Baalke on not drafting a corner: “There were times we tried to address it. The board didn’t fall that way. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

SANTA CLARA — Here is the transcript of Trent Baalke’s post-draft press conference, courtesy of the 49ers’ public relations department.

Today was an offensive-heavy day, but I’m curious about the 5th round selection of Bradley Pinion. What did you see in him as a punter and what does it mean for P Andy Lee?

“First thing, what we saw in Bradley is a big, strong-legged punter that also kicks off. What it means for Andy, no different than any other position. You come in and you compete. It’s not a message to Andy at all. As we always talk about, best player on the board at the time.”

He’s a big guy, but seems like his best attribute is the finesse game, not knocking it into the endzone. 

“You’ve watched a lot of film on him.”

 

Is that what kind of drew you to him? His control, directional punting, not putting it into the endzone.

“Everybody coaches their punters differently. Some want them to drive the ball. Some want them to position the ball. It’s really independent of the system. But he does a nice job controlling the ball, pinning it inside the 20. He’s been real effective. He’s shown the ability to kick off as well, which is always an asset. At the same time, Andy has been here for a long time and he’s a heck of a punter. We expect him to come in and continue to compete. It’s not Bradley’s job, it’s Andy’s job. It’s Brad’s job to come in and win that job.”

 

Did former 49ers RB Marcus Lattimore give you any scouting report on RB Mike Davis?

“We got a little bit of information, a little inside information. That’s a player that the scouts did a tremendous job with getting information, as they always do. He’s a guy that’s been intriguing for us. Been pretty much in the same place on our board the entire draft process, which is always nice. Sometimes you get guys that move up, move down, based on different information. This is a guy that stayed really in the same spot the whole way through.”

 

He said that he took a lot of pride in pass blocking. Did that come through on the film that you watched?

“I used to work for [South Carolina head coach] Coach [Steve] Spurrier when we were in Washington. Obviously, he throws the ball all over the place. So, if you’re a running back in that system, you got to be able to catch the ball and you got to be able to pass pro. He’s shown the ability to do that. He’s a three-down back in the National Football League. That was what we were looking for.”

 

Your connection with Spurrier, does that explain Lattimore, Culliver, three guys I think today from South Carolina? I’m sure it goes beyond that. Does that relationship make you feel a little more comfortable drafting some of those South Carolina guys?

“Well, you know they’re going to be well-coached. They’re going come into the league, especially on the offensive side of the ball, and that’s nothing against the defense, but on the offensive side of the ball you know they’re going to come into the league well-versed. They’re going to be able to pick up the information. They’re going to usually, almost always be able to on play three downs, if it’s a back. And they’re prepared.”

 

The wide receiver you got out of Georgia Tech, do you plan on redshirting him this year coming off that ACL?

“I don’t know that ‘redshirt’ is the right word. He should be ready to go. It all depends what he looks like when he gets in here, what we need to do to get him rehabbed and ready to go. But it’s a situation where he may not be ready for training camp, but he may be ready at some point in the immediate future after that. We just got to get our hands on him, see exactly where he’s at. But feel confident that the rehab is going very well up to this point. We’ll see what we’re dealing with when we get our hands on him.”

What did you like about him that you did see on film from the two years that he did play at Georgia Tech?

“Well, he’s big. He’s physical. He can block. He can run after the catch. He’s got huge hands, size 11 hands. He’s a physical wide receiver. One of the things that coach and I talked about through this process is we wanted to get bigger, we wanted to get faster, we wanted to get more competitive. We wanted more four-down players, guys that could go out there and compete on special teams. And we feel we addressed that with most of these guys, if not all of these guys.”

 

He wasn’t able to run a 40. Where did you guys have him at in terms of his tape and his play speed?

“We thought he was somewhere in the low to mid 4.5s. For a guy 227 pounds, he moves pretty well. Heck of an athlete. Obviously a baseball player. If we need a guy to get in there and throw the rock a little bit around, he can throw a 97 mile-per-hour fastball, so I think he might be able to throw a football around, too. Joking.”

 

With Marcus Lattimore, obviously, not being able to come back, does picking a player with a torn ACL, a serious knee injury like that give you any more pause based on what happened last fall?

“I wouldn’t compare his situation at all to Marcus’. Marcus sustained a very traumatic injury, much more severe than your normal ACL tear. They’re just non-comparable injuries. Anytime you take a player that has had an injury, there’s certainly risk involved. In this game, there’s always risk because you’re only one play away from the injury, right?”

