Forty Niners Forever

The next man down is Dre Greenlaw. He has a quad injury and won’t play this Sunday in the House of Horrors that is the Mistake by the Hudson, MetLife Stadium. I never did hear what the NFL said when they looked into the rash of injuries from the last game, but with every team on every field sustaining some sort of terrible injury, I’m sure they’ll just shrug their shoulders and say, that’s football.

Meanwhile, we are down 10 out of 22 starters. What does that bode? Well, we are in the relativey easy part of our schedule, so it shouldn’t be too hard to beat the Giants, seeing as they are without their best player, Saquon Barkley. Anyhow, on we go.

The hope is we aren’t down to 3rd stringers at multiple positions by Sunday night.

Sad day for football fans as Gale Sayers, HOF running back for the Chicago Bears, passed away today at the age of 77. Though his career was cut short by Kermit Alexander of the 49ers, his 5 years of dominating the league was enough to get him enshrined in 1977.

Sayers famously had his greatest day as a player at venerable old Wrigley Field back in 1965 when he scored 6 TDs on a rain-soaked and muddy as fuck field against the 49ers. He scored one receiving TD, 4 rushing TDs, and scored his final one on an 85 punt return for a 61 – 20 victory. His stats that day were: 9 rushes for 113 yards, 2 catches for 89 yards, 5 punt returns for 134 yards.

Sayers was drafted with the 4th pick of the ’65 NFL draft. The 49ers passed on Sayers and instead drafted Ken (3 yards and a cloud of dust) Willard. The 49ers also passed on Dick Butkus, drafted 3rd by the Bears. Back to back Hall of Famers is pretty impressive, yet it netted the Bears no playoff appearances. Their best shot was the 1965 campaign when they went 9-5, but finished 3rd behind the Packers and the Colts.

I never got to see him play, but his accomplishments were everywhere to be seen thanks to the early days of NFL Films and John Facenda. A true icon of the game has passed. Very sad as my cousins are all huge Bears fans, and they would go to Soldier Field all the time to watch him.

RIP Gale.

The 49ers first win of the 2020 season was pretty much a disaster as no less than four important starters were injured during the game. The worst being Nick Bosa, who more than likely tore his ACL early on in the game. Two plays later, it looked like Solly Thomas tore his ACL as well. They were both carted off the field.

Jimmy G, having a fine start after his wobbly opening day, got the dreaded high ankle sprain early in the game as well. He played through it till the half, with a 21-3 lead, and was replaced by Nick Mullens. Raheem Mostert and Tevin Coleman also suffered knee injuries but theirs don’t appear to be as severe, but who knows?

And with Richard Sherman, George Kittle, Westie Richburg, Deebo Samuel, and Dee Ford already injured, that’s a lot of talent cooling heir heels on the sidelines. NINE starters already out. And this is week 2. And we play on that same field next Sunday.

The game? Well, the game started great with an 80 yard TD run for Mostert on the first play. Jordan Reed had 2 TD catches to go along with a solid first half. The defense made a nice stop on 4th and 1 to kill a TD drive, and scored on the turnover, and the outcome was never really in doubt after that.

It was also pretty cool to see Frank Gore still hitting the hole hard and churning out yards while the game was still in doubt early. Darnold was pressured some, and the DBs played well enough to only allow a garbage TD late, but the name of this game was the injuries. Not that it was just the Niners by any means. The Jets lost WR Breshad Perriman, WR CHris Hogan, C Connor McGovern, CB Arthur Maulet, and CB Quincy Wilson. I think Hogan returned to the game.

Arik Armstead was the first to loudly complain about the newly installed surface of Metlife stadium, and soon the noise was loud from a lot of 49er players about how sticky the surface is. And about how concerned they are since they pay again there next Sunday. Late last night, the NFL said they would take a closer look at the situation, but really, I’m not sure what they can do about it short of moving the game to a neutral site, or, since there are no fans involved anyway, move it to Santa Clara.

The Giants, Steelers, and Jets didn’t raise any concerns after their games, but based on the number of injuries yesterday on both sides, something’s got to give.

