Forty Niners Forever

Nothing seems to be stabilizing, let alone getting better in the U S of eh? I’m assuming neither baseball, basketball, or football will be played this year, despite the ramping up of something resembling training camp for baseball, and the restart of the basketball season. Baseball of course spent two months haggling about the money while the rest of the nation struggled on. During the game of chicken regarding playing, the league did nothing with the time allowed to figure out a testing protocol. Something EVERYONE knew was the biggest issue around starting the game back up. Now that we are here, the league missed their ship date for tests to numerous teams, and they look like the stupid fucks that they are.

Basketball chose the worst hotspot in the nation, Floriduh, to restart their interrupted season. That should go well. Maybe Rudy Gobert can be in charge of cleaning the press room.

But, fuck baseball and basketball. I’m more worried about football. As of now, teams are rag-tagging it, and various players are testing positive as they ignore the rules around practice. A couple preseason games have already been cancelled, and frankly with the way the powers that be have screwed the pooch in the response to this outbreak, I’m not very optimistic about the season. barring the miracle vaccine.

Well, dominoes 2 and 3 have just fallen as the NFL has cut 2 preseason games from the 2020 NFL schedule. They are saying games 1 and 4 just for fun, but this ain’t fun. As the Coronavirus drags on, the entire year of 2020 looks to be a wash for sports of any kind.

The COVID situation here in the US of A is not improving, and the Commander in Grief (thief? greed? cheat? Vlad? Pick an adjective) ain’t doing shit about it, and we are wallowing in a sea of people who think wearing a mask is a political statement. Hey, next time you get an operation, tell the surgeon to do the op in the parking lot without a mask or gloves because America!

But I digress. The truth is, this looks to be a slow inevitable crawl to the cancellation of the entire 2020 season. I hope not, but without some real progress getting this shit under control, we are all just hoping against hope something good comes out of this.

The Hall of Fame game in Canton, OH was just cancelled, to the surprise of no one. It is getting grimmer and grimmer regarding the 2020 season, as the country has pretty much screwed the pooch in regards to containing the virus. Of all the sports, baseball is the least onerous when it comes to spreading things, if you take away the licking and spitting and drooling in the dugouts. Korea is playing, minus fans, and it is going fine.

Basketball? That’s gonna be tougher. There’s a lot of contact, and no way to distance. I mean it won’t affect guys like James Harden and Russell Westbrook, who don’t play defense anyway, but I can’t really see how that is gonna work.

Then there’s football. A game where EVERYONE is in close contact with everyone else.From the players and coaches on the sidelines, to the offensive and defensive huddles, to the 14 guys on the line of scrimmage, to actual crashing and hitting and blood and sweat flying. They’ve had the longest time to wait for a solution, as this took off right when the Super Bo, uh, nevermind, but the point being, we haven’t even gotten over the first wave of this, let alone the predicted second wave once fall and winter hit.

I wish there was good news coming around this, but I’m not very optimistic at this point. Barring some kind of miracle around a vaccine.

Trent Williams gets a restructured deal that gives him some up-front money from his last year of his current contract. And an interesting caveat that prohibits the Niners from franchising him next year. Not that it means much as that is going to George Kittle, but all this is of course mere speculation.

Other than that, 5th round tackle Colton McKivitz signed his rookie deal, as did 7th round WR Jauan Williams.

Hoping against hope we have a football season, but at this point nothing looks very clear. If baseball and basketball reopen without too much disaster, I guess it’s a possibility, but with cases going up instead of down, who knows?

Just got word Deebo Samuel broke his foot today practicing with teammates today, and is already undergoing surgery to fix it. The diagnosis is him being out 3-4 months, but ‘a source’ told ESPN that Samuel would be ready for opening day September 1.

We will see, but let’s hope this isn’t a trend. Trent Taylor had a similar injury last year and as we all know, he didn’t play a down. His first surgery didn’t take, and he got an infection after his second surgery, thus the lost season. FWIW, the usual recovery from this surgery is 6-8 weeks.

So far in this sportsless landscape (golf? NASCAR? zzzzzzzzzzzzz), the NFL has been waiting on the sidelines hoping for things to calm down while baseball and basketball deal with the ramifications of sheltering during games, and all the logistical nightmares that go with it. Actually baseball is fighting over money, but that’s beside the point. Stupid fuck idiots, the lot of’em.

