Much as i hate to admit it, the new playoff format is pretty cool. 6 games on weekend 1 and 4 weekend 2 rocks.
Today we have:
Tomorrow is:
I got Packers, Chiefs, Bills, and Bucs. Saints somehow fuck this up again.
Yes, it is time to dig up Mel Kiper Jr. and plant his head behind a desk to watch him bloviate about something that no one ever gets right. The draft. Ask 100 people to guess the first round, and you will get 100 different answers. None of which are remotely close to reality beyond the top 5 picks.
So, just for funzies, here are the 49ers nine picks in the upcoming draft in April:
Since we have no idea what the front office is thinking, we get to guess like all the other talking heads. Based on the talk we should draft a quarterback. No, a cornerback. No we need to bolster the offensive line. No, we need a bookend for Nick Bosa. No, we need linebacker help.
Needless to say, you can pretty much make a case for all of these suggestions. The curious non-attention paid to the cornerback position in last year’s draft was at times very costly, and at other times, not so bad. Bruce Allen cost the 49ers the Miami game by giving up 7 passes, 153 yards, 3 TDs, and 2 PI penalties in a matter of 20 minutes on the field. A field that he will never tread upon again. then again, Jamar Taylor came out of nowhere to shut down Cooper Kupp and the Rams. We have a lot of bodies that are decent. And nobody signed.
Jason Verrett may be costly, but he has at least put out there that he was very thankful of the opportunity given to him by the 49ers. Same with Kerry Hyder, another scrap-heap signing that paid off in dividends but is looking for a payday. Emmanuel Moseley is a guy who has been solid. Sherm? Nice knowing you. Great on-field and locker room leader, but your time is over. Then there’s Ahkello Witherspoon. His mercurial season and strong finish at least warrants a long talk with the team about his committment level.
The rest? Dontae Johnson needs to go.
Lots of fun games today.
Indy and Buffalo
Rams as Seattle
TB at Washington
Josh Allen gets his first taste of playoff action and oldsters Alex Smith and Philip Rivers get their last (maybe) hurrah.
i wrote this yesterday, ad despite Smith not playing, and Goff did, my picks for yesterday were spot on. Heineken played an inspired game but came up short.
Today I’m thinking Balt, Saints, and Pittsburgh.
Say what you will about this season, but the team, despite a gigantic injury list, managed to keep its focus and drive as their backup QBs stumbled, bumbled, and fumbled their way to a shitload of losses. It would be nice to think that with a fully healthy team, the offense would have clicked along nicely and won at least 4 more games.
Pretty easy to contemplate, but that first loss was with a healthy Jimmy G. His numbers weren’t terrible, but they weren’t great either. But of course COVID gave all the teams no preseason games and little practice time. We pretty much couldn’t contain Murray when we needed to and lost in the end. By the time the team had had warmed up, the entire roster was hurt. Our trip to New Jersey proved fatal as Bosaand many others went down.
No need to rehash the rest. The positives, few as they were, were the emergence of Brandon Aiyuk as a bona fide threat to score whenever he touches the ball. Fred Warner on the defensive side also proved himself to be a major stud. The rest of our stars from last year were battling injuries. Mostert, Jimmy, Kittle, Deebo, and Wilson all spent lengthy amounts of time on the IR. To the detriment of the team.
Defensively, Ford played 3 downs, the entire defensive backfield was hurt at one time or another. Even our backups got wasted by injury. CB Jamar Taylor, who came in from the cold and stifled Cooper Kupp, was lost to a knee injury. As were backup linemen Dion Jordan and Jordan Willis. Even shrivel-dick Nick ended up on the IR with an elbow injury.
On and on. So, turn the page and look to the 2021 season. The 2021 team is going to look a whole lot different. Good or bad. We have 40 (!!!) free agents, so there will be a lot of turnover. Get rid of Mullens and we’d have a lot less turnovers. But I digress. Ford, McKinnon, Coleman, Tartt, Ward, and Sherman are the big-ticket guys who likely go. That will free up some cap space, but no idea how much.
Got to hit the draft.
Coronamadeggon? If hindsight is 2020, I don’t want to look back. This travesty of a season fit snugly into this tragedy of a year. Too much to even think about, let alone document, so we’ll just let this season go.
Yes, this team has a ton of question marks for the future, but we have our closing game with the Beater against the Seahawks. Little hope for us in this one, but then again, I thought the same thing about last week’s game. Robert Saleh’s defense came up huge time and time again as we thwarted, for the time being, their playoff run.
Today? Of course we will be without Trent Williams and Brandon Ayuk, so there’s that. This one will be driven by the defense, but i don’t think we can hold Russell Wilson down for four quarters.
We will likely be somewhere around 10-12 in the draft after the loss. Is that good enough for a QB? The way the draft is shaking out, Trey Lance may be the only one available. Is he worth it? I’d tend to think we will go CB since we ignored it so badly last year, and it bit us in the ass with all the injuries, but we have a lot of time to work that out.
Out with the old, in with the new. 2020 can go take a flying leap, long with the prez. This year started bad and got a shit-ton worse. Starting with the 40er Super Bowl loss (which seems like 10 years ago) to the ruination of the team when they travelled to New Jersey for a couple games, and throwing in the Lakers and Dodgers winning their respective championships, and sports in general, while welcome during these troubling times, ended up sucking hard.
And of course the pandemic. Lost a couple of friends to COVID. One in March and one last week, so this thing is a real bitch. One of my nephews and his wife got it, but both thankfully got through it unscathed. At least there is hope that the vaccine rolls out quick, but I think we are in for more of the same shittiness for a little while yet.
