Forty Niners Forever

Man, the 49ers sure can pick ’em. Yet another first round pick, Javon Kinlaw, is getting his knee examined yet again, and is likely to go under the knife and miss the rest of this shit-show of a season. Lynch and Shanny sure have a knack for finding lousy 1st round picks in their tenure as the brain trust to rebuild the team. Using my handy dandy right side menu, out 1st round picks under this regime are:

2021: Trey Lance
2020: Javon Kinlaw, Brandon Aiyuk
2019: Nick Bosa
2018: Mike McGlinchey
2017: Solomon Thomas, Reuben Foster

Of the 7 first round picks, 2 are gone (Solly, Reuben), 2 have missed significant time (Kinlaw, Bosa), 1 has underwhelmed (McGlinchey), 1 is in the doghouse (Aiyuk), and one is coming off an injury after playing ONE game. Lance of course. His injury is more in the way he was grossly misused in his game.

Of the seven, one, namely Nick Bosa, has lived up to the spot he was drafted. Yes, the book is not written on Lance, but that is for another day. It is about the impact picks they made that have yielded squat. Then there is 2nd rounder Dante Pettis, 3rd rounder Jalen Hurd, both contributed little to nothing. Current draft 3rd round guys Ambry Thomas and Trey Sermon are iffy at best.

Funny thing is, they’ve hit paydirt lower in the draft all over the place:

Jaylon Moore, our 5th round LT looks very tough and has stepped in for Trent Williams to the point of Williams not being missed.
Talanoa Hufanga looks solid. As does starting RB Elijah Mitchell. Both 5th rounders.
Backup TE and WR Woerner and Jennings are 6th and 7th rounders. Not that Jennings has done much.
Dre Greenlaw, 5th round LB is a huge find and is playing at the highest level. He will hopefully be back soon.
Justin Skule, 6th round pick in 2018 is solid enough.
D.J. Reed was a 5th round pick that we let slip away.
And of course George Kittle, and D.J. Jones in the 2017 draft.

The middling guys are all pretty much gone, so there’s a wide disparity in these drafts. If they had hit on the high picks, you have to wonder how much better this team could be.

But, hey, Khalil Mack is out for the Bears. So there’s that.

Well, here we are. Jimmy G gets his kiss on the lips from Michael Corleone. I’m about 98% sure that this will be Jimmy the Picks’s last start as a 49er. He may not even make it through the game given the way things have gone. Problem is, this isn’t solely on Jimmy’s shoulders. A lot of the issues with this offense lie squarely in Kyle Shanahan’s oversized ego-tripping head. He is turning into his father. An impossibly rigid unyielding coach who routinely and needlessly imparted his will on players for small misdeeds, and minor screw-ups, and never bends to any outside feedback.

Shanahan’s play calling has been atrocious this year, and he continues to not do well by his QBs. Frist drive last game, Jimmy on the move was able to complete easy short passes that gained yards and set up the run nicely. The drive late in the 3rd quarter, Jimmy rolled out and was able to connect on a couple big chunk plays and score on 3 passes. Naturally those were the only times Shanahan moved Jimmy in the pocket. The rest of the game was throws to the flat, hurried balls that were defended, a couple picks, a bunch of punts, sacks, and a fumble.

So, the question is, when does Lance get his shot? Unfortunately, I don’t want it to be soon, because we already saw how Kyle thinks Lance should be used. And that is like Derrick Henry. He’s a 15-20 carry guy, not the starting QB they paid through the nose to draft.

This to me is another case of Shanahan flexing his ego and saying “I am bigger and more important than any quarterback that we happen to draft. He will run MY plays as I see fit. Your health and development be damned.”

And this is my worry. I’m sure Lance can survive the rigors of a typical NFL season as our starter, but not as a guy carrying the ball even 10 times a game. At least not on designed runs. Toss him. Put in Mike McDaniel as the interim guy and go get a guy like Nathaniel Hackett. He’s a proven offensive guy, turning every stop into a turnaround. He’s now the OC of the Packers, and is steeped in the West Coast offense, and zone blocking schemes, so he wouldn’t have to do a lot of re-tooling.

And the kicker is he’s Joe Montana’s old QB coach Paul Hackett’s son.

Or there’s Brian Daboll, the offensive architect of the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen. Or Eric Bieniemy, OC of the Chiefs. All these guys are solid at creating mismatches on theoffensive side of the ball. Something we sorely lack. Shanny finds a weakness and ignores it. Good job, skippy.