 

Can you talk about the versatility TE Blake Bell has and whether you see him as kind of an emergency quarterback, as well? 

“Interesting point. We do see him as an emergency quarterback. We do see a guy that we can train up there. That was brought to me by the coaches. The coaches took a look. My hat’s off to them because they did the work. They went through and took a look at him last week as a quarterback and kind of gave us a feeling that, you know what, we can get this guy ready to play and be an emergency backup in that situation. But he’s definitely been brought in here to be a tight end. That’s a good room. There’s a lot of talent in that room. So there’s going to be a lot of competition going into this offseason and into this training camp.”

 

Eight tight ends right now on the roster?

“I believe that count is right, eight, yes.”

Can you keep eight on your 90-man or are you going to have to do some stuff before you get to camp?

“To be honest with you, we have to go back and talk through all that and talk through what the 90 is going to look like. Right now, we have eight. Will it stay at eight? That remains to be seen. Myself, coach and the rest of the coaching staff will get together, we’ll talk through exactly what we need to do. We’re going to bring the best 90 players into camp.”

 

With those tight ends, why add TE Busta Anderson in the seventh round. Is there some element that he has that you don’t have with the other guys?

“He was the highest-rated player on our board. Once again, I keep going back to that, but you never go wrong taking good football players. He was the highest-rated player on our board. It just so happened that Arizona, the pick or two right after us, took a tight end. Maybe that was the guy. If he was the highest-rated tight end and we were able to keep that from happening, more power to us. I’m not saying that Arizona, that was their target either. But you’re always looking to take the best player available. If you have him, that means someone else can’t get him.”

 

There was a situation where Arizona jumped up ahead of you earlier, I believe in the fourth round. 

“You’d have to tell me. I remember them jumping ahead of us. It didn’t impact our situation. They didn’t take a player that we were looking at.”

 

Getting back to Bell, did you say the coaches worked him out as a quarterback recently?

“No, I didn’t say they worked him out. I said they watched all the film, a lot of the film of him at quarterback and gave us an assessment as to what they thought of him at that position and what he could do for us in that role.”

 

Not to go position by position and figure out all the numbers that you want to keep, but looking at running back, without former 49ers RB Frank Gore here now and you add Mike Davis, you have RB Jarryd Hayne come in, how do you see those guys getting into this mix?

“Compete, right, like we do at every position. We’re going to roll out the ball. Coaches are going to coach the heck out of them. We’re going to find out exactly what we have in every one of those players and what role they will fill if they’re on the 53.”

 

OL Trenton Brown played guard last season for Florida. Do you guys see him more as an offensive tackle?

“Right now we see him as an offensive lineman. He played offensive tackle in 2013. He played guard and a little bit of tackle in 2014. He’s 6’8″. He’s 350 pounds. He runs a 5.23. He has 36-inch arms. There’s something to work there. It’s a big piece of clay right now. We got some work to do. But he’s played a lot of football at a high level of competition. He’s shown versatility. He’s shown the ability to learn multiple positions. With that, you got something to work with.”

 

He said that his diet has not been good in his life, but he recently improved it and he’s seen his weight drop. Do you have an idea about, with a steady workout regiment, better diet, where he might end up weight-wise?

“I think what we have to do is get him in here. We got to get our strength coaches, our medical staff, training staff I should say, to take a look, see where he’s at on certain criteria that we use, and find out what the ideal weight is for him. But we’re confident in talking with him that he understands what he’s got to do to make this football team. He’s going to have to come in here and work, like all of these guys. But when you’re a seventh-round pick, the writing’s on the wall.  You know what you need to do.”

Quarterback-wise, you have QB Colin Kaepernick, QB Blaine Gabbert, QB Dylan Thompson, assuming he signs. Anybody else you’re looking to bring in as an undrafted guy or is that it?

“I don’t know where we’re at with Dylan. We came down here. I don’t know where that’s at. I can’t comment.”

 

He announced it. 

“Thank you. We got one.”

 

Assuming he signed, will that complete the quarterback group?

“For the time being, yes.”

 

Were all of your picks today kind of about adding power and size and getting back to that power mentality you guys want on offense?

