San Francisco 49ers Forever

In the immortal words of the Angels, my boyfriend’s back and there’s gonna be trouble.

Brock Purdy is officially off the injured list! Glad there’s no travel this weekend, so that isn’t an issue. And even the Rams game is only a quick jaunt to Levi’s south. here’s to hoping that we have enough weapons at our disposal to take care of Jacksonville.

Say what you will about them, and I don’t know much about their defense, but they are up near the top in points allowed at 17 per game. But the 2 teams they’ve beaten are winless Houston and 1-win Carolina. Their loss was to the Browning led Bengals. Very telling is their +5 turnover ratio. But Trev is looking pretty pedestrian these days.

We on the other hand are playing down to the level of our opponents so far at -1. Purdy of course owns 2 of those turnovers in that Seattle game. Mac Jones has done a very good job keeping the course of Good Ship Niner pointed in the right direction, but man we need to throttle someone and get the starters out early for the Rams game. We cannot have another nail-biter game. It just leads to more problems.

More good news is Demarcus Robinson is returning after serving his DUI suspension. He looked in sync in the preseason, and we need him out there with Jennings still questionable. And I’d love to get the workload off of CMC’s shoulders for fear of him hitting the hurt list. Give Robinson more touches. And ease some work off of Ricky Pearsall’s shoulders as well. He’s questionable with a knee problem, but I’m pretty sure he’s gonna go.

Unreal how bad this season ha started despite our 3-0 record. The latest hit of course is the loss of Nick Bosa for the rest of the year with a torn ACL. For good or bad, it is not the same knee that wiped out his 2020 season, but the result is another lost season for the defensive ROY in 2019 and defensive POY in 2022.

Purdy is limited in practice but he was last week as well, so there’s no certainty that he’s gonna play this Sunday. Ricky Pearsall is now on the list with a knee problem, Jennings remains limited, Kittle has at least one more week getting his hammy right, on and on.

The following guys are not practicing today:

WR Jordan Watkins (calf)
WR Ricky Pearsall (knee)
WR Jauan Jennings (ankle, shoulder)
DT CJ West (thumb)
LT Trent Williams (rest)
RB Christian McCaffrey (rest)
DE Yetur Gross-Matos (knee)
DE Nick Bosa (knee)

The silver lining at least is that this isn’t a division or even a conference game. But the more wins we stack now, the better shot we have at staying in contention while half the roster tries to get healthy.

The big thing now is, what to do about Bosa? He’s on the third year of his 5-year extension signed in 2023. Gonna be a wait-and-see thing, but he’s signed through 2027. All the talk is about replacing him, but I don;t think the front office is going to go wild. Trey Hendrickson sounds like a great fit. But as we all know, he’d be a rental. How much would we give up for a guys like him? It would be a pretty big haul for Cincy, and we would have to pick between Bosa and Hendrickson, a guy 3 years older, but with 3 missed games in his career compared to 30 for Bosa.

I could see the team hedging their bet for now as they see how Huff increases his workload, Mykell Williams does the same, and Okuayinonu/Gross-Matos rotate in and out to spell them.

The trade deadline is 11/4, after game 9 of the season. The tougher games are the Rams and Tampa, but as we know, anyone can do anything. I’d hope 6-3 to be the low water mark and maybe time to think about making a move. But if we are 7-2 I’d think they may poach a promising young player from someone’s practice squad or should they go after a guy like Carl Granderson, who played pretty well vs them in NO?

Well, Bosa was right when he gave the thumbs down on his injury status walking to the tent. He is out for the year with a torn ACL.

Mac Jones gutted out a reoccurring knee injury and led the Niners to the game-winning FG as time ran out.

He’s day-to-day.

Purdy is day-to-day with his toe.

Mykel Williams is day-to-day with a wrist injury.

Renardo Green is day-to-day with a neck injury.

CJ West had surgery for a broken thumb, but he can possible play this weekend with a cast.

Jennings is day-to-day with a his ankle and shoulder injury that kept him out of this last game.

Kittle has one more game to hopefully come off the IR for his hammy.

BA? Who knows?

Purdy may be ready to come back for the Rams game on fucking Thursday night Jacksonville game next Sunday. Right. Thank God we have a short week to deal with all these injuries. Fuck. At least we are at home.

The good news is, we’ve won more division games in 3 weeks than we did all last year. The bad news is of course injuries. After the offense has been waylaid, the D suffers a huge blow with Bosa.

Next man up and all that shit, but really, Huff and Okuayinonu (and Saleh) have to scheme our way to get pressure on opposing QBs. Especially Matthew Stafford. next guy up for the Ram game.

