Forty Niners Forever

Seven players, four 49ers, and three Packers, tested positive, or were in close contact with a positive player, for tonight’s game. Yipeee! Fuck this season and the horse it rode in on. Every time I think this season can’t get any worse, it does. So we are down THREE starting wide receivers, one quarterback, two tight ends, three O linemen, three running backs, two defensive ends, a cornerback, a safety, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The NFL, in their consummate disregard for player safety and health, says there’s a 0.0% chance that the game will be postponed, barring an earthquake swallowing up Levi’s stadium, or yet another COVID outbreak among the officiating crew, groundskeepers, or cheerleaders.

The game? Who the fuck knows? I don’t think the Packers are for real, but we have depleted the cupboard down to nothing. You look at the current roster depth, and we have one healthy WR. Trent Taylor. Kevin White is gonna to be elevated from the practice squad, and a couple guys, River Cracraft and Chris Finke, who will get the thrill of playing in front of a prime time audience. Let’s hope they don’t shit the bed and fumble their shot away. Like Dante Pettis.

Here’s a fun fact. Not one skill position player on the Niners played in the NFC Championship game 10 months (decades?) ago.

Frankly, as much shit as I’ve been giving Kyle Shanahan, he has done a pretty amazing job of scheming games around:

a) all the injuries
b) a sucky injured quarterback

Can Shanny do it again? Like the Ram game? I won’t hold my breath, but I think Jordan Reed has been cleared to play, and Ross Dwelley has played pretty well in his chances as a starting TE. They both loook to get a lot of looks. Run game? Hasty should get some chances, and he has to avoid fumbles, but GB does not defend the run well. Mullens gets a shot at redemption for his disastrous Iggles game, and GBs defense is middle of the pack and 20th in points allowed. We need to play fairly perfectly to with this one.

A little break in the injury parade. Let’s talk quarterbacks. Has JImmy G played his last down as a 49er? It very well may come to be. Is there a quarterback controversy? I don’t think so. I also don’t think Shanahan wants Jimmy G. as his quarterback going forward. Funny to hear the pundits out there saying we need to sign a stop-gap QB like Kurt Cousins or Matty Ice. Fuck that. We HAVE Nick Mullens. He’s fine as our stop-gap guy. We need to draft a QB and ride the big dick next year.

Why? Whoever we would get will garner big money and cap space if not draft picks/players (think Ryan) if it is a trade. Winston? No. Trubscuit? Hard no. Cousins? Meh. Dalton? Pass. The one guy who could be intriguing is Dak Prescott. He can play at a very high level and checks a lot of the boxes for the mobile big-armed quarterbacks. The problem of course would be $$$. He’s looking for a lifetime deal.

So, we need to draft someone. Since we are out of the Trevor Lawrence/Justin Fields sweepstakes, we may not even get a shot at Trey Lance out of North Dakota State. I would love to see him in a Niner uniform, but he’s movin’ on up to the top side of the draft. I’m thinking we end up somewhere in the 13-16 range so those guys will be gone. Unless we trade up. To do that we would need to get more picks for payers somehow.

No idea how this will work out, but I seriously don’t see us getting a stopgap for Jimmy.

I wish he was . . .

. . . but he ain’t.

Here we go again. Forget the fact that Jimmy G was flt horrible against the Seahawks porous pass defense, it remains to be seen how bad George kittle’s injury is. His x-rays came back negative, but he’s getting an MRI today to determine what the issue is. Proily the dreaded high ankle sprain everyone on this team seems to have. He may be able to play through it, if anyone can, but we just have to wait for the results.

The game? The shootout that wasn’t, and almost came to be, and if not for a dumb call (or smart play depending on how you look at it) on the hit on Russell Wilson which drew a unsportsmanlike penalty, Wilson faked going into a slide for a split-second and when Jimmy Ward committed to the tackle, slid, drawing the foul. So, what would have been possibly a 45 yard FG, or a 4th and 2, gave the Hawks their final TD, putting the game out of reach.

No need to rehash the fuckedupness of the game, but the telling stat was the 49er offense gained ONE yard in the 3rd quarter while Seattle put up 17 points to get to a 30-7 lead at the start of the 4th quarter. Jimmy G was benched in favor of Nick Mullens, and he got the Niners somewhat into the game with 3 TDs, and if not for a 2 point conversion that missed by 6″, we would have been down one score at 30-22.