“I think it was all about best player. Like I said earlier, when we went into the draft, we were looking at certain criteria that we felt we needed to do. We wanted to stay big. We wanted to get faster. We wanted to get as much football intellect as we could out of each position. We wanted healthy guys, guys that had a history of playing and not missing games due to injury. Some guys are injury-prone. We wanted to stay away from that as much as we could. We felt we addressed all of that. And they’re good guys. They’re going to come in here. They know their role right now. I think you saw through the guys that you’ve at least contacted and the messaging that they’ve been giving, they know they’re going to have to come in here and compete and compete for a role.”

 

You talked about the good guys. At first blush, doesn’t look like you took character risk. There were a lot of guys out there on the board this year, maybe more than ever, maybe it’s more reported than ever. Was it a conscious effort to stack your roster with guys who aren’t character risks?

“Like I mentioned yesterday, there’s the known and the unknown, right? We tried to do the best job we could of avoiding the known. We’ll deal with the unknown once we get rolling here. But we felt we did a solid job. My hat’s off, once again, to the scouts. They worked tirelessly all year long gathering information, talking to sources, meeting the guys, spending extra time with them in the spring. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. I feel strongly that we’ve done a good job of identifying the known, OK? Now, what the unknown is, we’ll deal with that as it comes. But we feel good about this group of guys, that’s for sure.”

 

Last year you drafted four defensive backs. This year, no cornerbacks at all. Is it fair to glean then that you like what you have at the cornerback position right now going forward?

“We do. We really do. We’re high on the three guys we took in last year’s draft. We tried to address it at multiple times during this draft. The board, it didn’t fall that way. Sometimes they fall, sometimes they don’t. We’re not going to reach. We’re not going to reach for players. It’s just something we don’t do. But we do feel good, real good, about that group in that room right now.”

 

Each of your first three picks was followed directly by a cornerback. Were those cornerbacks taken after your first three picks in a different tier than the players you took?

“I think you could assume that. Now, I don’t know who the exact players are you’re referring to.”

 

Marcus Peters, Eric Rowe… 

“Rowe is a corner/safety, right? On our board, he was a safety, not a corner. So I don’t know where Philadelphia is going to play them. We had him at a safety. We took the safety that we wanted and felt very good about that pick. So like I said, there were times we tried to address it. The board didn’t fall that way. Sometimes it doesn’t. But we feel real good about the group we have and feel real good about the players that we drafted the last three days.”

 

Given the backgrounds of Bell and WR DeAndre Smelter, it seems like guys you don’t have tons of play of Bell, one season at tight end that you can see. Not a ton of tape on Smelter as well, he’s coming off the ACL. Do you view the fourth round as an area where you can start taking risks on guys like that with intriguing physical qualities but interesting background?

“A fair question. I’m not trying to compare. I never make comparisons. But when you look statistically at Jimmy Graham and you compare his college statistics to Blake Bell’s, I think you’ll see that they’re very similar, right? Once again, that’s a Pro Bowl tight end. He’s had a heck of a career. Not making that comparison at all. All I’m pointing out is statistically they were very similar. He’s a guy that only had one year at that position. We just see the skill sets that we’re looking for in a tight end and feel like, once again, he’s a heck of an athlete at 6’6″, 250 plus pounds, running in the mid 4.7s. Highly competitive, very smart, former quarterback. Great work ethic. All the intangibles you’re looking for. You like the upside in those kind of guys.”

 

You’ve commented on all the picks except for one. What drew you to OL Ian Silberman?

“Guard/tackle combination. He’s played both inside and outside. Another guy that has a high football intellect and toughness. That and he’s got size and he can run. There’s something to work with there. That’s what you’re looking for the later you get into the draft. You’re looking for traits and you’re looking for the intangibles. Because If they have some traits and they’ve got good intangibles, you know you’re going to get as much out of them as they got in them. That’s what you’re looking for.”

 

In this draft in particular, you talked about best player available on your board. Is that unique to this draft? Have you done this more than other drafts in recent seasons?

“I don’t think so. Once again, this might have laid out a little differently than some of the other boards have. As I looked at it, and I’m trying to think back to those other drafts and where guys were, but there were some clear differences this year, where maybe at a need position there was a guy, but the guy we ended up taking was at least a round or maybe two rounds higher on the board. So we just stuck with the board. And no injury questions, I like that.”

This article has 31 Comments

  1. “Rowe is a corner/safety, right? On our board, he was a safety, not a corner. So I don’t know where Philadelphia is going to play them. We had him at a safety.
    ——————
    Interesting.

  2. ” there were times we tried to address it.”