As far as the game went, the run D is forming up pretty well. Upton Stout had a game saving breakup of a pass. The D played OK and got the laate stops that they had to to give the offense the chance for the game-winning FG. AZ helped with some crucial drops, but we aren’t getting to the QB enough and that’s is not gonna be helped by Bosa’s absence.

The run D is also gonna have to be big in this game. Travis Etienne is averaging 90 ypg, and their O is averaging 141 per game (5th in the league) so they have to be stout against the run to take this one.

Saleh has his work cut out for him with pressure, and at least Stafford is not very mobile Trevor Lawrence has only been sacked 3 times, but his numbers pretty much suck. 4 picks and 4 TDs and a woeful 55.3% completion percentage good enough for 33rd in the league. The hope is Saleh decides to bring the pressure with blitzes, stunts, and whatever else we can come up with to force more mistakes.

And, as much shit as I give Shanahan for his play calling, he finally ran play action inside the 10. I’ve only been saying that for 5 years now, He royally fucked up the previous drive by not being able to punch it in from 2nd and goal in the 1, but the TD drive and subsequent drive to win the game was solid and he worked the clock very effectively. So, yeah you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Jim Fahnhorst, 49er linebacker for 7 seasons, and three Super Bowls (XIX, XXIII, XIV), passed away at 66. Oddly enough, his older brother Keith, mainstay on the 49ers offensive line for 14 years, and 2 Super Bowl wins (XVI, and XIX), also passed away at 66 in 2018. Cool they got to share Super Bowl victory XIX in Palo Alto. Keith of course came in during the dark days of 1974.

RIP, Jim.

In game news, the Cardinals are working through injuries to four of the defensive backs. Cornerbacks Garrett Williams, LJ Collier, Max Melton, and Will Johnson are all iffy for Sunday’s game. This would definitely give Kyle something to think about for this game.

Kyle of course is playing the Purdy thing close to the vest. Lynch has even gone on to say that Mac Jones could get the start with Purdy being the #2. Available to come is and straighten shit out of it comes to that.

That seems like a whole lot of unnecessary bullshit. If Purdy is ready, play him. But what do I know? Jennings and his ankle, Juice with his concussion are both questionable. Bartch is (surprise!) on the IR. Shame he can’t stay healthy, but Connor Colby looked good in his stead.

Week 3 is coming up already and we are already into our back up QB, TE, WR, LG, and numerous other bump and bruises. Mac Jones comported himself pretty well and hit the plays he needed to as he threw 3 TDs and led the team past the New Orleans Saints. Jones missed some opportunities, and held the ball too long, which led to the fumble and sacks, but he got the job done in the end. He was a lot more safe than Purdy, but the big chunk plays were missing for the most part. As it was, a win is a win is a road win. Always tough in the NFL.

Folks say this schedule is easy, but there ain’t nothing easy what with parity and whatnot. Look at KC for a good example. They were on the winning end of 11 close games last year. Now? 0-2 as they can’t close out those same types of games. Seattle should really be called the Phoenixes as they continually rise from the ashes to be competitive. This year is no exception as they are a tough team that likely is in a dogfight for the NFC West. Or 6-11 last year could have easily been 11-6 with just a few flipped plays.

Which brings us to week 3 and the Cardinals. They have also eeeked out a couple wins against what is considered lesser opponents in the Saints and the Panthers. Thing is, the Panthers and Bryce Young (35-55!!!) put up 330 passing yards on them. That’s a LOT of throwing. NO and the Rattler threw for 215 yards on 27-46. Both outgained AZ and lost. The runs against were low. 102 and 86. But not sure if that’s because the airways were free and clear or AZ stuffed the run games.

AZ is one of those teams though that always seems to be a thorn in our side. They WILL try to run the ball, and John Connor plays us tough. Kyler? I don;t know. He’s a mobile threat, but we’ve been pretty good at containing him. His numbers are pretty pedestrian, but if you look at QBR and rating, the numbers are way off.

QBR, Murray is 18th at 56.3. Rating, he’s 9th at 101.1
Purdy? 7th in QBR at 78.8. Rating, he’s 15th at 92.2
Jones? 11th in QBR at 66.9. Rating he’s 5th at 113.1

Add the two together and low score wins?

Jones – 11 + 5 = 16
Purdy – 7 + 15 = 22
Murray – 18 + 9 = 27

I don’t even want to throw PFF scores in here as those are even wonkier.

This ‘easy’ sched sure isn’t looking easy. But still and all, these were two very strong games played by the defense. Games that last year surely would have been losses given how soft the defense played these last 2 seasons.

And it really isn’t anything spectacular that Robert Saleh is doing. It is mainly by identifying and attacking the opponent in crucial situations. 4th and 2 late, and we brought the house. It caused a strip-sack-fumble-loss-of down that ended the Saints challenge to take the lead.

