Can the 49ers overcome history?

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1. Mr. Hammer: I agree with you about the shortcomings of the offensive line—although you failed to discuss the obvious problems the right tackle is experiencing.

   But I disagree about the quality of the defense. You too-easily dismiss Ryan’s’ mismanagement during games, notably how the Niners do not do well against quality receivers. Ryan’s has not yet gotten his safeties involved enough in pass defense, leaving the weak corner backs to flounder all alone.

2. We probably don’t need to worry about being last in the division as Russell Wilson just went on IR. He’ll be out a minimum of 3 weeks. Both the Aaron Banks and Aiyuk situations are indeed concerns. I wonder what the problem is with Banks. Is it physical or mental. My guess is that it’s mental and he’s just slow In Learning the position. You’d think at his size he’d be able to move linemen in the run game. The Aiyuk situation is also confusing. Shanahan has implied it was an early injury but I wonder if he just took the off season off completely and has not yet gotten into football shape. His inability to get separation would seem to back up this idea. If he’s working hard as Lynch said, he should be ready soon.

3. Scooter said: “The thing I find funniest about your whining over the game plan is that during preseason, when Shanahan had Lance practice playing from the pocket, you bit$hed and moaned about how Shanahan wasn’t setting him up for success by letting him use his running threat. In season, in his first start, Shanahan literally installed a game plan based around using Lance’s athletic ability… and you bit$h and moan about it. Now I agree the game plan was pretty ordinary and didn’t like various elements of it, but the irony in your complaints is pretty darn funny.”

   I am sure glad you brought this up Scooter, because this goes to the heart of why I am so angry at Kyle and especially frustrated with the game he called on Sunday:

   USA Today, 2018: “As Shanahan notes, the notion that the Read-Option was a fad was always ridiculous because the concept is based on simple math. Playing against 11 guys is harder than playing against 10 it turns out! Defenses haven’t figured out how to stop it any more than they have figured out how to run a draw or counter.”

   Scooter, here are Kyle Shanahan’s own words, back in 2018: “People talk about that 2012 year, but our running game was 70% outside zone. It was one third zone-read. But everybody was scared of it, so they played for it every play, which is why Alfred Morris led the league in rushing … it was because of the zone-read, which allows you to do a ton of other stuff. It’s not your base offense, but if you’re in Pistol or Shotgun [formations], you can run it at any time. And defenses have been playing 11 against 10 for so long and now they have to play 11-on-11, and if you’re not, it changes everything you have to do. What do you want to do off it when they 100% commit to stop it? Which you can, but that opens up everything else, so what do you do to scare them out of everything else? Is your quarterback good enough to run with the football to make them commit to stop it. And once they do, is he good enough to make the passes that he has to that they just opened up. And if he is, that’s a huge issue. It’s tough to find that guy. And if you don’t protect him right, if you don’t do the right stuff, it is tough to stay healthy.”

   Scooter, I think this statement of Kyle’s back in 2018 pretty much says it all. The whole principle that Kyle and others talk about behind getting the numbers advantage, 11-11 football, is related to the ZONE-READ. Kyle has talked in depth about this. It’s all about making the edge defenders make a choice, and commit themselves. And the beauty is, you don’t even have to run Trey Lance often in order to be effective. All you need to do to run these concepts effectively a couple times to establish the threat. Once Trey establishes that he’s a threat to hold the ball (at the mesh point) tuck it and run for a nice gain, he puts the defense into a pickle.

   NEVER have I heard Kyle suggest repeatedly running his QB up the gut of the defense, on power runs out of empty sets, without even fullback as a lead blocker, was smart football. In fact, he’s kind of said the opposite over the years, and talked about the dangers of not protecting his QB. And to do it repeatedly, despite already having one injured QB, is absolutely Ludacris!

