I really just nothing the 49ers, rather than love or hate them. We all were obviously impressed by their performance last year that ended in a Kyle Shanahan special, losing a lead in a Super Bowl. This year, they saw some of the most intense injuries of any team in recent memory. Here’s a list of injuries of players who’ve missed significant time or are just done for the season: Nick Bosa, Raheem Mostert, George Kittle, Jimmy Garoppolo, Deebo Samuel, Tevin Coleman, Richard Sherman, Solomon Thomas, Brandon Aiyuk, Dee Ford. It’s a borderline competent NFL team filling out their injury reserve throughout the season. Somehow, this team beat this year’s anti-momentum team, the Arizona Cardinals after having to relocate to Arizona themselves for home games due to COVID restrictions. Kyle Shanahan, still maligned for his play calling in the Atlanta Super Bowl, as he should be, is undoubtedly one of the five best coaches in the NFL for what he’s done this year. Sure, they’ve had some blowouts where everything went wrong, but more often than not, they’re giving all hell to the three better (or at least healthier) teams in the division. On Saturday, the 49ers controlled the ball, stifling Kyler Murray as C.J. Beatheard, their third string QB, threw three touchdowns and running back de jour, Jeff Wilson almost ran for 200 yards. The Cardinals electrified the NFL this year with Kyler Murray making a mini-MVP push. His coach, Kliff Kingsbury, a foil to Shanahan, seems hell bent on losing games and fumbling game plans instead of putting his severely talented QB in a position to win. The 49ers didn’t need this game for any reason other than pride and showed up in a big way to help derail the Cards playoff hopes and the defense, probably most depleted, contained Kyler Murray. Of course Robert Saleh, the ebullient defensive coordinator gets credit, but I know the head coach, an offensive mastermind, was behind this performance. When you’re a coach of Shanahan’s level, you don’t leave anything to chance, nor do you ignore situations you know you’ll have to address on Sunday. Bad coaches just throw shit against the wall to see if their talent will work it out; not Shanahan. He clearly developed a plan to properly dispose of this competent Arizona defense and outcoach his counterpart in Kingsbury who clearly showed up expecting to win on talent alone. In fantasy this year, ther 49ers running backs were virtually must starts whoever they were as they dug deeper into their practice squad with so many COVID and other injury situations. This year with all the weirdness was always going to referendum on good organizations/coaches versus bad ones, so even if the 49ers go 6-10, they can rest easy knowing they’ll have a high draft pick and all the tools to reload and potentially head back to the Super Bowl next year.
When I was in 5th grade I played my first season of competitive lacrosse, a game I’d played around with since I was born. As I figured out in high school, where I was much improved as a varsity starter, I’d likely played on my town’s D team in 5th grade if there was such a thing. I had little interest in playing to be fair, but I tried and our team mostly consisted of other kids like me, though unlike me, all their dads would show up just to yell at them individually as “assistant” coaches. We lost every game that year. My next year wasn’t better and I believe we won one game. That, along with my Knicks fandom, was my foray into organized sports loserdom. I never lost like that again in sports so it’s my only shared experience with this year’s Jets team, who pulled off a two game win streak against an admittedly depleted Browns team that lacked any starting receivers. The Jets lost in incredible fashion this year, sometimes getting outright murdered or ripping their fans’ hearts out by putting up just enough to have victory snatched from them, like that Raiders game. Losing like that, it doesn’t really matter if it’s close, at least in my experience. It’s the inevitability feeling, haunting like the ghost in the movie Shutter, though undeservedly weighing on the shoulders of the losers. I’m so surprised the Jets managed to win these past two games given the organizational despair that’s threatened them with Browns or Lions or DCer level pessimism. The Jet have been good or at least competent most of my life with two somewhat recent AFC Championship appearances so this level of incompetence is somewhat unfamiliar. I just can’t fathom how at 0-13, the Jet players summoned something to win for this coach they clearly (along with anyone else with a pulse) hate and don’t enjoy playing for. It’s a testament to the concept that regardless of skill level, these guys belong in the NFL, competent enough to field themselves against the best football players in the world. As a soccer fan, I guess I just get happy when teams win like this. Bad soccer teams will NEVER sniff any sort of success, because of the gatekeeper format of their leagues. They are almost never competitive against elite teams who buy all of their players from bad teams as soon as they show a smidgeon of talent. The Jets are not West Bromwich Albion, they’ll get a really good QB prospect, hopefully a real coach and can rest on the hope they showed these last two weeks as a team with plenty of guys who won’t give up.