Well, it’s the Jets, so the hope is this one isn’t too too difficult. Yeah, half the team is out with injuries, but the Jets just aren’t very good. Sam Darnold is right up there with Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen as the all-washout QBs of the 2018 draft. Josh Allen seems to be doing fine, having gotten Buffalo to the playoffs last year, and of course Lamar Jackson is Lamar Jackson.

But I digress.

10:00 am game, so this one will be decided quick. No need to go over the injuries, we all know. Still and all, if we don’t win, we ARE in trouble.

Tough luck NJ. Maybe next year, the Niners will be back to the east coast.

Didn’t see this one. Richard Sherman hit the IR today with a calf injury. The Niners activated Donte (olé) Johnson to replace hij, and signed CBs Ken Webster, Brian Allen and Christian Angulo to the practice squad and shoved Tim Harris Jr to the IR as well.

In other bad news, Rick James strained his hamstring in the loss, and he and George Kittle aren’t practicing today. They are day-to-day. But, and this is a nice but, Brandon Aiyuk should be ready to go vs the Jets.

In other news, we are giving Ziggy Ansah a look at pass rushing DE today. He has worked with D line coach Kris Kocurek with the Lions and he’s highly regarded.

Anyhow, since this is the Jets, we should be able to get on top of these guys and simply wear them down. The Jets are terrible and if we don’t wax these guys it’ll be a bad harbinger of things to come.

I feel real bad for NJ as the 49ers are coming to town for TWO weeks, and there will be no fans allowed. So close, yet so far.

Funny thing, my son and I watched the AZ game from last season where we played them here, and won 36-26. The game pretty much followed the script of yesterday’s game. That one was back and forth, up to and including a touchdown scamper by Kyler Murray late. However, in that game, Jimmy G threw a late TD to Jeff Wilson to win the game as time ran out.

Yesterday? Well, let’s just say Jimmy G was the one who looked like a spooked rookie, not a vet of any kind. I’m hoping against hope that this was an aberration due to the fucked up circumstances we currently live in. As in no preseason, weird practices, and the myriad injuries to our wide receivers. Disheartening to me was to see Jimmy once again very bad at feeling pressure and either throwing the ball away, or avoiding sacks.

Jimmy had a Jim Everett moment when he ducked out of pressure that wasn’t there, spun around with still no pressure, and still took the sack when he had time to throw it away. Jimmy also failed in the clutch at the end of the game when he had Kendrick Bourne open on a corner route, and he underthrew it. He also was late and behind Trent Taylor on the 4th down play to seal the loss.

The game started well enough, but we lost all momentum and our 10 point lead when our special teams failed on a punt and gave AZ a touchdown, and we failed on a 4th and inches on the goal line.

The defense did all it could to keep the game close, but the offense repeatedly failed to generate any flow or consistency. Our 3rd down conversion rate at one point was 0-9. And of course 0-1 on 4th down. AZ kept us in the game by missing 2 FGs, but in the end it didn’t matter.

And unfortunately for us, this very much resembled the Super Bowl where we lost the lead late and flailed trying to contain a young mobile quarterback. as he picked us apart all day.

Yes, there was a lot of blame to go around. Special teams failed miserably to allow the blocked punt. Gould did nail a 52 yd FG though. The defense allowed way too many 3rd down conversions to the tune of 7-14 by AZ. The refs got into the act by calling a meaningless holding call on 3rd and 12 from AZ’s own 8 yard line, a bogus PI call, and another bad holding call all led to AZ’s first TD drive.

Most of AZs pressure came up the middle so our 3rd string center Grasu’s ass was grass, and jimmy did face a lot of pressure. AZ merey got the ball out inunder 4 seconds to negate our pass rush. Thing was, AZ had regularly 5-6 blockers on any given pass play, yet DeAndre Hopkins got open nearly every look they gave him. They dinked and dunked us to the tune of 26-40 for 230 yards. 14 of those went to Mr. Open Hopkins.

AZs WRs had 21 catches for 206 yards. In contrast our WRs got 4 catches for 41 yards. Yes, we desperately miss Deebo Samuel, and Emmanuel Sanders for that matter.

But this comes back to Jimmy G in my opinion. He looked confused and lost in the pocket. He still can’t feel the pressure to avoid sacks and either throw the ball away or buy time. I hope Kittle is OK as Jimmy G hung him out to dry on a fucking 10 yard swing pass, and he nearly had his knee taken out. He also missed on plenty of short passes.

