Forty Niners Forever

Well, camp is is session, and as of now, the quarterback controversy is not even a mild irritant. Trey Lance continues to act like he’s gonna whiz right by Jimmy G and be named the starter, but that may be a tad hasty. Still and all, Lance is already comfortable enough in this offense to command the huddle, and correct mistakes made by the guys around him.

Jimmy G for his part, is not exactly wowing anyone with his double-clutching and throwing late on passes that get picked off, but hey, it’s early and as we know, rust never sleeps. Both guys are playing this straight, as has Shanahan, so there is no Montana/Young animosity, and the locker room isn’t divided. But at some point in the season, it may very well become apparent that Lance is the option.

10 days till preseason kickoff! This shit is gonna be FUN!!!

Trey Lance is officially a 49er after signing his 4 year, $34.1 million rookie deal. To put that into perspective, Alex Smith signed one of the last big rookie QB contracts at 6 years/$50 million in 2005. Owners gotta love being able to protect themselves from themselves, but that a whole nother conversation.

We all know the promise that Lance brings to the franchise, and the hope of a shiny new dynasty in the works. The kid is fast, strong, mobile, smart, makes quick decisions, and can make the throws a QB needs to make. The big question, as it is with all these guys coming into the league, will his ability translate into NFL success? We all know the Colin Kaepernick story, or Tim Couch, or RG III, or Vince Young, or the many other guys that didn’t quite cut it, or their early success collided with reality and they all faded for various diffferent reasons.

Then again, there’s Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, and the perennial thorn in our side Russell Wilson leading the way for the ‘new breed’ of fast mobile QBs that can run. You know, like a young Joe Montana, or Steve Young even.

So, the table has been set by this storied franchise known for developing Hall of Fame quarterbacks (don’t get me started on John Brodie. His numbers far outshine Joe Namath’s) to continue the tradition under the quarterback whisperer Kyle Shanahan. I’m thrilled that we have Jimmy G to take the reins and to let the upstart watch and learn. I’m sure Shanny and co will figure out how to get Lance involved in the offense at certain points in time during games this year, and this team is now even faster than it was what with Deebo, Aiyuk, Kittle, at WR, and Mostert, Hasty, and Sermon in the backfield.

This team has a boatload of weapons, and we should be able to stop just about any offense. Kinlaw has a year under his belt, and with all the injured guys returning, this looks to be a dominating season.

Bring it on!!

The 49ers did the smart thing and locked up the services of Fred Warner, linebacker extraordinaire, to a 5 year, $95 million deal. $12 mill bonus, $40 mill guaranteed. The rest is back-loaded. Dude is a stud and is (so far) dependable, so sure, keep him happy. Interesting thing Warner said is how good Dee Ford looks. I’ll believe it when I see it, but having him at near 100% would be very nice.

3rd round pick Thomas Ambry also signed his rookie deal for 4 years and 4.7 million. that leaves only one guy left to sign, and we all know who that is. Camp starts on July 27th (the hit the field on the 31st) so you’d think they’ll have that deal worked out by then. We are getting closer to the dreaded practice sessions, and all the mayhem they bring before we dive headlong into the 2021 season. I for one can’t wait. Cautiously optimistic we have a very good team and we should be kicking ass and taking names.

Hey, the Gigantes are kicking ass, so that is cool, and we beat the Dodgers last night. Even cooler. But football? 49ers football? The waiting is awful. Interminable. This team stands to be very well positioned for immediate success, and future success with the moves made so far. The biggest factor is of course injuries. But the team is stocked with a lot of talent, and we stand to be in the mix for a little while anyway.

I am worried about all the one-year deals, but that was a byproduct of the COVID season of 2020. We were able to keep some players we didn’t stand a chance to keep had we not gone through the weirdness. There will need to be a lot of decisions made come the end of this season, but that is the distant future. There’s a 17 game season to play. And yes, that sounds as odd as it is. The NFL should really go the college route and get rid of practice games entirely. Make it 18 games and call it done. But that’s me.

That, and expand the rosters. the game is so violent now that teams should be able to carry 3 QBs without having to shuttle guys between the taxi squad and the active roster. Shit, I don’t know. Little to discuss, and so much time.

Then again, we are only 54 days away from KICKOFF!!!!!

Glad we didn’t re-up him I guess. There was even talk of Sherman getting hired by the Dallas Cowboys as a coach. Something that makes sense. But then there’s this. Sherman was arrested in Seattle at 2 am for trying to force his way into a Redmond, WA house, and an ensuing scuffle with the police. The big things here are he was denied bail and he is being charged with a felony.

Don’t know the story around this, but Sherman certainly doesn’t fit the profile of out-of-control whack-job. Guess we will hear more in a little while, but denying bail is a pretty big deal. Sounds like shit got crazy.

Free agent indeed.

Nothing much to report in Ninerland, or even NFL land. Wearing my official NJ49er t-shirt (thanks again!) and wearing it proud. We of course were fined for some sort of practice violation that cost the team $150 K and the league was going to cancel their additional OTAs. We were also docked rookie development days due to an earlier violation. The Niners, being ahead of the game, had already cancelled their OTAs due to their injuries sustained by Jeff Wilson, Justin Skule, and Tarvarius Moore.