But, whatever. If anything, this gives the 49ers a chance to look at when Mullens can do in the immediate. Jimmy G is either too hurt on his ankle to play effectively, or has simply lost his mojo. Jimmy has played bad all season, even before the injury, so Mullens has to prove the Eagles game was an outlier. Sure, Seattle sagged their D by the 4th quarter, but Mullens hit passes DOWNFIELD. He threw passes hard and crisp. We at least looked like a competent offense when he was out there. Something Jimmy G hasn’t done for a long time.

Also, in a salary cap move, the 49ers cut their ties with Kwon Alexander. They traded him to the Saints for Kiko Alonzo and a conditional 5th round pick. Kwon had a solid year last year, around his pec injury, but has been a non-entity so far this season. And he’s hurting with an ankle injury. Alonso should fit right in as he’s already on the PUP list and won’t play this year.

This will be the halfway point of the season, and based on how this has gone, even being near .500 is a bit of an accomplishment. As bad as I thought Shanny and Co were doing during the first few weeks of the injury parade, they have redeemed themselves pretty well in beating the Rams and the Pats.

Now of course is the Seahawks. A bigger test than both those teams. The good news is no deafening crowd, no 12th man, and Seattle is not exactly the legion of Boom anymore. More like the Legion of Zoom as passes riddle their defense, and points fly on the board. They are dead last in defense by half a football field. And that’s saying something seeing how well Teflon Mike Nolan’s defense is doing in Dallas, and the Falcons being the Falcons.

The bad news is Russell Wilson is having an MVP season. Without him, this team is likely 1-5. With him, they are in every game. His receivers are absolute studs, and they can get open at will whenever Wilson leaves the pocket and buys a minute or two back there. They look to pass as they are beat up at running back, so we NEED to scheme some blitzes as we can’t just let Wilson pick us apart.

Looks to be some kind of shootout. Bet the over, which is an absurdly low 53.5.

Once more into the breach, as they say. Our recent roll courtesy of the Rams and Pats of course came on the heels of the huge steaming debacle at the hands of the not-so-lowly Miami Dolphins. They sprang into life after roasting the chestnuts off of us and have reeled off victories over, oh, well, the Jets and had a bye week. Nevermind. They are 3-3 and did play the Bills and Hawks tough, but whatevs.

Our task now is to travel to Seattle and play a team that always turns into a battle. Most recently the teams fought for the NFC West crown in week 17 last year. A game decided literally by a couple inches.

The upcoming game this weekend is a bit messier. We have been ravaged by injuries across the board. Especially defensively. Well, also at RB. And WR. And O line. Seattle on the other hand has lost their way defensively. They have given up the most defensive yards in the NFL by a whopping 54 yards. 31st Atlanta gives up 425 per game. Seattle? 479! Last against the pass, and 13th vs the run. The only reason they are 23 in scoring defense is because they are 5th in turnover ratio at +5.

Looking at Seattle’s record, they could very well be 2-4. The Falcons got beat. NE gave them a challenge but they came up short. The Cowboys had a late lead that they squandered. Miami made it close but ran out of time, Minnesota had the ball AND the lead with time winding down, and instead of kicking the FG and going up 8 went for it and failed on 4th down. And the Monday Night game where AZ put up 517 yards on the Seattle defense.

The X factor of course is the runaway MVP candidate, Russell Wilson. Game after game he is forced to score nearly every possession. In the AZ game, as it wore on, the constant pressure affected his game and he threw an uncharacteristic 3 interceptions. Seattle is a bit beat up themselves a RB and are now counting on ex-Niner Carlos Hyde. He had a pretty good game against the Cards and got 68 yards on 15 carries. Wilson natch had 84 yards on 6 carries. But, even when throwing 50 passes, his 388 isn’t that big a number.

But, Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf are an outstanding pair of wideouts. They’ve combined for 69 catches, and 1,061 yards. Even with our injuries, our defense is still plaing at a pretty high level, but the Seahawks are an offensive juggernaut that we will be hard-pressed to slow down.