Anyhow, maybe AZ is now the top team in the NFL, and we are in catch-up mode already. Sure, it’s only one game, and these guys always play us tough, but this was a pretty thorough beat-down that didn’t look pretty on any side of the ball.

Day one of the quest to get back to the Super Bowl. KC rolled over the Texans, and Seattle is throttling the not-so-resurgent Falcons, so it would be nice to see us do the same. It’s looking more and more that Garland and Aiyuk will play, so that’s encouraging.

A far as the team goes, we should be a little better defensively, but the offense remains to be seen. t least the passing game. The run game should be solid, and the infusion of Jet McKinnon making his long-awaited debut alongside Mostert and Coleman should be another dangerous weapon. The wideouts however are a mixed bag of question marks. Trent Taylor is coming off a season-ending foot injury and infection. That being said, he and Jimmy G had a strong connection back when they were both playing a few years back. Dante Pettis, he of the deep dark dog house, has apparently emerged with a new attitude.

Down the line, Brandon Aiyuk may play, Samuel is out for 3 games, Kendrick Bourne is Kendrick Bourne. If he can stop the drops, he’ll be a great weapon. He already is a big red zone target.

Garland is a gametime decision, so there may be some unsettled play there. The 3rd stringer Hroniss Grasu was activated off the practice squad, so we are thin there. Trent Williams and Mike McGlinchey should hold down the pass rush though.

Here we go!

The good news as of now is that Fred Warner has been cleared to practice after missing the last week on the COVID protocol. More good news is that Dee Ford, Nick Bosa, and Kyle Juicechick also practiced as well. The official injury report should come out some time in the next couple hours, but as of now Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk both have a shot to play this weekend.

If you believe the fantasy football connection, Deebo’s stock is rising fast, so that means he will most likely play by week 2, if not Sunday. And yes, there are fantasy football analysts who get inside info like this.

Center Ben Garland is also one who hasn’t been practicing, but has an outside shot at playing. Since the 49ers moved the back up to the back up Hroniss Grasu back to the practice squad, it looks like they are confident Garland will be ready.

Bring it ON!!

Ready or not, the season is about to start. September 13th marks the kickoff of the 2020 season and our fanless opening day, and the hope is the smoke has cleared somewhat by then, but we have a pretty tough opening test with the AZ Cards coming to town. they of the newly minted WR corps with DeAndre Hopkins as the leader. As of now it is weird not having seen anything in the way of preseason games, let alone practices to see who is doing what, but all the teams are in the same boat. Let’s just hope we are one of the bigger boats out there on Lake Travis, TX! What a shitshow that was.

That being said, I think we should be in decent shape as we have a quarterback and offense in place, and a stellar defense that is solid in every way. Many of these teams, and AZ is partly in this situation is to not be exactly cohesive in their system yet. They are a young team coming off a 5-10-1 season, but they were in nearly all their losses, including the two to us. The most shocking was their late beat-down of Seattle in their house. Something that I’m sure the coaching staff is making a lot of hay out of.

The big X factor is of course DeAndre Hopkins. In a massive brain-fart by Bill O’Brien of the Texans, he gave up Hopkins for an old David Johnson. Sure, they aren’t on the hoook for his salary, but he is a top-3 WR in the league, and will only do more and better things in AZ with Kyler Murray as his QB.

Sucks for us and the rest of the NFC West, but like I said our more established and cohesive team should give us a bit of an edge this game. Of course once things get going, anything can happen, but we all get to find out pretty quickly.

Well, I guess we’ll see if the entire defense gets it, but for now, LB Fred Warner tested positive for COVID-19. This is for players who either test positive for COVID, or were merely exposed to someone who had it.

There are no details as to what scenario Warner is in, but I’m assuming that since the rest of the defense isn’t being quarantined, it would be the latter. Monday is off day anyway, so we’ll just wait to see what is reported later.

Details to follow as they come.

In other news. Good, for a change, Kentavius Street, our last ACL signing, is apparently at full strength, and is blowing it up in practice. Don’t want to jinx anything, but but this would bolster what is a very strong and deep unit.