   And where is the Play-Action, Scooter? Trey Lance ran Play-Action on over 30% of his snaps in 2019, and he’s absolutely fantastic at it. All of the advantages of using play action work in Trey’s favor. Why was Kyle having Trey throw out of empty sets? My gosh, Kyle had Trey Lance passing out of an empty set on the very first play from scrimmage? You know as well as I do that that is the toughest formation to pass out of!

   1. Passing out of an empty set doesn’t remove the run game threat when Lance is the QB. And it opens the middle of the field up for QB power. QB power was a massive part of what Lance did in college.

      Play action is great, but it does put a lot of pressure on the QB to quickly read the D after the fake. Lance was great at it… in the FCS. We saw he was slow in processing in this game from the pistol/ shotgun. He has a lot going on in his head atm as he is still learning the offense, how to read defenses, and getting up to the speed of the NFL. And as Shanahan also outlined, it diminishes the opportunities to make the defense respect all 11 players on offense.

      I didn’t like the plan, but in terms of what Shanahan was doing it was pretty obvious he was all about installing a plan he believed would assist make Lance more comfortable.

      I highly doubt this game is an indication of what Shanahan envisages long term. I think it was very much about trying to make things easier on Lance from the point of view of mental requirements.

   2. Btw, the Lance INT… was on play action. And Lance was too slow in reading the play post fake to realise Benjamin was coming open. Then he compounded his mistake by trying to force it in later in the down and overthrew it.

      It should have been an easy completion… on one of those play action plays you desperately wanted Shanahan to call.

      1. The fact that he overthrew Benjamin had nothing to do with the fact that it was play-action. It was because he dipped his shoulder, which he has a tendency to do on occasion. And, he doesn’t always get his footwork correct.

         Guess what Scooter, you who else has a tendency to sail the football and not getting his feet squared way- JIMMY GAROPPOLO! That’s who.

         We wouldn’t be having this conversation if jimmy Garoppolo wasn’t making the same kind of mistakes that trey does, only Garoppolo is in what year now? But we don’t see Kyle running Jimmy on QB power runs, do we?

         1. He should have thrown it before he started scrambling. That was his mistake. But he was slow to recognise it and then was forced to escape the pocket.

            The reason he overthrew it as that by the time he threw the ball his feet were no longer set.

            1. Scooter, I honestly don’t want to keep arguing this with you because I feel like I am being too harsh, and you seem like a good guy. Besides, you said yourself that you didn’t like the plan.

               I am beside myself. Brian Baldinger was almost beside himself. So was QB coach Greg Panelli, and about 1,000 other football folks. Greg Cossell did his best to explain away Kyle’s game plan, but only because he was asked to try and defend it.

               The fact of the matter is, we both agree that it was a bad game plan. You may not agree that Kyle doesn’t seem very interested in developing Trey Lance right now, like I do. You may not feel like Kyle is potentially doing both Trey, and the 49ers organization a disservice by putting off Trey’s development, like I do. Heck, you may not even feel like Kyle’s is putting off Trey’s development at all, for that matter.

               But I don’t want to keep arguing this with you because if we are arguing about a game plan that even you said you didn’t think was very good, then I am probably going a little too far off the rails with my critique of Kyle, and for that I apologize.

               I have just had it with this guy. His smug, dare I say arrogant attitude is something I can handle when the team is winning, but 1 winning season out of 5 is really grating on me, and pushing my buttons, and I certainly don’t mean to be taking it out on you, or Razor, for that matter.

               1. Well, I’ll just say this one last thing Scooter, because I’m not saying you are totally wrong …..

                  I think things would be a lot different if Trey wasn’t treated as an afterthought up to this point. If Kyle had just gone all in on Trey, and sent Jimmy packing after the draft, like a lot of us assumed he would, this team would probably be in a much better position right now, and Trey Lance would be much further along in his development, and more likely to help this team win games in December, and maybe even January/February. And I think they’d be a far better shape heading into next season as well.

