San Francisco 49ers Forever

Camp is almost here! Which means we are that much closer for the season to start! Last year’s early expectations, and the subsequent crash-and-burn are behind us, and the real season that is supposed to be our second coming has nearly arrived.

Of course the trepidation factor is off the charts as it was only last year that our starting RB Jerick McKinnon was waylaid by an ACL tear on day 1.  that was the beginning of the injury maelstrom that enveloped the team last year. Now that we have a new training staff, we’ll avoid the injury bug. One can hope. One can also hope that the recent acquisitions like Dee Ford and Kwon Alexander can hit the ground running. Kentavius Street can provide an outside pass rush along with rookie stud Nick Bosa.
Jason Verrett can stay healthy. Witherspoon finds his game with a better pass rush. Richard Sherman keeps up his good work.

There’s a whole lot of players coming off injury, and a whole lot of question marks around this offense. Most glaringly the play of our quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. If anything, we discovered our backup in Nick Mullens, who directed the team to some solid wins last year. Wins that came with 4th string RBs, DBs, and LBs on the field.

We had a solid draft and added weapons on offense. Just have to wait and see how this plays out. Bring it on!!

Well, they did it! They signed that missing piece from the soon-to-be dynastic 49ers. They signed their placekicker! Robbie (I’m good as gold, just ask me) Gould signed a 4 year, $19 million deal to remain with the 49ers.  Well, it’s actually a guaranteed 2-year deal that the team can bail on.

Crazy thing is, he isn’t the highest paid kicker. That distinction belongs to the Ravens Justin Tucker. He makes a cool $5 mill a year. What seemed like a barely veiled ploy by Gould to get more money, we,, he got it. And, as long as everyone is happy, hey it’s all water under the bridge. As Winder said, it’s now one less thing to worry about. I would have preferred a draft pick or 2, but as noted, everyone’s happy.

In other important news, Jimmy G has been cleared to fully participate in training camp.

The fun with Robbie Gould continues as Gould sits on the sidelines and pines for the Bears. Funny thing is, the Bears are depleted of draft picks due to the Khalil  Mack trade, and they are into Cross-bar Parkey for about $5 million in dead money after his release, AND they would likely need to pay Gould some pretty big dollars once they did trade for him.

https://www.ninersnation.com/2019/7/11/20689519/49ers-robbie-gould-reporting-decision-training-camp

He’s not going to sign a deal here. The question remains, will he sit for the season rather than play? He’s made somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 million in his NFL career, so, gee, I don’t feel that bad for the poor guy.  It just seems like a total weasel move to pull this kind of shit. he ain’t a WR, a pass rusher, or star corner, FFS.

Again, kicking isn’t easy, but it isn’t the clusterfuck the Bears made it out to be.

Where’s this guy?

Andrew Baggett

Less than 4 weeks away, 24 days to be exact, before training camp starts. July 26th. Mick Jagger’s birthday. Circle that date. Why does this feel like the longest slowest offseason in history? The new CBA has something to do with it. The interminable lull between the draft and camp is the other. Crazy thing is, 2 weeks after camp starts, we have out first preseason game against the Cowboys. Seems like we barely get ANY practice in pads at full speed, and teams still get waylaid by injuries. They may have gone too far in the wrong direction with the reduction in padded practices.

Anyhow, word out of the Nick Bosa camp is that he is healthy and ready to fully participate in training camp. Ready but not able, until he signs. He and Deebo Smith haven’t inked their deals yet.  All the rest of our rookie class has signed, and although I haven’t heard anything specific, I’d think Deebo and Bosa will be at camp early with the other rookies.

Or is it? Nothing to report on these days in the doldrums between the draft, OTAs, and actual camp. Time for boys to be good boys and not get caught up in any shenanigans, or felonies for that matter. One (well, me) has to wonder if there are still a couple free agents still out there, let alone after camp cut down days.

Perusing the free agent list, a few solid DBs are still floating out there, including Morris Claiborne, and Tre Boston. With Jimmy Ward out yet again, Boston makes a lot of sense. He’s had 10 picks and 26 passes defensed the past 3 years, and is only 26. Claiborne is a good corner who would add depth along with his 22 passes defensed and 3 picks in the last couple years. Nothing spectacular but solid depth nonetheless. There’s always Eric Berry, good guy but like Ward has trouble staying on the field.

Donald Penn can be had as a swing tackle who can provide depth on the line. Wilkerson and Derrick Morgan are available at OLB. Shit, even Kelvin Benjamin is still out there.

Here’s the list of top 50.

Top 50 Available 2019 NFL Free Agents List

With lil’ Robbie Gould bitching his way out of SF, and with the kicking saga in Chicago reaching epic proportions, you’d think we could work out some kind of fleecing deal that Lynch could conjure up with da Bears. Chicago is in kicking hell, and holding open tryouts for placekickers from the magic 33 yard line. Yes, the same 33 yard line where recently cut, and still collecting bank, Cody Pankey famously double-doinked his kick in the playoffs last year.

Funny thing is, no one in the tryouts can hit from 43. They had 8 guys kicking, and they went 2-8. They narrowed it down to Dewey, Cheathan, and Howe Piniero, Blewett, and Fry. They got the benefit of the doubt and were kicking 42 yard FGs. They all missed. Because Blewett, well, blew it, he was blown off the team. They are down to Fry and Piniero. Are they even options? Are they in the market for Robbie? He’s been openly pleading to go back there after they shoved him out the door 4 years ago.