But, hey a new year beckons. I look forward to NJ’s draft prognostications as we all are pretty much on the same page that this team needs a quarterback a cornerback, and O line help in this draft. Who and where remains to be seen, but here we are at week 17, still racked by injuries and still trying our damnedest.
It would be a trip to win this game and end up 4-2 in the division, seeing as this is one of the toughest in the league, and we went 1-3 against the shittiest. Draft be damned, let’s beat those fucking Seahawks. They are actually becoming one of the better teams in the league as their defense, helped immensely by DJ Reed, is coming together at the right time.
Well, not really. Just our division record. Funny thing is, if we beat Seattle next week, we would have a 4-2 record in our division. Sea would be 3-3, and the Rams and Cards both sit at 2-3 so they can’t catch us. As we all know, the west is one of the most competitive divisions in the NFL. No mean feat, but curious nonetheless.
There were a lot of stupid losses this year, up to and including going 1-3 against the woeful NFC East. And, to play the ‘what if’ card, you have to wonder what could have been should Shanahan switched out Mullens for Beater after yet another multiple interception game against Buffalo.
As our soon-to-be-Deetroit head coach showed, the defense is playing insanely well, even with half the roster on IR. The latest example was the throttling of the #3 offense in the NFL, the AZ Cards. Robert Saleh was down our #1 pick in Kinlaw, both starting safeties Ward and Tartt, CB Richard Sherman, and DE Dion Jordan. I mean along with the other injuries.
Ahkello Witherspoon played a strong game after giving up a 40 yard strike to Murray. He sometimes pouts his way to the bench after a bad play, but didn’t this time around, and made a game-saving INT in the 4th quarter and covered well all game. Jason Verrett, a guy I hope we keep, blanketed DeAndre Hopkins, and ‘held’ him to 8 catches for 48 yards. A far cry from the 14-151 performance in week 1.
Despite all the injuries up front, the defensive line held AZ to 45 yards rushing. Sure, Murray got 75 yards himself, but those were scrambles. And the 49ers actually did pretty well keeping him contained, but for the one 30 yard run on 4th and 1.
Fred Warner also had another outstanding game as he knocked down a 4th down pass to go with his 8 tackles. K’Waun Williams had a very disruptive game, blitzing early and often, making tackles in the backfield, and getting a sack.
So, as much as it would have been nice to get a better draft spot, no matter where we end up, we wouldn’t be in the running for Lawrence, Fields, Wilson, or Lance. As I’ve been saying for a while, the guy I want, Zach Wilson, is moving up as high as #2 on some depth charts. So both Trey Lance AND Zach Wilson could be gone.
I’ll give the coaching staff a pretty big set of kudos for keeping this team focussed and steady as this season as imploded around them. Especially Saleh and the defense.
Well, down to our 3rd string QB, we get to see our team creep toward what will hopefully be a top 10 pick in the draft. Deetroit is doing all they can to hit bottom by getting waxed by TB. Stafford went out early, so Lions fans get a preview of life without him as their offense still hasn’t hit 100 yards in the 4th quarter.
47-7, and the score is closer than it should be.
Kittle is back so maybe there will be a little fun out there. Fuck, I don;t care. I just don’t want to see us making so many stupid turnovers. Win, lose, whatever. Just don’t play like you are a fucking also-ran. We’re the goddamn defending NFC champs for fuck’s sake.
Hope y’all had a Merry Christmas. Funny watching Gaine Blabbert winging TDs all over the place for the Bucs.
The Del Boca Vista Bowl is on tonight, pitting the BYU Cougars against the University of Central Florida Knights. Who cares, you say? Well, Zach Wilson, a possible QB to go after in the upcoming 2021 draft is playing. Wilson is 6’3, 210 lb, has a strong arm, is mobile, and can make all the throws required of a pro-style QB. He is compared to one Patrick Mahomes as he does well improvising, and making plays on the fly.
We of course are in the hunt for a QB, and even though Wilson has not declared whether he will go back for his senior year, and therefore is off as lot of draft boards, I’m positive he will go in the top 15. We are #12, but that might not even be high enough to get him. He is creeping up draft boards, and we should pull the trigger. Unless of course Trey Lance somehow falls to us. I don’t see that happening given the need for QBs for the bottom-feeders, but again, who knows? Even then, Trey Lance worries me as being Carson Benchedz-ish. I wonder if they’d take Wilson over Lance regardless.
No one gets these drafts right, so hey let’s tart throwing darts.
Boca Raton Bowl
4:00 PM
ESPN
And for extra added fun, the Warriors are going up against their once and former star Kevin Durant.
Warriors vs Brooklyn Nets
4:00 PM
TNT
Wow. That was fun. Spot the woeful Cowboys 14 points and play catch-up the rest of the way. Nick Mullens continued his quest to lead the world in turnovers with an early fumble deep in his own territory for 7, preceded of course by a Rick (would you like cream in your coffee?) James fumble on Dallas’ first punt. Mullens keeps on keeping on giving points to both teams. He had some very nice drives and he had some horrible throws.
The defense once again was defending drives of 20 yards and under. We actually pressured Ginger a few times, but whatever. 4 turnovers a game seems to be the norm now. Raheem Mostert got hurt again, but even still, the offense had some nice plays. Till they didn’t.
We are all but assured 5-11 given the upcoming opponents, so there’s that. Stupid thing is, the offense and defense have played well enough to 7-7. Minus all those goddamn turnovers. But, the draft position is in play. Hooray us.
Defo comes home for a 4th 2027.
great news, that’s awesome.