There are countless other guys, Bryan Leftwich, Joe Brady, on and on, but this team NEEDS to get out from under Shanahan now rather than later. Before he does more damage,

Like toilets through the parking lot, these are the games of our season. Yes, like Levi’s stadium port-a-potties, this season is going sideways in a hurry. The 49ers, coming off a bye week, proceeded to lay another stinking turd on their home field in front of a stoic and heroic crowd of about 40,000 who braved the torrential rain and wind to witness a colossal fuck-fest of fumbles, penalties, and general ineptitude. The Colts, who play indoors, looked like the seasoned outdoor team, while we looked like the Keystone Kops. The most emblematic play was dog house denizen Brandon Aiyuk, who missed, then booted and chased a muffed punt 35 yards backwards into the end zone. If not for the arcane rules around punts, it would have been a safety, but we got the ball on the 20.

That was one of our highlights.

Well, not really.

The 49ers came out like the team we thought they were. A crisp 8 play 78 yard drive punctuated by some tough inside running by Elijah Mitchell, and some nice easy throws on rollouts by Jimmy G. So, naturally we stopped running at that point. Jonathan Taylor fumbled on his first rushing attempt, and Shanny got a nice 12 yard run with Mitchell. Then pass for 0, incomplete incomplete. FG. Not horrible, but one would think that with the running game working in the shit conditions, run!

Mind-boggling to me is 2 of these early drives were stopped by 3rd down deep balls to . . . the smallest guy on the field, JaMycal Hasty. Hey, he’s a decent 3rd string RB, but what the actual fuck? You develop plays for him on deep routes? At the expense of Brandon Aiyuk? Infuriating. But that was the least of the issues. after the 2nd Skye FG, a 56 yarder in the slop put the Niners up 12-7, the Niners went 3-and-out, 3-and-out, 3-and-out, fumble, end of half, Jimmy fumble, punt.

The 2nd drive that Shanny rolled Jimmy around created misdirection passing was even more precise. 3 plays, 70 yards, TD to Samuel. Again, we stopped that style of play. And after holding Indy to a FG and the Niners still in range to take the lead, Jimmy threw his usual stupid sideline pass into traffic that was picked off. Indy scores their last TD, game over.

Defensively I really think DB coach Cory Undlin (yeah I had to look him up), must be teaching these guys to never look for the ball, and to hug the nearest WR on every deep ball. Moseley literally hugged Ashton Dulin for 10 yards down the sideline and was amazed he was called for a penalty. We lead the league by far in PI calls. and yesterday we had 5 more. 2 were of course caught anyway so they weren’t accepted. But ALL those penalties extended drives and gave Indy points. Til their last drive, Indy had more yards on PI calls (97) than actual yards in the air (87).

Brilliant. So, here we are in year 5 of the Shanahan era, and this team looks like an expansion franchise in year 1 . 7 penalties for 122 yards. Numerous false starts, illegal formations, and of course, PIs. Shanahan stresses ball control, but we are 7th in most giveaways (11), and 4th in worst differential (-7). the defense has played well but for the obligatory 3rd down deep ball PI calls.

We played a sub-.500 team and made them look like world-beaters. Jonathan Taylor ran for 107, Wentz had little pressure on him as Arik Armstead has disappeared as a pass rusher, and Nick Bosa can only do so much. Ford just can’t get on the field enough to be a force out there, but they did force what ended up being call a fumble on a dumb attempt by Wentz to throw a shovel pass that was picked by Al-Shaair.

Again, we had our chances to put this game away, and again, mistakes and penalties killed us. Shanny came across as baffled as to how and why the train is so far off the rails. He’d better figure something out soon. The whole NFC is filled with ~.500 teams and we are by no means out of the WC hunt.

Bill Walsh was known for finding his opponent’s weakness and EXPLOITING IT until, THEY figured out how to stop it. The absolute motherfucker to all this is Shanny stops his OWN progress. Infuriating. Shanny designed some great plays. HE FUCKING STOPPED DOING THEM. Like Harbaugh before him, he seems to think that he’s sofa king smart that he can outsmart himself. ALL THE TIME. Over and over.

