Forty Niners Forever

5-0 the last 5 Niner-Ram games. A full 60 minutes. Finally. Huzzah!

Kyle Shanahan shook off the black clouds swirling around Levi’s stadium, and his oversized head, and played a full game off smash-mouth football. 44 runs? Damn. There were no huge run plays but there were enough 6-10 yard runs to keep the Rams vaunted pass rush of Aaron Donald, Leonard Floyd, and newly acquired Von Miller at bay. Jimmy G did his best Alex Smith impersonation, going 15-19 for 182 with 2 touchdowns. 8-8 for 89 and 1 TD in the 1st half.

The much-maligned defense made a stand early with Jimmie Ward picking off a misguided throw to the newly acquired Ol’ Dirty Beckham. He paid dividends for us by giving up on the deep route that Jimmie picked off. That led to our 18 play, 11 minute, 93 yard TD drive. Jimmie was then handed a pick by Tyler Higbee and the rout was on. The Rams helped immensely with two crucial 3rd down drops by Higbee and Kupp, and sloppy play in general by the Rams.

The Rams looked very similar to the 49ers last week. They came in with their splashy trade deadline acquisitions expecting us to cower at their greatness. Instead we stuffed the ball down their throats, shit on their lawn, controlled the line, and took it to them all night.

Biggest play of the game, and likely the season, came early in the 4th quarter with the Niners up 24-7 and facing a 4th and 5 on the Rams 40. The game was still in doubt, and a turnover on downs could have changed the outcome. Instead, Kyle strapped in on and went for it. Daniel Brunskill took on and held offf Aaron Donald one-on-one as Jimmy G hit resident stud Deebo Samuel on a shallow cross that resulted in a 40 yard strike. 31-7 sealed the game at that point. The rest was gravy.

Got to hope that the team understands that they CAN play this way. They ARE a talented team, and CAN make a playoff push. We play the two teams in front of us for the 7th spot. Carolina and Minnesota, so we have a bit of control over our situation.

Ahhhhh fuck. Getting harder to find the will to even try and figure out the latest clusterfuck the 49ers find themselves in. The sweet transition to the heir apparent, Trey Lance, has fallen into a sinkhole the size of New Jersey as the once and future Super Bowl contenders find themselves mired in mediocrity as the offense has no flow and the defense just shit the bed in the worst way possible.

Our latest flock of draft picks are either hurt or not good enough to get on the field, the usual cast of injured draft picks and signings are hurt, our happy-go-lucky band of fun-loving players is now dodging bullets from the front office and coaching staff as they go through the motions and trip over their collective dicks over and over as they discover new and interesting ways to lose games, and this coaching staff has yet to figure out how to close out games.

The Rams? They seemed to have righted their ship pretty quickly after trading the moon for Jared Goff and getting mediocre results from him. The Rams fleeced the perpetually Ford-fucked Lions by prying Matthew Staf-Ford away from that sad-sack organization in exchange for the rusty Buick that is Goff. The Rams tossed away picks for Stafford with little concern as they traded for Von Miller and signed ODB. Both of whom will play tonight.

The 49ers? Well, a win by the Rams puts them in a tie with AZ at the top of the West and tied with GB, AZ, and Tenn for the best record in the NFL, and would put us in the West cellar. A place that seems to be a pretty cozy spot for this team during the Shanahan/Lynch regime. 32-40 is not good. Sure, the team was an absolute mess when these guys got here in 2017, and they got good quickly, but game-management issues and the blowing of a big lead in the Super Bowl seems to have ended the run. 5 years into this system, and we are suddenly nowhere NEAR competitive and we are going backward. A loss tonight would pretty much guarantee that the coaching staff will be jettisoned by year’s end. Huzzah.

The 49ers DID make a move, trading for pass rushing DE Charles Omenihu, who of course didn’t play last week. And that is an overarching issue with this team. They trade up for guys that don’t play. They make moves and sit on their thumbs. They act like they are a great team but put in minimal effort. They seem to think the game is played on a spreadsheet, not on the field. They are 1-11 in their last 12 home games. The defense is bland and terrible under DeMeco Ryans. If this game is a blowout, the call for change will be deafening.

Which is why I am completely baffled by the 3.5 point spread. Vegas is usually pretty bang-on when it comes to spreads, but this seems more like the Alabama/New Mexico State game and its 52 point spread. That the Crimson Tide covered!