So there. Fuck off Jolly Roger. In other news, Trevor Lawrence signed his rookie deal of 4 years and $36.8 million. We haven’t signed Trey yet but there’s nothing out there to indicate we won’t get a deal done.

We HAVE signed offensive lineman Aaron Banks, a second-round draft pick, to his four-year rookie deal. The team has also signed offensive lineman Jaylon Moore, CB Deommodore Lenoir, safety Talanoa Hufanga, and RB Elijah Mitchell. That leaves Treys Lance and Sermon, and CB Ambry Thomas.

On the same day we have Oakland Raider defensive end Carl Nassib come out of the locker room as the first openly gay player in a major sport, Kansas City Chief defensive end Frank Clark gets arrested for packing a loaded UZI in his car while driving through LA. Zaven Collins, AZ’s 1st round pick at linebacker gave a new meaning to his 40 time by getting popped for going 76 in a 35 MPH zone. Amazingly, no weapons were found. And finally, Minnesota’s rookie DE Jalen Twyman was shot 4 times while being a passenger in a car in Washington DC. They were all superficial through and through wounds so he’s pretty lucky. I guess boys just wanna have fun.

Aaron Rodgers is still holding out, and with mini-camp starting on Tuesday, the consensus is that he will not show up and will face fines. The front office is clucking that they want to make Rodgers happy, but Rodgers is ‘not happy’ with the direction of the team, and he has pretty much carried the team by himself (well, DaVante Adams was a big help) these last couple years. Years where he dragged them to the NFC Championship game, only to lose both times. Last season to the eventual SB winners, Tampa, and the year before of course was our stomping of the Pack.

Fun? Sure. It’s pretty amazing that a guy with such a successful past as Rodgers does holding out because of irreconcilable differences. But he has a fairly solid case against the front office for not giving him more weapons to utilize, and drafting his replacement a couple drafts ago. Russell Wilson apparently patched things up with the Seahawks, to my dismay, but hey, not much else going on unless the Zach Ertz holdout floats your boat.

This is some of the funniest shit I have ever read from a nationally known sports ‘writer’. Mike Florio, a self-avowed and widely known 49er trasher, posted an article about how the 49ers ‘botched’ the rumors around who the 49ers were gonna pick in the draft. Botched. The Rumors.

https://www.ninersnation.com/2021/6/15/22534088/49ers-pft-mike-florio-says-niners-messed-up-qb-position-this-offseason#comments

The gist of the article states that, while the pick is the pick, the way the didn’t disavow the Mac Jones rumor was needless and unnecessary. In other words, the 49ers should have addressed the speculation started and fueled by the media involving what they would do with the pick they traded up for.

Again, the 49ers front office was negligent in not addressing the media hype around their supposed set-in-stone decision to pick Jones. The Jones speculation that the media drove into the ground for weeks on end. To the point that Vegas had us taking Jones as the odds-on favorite. The article is also full of speculation around Shanny ‘freaking out’ because he passed on Mahomes, Watson, and Brady. How he overreached by trading the farm to get Lance. How the organization talked Shanahan out of taking Jones.

Thing is, that ONE point has merit. The overreach. Whether it works out or not will not be known for years. And this stands true for all the teams that took QBs in the 1st round. But to diss an organization because they didn’t clear up a media-fueled hype-fest regarding their choice in the draft is absolutely laughable. And if we know one thing about Shanny, it is that he’s not talked out of things lightly, if at all. The blather was simply blather.

I thought Grant (ice cream) Cohn was the biggest hack in sports writing. Nope. The new champ is Mike Florio.

And hello WR Andy Jones. Yeah, I know, he’s likely a depth/special teamer/camp fodder guy, but there’s nothing much happening in the football landscape these days. And Josh Johnson was cut. Johnson has seemingly been on and off the team about 6 times, but has yet to throw a pass for us, and likely won’t. This leaves us with only 3 QBs. Nate Sudfeld, Josh Rosen and Jimmy Garoppolo.

Trey Lance of course is unsigned, but Nate the Great looks like the odd man out once that deal is done.

Intriguing to me is the Chandler Jones info out of AZ. They are far apart on a contract, and AZ losing him will seriously hurt their defense. I’m sure we would be among the last teams they would trade him to, butI would love to get a deal for him done a la DeAndre Hopkins. Although there are few GMs as dumb as Bill O’Brien so that is simply a dream.

Nothing much going on with the NFL or the 49ers these dog days of almost summer, but hey, the Giants are in 1st place, and they just took 3 of 4 from the Dodgers. Not bad. We’ll see where they are in September, but for the time being, the Giants are holding up their end of the deal.

We are supposedly looking at Julio Jones. Which would be great, depending on the cost. This team has already given up a bunch of draft picks, so I don’t think we go that route. Plus we have a decent set of WRs now, so the need isn’t that great for what Jones would cost.

Let’s hope we have some new good old days coming up.