                  So far, I have been proven right about Garoppolo. The 49ers should have gone away from Jimmy this season. Trying to hang on in this misguided revenge tour 2.0 was a recipe for disaster, IMO. And like I say, I hope this doesn’t carry over into 2022, like I suspect it might. My only hope now is that Kyle doesn’t ruin Trey Lance before he gets a chance to reach his potential in the coming years, but I am losing whatever faith I had left in Kyle Shanahan.

                  As for you and Razor, I don’t mean to disregard you guys.

               2. Yes, it is the massive over reactions you provide that I disagree with.

                  The idea that Shanahan is not trying to develop Lance is simply ridiculous. The belief you have that he isn’t a good coach for Lance’s development is waaaaaaaay too soon to land on.

                  We don’t get to see what happens behind closed doors. Based on what we saw against the Cardinals though, I think there is good reason to believe that Shanahan is probably right that Lance isn’t really ready yet to run Shanahan’s offense.

                  Doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of running any sort of offense right now. I think he can be competitive as is. But while I very much believe Shanahan tried to tailor an offense to Lance against the Cardinals I also think he missed an opportunity to use a lot of other elements that in my opinion would be better suited to getting Lance comfortable while also not getting him punished physically.

                  Get him on the move with rollouts and boot action. Add an option toss on his designed runs so that if its bottled up he can pass it off, hopefully to someone in a better position (like what the Ravens do a fair bit with Jackson, and Eagles with Hurts). And make more use of misdirection runs like they did for an easy TD against the Raiders in preseason.

                  1. And BTW, I think I said it was almost as if Kyle couldn’t be bothered to put together a game plan, and that Trey’s development seems like an afterthought, and I still stand by that.

                     It didn’t need to be like this.

                     Cheers!

         2. And like I said, running power concepts in the FCS, against teams like ALBANY, VALPARAISO, YOUNGSTOWN STATE, TOWSON, BUTLER, and NICHOLLS, is a little bit different than running naked VS JJ Watt, big Rashard Lawrence, 330 lb Leki Fotu, don’t you think?

            1. Sure is. Doesn’t change the fact that it plays into his strengths right now.

4. thank you for bringing up the elephant in the room. the offensive line is horrible especially the right side. all offensives start on the line. if the line cant perform nothing works. this problem needs to be fixed before anything else will work. thanks needed to get that off my chest

5. Here’s another thing, Scooter.

   I don’t know if you were watching pre-draft or post-draft podcasts, or NFL shows on the major networks, but they were talking about how Trey Lance could help Kyle evolve his offense and take his offense to the next level.

   At first it was tied to the difference between what Mac Jones could do for Kyle, and what Trey Lance could do for Kyle, because of all of the ridiculous speculation in the leadup to the draft. Mac Jones was basically Jimmy G 2.0 in terms of running Kyle’s offense. Both of those QB’s are pretty much the same guy in terms of how they fit within the structure of Kyle’s offense.

   On the other hand, Trey Lance was different. And that difference had mostly to do with two factors:

   – Trey Lance’s mobility outside the structure of the offense, and make off-schedule plays to keep drives alive when a play breaks down.

   – In the running game. And the key to using Trey Lance to expend the running game was all about the zone-read (and perhaps some RPO’s). That was the whole deal, Scooter. And Trey Sermon, if you go back a watch his college tape, you’ll realize he was probably drafted because of his terrific fit running zone-read concepts (and perhaps RPO’s)alongside Trey Lance. Sure, you might throw in the occasion designed QB run between the tackles, but you don’t make that the thing!

   You don’t put together a game plan where you go into the game with a rookie QB making his first start, thinking: “If we can just have Trey Lance operate out of an empty backfield, and either have him PASS the football without the benefit of having a RB in for pass protection, OR better yet, if we can have Trey RUSH the football 10 or 12 times, between the tackles and right into the teeth of the defense, without even the benefit of the best FB in the league, lead-blocking for him, then we just might have a chance of winning this football game.”