I will say this, if the Niners can come out and at least play a competitive game, it will give me a little hope that this coaching staff is not as awful as they appear. The word from the locker room as of now is one of solidarity and hope. They aren’t turning on each other or the coaches. Yet. After the latest smack-talk by Lynch toward the players, the wonder is if the players will turn on the management. Maybe it serves as a wake-up call to play much harder than their last pathetic effort.

Oh boy.

Hmmmmm. The baseball team here was all about “let the old guys play”. For the 49ers secondary, that has proven to be a debacle. Dre Kirkpatrick and Josh Norman have been bad to awful. We’ve all seen the PI calls, missed tackles, bad angles, and multiple burns, so now that these guys are hobbled, the rookies Deommodore Lenoir and Thomas Ambry finally get their shot.

Barring utter failure, they can’t be worse than Shitty and Shittier. Can they? I guess we will find out. The Niners with Shanny are 5-3 against the Rams and McVay, including winning the last 4 games. That of course comes with the caveat of Jared Goff being the Rams QB. He of the 0-8 record with the Deetroit Kittens.

What does it mean? I don’t know. But this game will tell a lot about the heart of this team. It is imperative that this team plays well and does not get blown out on the Monday night. A demoralizing loss on the national stage would likely be the death knell for this coaching staff. A hard-fought loss would at least show the team has some guts. A win would fuel the thought that Shanny has Sean’s number. Not really feeling that, but last week’s plethora of upsets showed anything is possible. Jax beat Buffalo. Giants beat the Raiders. Falcons beat the Saints.

Up to and including Miami’s upset over the Ravens. What I loved about Miami is they dared the Ravens to run by putting 7 to 9 guys in the box. Every play. The Ravens couldn’t run or pass against that defense. It took away the short passes, QB runs, and any other runs. Granted, this demands decent CB play, but Miami was getting pressure every pass play, so they never got burned too badly.

Our defense is just to vanilla as to be terrible as we get no pressure from anyone but Bosa. And he’s routinely double-teamed. Ryans has to come up with something other than the base 4-3 and no blitzing. Miami;s 30th ranked defense handled the best rushing team in the league by being ballsy. This defense needs to grow a pair.

This team is in swirly mode. Shanny remarked about Fred Warner:

“Everyone knows we gave Fred a new contract and he’s learned every single bit of it. I think Fred can play at a higher level. I think he agrees with that also. Everyone on our defense can and everyone on our offense can. Everyone sees our record, what it is. We need coaches, players, everybody to play to the best of their ability.” 

John Lynch went out of his way to criticize Fred Warner’s play in the AZ game, and to say Warner is:

“. . . not having the season so far that he expects or we expect. You know, sometimes, I think you get a big contract and you have a lot going on in your mind. You probably try and do a little too much. He probably needs to try and zero in and just focus on his job.”

Ouch. If it is this bad to the media and fans, what are they saying INSIDE the building? Bad as it was, this is on the whole defense. The front office for drafting guys like Jalen Hurd, and Joe Williams, and Reuben Foster, and Solly Thomas, and countless other 1-3 round flops. Lynch needs to answer to his own failings before throwing his players under the bus.

Shanahan at least mentioned himself and his inept play calling. Not to mention his lousy clock management skills, and his complete whiff on the red flag issue. Shades of Teflon Mike Nolan. Warner can’t be everywhere all the time, and as I’ve said a thousand times, missing Greenlaw is REALLY hurting this defense, but we are what we are. A sub-.500 team that can’t finish a game to save our season. Finishing games is on the coaching staff. They are not putting the players in a position to succeed.

And yay, we get a pass rusher Charles Omenihu from the Texans at the trade deadline. And he sits. Why did we get him? To push Armstead into playing better? To keep the bench warm?

Gee, I wonder if ODB plays for the Rams on Monday night. Or Von Miller. Fuck me sideways.

Wow. What a shit show. This team is really good at finding ways to truly disappoint its fans. In a game that should have been at least competitive turned into the Colt McCoy/James Connor show. Who and who you ask? Well, ask DeMeco Ryans. Those two destroyed a defense that shut down Kyler Murray a couple weeks ago. They missed countless tackles, made a couple obligatory stupid penalties and could not stop AZ at all. This team came out flat, uninspired, and was outhit, outplayed, and out-hustled badly in all phases off the game. No Kyler, no DeAndre, no problem.

Gorgeous fall day, and the fans were itching for some solid play, but instead got early turnovers from Kittle and Aiyuk, shoddy tackling, and just uninspired play all around. Jimmy G actually looked real solid, even under pressure, and should have had a better shot at winning this than he did. Instead, James Connor single handedly accounted for 173 yards of offense and Christian Kirk picked up where Hopkins left off for 7/91 himself.

