Forty Niners Forever

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.

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.