The Seattle game was even better. 2nd and 5 from the 9 as the Seahawks were poised to take the lead late, we brought pressure and Nick Bosa forced the strip-sack-game sealer.

These scenarios all came up last year. And more often than not the Niners failed. One thing about Saleh is he does very well at making in-game adjustments. Norlins did well early running, so Saleh changed the fronts and slowed down their run game. But where the defense shined was keeping Rattler in check. For the most part. Color me impressed by the game he played. Rattler hit a lot of passes in very small windows, and hit on 3 TDs, and the coverage was fairly solid. But the Saints only got 207 in the air as most of the throws were check-downs.

Also have to say, Seattle looks like they will be on our heels all year. Their team is no slouch on either side of the ball, and they pretty handily took care of Pittsburgh in their house.

Well, we go off to N’Awlins for game 2 of this injury-plagued season. No Purdy, no Kittle, a banged up O line? No prob!

Still think we can pull this off. I’m thinking 20-9 or some shit. The defense will only improve as the season goes along, and this should be shake rattle and roll.

Hmmm. The season is starting out just like the preseason. Everyone is getting hurt. Purdy looks to miss at least the next couple games, if not the Rams game. Kittle is out for 4 more than likely as well. Jason Bourne is back on the team. He’s a nice possession guy.

That is the one I’m hoping for. Jac Mones or not, the 49er should be able to go 2-1 in the next 3, if not run the table. No, nothing is easy in the NFL, but NO, AZ, and Jax are definitely in the bottom 1/4 of the league. Trevor Lawrence notwithstanding.

These games as usual come down to the line play. Can we give the Moaner enough time to complete passes? Can we keep HIM healthy? Getting to the 3rd option at QB would be big trouble. Mainly because we don’t currently have one. Kyle Juice-chick, come on down!

Can the defense pitch another solid game? AZ always worries me, but they are a train wreck heading toward a mining disaster. None of these teams should see 6 wins.

3-1 and then the Rams, if not 4-0 if the defense shines and the offense goes mistake free.

I just hope the season ends like the preseason. With everyone getting healthy for the playoff run.

If not, we have a great shot at improving the O line next draft!

Well, they did it. Jake Moody was given his walking papers. And not minute too soon. After his usual struggles once again on the simplest of kicks, he was jettisoned and they signed back Greg Joseph. I know it ain’t that easy, but it also isn’t that hard. What sucks is a guy like Matt Prater was cooling his heels on the couch a week ago, gets a call from the Bills, and boots 3 FGs and 4 XPs to help Buffalo with their epic comeback.

I was VERY baffled by the pick when they made it. A 3rd rounder on a PK? And I was even more baffled they stuck with him after last year’s awfulness. Even though he was ‘rushed back’ due to his injury after getting hurt tackling someone. I was done with him after his first year and his Super Bowl XP failure.

Other than that, yeah, Purdy’s out for at least a game. Kittle is out for at least a month. Bartch is day-to-day with a sprained knee. Jennings is day-to-day with his shoulder.

I’m sure I’m missing 5 other guys who are hurt.

Holy shit. This game looked a lot like last year where we’d hang around, take the lead, lose the lead, screw up on special teams, and watch the defense sag and fail. Well, this game the Niners had a 38 to 22 TOP advantage, 384 to 230 yardage advantage, 72 plays to 50, on and on, it shoulda been a laugher.

But no, despite the stats, the 49ers were down 17-13 with 3:24 left. Purdy came up big on a 49 yard bomb to Pearsall on the last drive, and threw a very wild and dangerous TD pass to Jake Tonges to take the lead with 1:34 left.

Sam Darnold sealed the game by fumbling off his lineman’s butt under pressure from Nick Bosa, who recovered the ball to seal the game.

Lots of heroes and goats.

Good: The defense is light years better than the last 2 seasons. They won this game. Ricky Pearsall had a strong game. Purdy came up with the game-winning drive. Kittle was off to a hot start. CMC played very well, and wonder of wonders, Shanny spelled him with some strong running by B Rob. The Niners won! A game that we would have lost last year.

Bad: Defense was soft early. Purdy missed the LB not covering CMC when he fell down and that caused the 1st pick. He forced a pass into triple coverage. Kittle got hurt. 5 trips to the red zone got us 17 points. Shanahan once again HAS to hand the ball to CMC on 1st and goal. He does NOT grasp the concept of play-action in the red zone.

Ugly: Jake Moody. Jake Moody. Special teams. Kickoffs are a complete mystery as to how and where and what yard line the ball goes to. And Hennessey was blasted to oblivion on the blocked FG.

Despite the ugliness, the defense rounded into form as the game went on. Purdy ended up winning the game. On the Road. Against a division foe. And Shanny dodged a bullet for losing yet another close game.

All in all, most excellent.