John Elway gets a lot of shit as the President/GM of the Broncos. It’s because he’s a quarterback who can’t draft quarterbacks, like Ozzie Newsome, a Hall of Fame pass-catcher who couldn’t draft pass-catchers. It’s the age old quandary where the most talented at their position don’t understand the struggle and nuance because they were always just awesome like Elway, one of the most talented quarterbacks ever. That’s continued with Drew Lock who’s just awful, I’m sorry I don’t even know that much about quarterback play but me and everyone else can just tell. Fortunately, Elway, like Newsome, built the rest of the roster really well and if the draft goes well, the Broncos might be scary next year. Despite Lock throwing a league leading 15 interceptions and the Broncos currently leading the NFL for turnovers, the defense still ranks in the top half of the league in defensive DVOA. They perennially find secondary players like Justin Simmons (drafted in the 3rd round), Chris Harris and drafted so well on the defensive line (fine, not Shane Ray) that they won a Super Bowl on the back of it. Yes that was five years ago, but Elways blueprint still holds as this defense consistently competes. They really stifled Mahomes a few weeks ago as he’s working on a second MVP award and did their best against the Saints a few back, while starting a practice squad wide receiver at quarterback. I’ve been generally very impressed with head coach Vic Fangio’s gameplans on defense this year, as that unit tries to compensate for Lock’s inability to run the offense. Looking at that offense, they have so many tools to compete. Noah Fant looks great as rangy tight end. Cortland Sutton, though missing this year, was awesome last year and projects as the number one receiver next year along with mini-speedster slot guy K.J. Hamler, Jerry Jeudy and a host of other guys they just seem to pull out of hats like Tim Patrick. Melvin Gordon is still young and looked awesome on Sunday and we know Phillip Lindsay is really talented. Hell, Garrett Bolles, who looked like a bust at left tackle has played considerably better this year. Everything from a team construction standpoint is there. I bemoaned watching this team earlier in the year, but have relented given how talented and disciplined they are on defense along with the offensive talent. Lock is so clearly the problem and I can’t remember an easier diagnosis for why a team loses any given game than Lock on this year’s Broncos. The body language of Broncos wide receivers on any given Lock interception or bad throw is depressing, like pre-Andrew Luck, post Peyton Manning, Colts skill position players or most of Odell Beckham’s time with the Giants and Eli. They seem defeated, knowing no matter what they do, their quarterback isn’t the answer. So, going back to Elway. He really needs to get this year’s QB draft choice right in a year stacked with options. If I were him, I’d trade up for Zach Wilson, who’s making a push for the number two slot and hope that Wilson’s skill set in the right system translates well with the offensive talent he’ll be granted. They could trade for Sam Darnold, or shit Deshaun Watson (I’d at least try) and go that route, but with Joe Flacco a recent experiment, I think they should look to rely on some younger, more accessible talent in the draft to lift this clearly well-crafted team to compete in this increasingly interesting division.
I want to say a little about Dwayne Haskins, who was released yesterday by the DCers, before the end of his second year, a first round pick in 2019, you know, last year? It’s a free fall for this probably overdrafted quarterback in a very weak QB draft as the team tried to make something happen while Alex Smith recovered from his devastating leg injury. I didn’t say it publicly then, but having grown up in the DC area, I knew Haskins wouldn’t work out the second they drafted him. He played in an Ohio State system that makes everyone look good, with elite talent around him and showed enough in pre-draft to earn his grade. He also reportedly wasn’t an awesome worker, with a rocky attitude; perfect for the DC team, wrought with QB failures over the years. I also knew when they drafted Kirk Cousins in the fourth round or whatever, after taking RGIII second overall, that problems between them would arise. Of course they did. As they’ve proved over the twenty or so years under Dan Snyder’s rule that incompetence is the only organizational strategy they’ve consistently followed. Snyder is getting the Donald Sterling treatment real hard right now, though the NFL would never do Snyder like the NBA did Sterling, it does give this friend of many DC football team fans hope that change could happen. Haskins was never going to succeed here from day one. The dead man walking coach thrust Haskins in midway last year after a 1-6 start and his awfulness was readily apparent, especially when they won through his fan selfie incident. He sucked, but they still won some games, providing a faulty vision of competence that carried into this season. Ron Rivera, fresh off some quarterback bullshit drama in Carolina where he led the franchise to its greatest heights, seemed lukewarm on Haskins. Despite consistently awesome defensive play all season, Haskins couldn’t get anything done, finally giving way for Kyle Allen, then Alex Smith who’s leg almost came off a few years ago. With Allen and Smith out this past weekend, Haskins again started and played a vintage game, two fucking horrific interceptions to go along with his checkdown Charlie passing game, going 5.5 on yards per attempt. He can’t read a defense, nor can he read his receivers, all of which were on full display on Sunday. Between that game and his strip club antics this week, the DCers cut him yesterday, only about a year and half after taking him the first round. Ron Rivera, clearly given power over this mess of an organization, asserted himself to clear Haskins from the QB room for some rando whose name sounds like a beer brand. This team actually sports a great roster everywhere except quarterback and might still make the playoffs. I’m just floored by the fact that this keeps happening. I watched Patrick Ramsey, Jason Campbell, RGIII and Kirk Cousins with such hope for my friends that were fans of this team, only to be cruelly kicked in the balls. Haskins seemed like a done deal from the start. If they make the playoffs, they better hope a team like the Cowboys is dumb enough to let Dak Prescott go because they’re not getting a marquee QB that late in the draft.
Bo's Gamut 