Given the fact that Matt Nagy has made this such a huge deal for the team, one would think we could work out a trade. Chicago won’t be trading draft picks to us as they have burned a shit ton last year (1st and 2nd for Khalil Mack, 4th rounder to move up and get David Montgomery) and they only have 6 picks.

Players? It would be cool to get ILB Danny Trevathan from the Bears. They’ll get cap relief of around $6 mill, they get their kicker, and we shore up our defense even more. We’d proll have to throw in a 4th round pick or something, but hey sounds good to me.

Hey, I know. The draft is over. Well, talking about it never is, so there’s that. Just wanted to post this draft info re the NFC West by draftnik Chris Trapasso. Interesting take on the Cardinals, if nothing else. He says they nailed the draft, did very well in free agency and were smart in going away from Josh Rosen. Kingsbury even gets high marks for his high-powered offense. We’ll see about that, and how fast they assimilate all their changes.

He gives the 49ers high marks. His only ding was shared by most of us. Not much in the way of secondary help. But he notes the pass rush should be vastly improved, Jimmy G and new weapons should do wonders. The hope is with another season under their belts, this offense improves greatly and the defense finally gets its collective shit together.

The Hawks and Rams are who they are and shouldn’t be backsliding much, if at all. Though I think Seattle’s defense will finally suffer from all their losses these last couple years.

Thing is, this division should be one of the tougher ones going forward. All these teams improved, and all could be vying for playoff berths.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfc-west-2019-offseason-grades-cardinals-vast-makeover-earns-an-a-49ers-also-get-top-mark/

. . . I guess. Hey, there’s not much going on, but I did get this tweet from the 49ers yesterday regarding the Niners new WR coach, Wes Welker.

Got to say, for an undrafted short white guy, he did himself well in the NFL. Paving the way for guys like Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, and Trent Taylor. Welker of course played for Brady and the Pats for 6 years, with Manning in Denver for 2 years, and even the Rams for 2 years, yet somehow missed out on winning a Super Bowl.

Irregardless, the guy had 5 100+ catch seasons to go along with 5 1000+ yard seasons, including a 122 catch, 1569 yard all-pro season in 2011. Even his first 3 years in Miami, he amassed more all-purpose yards than Walter Payton in his first 3 years.

What he brought to the NFL of course, is his ability to get open among bigger faster corners, safeties, and linebackers. He did this through his precise route running. Now that we have a fairly decent set of WRs to work with, getting Jimmy G and Deebo, Hurd, Jordan Matthews, Goodwin, and co, along with McKinnon, Coleman and Brieda out of the backfield, we can finally kick some ass with the passing game if we can keep Jimmy clean for a few seconds.

Welker seems to be a good fit as a young coach who can get these guys into empty spaces in the defense. Something that has been sorely lacking lo these past few (15) seasons.

RIP Bart Starr

It ain’t much, but the 49ers signed CB Dontae Johnson, waived LB Pita Taumoepenu and released OL Anthony Davis. Davis of c0urse has bailed, unbailed, and reunbailed these past few years.

Johnson was decent enough at times, Pita was a PITA, and what can you say about A Davis? Release him and sign him to a minimum deal, and then toss him to the curb. Or trade him to some other sucker

Other than that, not much to report on.

Go Warriors ! ! !

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Pro Football Focus (among others) list the 49ers as playoff contenders this young 2019 season. Of course as the Redskins found out, injuries can hit hard and fast. Reuben (Instant Karma) found out one minute into the first set of OTA drills.

Question is, is this one real? Last offseason was a bit of smoke and mirrors with the Jimmy G run to end the year. Injuries waylaid our season in a big way, and we staggered down the meat of the year until yet another improbable late season run by Nick Mullens. He didn’t win a lot, but he put up some serious numbers that opened a lot of eyes. Thing is, though, we did not have very many offensive weapons, and injuries to the running backs in particular killed any shot at consistency. Throw in a God awful defense that couldn’t cover a sloth, let alone WRs and TEs, and we had what we had.  A complete disaster.

Yes, we were the darling upstarts last year who got smacked down like a bitch in a hurry. Now however we addressed the biggest failings of the offense and defense. Playmakers and pass rushers. We drafted two WRs, we (hopefully) get Jarick McKinnon back to go with Tevin Coleman, and a healthy Matt Brieda to run and catch passes out of the backfield. Kittle comes back as a bona fide star, and Kaden Smith looks to break into the lineup.

Defensively, we didn’t address our defensive backfield, but the hope is the pass rush will make them better by the fact opposing quarterbacks will have much less than 5+ seconds to throw their passes. The addition of Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, and Kwon Alexander (and maybe a trade soon) looks to greatly improve this pass rush. Fred Warner is a year wiser, and what has changed is we have more team speed.  The D line should be in good shape with Buckner in top form. The rest will be a work in progress as they figure out yet again the best spot to put Solly Thomas.

The guy who intrigues me is Kentavius Street. He was a mid 1st round guy till his knee injury, so he could make any number of D linemen expendable. This is gonna be a very interesting training camp.

Say what you will about our chances, we have a MUCH better roster than last year.