So here we are at 2-4 and flailing. I mean, fuck we can’t even tank for draft picks. I’m at a loss to even wonder why Jimmy G should get another start. Unless Shanny keeps with WHAT FUCKING WORKS with Jimmy G. Those are the exact kind of plays that they should be designing for Trey Lance anyway. HE needs to get comfortable throwing on the move, and finding seams to run in occasionally.

If Shanny thinks he’s got Derrick Henry as his QB, Lance will be out of the league by the end of the season. And he should just let Jimmy G get smashed repeatedly behind his porous line. Cannon fodder until we find our next head coach for the 2022 season.

Sorry. Anyhow, the injury parade rolls along even during the bye week as Trent Williams and Javon (damaged goods) Kinlaw will miss tomorrow’s game against the Colts. Kinlaw’s knee tendonitis was known before he was drafted and it is why some teams shied away from him in the draft. And his predecessor DeFoBu is playing at a pro bowl level for the Ponies. This is worrisome as this team has plenty of healthy players that get injured, let alone ones who are already damaged (hello Dee Ford) goods before playing a down for us. 5 years of this and we’ve had one season of relative health.

But hey, everyone gets injured in the NFL, and one bad injury can sideline an entire season. Just ask Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. We’ll see how they do the next 3 weeks without him. But given the competition in the NFC West, the hope is we can stay ahead of them for the foreseeable future as he tries to get his finger back.

Us? Christ. Who knows. We have a couple ‘easy’ games on our sched in the Colts and Bears before we get back into the meat of the West. The hope is Shanahan has come up with some plays that will actually work. We have Mitchell, Sermon and Hasty back, so the run game should get back on track. Something that pretty much drives the Shanny offense.

Still and all, will that get the ball out of Jimmy’s hand faster? Will it speed up his progressions? He looks so indecisive these days, and the sub-par pass pro doesn’t help. Will we see Nate Sudfeld tomorrow? Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

Defensively, well, Carson Wentz has played pretty well for a little but, but please. Any kind of pass rush and we SHOULD be able to win fairly handily. But there is nothing easy about this season. Fucking Detroit almost took us down. And that was when we were healthy.

When I’m pilled you don’t notice him . . .
He only comes out when I drink my gin.

Stop me if you’ve heard this. Jimmy G looks to regain his form after coming off an injury. Mr. Inconsistent has another chance to ignore Brandon Aiyuk, but can’t try to kill George Kittle as he’s out yet again, no thanks to some ill-advised passes from said Dr. Jimmy. I really hope this 2 week break has given our ‘genius’ offensive mind time to figure out how to get players open and not get his quarterbacks killed. Granted, the pass protection leaves a lot to be desired, so this means quick passes and draws.

Unfortunately, everyone knows this bit of strategy and these plays haven’t been working. Reminiscent of our last 5 coaching staffs and their reluctance to throw deep given the pass pro problems. You’d think that at some point, they’d either figure out how to fix the line problems, but it is still a work in progress. McGlinchey and Brunskill both struggled mightily vs JJ Watt and the Cards last game, and who’s to say we have answers now?

These types of plays of course are predicated on our run game. Which has vanished in a cloud of injuries. Wilson didn’t make it out of the locker room. Mostert had 1 carry, Sermon was nearly killed on his first carry, and Mitchell has been battling shoulder injuries of his own since his first game. Hard to build a consistent run game when you are signing practice squad guys from other teams just to fill out your roster for game day. So, with no run game to speak of, the short passing game doesn’t work as defenses play us up close and personal.

Which is why this team needs to run 4-5 WR sets and spread the field ALL THE TIME. This at least gets SOME guys out of the box. It MAY open a lane or 2 in the run game and it MAY open up some quick passes. That is if Jimmy can find them. They also need to throw the ball downfield. Just to show it, more than anything. Put Aiyuk on the edge and throw it to him deep. It doesn’t even have to be real deep. Just enough to show teams that we know how do it. Seattle makes a living getting PI calls on plays like that. Us? Never. Come on Kyle. Come up with something new and different to get your playmakers the ball.

Say what you will about the sub-par performance of the team, at least to the outside world, there doesn’t appear to be dissention in the ranks. Jimmy G seems to be well-liked despite his mediocre results and frequent injuries. Lance had his one shot and was done in by his head coach who seemed hell-bent on killing him his first game. Starting your first game is hard enough in the NFL without your head coach saying ‘yeah, you carry the rock 16 times. You carry the team. We’ll rest our weary RBs while you take all the punishment.’