And seriously, why is Josh Norman on the field? He himself prolly has 250 yards of penalties all by himself. He did somehow manage to get Kliff Kingsbury thrown out of the game for taunting. If Ambry can’t get on the field by now, how bad is he?

Fuck, I don’t know anymore. The players get to wear this loss with their lackadaisical fumbles, missed tackles, and stupid penalties, but you really have to wonder if the players have tuned out Shanahan. This team is making the same mistakes over and over and over. Either that, or the coaches just don’t know how to get this team moving in the right direction. They are 0-8 at home, and haven’t won a home game in over a year. The downward spiral continues.

And in other news, the Warriors are 8-1.

I think I do. Turn right at the bottom of the Bay. The 49ers better figure it out. They are 3-1 on the road, and 0-3 at ‘home’. Home being the south Bay mudflats. Home of a billion tech firms, a theme park, and your 49ers.

I guess we will find out at game time, but AZ appears to be nearly as wounded as us, if not worse. The team that beat us a few weeks ago may be without Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins, 2 guys who played a big part in their 17-10 win. And J.J. (5 games a season) Watt is definitely out with a shoulder injury.

We on the other hand will have Kittle and Wilson back, although Mitchell is nursing a rib injury. This will be Jimmy G’s shot at taking down AZ as he missed the last one.

Gonna be the same ole same old. Avoid mistakes, no stupid penalties, win the turnover battle.

. . . is the apostrophe. Uncle Frank got it. This is the halfway mark of the season and we sit at 3-4. Not great, but we still have a lot of games against our NFC West foes. Starting with of course the AZ Cards here at the Unfriendly Confines of the house that Jed’s hot pants built. You know, the cursed facility in the mudflats of Santa Clara. Nowhere South. There’s no there there.

Kyler Murray may or may not play. If so, he’ll be slowed a bit. If not, it’s Colt McCoy time. He of the well-travelled resume. He played (for ONE play) for us back in 2013 and was drafted by (who else?) Cleveland, and had a stint in Washington and is now a Card. 8-22, he is the perennial backup.

So if he plays, we should win. I don;t know, man. AZ has a decent defense, but even in the game in AZ a few weeks back, the defense pretty much stifled the high-powered AZ offense. But this game was all on Shanny and the offense for misusing Trey Lance and fucking up all those 3rd and 4th down calls.

Truth is, we are stronger now than we were then, and AZ is weaker. Kyler Murray may or may not play, no WR DeAndre Hopkins, and no RB Jonathan Ward either for AZ. We (I think) will have Mitchell back, and Gould is back, and there are others close. As usual, if we can run, we should be able to use Jimmy on roll outs and quick throws over the middle. He was effective in the Indy game doing that, and in the 2nd half of the Chicago game. Again it will come down to the protection, so we will see how that goes.

Like I said, the defense did well last time, and the hope is they learned a little about not committing PIs all the time, and playing the WRs not so soft like early in the Chicago game. Lesson learned? We’ll see. Meeting up with a few high school friends at the game so this should be fun. A win at home is well overdue and would make this all the better.

30-20 Niners. Make it so.

A funny thing happened on the way to the usual dick-tripping-over-late-game clusterfuck-catastrophe this team seems to have perfected. They got ept late in the game! You know, the opposite of inept. After stumbling, bumbling, dropping passes, and penalty-ing their way to a 13-9 deficit at the half in Soldier Field, Chicago, the 49ers awoke from their four-and-a-half game malaise and strung together some competent compelling football in the 2nd half.

After giving up a field goal to start the 2nd half that put the Niners down 16-9, the 49ers scored TOUCHDOWNS on THREE straight drives to put a game but fair-to-middling team out of their misery. The Niners even added a FG on their 4th drive. Amazingly Shanny did a couple notable things. He went no-huddle to stop the Bears from subbing out their defense and quickened the tempo to attack their defense. He made adjustments!! He threw deep!! And. It. Fucking. WORKED! If not for a bad pass by Jimmy after the 50 yard bomb to Samuel, the 49ers would have gone into halftime up 14-13. Shanny also overcame a 7+ point 2nd half deficit for the first time. Strange as that may sound, he’s never done that. Maybe the old sod is learning something. He also stuck with the run game even when the game was not decided yet. Mitchell had a fantastic day, as did Deebo. Mitchell had 137 yards, and Deebo 171 in their respective positions. Brandon Aiyuk even had 4 for 45.