If we can slow them down, we can win. I don’t see us winning a shootout with these guys. Mistakes and penalties are the usual factors.

The 2020 49ers are 3-0 on the east coast. Seems like we win handily out there. Another fairly easy victory against a team that was supposed to be a lot better than they showed. As Belichick himself said, we were outcoached, outplayed, out hustled, out everythinged.

Sure, Cam Newton looked completely lost as I think he hit on 2 nice passes amid the 3 picks and numerous bounced attempts. The run game was off, and even the QB runs were negated. Belichick walked up to him early in the 3rd quarter and apparently said “you’re out” as Jarrett Stidham came in and actually did a little bit worse.

The defense played well, but that was because the QBs were flat terrible. Edelman had one catch and 3 targets. Don;t know if it is because Fig hasn’t had enough time to absorb the new system, or if he’s toast, but it was an ugly game all around for him. ANd Stidham.

So, a nice easy road win, right? Of course not. Every victory seems to come with a huge price tag. Backup to the backup to the backup, Jeff Wilson, was having a career day as he had put up 112 yards on 17 carries and 3 TDs when he was rolled up during the last TD run, and is out for a while with the dreaded high ankle sprain, and Deebo Samuel pulled a hamstring on a pretty innocuous looking sweep.

Jimmy G looked fairly solid as he went 20-25 for 277 and 2 picks. He even hit a deep 35 yard pass to Brandon Aiyuk, who had a very nice 6 catches for 115 yard day. My only issue is the pass wasn’t thrown inside more. If so, the pass is an easy TD, and we don’t lose Jeff Wilson one play later. One pick was an end-of half hail Mary, but the other was an overthrow of Kittle over the middle.

All in all a solid game that was hyped as the comeuppance of the prodigal QB by his former teacher, but it ended up being the student schooling the master. The Shanahans continued their legacy of being a thorn in Belichick’s side.

Lucky? Who knows? The last time the Niners played here, it was an epic shootout between Tom Brady and Colin Kaepernick. The Niners built a 31-3 lead, pissed it away, but prevailed in the end with a late 40 yard TD from Kappy to Crabtree and won 40-34.

Today? I have no fucking clue. Instead of getting healthier, we are getting hurter. We lost both our starting safeties Tartt and Ward to go along with the rest of the IR brigade in the defensive backfield and all over the D line.

Speaking of defense, we are up against another mobile running QB, so our work is cut out for us. Cam Newton is their leading rusher, so we have to spy his ass. We cannot afford to give up large chuck plays, especially on 3rd down, to bootleg runs, and read-option type plays. Of course that is easier said than done. Passing, Newton is a little less scary with his 2 TDs, 4 picks, 9 sacks, and being the 29th rated passer in the league.

The hope is we can get some pressure on Newton and force a couple picks of our own.

So I guess that means we need to score. And score a lot. And it looks like our walk-on UDFA Frank Gore impersonator, James Hasty, will get some meaningful minutes tomorrow. The Jet has been playing like a Piper Cub lately, so I think Hasty will get some good long looks. He missed the hole on one of his late runs last week, but for the most part, he looked good. The game wasn’t too much for him to handle.

Yeah, we are up against Brian Belichick. But Brian without Tuck-Rule Tom has proven to be less effective. He doesn’t have a very high-powered offense, and his defense is middle-of the -road as well. But we are really hurting. Especially on defense. But since I think we can out-score them, we should win in the end.

This one will come down to special teams, and who makes the least mistakes. How ’bout them Dodgers? Hah! What an awesome end to that game.

Yes, the win was nice, but it came at a pretty high cost once again. Raheem Mostert and Ben Garland look to land on the IR for their high ankle sprain, and calf strain respectively. Trent Williams has an ankle sprain as well, and Jaquiski Tartt has a groin strain.

Tartt was limited in practice today, and Williams was absent, but the good news for Trent is at least the MRI showed no break or high ankle sprain. He likely won’t practice all week, and be a game-time decision. Kwon Alexander is also not practicing due to his own ankle injury. Dee Ford and Richard Sherman both look to be on the shelf till after the bye week, meaning week 12.