Thing is, with restrictions being mildly lifted, Ezekiel Elliott, and ‘several cowboys and Texans’ per a CBS report have tested positive for the Coronavirus. Elliott himself is asymptomatic and doing fine. None of the players were at their facilities, and the teams know and follow the protocols, but therein lies the rub. Open this stuff too early and the feared second wave hits. Baseball and basketball with most certainly have to deal with this contingency where they would have to shut their games down a second time.

Football is waiting against all hope that there is some kind of hope that the season will not have to be shortened, pushed back, or God forbid, cancelled. Seeing as this just took hold after the (FUCK) Super Bowl, we’ll have to see if they can dodge that bullet.

Say what you will about Tom Brady, but I’m still going with Joe Montana as the best quarterback to ever suit up in the NFL. Yeah, Brady has more appearances (9) in the Super Bowl, and more wins (6), but he also has 5 picks, 3 losses, and a couple real gift victories. Sure Tom’s numbers are solid. 235–for–357 with 2576 yards, 18 touchdowns and five interceptions. Joe? 83 of 122 passes for 1,142 yards and 11 touchdowns, and NO interceptions.

Tom Terrific could very well be 4-5, but for the Seattle Pete Carroll brain fart, and the Atlanta Kyle Shanahan/defensive fuck-a-row debacle. Throw in the tuck rule game that got the whole thing started, and he loses another one to be 3 and 5.

The other caveat of course is the fact that the NFL bent themselves backwards to change the rules for Brady (and Rodgers) as you now can’t hit a quarterback below the waist, above the shoulders, land on him, breathe on him, or brush the facemask without the unsportsmanlike call. Joe routinely took shots that cost him playing time that Brady never had to endure. The shots by Jim Burt and Leonard Marshall, among countless other shots Joe took, would be flagged today and neither were.

The other argument is that Joe had superior talent. He had Rice, Taylor, Roger Craig, Brent Jones, yadda yadda yadda. But Rice and Taylor weren’t on the team for the first two Super Bowls, but Mike Shuman was! And there was the fact Brady had Randy Moss for a few years. Strangely enough, Moss never won a Super Bowl with them (2 losses) or with us.

Anyhow, Happy 64th Birthday, Joe!

News out of the offseason is great for two important defensive players. both Dee Ford, who had his knee cleaned up, and D.J. Jones is fully recovered from his ankle injury. Ford still has tendonitis, but he reports that his knee feels 100% better than the limited time he played last season.

I’m sure the 49ers were looking for much more than the limited action they got from Ford, but his presence on the field did wonders for their sack totals. Having him available for more plays will only help. Jones on the other hand is poised to be the run stuffing force that they lost in DeFo. He was a 6th round pick who was playing extremely well before he was hurt.

Other than that, well, you get it.

Still no baseball, no hockey (so?), no nothing sports-wise unless you count some staged golf event that I didn’t muster the energy to look at, some NASCAR meh, so what’s going on?

Well, the Niners are looking to extend George Kittle’s contract. One that should put him in the range of $14-$15 mill a year. Something like 4 years and $60 mill is in the realm of possibility. Seeing as he is what he is, the best TE in the league who grades out at the top in yards after catch, catches, yards, and blocking, he’s worth the scratch. The good news is also the front office has done a good job with the deals to Garoppolo and AA, and are positioned fairly well to keep the team competitive.

Say what you will about the DeFoBu trade, but it saved the team a ton of money and allows for the extension to Kittle and got us Kinlaw. Yeah, Ford and Alexander will cost down the road, but that will be dealt with next season. So our contract situation isn’t nearly as dire as, say, the Rams.

The Rams are $5.3 mill OVER the cap and have yet to sign Jalen Ramsey to a deal. You know, they guy they traded two 1st round picks for. With $16.5 mill being the current CB standard set by Darius Slay and Byron Jones, you have to think Ramsey would want something in the ballpark of 5/$85 mill. They are paying Gurley and Cooks $42 million to play on other teams, along with the onerous Goff contract with $110 guaranteed.

Seattle and AZ? They are in decent shape I suppose. AZ looks to be the winner of the preseason though what with their acquisition of DeAndre Hopkins. A major coup for them. They are gonna be a tough row to hoe this season. Fucking Bill O’Brien should have been fired on the spot. O’Brien did such a shitty job coaching that they made him GM.

See below for O’Briens losing his cool during the draft. He had apparently worked out a deal with the Lions that they backed out of at the last minute.

Nothing going on, so here’s some highlights from birthday boy Ronnie Lott.

62 years old today.