Gone were the sideline out routes that get picked off. Jimmy looked very solid throwing on the move, and hitting passes over the middle. You know, the stuff he does well. Kinda nice that the coach sticks with what the quarterback does well. Jimmy even added a couple rushing TDs to punctuate his homecoming. Best play of the game however was the 3rd down and 20 *gulp* bubble screen that Deebo took for 83 yards and a near-score.

The defense? Well, they had their usual problems with a guy like Justin Fields. A mobile guy who ran for over 100 yards, but we also got to him for 4 sacks. His 23 yard TD run 4th down run nearly cost me my remote. I’ll tell you one thing, it irks me to no end to see Nick Bosa flying inside on fakes and completely giving up the edge. This has been an issue with him since his entrance into the NFL, but it doesn’t take away the impact he has on the field. he and his invisible pass rushing budy Arik Armstead are on the field a lot more than they should be, but with everyone going down on defense, we are what we are. The walking wounded.

The Niners played the CBs WAY off the WRs early presumably to avoid the slew of PI calls that they have been suffering. it sure allowed for a lot of easy throws for Fields, and it was infuriating to watch, but as the game moved along, the coverage got a little tighter, and the line got more and more pressure. Fields ended up going 17/27 but only 175 yards. Jimmy G for comparison was 17/28 for a much better 328. Running, Herbert and Fields ended up with 175 yards between them but, man we are down to third string linebackers and 2nd string D linemen all across the line. Along with the injuries to our secondary.

Anyhow, this isn’t a huge deal, but hey, it sure feels better to win a game like this rather than lose. Can they build on this? Maybe. But Shanahan needs to put together a game plan that works for an entire game to be able to beat teams like the Cards and the Rams. Our next two opponents. If we want to reel in the teams above us, winning the next 2 games will go a long way in getting there. It’s a long fucking season and we aren’t even halfway done.

Well, probably not. I foresee Trey Lance getting on the field to start the 3rd quarter as the brain-freeze head coach struggles through another game. Hopefully Lance gets some passes to throw to go along with the 20 rushing attempts. Getting hard to feel anything but anger and sadness about a team that was looking like they were heading in the right direction when John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan came aboard.

Here we are 4+ seasons later dealing with injuries yet again, a quarterback controversy regarding lame-duck QB Jimmy G and future question mark Trey Lance, a porous and ineffective offensive line, a patchwork quilt of old and lousy cornerbacks, and a slew of draft day misses. The braintrust of Lynch and Shanny have cobbled together one solid season, a Super Bowl loss, in 4+ years, and a 31-39 record.

19-36 minus the outlier season. I just don’t know about this team. My quickest solution would be to hire/promote a play caller. Shanny is sucking hard. Ater the season, re-evaluate Shanahan and maybe move on if this year isn’t salvaged.

As far as the rest? We’ll see by the end of the season.

Here we are at week 8 of the season, sitting at 2-4. The Bears game is *gulp* winnable. Right? I thought so about the Packers, Cards, Seahawks, and Colts, but that was based on us playing to our abilities. Not fucking up and stalling 3 out of every 4 drives. Thing is, we were in all those games. Till the end. But I digress.

Anyhow, the trade deadline is coming Tuesday November 2nd. First and foremost to me for trade bait would be Jimmy the G. The obvious partner for trades would be Kyle’s daddy’s team, the hapless Denver Broncos. You know, the team with the HOF QB who can’t find a viable quarterback with 100 draft picks and 50 free agent signings. Their history of epic fails at draft picks include Drew Lock, Braxton Lynch, Tim Tebow, Trevor Siemian, Brock Osweiler, and Jay (pick 6) Cutler. Since Peyton Manning was the game manager at large, they have also tried, Teddy Bridgewater, Joe Flacco, Jeff Driskell, Brandon Allen, and UDFA Brett Rypien.

A who’s who of mediocrity. Not that we are in much better shape, but at least we have Trey Lance. I’d say get what you can for Jimmy. A 2nd rounder? Story is, we turned down a trade with the Patriots for Jimmy for a 2nd rounder before draft day. His value may have dropped some, but I still think we can work ol’ Horseface for a deal. He’s desperate beyond reason just trying to find a warm body that is serviceable at this point.

Strange that Elway didn’t go for Fields OR Jones in the draft, but there you go. Buffoonery at its finest.

Any other trades you would like to see?

Frankly I’d like to see Kyle go before the year ends so we have a new OC to work with our new quarterback.