   Do see how crazy that sounds? It’s madness!

   1. Ah madness. Now, that I agree you are an expert in.

   2. I mean, we spent a couple months talking about the zone-read, and how Trey Lance could use zone-read concepts to open up Kyle’s rushing attack, which would in turn help him evolve as a play caller. And there was a feeling among a lot of NFL analysts that that was something that could really benefit Kyle. Or that at least, it would be a logical way for Kyle to evolve his offense. Nobody said anything about eliminating play-action, for crying out loud. And for years we’ve seen Kyle Shanahan scheme his receivers wide open for Jimmy Garoppolo, Nick Mullens, and even CJ Beathard, giving them a lot of easy throws. And for years we’ve seen Kyle use play-action to brilliant affect!

      So what is happening, guys? Why can’t Trey Lance be afforded the same courtesy? He was terrific using play-action in college, and he was terrific running zone-read concepts, so what gives?

      1. maybe the competition is bigger,faster and smarter than he is used to and he needs to learn

6. The Giants were robbed of their last strike last night. If the gods had given that strike back, the prohibitive odds are that they would have still lost given the batter’s record against that pitcher. So much more went into their situation than a stolen strike.

   There are so many complex issues going into the problems that the 49ers are having that simple answers just turn into complaining. The NFL kills quarterbacks on a regular basis. A good team needs two, but it’s been a long time since championship contending team survived the loss of even one quarterback.

   Enjoy the next play. It fails, so enjoy the next play.

   1. Ahhh so, The Wise One has been lurking 😏
      And right on both points; especially about not engaging the whining 👍
      Be well.

      1. Hey Brotha! Great to see you again!

         1. 👍

      2. Long time no see, Brotha! How’s that duchess doing?

         1. Hey Razor. She’s doing great, thanks.
            Now that she’s retired she’s got the whole neighborhood doing backyard or front porch gatherings as the distancing rules have eased up. Wine and pupus.😎🍷👍

            1. Glad to hear it and cheers!

7. Honestly, Alex Mack needs to be be benched. He’s been absolutely awful. He gets pushed back into the backfield regularly which disrupts the passing game and also cuts off pulling guards from completing their blocks in the run game. Not sure what the right rotation needs to be but Shanny must shuffle the line. Right now my thought would be to move Brunskil to Center and start Jaylon Moore at RG. I guess you could go Brendel but not sure. Then the next step is to identify whomever advocated for drafting Aaron Banks and immediately fire them and destroy any and all player evaluations they ever crafted.

   1. Neither Mack or Brunskill are playing well. I also don’t know what the answer is but Shanahan isn’t just going to make changes without a sound plan. I doubt Mack gets replaced as that’s a big change if you don’t have an obvious upgrade. Possibly Brunskill gets replaced. It’s way too soon to give up on Banks.

      1. Don’t give Mike McTurnstyle a pass over there at right tackle.

         He is reinventing the term sucks right now.

         1. It’s beginning to look like Lance has was drafted to counter McGlinchey’s look-out blocks. It’s like taking a medication to counter the side effects of another medication.

            1. His pass blocking is bad, no doubt but the Niners love his run blocking skills which is one of the best in the league and the reason he was drafted. I wouldn’t look for any changes here.

               1. He was drafted to be the replacement for Joe Staley.

                  His run blocking doesn’t even begin to make up for the constant pressures on the pass blocking side.

                  Why is McTurnstyle not in Shanahan’s supposed doghouse?

      2. I gave up on Banks on draft day. Really hated the pick. The guys is very large and I’m sure very strong but he has no ability to move laterally. I think this is a pick where the scouts got way too caught up in advanced metrics and didn’t pay enough attention to the actual college game film. Banks graded out well on outside zone rushes but that was against inferior talent in college. He will struggle against athletic D-lineman in the pass rush and he will struggle to make it to the point of attack in the run game because he’s exceptionally slow.