    I would have liked a follow up to ask whether that meant they tried to trade up or that they were simply hoping someone was going to fall to them?

  3. I found this very interesting. Is this pointing to a future change in drafting philosophy?

    “And no injury questions, I like that.”

  4. ” at times we tried to address it”. I just think it’s a standard quotation he gives to reporters hoping it will suffice as a rational for not going in that direction. He said literally the same thing the last couple of years in response to questions as to why they didn’t address certain needs.

  5. We wanted to get faster. We wanted to get as much football intellect as we could out of each position. We wanted healthy guys, guys that had a history of playing and not missing games due to injury. Some guys are injury-prone. We wanted to stay away from that as much as we could. We felt we addressed all of that.

    Some of your picks don’t mesh with this Baalke.

  6. Sometimes…..these sometimes has lasted every draft since Baalke became GM……to say it frankly, that is not good enough, if i should give it a grade it would be an F.

  7. You know, it must’ve been a pretty sad draft if the best player available on their board in the 5th round was a punter.

    1. Perhaps drafting a punter / kicker, who has fewer punts and KO’s returned has some value. I’m still not crazy about that pick, but I’ll give it a chance to work.

      1. Not so much the drafting of a punter, but the spot he was drafted in. Much more palatable in the late 6th to 7th rounds.

        Liked the “Pop” Tartt & “Belldozer” picks; still, outside of Eli Harold, Mike Davis, and the 7th rounders, guys were drafted much earlier than where they were graded on public draft boards.

        We will never know how it would have played out, but from what we do know, it suggests that Baalke could have pushed the envelope and traded down some more and still got these guys.

  8. True, there were some unusual picks, but isn’t a little early to freak out?

    1. Exgolfer- It this draft was the exception rather than the rule I might say you have a point. It’s just that Baalke has followed this same pattern for most of his career at GM. He is a methodical individual who only breaks away from his method on whims. It is now obvious that he was referring too when he said he learned his lesson with Jenkins. Jenkins was a whim. Problem with Baalke is that he doesn’t recognize that those “whims” are a predictable coping mechanism to his methodology. Methodology = OCD. Those whims are purely the reactionary responses to his own dysfunction. Lessons are learned when we recognize that the rational for our methodology is flawed. Baalke has not realized that. He returned to his methodology. Jenkins and his other mistakes were not caused by a flaw in his methodology rather by his reactionism to it. He can not learn because his mistakes are not caused by his brain but emotionally driven irrational reactions. We are screwed!

      1. Willtalk,
        Ah the brain.
        It is the untapped frontier of mystery and unpredictable actions and reactions.
        But, let’s give Baalke about a year before making a more concrete determination of this draft class.

        On paper, I’m not entirely please with this class, but the real litmus will come when they hit the field. Until then, I’ll try my best to blast this draft class and Baalke’ brain (lol).

        1. If reason dictated peoples actions than those actions could more easily be quantified and more predictable. What makes actions seem to be unpredictable is is emotionally driven dysfunctional agendas that distort the individuals perspective and thus influence their actions. The key to recognizing the intent and motivation is recognition of the dysfunction and the effect it has on the individuals rational and perspective. Once intent is recognized actions can be very predictable. The reverse is also applicable. Repeated behavior will give insight into a persons motivations and expose their dysfunctions. If you know what someone wants to do that will let you narrow their possible potential actions. Like if a team needs short yardage vs a quick score when time is running out.

  9. U know one thing to keep in mind, every year, the Browns, Rams, etc, draft all these big name, great players and still suck. We draft football players, big, strong, fast, tough and we go to the NFC championship 3 years straight, SB once, and an 8-8 season decimated by injuries. Plus, gave away 3 games to boot. We didn’t win just because of Harbaugh, anymore than we lost, just because we had a crappy OC. Yes, Roman got worse every year. We won because Baalke drafted a ton of talent.

    No one here knows crap about evaluating talent, including GC. It’s like telling a neurosurgeon how to operate before begins his surgery on you. The only thing that matters are the results. We won’t know the results until 2 years from now, so giving a grade is a joke. I would say lady year Baalke did pretty good, considering how many guys stepped up. Borland was just bad luck. One lesson from that, don’t draft guys who have other options than football.

