San Francisco 49ers Forever

Got the Colts and Chiefs as the afternoon tilt. Young upstart Patrick Mahomes vs the resurgent comeback player of the year Andrew Luck. KC is hotter than biscuits, esp at home, but they have a horrible playoff record since, oh, 1971. Indy’s getting 5 points.

Bucking the trend, I think KC wins but doesn’t beat the spread. 34-31 Chiefs

Dallas at LA? Part II of teams I don’t like, so in the interest of hating Dallas more I’ll take the Rams AND the spread (Dallas is getting 7?). Rams in a walk. 28-16 LARs

Chargers at NE. I’d love to pick the former San Dawgs, but the Chargers in the cold against Brady never works. SD is only getting 4, but NE by 7. 27-20 NE

Philly in the Big Easy. NO has been a bit erratic, and it’s hard to bet against the Philly Pholes Phenomenon. Good defenses have been shutting down Brees and Co, so Philly bucks the spread (+8) and and wins outright. 35-27 Iggles.

Kyler Murray, outfielder and the Oakland A’s first round draft pick (and Oklahoma star QB), is expected to come out and announce that he’s eligible for the 2019 draft. Why is this news to us? Well, Murray is getting a lot of hype as being the big prize now that he’s foregoing his senior year (which he told the A’s he was going to play), and enter the 2019 NFL draft.

Interesting still is the fact that new AZ coach Kliff Kingsbury was singing the praises of Murray last year as the head coach of Texas. Said Kyler was a first round talent. Lo and behold, look who holds the first round pick in the upcoming draft. Kingsbury. Could this possibly happen that AZ goes for Murray, trades Rosen, and basically gives us the first  shot at a premier pass rusher? Shit, we may even be in a position to do what we did with the Bears a couple years ago and trade down 2-3 spots and still get our guy should someone come begging to move up for Dwayne Haskins.

Great set of games last weekend, and a great set of games next week. The emergence of strong defenses during the waning weeks of the 2018 season continued, and the defenses did make their collective presences felt. No one scored more than 24 points (Dallas), and the only blow out was Indy over Houston 21-7.

Funny though was the fact that the top two defenses, Chicago and Baltimore both lost their games. At home, no less. Former San Diego zoomed out to a big lead, and nearly screwed the pooch as they sagged their defense midway through the 3rd quarter, and let the iffy rookie Lamar Jackson get his feet under him and nearly pull off the comeback.

Chicago on the other hand was pretty much dominated all game, yet still had the game within their grasp as a 43 yard FG attempt hit the left upright, AND the crossbar. Lost in all the anger around that kick, if you are a bears fan at least, is that the kick was tipped by Treyvon Hester. Juuuust enough to push the kick to the left.

The other games? Indy is looking fairly scary these days as they ride their 10-1 record to Kansas City. Indy dispatched the Houstons fairly easily as Houston never got rolling, and Luck played well, and Indy ran all over the Texans defense.

The Seattle Dallas game was a throwback game as both teams ran relentlessly all game. To the detriment of Seattle in my opinion. Seattle’s run game was stuffed all day, but Carroll kept going back to it time and again. 34 rushes for Dallas, and 24 rushes for Seattle. Which doesn’t sound like much till you realize that Seattle only threw 27 times, and Dallas threw 33 times. Elliot ran for over 100 yards, and pretty much kept Dallas rolling as Seattle had big problems establishing the run and had a shitload of 3-and-outs.

Good bunch of games, though.

The former SD on the road is a tough nut to crack as much as I’d like to see it.

Balt wins going away, 20 – 17.

Chi over Philly 14-7.

Well, we got a bunch of new teams and some old faves. Colts and Texans gives us the return of Andrew Luck. Both teams finished strong, and they split their matchups evenly.

Hou gets a point, but Just for fun, I’m picking Indy 28-20 over the Texans.

Seahawks Cowboys is a much more interesting game. I hate both teams, but I can never root for Dallas, so I’m hoping Seattle takes one on the road. Seattle runs and defens well, so they can be a big force in these playoffs, but as for now, Dallas fucks up with too many mistakes and loses 24-10. Dallas is getting 2.5 points, BTW.

The more I think about it, the more I think they should go for Josh Allen. Regardless of Baby Bosa. His injury is scary. He’s admitted as much in this open letter he penned to Ohio State.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/nick-bosa-ohio-state-buckeyes

Even if he comes back fine, we need an edge rushing linebacker, not another defensive lineman. Someone in the mold of Khalil Mack. Someone who makes plays all over the field.

The big ? in this draft is the emergence of Dwayne Haskins from Ohio State. He went from the 4th QB on the depth chart to the top in a hurry. But AZ doesn’t need a QB, and neither do we. The top team in the draft than needs a QB is likely the Jaguars. Blake Bortles fell to Earth fast than David Bowie and Jax is desperate for a QB. whether they would even think about trading up to ensure they get him is likely a pipe dream, but hey, that’s what the draft is all about. The team I see trading out IS ASZ as they don;t really need Bosa, but would possibly go for Quinnen. Williams.