So, here we are in Week 7. We have a couple winnable games in Indy and Chicago. Games the defense should be able to dominate. Wentz is Wentz and is good for a pick or 2 with any kind of pressure. Chicago? Who knows? They are in a similar spot as we are, but they went ahead and made the switch to the rook Justin Fields. We’ll worry about Indy first. If Jimmy can’t win this game, then his tenure should be done as well

Might as well be now what with both our quarterbacks being hurt, and Kyle Shanahan’s hell-bent mission to get Nate Sudfeld on the field, and to coach himself out of his current job. Bummed about the Giants and how the season ended, but the bats went cold at the wrong time and the usual horrible umpiring. How Angel Hernandez gets a playoff nod is baffling to say the least. He’s year after year the worst at calling balls and strikes.

Anyhow, the football season is ready to spiral out of control as well, so this could be another long season of disappointment. Shanahan is not coaching well, and his play calling leaves a lot to be desired. I get being aggressive on 4th down, but you’d damn well do better 1 for 5 on 4th down. And 3 for 11 on 3rd down, for that matter. Shanny even said the play to Juice on the sneak was blown somehow. Yeah, it was blown because AZ saw the earlier tape and loaded the middle when they made the shift. Whatevs.

Point being, we are once again in flux as jimmy g was not playing very well before his injury, Shanny tried to kill his newly drafted QB, and the O line is still fairly porous in pass pro. We are 5 years into this current regime, and the team has no offensive identity, all the RBs are hurt again, and our WRs are either hurt or underused. Kittle is hurt again. Aiyuk is in the invisible doghouse, Samuel is doing well, but no one else has stepped up.

The season is early, and we have some fluff coming up, but we also have AZ again, and our first Ram game. These next 3 games will determine a lot the season. Beat the Cards and Rams and we are at least in the vicinity of the top. Otherwise, it is another lost season of disarray and disappointment.

And likely a coaching change.

Rams play the Giants in the house of horrors that is New Jersey, AZ plays the Browns on the road so there’s some hope there, andthe scuffling Seahawks play the scuffling Steelers on the road as well, so the hope is these home teams take care of business.

Game 5. What more is there to say?

Kyle Shanahan has a dislocated brain.

I tell ya, Shanahan seems hell-bent on shit-canning his rep as an offensive genius these days. Or even as a good coach. His play calling all season has been iffy. The Detroit game started fine, but the offense cratered in the 2nd half. The Eagles game saw the offense go nowhere for most of the 1st half. Green Bay? Same thing. 3 and outs, punts little offensive flow for the 1st half. Seattle? Ditto. Granted Jimmy G is not what they thought he was. Then there’s the AZ game. Trey Lance’s first NFL start.

What does Shanahan do? Put the entire game on his shoulders to do whatever it takes to win. So now he’s sacrificing his (the team’s at least) most coveted new player all for an early season win. Are wins important? Of course they are. But Lance ran 16 times. Most of them designed runs. Yes he got 89 yards. But he also suffered a sprained knee that will keep him out of action for a couple games. And he nearly got killed on that goal line run as he was put in harm’s way repeatedly by Coach Don’t-give-a-fuck. Eli Mitchell had 9 carries! 9 fucking carries!

Is this how you ease your new QB into the league? FUCK NO. Shanahan had him running all over the place. The routes didn’t have any outlet receivers as they were blocking for the most part. Kind of irksome to me was the way Trey got the Niners close, and instead of taking the early points, he had Lance roll out. Sure, if he was a little more seasoned, he could have held the ball a tick more and waited till the LB committed to Lance and hit Mitchell in the end zone. But he didn’t, and we all saw what happened. Instead of us getting points and Lance getting credit for a scoring drive, AZ took the ball and got a FG of their own.

Speaking of blocking, the line play has become a HUGE issue with this team. Brunskill and McGlinchey did little to stop JJ Watt or anyone else lined up against them. The 3rd quarter saw 5 holding calls on a couple drives. That Trey was able to overcome those and even get ONE score was pretty amazing.

I’m no fucking head coach, and I’m no goddamn GM, but I’ve watched the game for a long time, and what I see now in the NFL are quarterbacks like Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, Lamar, Jackson, and Josh Allen. All these guys have excellent arms. They are also mobile. Christ, we had Steve Young for fuck’s sake. The prototype for all these guys. Can they run? Yes, they can run, but they are NOT used as running backs! Why? because they end up like RG III. A guy who Mike Shanahan used and abused till he broke.