  10. Danners—– “No one here knows crap about evaluating talent.” Stupid absolute statement. Don’t you realize absolutes are indefenseable? This could imply two different meanings and either one is contradicts itself. “No one here” You see you are also here so you include yourself as well and yet you make a blanket statement about every contributor’s evaluation abilities. You are evaluation everyone’s evaluation talents.

    To imply that someone has no abilities or knowledge on a subject carries with it an assumption that you are their superior. You did that for every contributor on this board. Yet you did not come out directly and say that, but instead used a false ploy of humility. You stated “we are all stupid” only including yourself as an out in order to hide the appearance of, and escape accountability for your own arrogance. Or taking you statement literally at face value it would imply that you are laboring under the assumption everyone’s abilities are as limited as your own.

    To equate drafting ability with neurosurgery is absurd. The knowledge involved in surgery is an exact science. Evaluating football skill is not. To assume that people in football are always expert and competent is a stretch. People often end up in positions of power not because of their abilities to do their jobs, but rather their abilities to acquire their positions. York didn’t get his position because of ability and York is the one who hired Baalke.

    As to your contention that we shouldn’t attempt to evaluate this draft because it take two years to actually tell the results of how good the players are, that’s totally irrelevant to most peoples objection. How good these players will turn out was never most peoples objection. The fact that Baalke is drafting players for the future when there are immediate needs now is. It was in respect to drafting for the future rather than more immediate needs which reflected their contention that this was not a good draft. I personally always stated that my problem with Baalke was that he was always focused on the future at the expense of the present.

    You stated that he drafted a ton of talent. You give him credit for the team Harbaugh won with. Yet he was only GM one year before Harbaugh became coach. He drafted all that talent in one year? For two years Trent had high draft picks. He also does have talent in wheeling and dealing to acquire extra picks, but considering the amount of picks he had to work with he didn’t get a lot of talent. The ton of talent was acquired in the first year. He got Davis and Lupati- not bad picks but not that special considering how high they were picked. The next year he got Aldon but again considering how high he picked and the fact he passed on Watts to take him not a really great pick. Reid perhaps but again he was picked high as well and most players picked that high are productive. Where are the rest of those ” ton of talent” players you are referring too? The over whelming majority of those ton of talent players are still in the potential category. That’s the point of why the draft wasn’t that great- It entirely potential. Good GM’s have the ability to recognize talent that will fill immediate needs and do not always have to rely on IR or potential players to increase their value per draft positions ratio’s.

    I don’t profess to be an expert in evaluating football talent ( although my track record in recognizing playmakers has been pretty good ). I do have the ability to recognize dysfunctional personalities and in that respect let me say that Baalke carries more than his share of red flags.

    1. Danners— Figuring that Baalke has been drafting for 6 years now, one ton does not equate to that much talent. Lets see that 2000 lbs. That would only work out to 330 lbs of talent a year. In his first year he drafted two big line man so that sort of decreased the average poundage in his later drafts. lol.

      1. Even better, show me where Baalke’s drafting has led to this team underachieving. I can point to about 20 other other teams that have underperformed consistently over the past 6 years, including Rams. They draft big name players, they have a hall of fame type coach and yet, they suck ever year. Who has the better talent. Number of pro bowlers and record would say 49ers.

        1. Nobody wants to hear about that, they just want to hate on Baalke because they think they know better, ha!

    2. Actually, neurosurgery is not an exact science. That is a absurd statement. My father is a world renowned scientist. Science does not live an absolutes. Never has, never will. In science, I can tell you that evolution is 99.999% fact, but That does not make it an absolute anymore than my saying the sun will come up tomorrow does. Saying any surgery is an exact science is idiotic. Stupid and ignorant. It is far less art than 100 years ago but exact, absolutely not. If there remains risk, it is not exact. Unless there is one person here that was or is a scout for an NFL team, then there is not one person qualified to evaluate who or how they draft. That’s a fact. Just because the media, Mel Kiper and you feel like you can, does not provide any degree of qualification in the eyes of those who do it for a living. Most of those experts, which is exactly what they are in their field, regardless of whether or is not its an exact science, laugh at mel and armchair QB. It’s awesome that you can mock draft and look at video and pretend you are a reliable source, but you are not. You are like a million other people that have too much time and an over exaggerated opinion of their ability to evuate talent. No different than GC who parades around like he’s an expert and then criticizes Baalke like he’s amatuer. Are you kidding me? Being an expert does not always make you right, but it certainly does not mean that people like you with no relevant experience or background get to pretend you are.