Still and all, I’d take Allen. Or QW. Bosa is starting to worry me.

Yes, another disappointing season bites the dust as we close the 2018 season with another set of double-digit losses and another high pick. We won’t know for a few more hours our draft position, but #1 is still in play. Seeing as the Rams are playing for home field, I give us little hope, but the Rams offense has lost their luster since their 54-51 win over KC a while back.

Seattle is resting their starters, os keep hope alive that AZ pulls one out of their ass.

I could go on about the season, but we all saw the slowly moving train wreck that started with jiny G going down, and the emergence of Nick Mullens as a viable backup. For all the scrubs we employed on offense, they did pretty well. The defense? Not so much. They did get a little better toward the end of the year as they went more press man.

Looks like Bosa or Quinnen for us.

Hope all is well with youse guys out in 49ers bloggerland. The 49ers somehow snuck back into 2nd place in the running for the 2019 draft, and even #1 if the improbable happens (AZ beats Seattle on the road), and we lose to the Lambs on the road.

Well, our loss is all but guaranteed as the Rams are playing for home-field, the other games that would determine their fate are happening at the same time, and the Seahawks will more than likely rest their starters as their game has no bearing on their playoff position.

So, a possible perfect storm of events could still land us in the top spot. Which, I’m nearly sorry to say, will be spent on yet another defensive lineman. An edge rusher to be specific. Nick Bosa is the consensus choice, but he needs to prove to the league, and to the Niners, that he is fully recovered from his core tear, or whatever the fuck happened to him. A strange injury that either is:

a) no big deal

or

b) a possible career threatening injury that he may never recover from

I’m sure by the combine and pro days we’ll have a ssense how he’s doing, but it is still a little worrisome to pick a guy so high that could be damaged goods.

The bummer for SF is that there isn’t a very strong QB draft class, and the one guy who HAS value, Justin Herbert from Orygun has declared for his senior year and will not be coming out. This causes all sorts of commotion, mainly in that we can’t trade out of the top of the draft should someone throw desperation picks at us should AZ not trade out.

The other QBs rated worth a damn are Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins and Duke’s Daniel Jones, but no one is touting them as #1’s by any means. So, it looks like a strong possibility that we miss out on Bosa, and can’t even trade out of the #2 spot.

I’d bet that since there’s no QBs on the board worth a damn, we get another DT, Quinnen Williams. Bye Bye AA. Although I will say we very well could go with Josh Allen from Kentucky. He is an excellent edge rusher and also covers well. We are down a linebacker with reuben Foster of course being on the purgatory list, and cut besides, so that remains a possibility.

Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I don’t get the Bears. They lose to the hapless Giants and beat the high-flying Rams. They beat Seattle but lose to the Phins. I just don’t know how real they are. They have scored a ton some days (41 vs the Bills, 48 vs the Bucs, 38 vs the Pats in a loss), and little on some days (16 vs the cards in a win, 15 vs the Rams in a win) so they have a good defense, except for the 31 they gave up to the Dolphins, 38 to the Pats, and 30 to the Giants.

Yes, they have Khalil Mack, a one-man wolf pack, but neutralize him, and there are points to be gotten. However, teams are doing it with their WRs, not TEs, so we need to get Pettis, Bourne and Goodwin more involved. Quick passes with the occasional deeper routes. Then go underneath to Kittle. They are tough on the run, as we just saw with Gurley and the Rams, so  this is going to be a tough game for the Niners.

I think we keep it close, but if BDN pulls this off somehow, he’ll be the new stud of the league. Win? Doubt it.

As the 49ers grind toward the end of yet another 10+ loss season, they once again have a glimmer of hope amid the wreckage. And that is free agent quarterback Nick Mullens. Mullens was so highly touted that he played free safety on the scout team last year. Yet, what he was also doing was studying the shit out of the playbook.

Mullens has been getting kudios up the wazoo for his work ethic and his study habits. Something that seems to have paid off in this misbegotten season. One that saw Garoppolo go down in week 3, and his back up, the Beater, going 0-5 and getting hurt in his stead, and Mullens stepping into the breach and guiding the team to 3 wins in 6 tries. If not the the scattershot defense, and the unreal amount of fumbles, we could have beaten the Giants at least.

Be that as it may, Shanahan is talking that the competition for backup QB is wide open. Sure it is. And that means nothing to say it now. The Beater may not even be on the roster by July. And that may not even be the issue. How about the starting QB job? Is that competition open next year? By the time next season kicks off, Mullens will have the same amount of starts that Jimmy G has. BDN makes all the throws, gets the ball out quickly, feels pressure pretty well, and can extend plays to move the chains.

Sure, there’s the fact that defense is wildly inconsistent, and can’t create turnovers to save themselves, but it is showing incremental improvement these last few games. Still, it isn’t helping whoever the quarterback is at any rate. And we are still a bit shy of a fully fleshed out roster despite the meteoric rise of Stone Cold George Kittle.

If the 49ers can keep Khalil Mack in check, and beat the Bears, it would really put some sauce behind a nascent quarterback controversy. One we haven’t seen since the likes of Joe Reed and Tom Owen.