Did Bill Walsh design run plays for Steve Young? Sure. Maybe a sneak or 2 or a naked bootleg a couple times a year. Shanahan seems to believe he is the be-all end-all for offensive coaches in the NFL, but he frankly is dropping like a stone in game preparation and getting fucking points on the board.

The good news? The defense once again held a team averaging 450 yards and 33 points to 305 and 17.

Offensive genius my wrinkles white ass. If I’m Jed, I seriously think Shanahan gets the boot after this season. This is year 5 of his tenure, and there is little to show for his time here but a huge pile of injuries, and a clock-mangled Super Bowl loss.

Christ. This team played like this is season one of a new regime, rather that year 5 of what was supposed to be the christening of the Super Bowl contenders. Penalties, mistakes, more penalties and some really shitty play calling led to yet another loss in yet another winnable game. Trey Lance looked like the raw rookie that he is, firing high passes (one for a pick) and missing guys. He ran well.At least on the plays that weren’t really designed for him to run.

Once again we outgained out opponent, 338 to 306, And once again we were behind the whole time. The 49wrs were an astounding 1 for 5 on 4th downs. Mainly because Kyle Shanahan seems very inept at creating a mismatch somewhere on the plays. Most involved trying to stuff it up the middle. The Cards must have watched the recent tapes, because when Kyle Juszczyk came into the play, 2 linebackers followed him and stuffed him at the line.

The biggest play of course was the roll out that Lance got stuffed about 2″ short of the end zone. The pass to Mitchell wasn’t really there, but he could have waited a tick to let him get open, but he made the charge. If he went high he might have gotten in, but woulda coulda shoulda.

Speaking of Lance, he had 16 carries for 89 yards. Shanahan doesn’t seem to think that he should maybe protect the investment. Much like dear old dad did with his mobile QB, Robert Griffin. Lance was all over the place, 15/29 for 192, but there were drops, and missed passes.

Most troubling to me is the fact that Shanahan is fucking hard with Brandon Aiyuk. Mohamed Sanu AND fucking practice squad guy Travis Benjamin somehow jumped over Aiyuk on the depth chart. So our most versatile playmaker was on the bench for the first few drives.

The defense played great and should have won this one. They even got a turnover. Something not seen for a while.

I’m starting to lose my good feelings for Kyle Shanahan. He is turning into his father in being very inflexible and pig-headed to the detriment of the plays called and the outcomes of games.

There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Trey Lance. Kyle Shanahan decided not to follow last year’s path of throwing an injured and ineffective calf-inflicted Jimmy G into a game and watching him throw picks and flail and lose. Of course, now we have Lance, not The Beater or BDN. As usual though we are down a tight end, George Kittle is nursing a calf injury of his own that will sideline him for 3 weeks. And of course our kicker also hurt himself warming up.

Too much ice time? Our former NHL training staff doesn’t seem to be helping the cause, but who knows? Jeff Wilson blew out his knee in the locker room for fuck’s sake. Maybe they should rethink their personnel there.

But, on the field we have our new quarterback getting his first start. The recent track new guys so far is not very heartening.

Trey Lawrence: 0-4
Zach Wilson: 1-3
Justin Fields: 1-1
Mac Jones: 1-3

The wins of course are Tennessee, the Jets, and Detroit. We are playing the 4-0 Cardinals. But we nominally have a better foundation to work from. Trey Sermon is running well, and, uh, Samuel has had some nice games. The offense is struggling badly though. AZ is bad against the run, so I don’t expect to see a high-flying aerial attack, but Shanny HAS to take advantage of Lance’s deep ball ability.

Teams are playing us just like the bad old days of smash-mouth drop-your-pants football of Gore left, Gore right, Gore up the middle, punt. 9 in the box. 10 on the line. Samuel has already caught a couple nice deep passes. Do it 3-4 times a game, not a season.

The D is doing well enough to win games. Barring the fucking Green Bay debacle. ButKinlaw is questionable, Greenlaw is still out, and Warner is the only guy that can keep Murray under some kind of control. We NEED a pass rush from the outside, and we can’t lose contain on the edges. Like we always do with mobile QBs. The Rams did great on controlling Wilson by doing just that. Set the edge so there’s a long way to run just to GET outside, and have the LBs pursue.

We’ve done fairly well against Murray and Kliff Klavin, so we’ll see.