      1. Daniners: To start with don’t put words in my mouth. I never stated that Neurosurgery was an exact science, rather I stated the KNOWLEDGE involved in neurosergery could be equated to exact science’s. You might want to bone up on your reading comprehension. In retrospect I should have used the word Hard Science because nothing is actually exact. But then no-one really takes the term exact in exact science literally. The point was that there is a huge difference between the knowledge necessary between being a neurosurgeon and a GM drafting in the NFL. If he was a neurosurgeon four out of his six patients would now be dead.

        Second- No one on this site, too my memory, ever claimed to be an expert. That again was a definition that you pulled out to your rear to justify your agenda, which according to information supplied via your post, is now fairly obvious. Some are giving their opinions on various aspects of the draft, which is one of the purposes to sites like this. If you have an issue with that you need to take it up with the News Paper Grant works for. If this was neurosurgery and the patient was in a coma you might be arguing that we couldn’t evaluate the success of the operation because we were not professionals. Why do other people expressing their opinions bother you so much? That was actually rhetorical, since you have given me enough to surmise why. You are a tactical ignoramus. Which would also partially explain why you seem to be defending Baalke.

        You state your father is a world renowned scientist. Scientists tend to generally fall into three category’s. Theorists, those that work in research with the lower rungs being statisticians ( bean counters). I don’t know your father so I wouldn’t know which category he falls into. I do know the lower rungs generally are methodologists who’s motivation for their choice of careers does not always follow the pure intent of questing for knowledge. Rather their intent is to use methodology to create external structures to hide their own internal fear of not knowing. Very similar to Baalke and his use of methodology. As I stated I don’t know your father, but you appear to have absorbed just enough of the principles to use the false perspective of the process to rationalize your own fears. Your not defending Baalke your defending your self. Baalke is a methodologist and statistician not a theorist.

        Most non functional people tend to project their own shortcomings upon the people who’s perspective threaten their illusion of functionality. Your sense of self esteem seems to be tied to your fathers career. Yet your level of understanding is superficial and limited to purely things you have gleaned from overhearing things he has said. He might be a theorist or involved in research but your level is just that of a bean counter. You need for status make you equate being a statistician as being on the same level as the two higher levels.

        You are not your father. What he is does not elevate you to his level of intelligence or competence where ever on a scale that might be. Your posts reflect an over inflated sense of importance bordering on arrogance. You tend to put others down in order to elevate yourself. Since you brought up your father we are now justified into referring to you as Sonny.

        Interesting that you brought up evolution as being 99 % fact. Evolution is founded on the theory of Uniformity which was the predominate geological theory prevalent during the time of Darwin. Well that theory has since been shown to be flawed and extinct so to speak. Well the evolutionists seem to want to ignore the relevance of that principle to the voracity of their pet theory. Oh by the way I once had a mini-debate in 1985 with the guy who simulated micro-evolution in a lab. They thought that this made him qualified to tour the country in a National debate on Evolution vs Creationism. Well in a few minutes he was backed up to having to defend his case by claiming that Mammoths hibernated. lol. Well it became obvious that he was no theorist rather only a lab jocky involved in research. This was only one more reason I am not that impressed by so called experts. People who label themselves as experts are those that do not have the substance to be able to withstand questions.

  11. Don’t BS me Baalke…A punter in the 5th round is a possible future need, not best player available.

      1. Razor – I just wish Baalke worded it differently. BPA for a punter doesn’t sound right to me. The punter doesn’t play, he kicks.
        Just say …”most of our draft was based on BPA but we felt Pinion had great value and we didn’t want to miss on him.”
        I would accept something like that.
        Razor – at least I actually said the name Pinion rather than “the punter” ;)

        1. I hear ya. I’d just point out if he can be the punter this year, and double as the Field Goal kicker next year, maybe there will be some crow leftovers to eat through the week….

          1. Razor- Actually his choice of punter in the fifth, when put in context, makes far more sense than some of his other choices.

          2. Razor- Although one of the problems with having the same player punt and kick off is if they get injured you have to find two players to replace them. That would put you in the position of having to pick for scraps at two key positions.

        2. Crabs- The point you make is another red flag to me about Baalke. If he were honest rather than sounding like a PR guy for his picks, I wouldn’t question his intent and motivations so much. What he says and what he does do not jive. My fear is that there is not only a disconnect between what he says and does, but that he might be totally unaware of when his actions do not match up with his perceived beliefs.

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