throw 10 yard swing passes without defenders being on the field so they can snag it for a pick 6 is crucial to our trading him, but the latest of Jimmy being the backup to Tom Turd-riffic in TB has been roundly rebuked by the Bucs.

An unnamed coach told Tampa’s beat writer Rick Stroud, ‘If Jimmy could throw a deep ball, he would’ve won two Super Bowls already.’

Ouch. But many NFL execs (???wtf???) feel that Jimmy will be traded ‘to someone’ by the end of the month. Nothing like a little veiled collusion to sprinkle upon the festivities of this young 2022 season. The latest now is the Falcons or the NY (I-think-we-play-football) Giants. Why? Well, the Falcons are banking on a wildly inconsistent Marcus Mariota to relieve their post-Matty Ice blues. The falcons are part of the Kyle Shanahan coaching scheme and they can build their offense around the dink, dunk, and run philosophy.

Even WITH Natty Matty, the Falcons have sucked hard since their epic Super Bowl collapse in 2016 and subsequent divisional playoff loss in 2017.

The NY (is-this-football?) Giants? Well, Daniel Jones is their QB, and the team isn’t really feeling him as their future, as they have denied his 5th-year option. I guess it would be an open competition with Jimmy. Worst-case scenario is they start Jones and see if he trips on his dick and they install Jimmy.

Certainly these scenarios are plausible. Make it so!

The 49ers preseason officially starts on July 26th. 20 days from now! Mick Jagger’s birthday.

So, start me up!! This is pretty much a dead zone for sports anyway, what with the Warriors chip back in the recent distant past, and the Giants fortunes are quietly swirling down the toilet bowl. But this is how it was when I was a kid. The Giants were a nice diversion while we all geared up for the upcoming football season.

Hitting, blocking, throwing, catching. Practice. What used to be 2-a-days, smear the queer, Oklahoma, all those crazy drills that have (logically) been banned for a log time that we grew up with. Now it is all about not getting injured before the season even starts. And what with one less preseason game, all this work becomes much more important as you cannot miss any time out of the gate up until the season starts on September 11th against the Bears.

Thing is though, you ask coaches about this and you have wildly diverging theories. Most coaches think that limiting hitting and no more 2-a-days leads to a better conditioned team and one less prone to injuries. Then again, per asshat Jimmy Johnson, he thinks that by lessening the hitting in practice, it does not prepare the players for the real thing. And also that drills like the Oklahoma, or man in the middle, or any other variants where the ball carrier tries to run through 2 linebackers, has unlearned players in how to tackle properly.

These thoughts are certainly things that actually makes sense. Injuries are not down, and tackling seems to be a lost art these days. But you can’t go back now. Not with the players union fully supporting the lessening of practice injuries. But they sure signed off on the 17 game schedule. Soon to be replaced by the 18 game schedule. and the 2-bye-week season. Something advocated (and tried once before) by our own George Kittle.

Whatever. The players and teams are all in the same boat. Let’s hope ours plays the longest and finishes first.

Bring on the new season! Should be a kick-ass one.

Like I’ve been saying since Deebo removed all the 49er shit from his profiles, word is trickling out from the webiverse that a deal is in the works for Deebo to get some fat stacks. Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network doesn’t believe the situation is as dire as some have insinuated. Word out there is that “there is optimism surrounding a potentially huge deal for San Francisco 49ers star wide receiver Deebo Samuel, league sources told Pro Football Network,”

Thing is, Deebo is still under contract for one more season. I seriously don’t think he’s gonna sit out a season or demand a trade. And we can use the franchise tag if things don’t go as hoped. The hope is we sign him and make everyone happy. and make sure he remains a Niner for the foreseeable future.

Jimmy G is apparently recovering from his shoulder surgery and will begin throwing in a week. The only team that still seems interested in the Carolina Panthers. They of the Matt Corral, Sam Darnold, and P.J. Walker triumvirate of mediocrity at the quarterback position. Corral could be the answer but he, like most rookies, would do well with a season on the bench learning the ropes.

So, Jimmy G could very well become the next Alex Smith. Placeholder and QB whisperer for the up and coming stud QB. Or even Steve DeBerg, if you think he sucks worse than Young Sir Alex. I mean, Carolina has a strong run game (if Crystal Christian McCaffrey can stay on the field, that is) a solid defense, and decent enough weapons. I guess. And Jimmy has proven he can win some games given that scenario.

Whatever happens, though, whether Jimmy is traded or cut, all this leads to the Niners getting cap space and signing Deebo Samuel. Something we are still breathlessly waiting for.

Other than that? Not much to report on in football land other than Alex Smith dealing with yet another potentially tragic situation when his 6 year old daughter Sloane had 10 hours of emergency surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor. She is apparently cancer-free and everything appears to be fine, but holy shit, what a nightmare. Dude has been through the wringer more than a few times.

Huh. Hugh McElhenny passed away a couple days ago. Hall of Famer (in 1970), 5x All-pro, 6x Pro-Bowler. He was Roger Craig waaaaay before Roger Craig, amassing 11,375 all-purpose yards. 5,281 rushing, 3,247 receiving, and 2841 on kickoff/punt returns. He was way before my time, and all I’ve seen of him is the old black-and-white footage of his runs, catches, and punt returns of 50-60 to 90 yards. One famously without his helmet. I barely remember him as being an announcer for the 49ers.

The funny story around the Niners training camp back in 1952 when they drafted him was that he took a pay cut going from the University of Washington to the 49ers. He was getting close to $10,000 a year from Washington, and his first contract with the 49ers was for $7,000 dollars. I guess the college payoff scandal isn’t as new a thing as I thought.

Other than that, not much to report, other than Alvin Kamara is awaiting his suspension for breaking a man’s eye socket in an alcohol-fueled 3:00 am Las Vegas brawl, DeShaun Watson is awaiting his suspension for the 24 women he’s accused of harassing, and Henry Ruggs is still under house arrest for his vehicular manslaughter charge.

Oh, those wacky players. . .