Just got to keep plugging these holes till people start coming back. Who even knows when Richburg comes back? The team just disclosed he went through shoulder surgery to go along with his patella tear, so he’s not likely to see the field this season. Our guy now is Hroniss Grasu. Yes THAT Hroniss Grasu.

Needless to say, as the trade deadline looms the thought of trades for CB and linebacker help now has the center position to throw into the mix. And, seeing how we dumped a lot of draft picks a couple years ago to acquire all this injured talent, I’m pretty sure the team does not want to go that route again.

So who do we trade? Big Dick Nick’s value shriveled up pretty dramatically after his Eagles debacle. The Beater? He may be at least a little valuable as our 2nd string guy now. This may be their only route to get something for relative nothing. I don’t want to trade away any of our WRs, though maybe we could deal an RBly. But Coleman is down, McKinnon is an injury time bomb, Mostert is hurt again, so we are down to Wilson and Hasty.

Game balls all around. Jason Verrett, Raheem Mostert, Jimmy G, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, the offensive line, and especially Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh. In order to develop a rhythm with his quarterback and the offense, the 49ers came out throwing quick passes (where have I screamed that lately? Oh yeah, 3 days ago) and moving the chains, The opening drive was a thing of west coast beauty with swing passes, misdirection runs, and little to nothing downfield. the 1st half in general was a thing of beauty as the 49ers scored 3 TDs, one on a 4th and 2 from the Ram 44 yard line. The 3rd TD came as Shanahan was trying to run the 2nd quarter out while still scoring a TD. It worked but it was a bit annoying as I felt we were too conservative on the drive and we could have pushed harder. Still and all stopped the Rams next possession, and we had another chance to score. We took a couple deep shots, but being up 21-6 wa about as good as anyone could have hoped.

Defensively was definitely a mixed bag, as the Rams both ran and threw very effectively at times, but were also shut down at other times. But Jason Verrett made the play of the night on a 4th and goal play at the 1 when he intercepted a Jared Goff pass in the back of the end zone. The beauty of the play was that it got us out of what would have been 1st and 10 from the 1. Whether the Rams shot themselves in the feet with penalties, or suffered dropped passes, the 49er defense held the Rams out of the end zone for 2 of the 4 quarters. No mean feat.

Special teams even got into the act with Dion Jordan blocking an extra point, Robbie Gould providing a 49 yard field goal, and Tavarius Moore downed a punt on the 2″ line to pin the Rams deep. This led to our only 2nd half points.

A much as Shanny deserves a game ball for protecting Jimmy G, and neutralizing NFL sack leader Aaron Donald, I didn’t like the ultra-conservative nature of his play calling in the 2nd half. He relied too much on the defense to stop the Rams, and the 40 yard strike to Josh Reynolds was inevitable. The one shot Shanny took was the 3rd and 7 with 1:55 that sealed the game. However, it took a monster effort from Deebo, who broke 4 tackles on the ‘pass’ play to get that game-sealing 1st down. Other than that it was a bunch of 3 and outs for the most part as we passed ONCE on 1st down. My biggest pet peeve.

Still and all, a huge response by the players and coaches to the steaming turd that was the Miami game. This game was ginormous as the team needed a win at home against a division foe.

This early in the season and we are already at the crossroads. Win this game, and we allay some fears that the team is on the road to nowhere. Lose the game, and the season is pretty much a wash. Seattle is paying the Cards, so they look to keep their roll going. We would be down 4 games 6 weeks into the season. Seattle could very easily be 1-4 seeing as every game has come down to the wire. Even the Falcon game was in doubt till the end. Their defense isn’t scaring anybody, but Russell Wilson sure is.

But i digest. The Rams on the other hand have played nothing but stiffs. Their lone loss came at the hands of the Buffalo Bills. They’ve beaten the No-Skins, Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants. Yeah, we couldn’t handle the Iggles, but they barely beat the Giants. Different Sunday, different outcome. Yadda yadda yadda.

At this point I really don’t know. What I do know is that Bruce Allen is back on the practice squad, and Moseley and ‘Spoon will play. Sherm had a setback, Greenlaw was fairly ineffective, Kwon Alexander is doubtful, and the defense is still a hot mess.

I don’t know. We win a shootout? WTF. Sure. Why not?