   2. The whole OL and def. backfield all need to be completely rebuilt. This team is really on the knifes edge of being competitive vs. needing a significant rebuild due to decades of neglect. Not having used any draft capital on corners in forever has left this team badly compromised back there. On the OL the only good one is Williams, even Tomlinson is not great, but considering the awfulness of the three other clowns his replacement has to be put on the back burner. McGlinchy has been one of many draft busts by Shanahan, and Shanahan doesn’t seem able to ID what a good OL looks like.

      1. So you’d like to replace Ward, Tartt and Mosely? How would you do this? Where in the draft would you find their replacements? Remember that each team only gets so many picks and drafting in one area takes someone away in another.

         1. Tartt is gone as a FA, so he needs to be replaced likely in FA. Not hard to find someone to replace him, maybe someone that can force more than .5 interceptions a year. K’Waun is also gone this offseason, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved on from Verrett. Since we have destroyed our draft capital we are going to have to get into the FA market and sign at least one guy in his prime, no more 30 year old DBs that are already on the downside physically. I never stated I have the answers, but it is as plain as the nose on your face that the def. backfield has to have an overhaul. We can’t continue to have 5 starters that always miss games, and several of whom tend to miss 6-8 games every year.

   3. Good mornings. We must do the better job of quarterback protection. The right side of offensive line is a subpar. We can allow largest men to attack and fall on top of young Trey Lance. Trust me, I know the horrible feeling of large , morbidly obese man on top of me.

8. A SELF-FULFILLING PROHESY!

   If I am being honest, I don’t think Kyle Shanahan’s coaching style is particularly effective for young players, so my concerns about Trey Lance go further than whether or not he should take over after the bye week.

   It seems to me that the reason Kyle can’t ever seem to take the leash off of his QB’s is intrinsic to who Kyle is a HC. Some people think it’s a power hungry thing, but I think he’s just forever the pessimist, and that pessimism makes it hard for him to trust his QB’s. Even when Garoppolo took the 49ers by storm in 2017, Kyle found ways to nitpick his flaws. His wife tells a story about how frustrating it was to go house hunting with Kyle, when they arrived in the Bay Area, because all he would do is point out every flaw he could find in the houses they looked at.

   We all remember his foul mood in the leadup to the 2021 draft, but lets not forget about the reports that Kyle didn’t see necessary to push back on, when John Lynch confirmed Kyle had been holding hope for Cousins – “there were some days that Kyle Shanahan was like in mourning, because I think everybody knows his master plan was to have Kirk Cousins come in eventually”. What a sourpuss. This is who Kyle is. He rarely compliments his players without a heavy dose of criticism to go along with it.

   I’ve said this a million times but I am going to say it again: This season didn’t need to start out this way. It seemed clear to most people who follow this team that Kyle had finally lost all patience in Jimmy Garoppolo. He can’t execute Kyle’s offense consistently, and he simply can’t stay healthy. Kyle was so desperate to replace Jimmy, he didn’t make his pursuit for his replacement a secret. Heck, he went on a podcast and he didn’t even bother to frame the situation in a way that made it seem as if he ultimately ended up with a QB situation that he was ultimately happy with, at the end of the day.

   Anyways, I doubt he’s ever going to change. He seems bound and determined to prove to everyone that he was right about Garoppolo, and that he was right about Trey Lance not being ready to win football games. In my eyes this is all starting to look like a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point, and I fear that Kyle is his own worst enemy!

   1. You are a one man band who only has one thing to say and you say it over and over ad nauseam. Give us a break.

      1. He has written the same thing about 490 times, one has to wonder why he is so invested in his position??

         1. Sorry guys, but I’m just looking out for the best interest of the San Francisco 49ers, so my ultimate goal is to present “100 different reasons why Jed York needs to send Kyle Shanahan packing”.

            I’m currently working on reason #48, so stay tuned!

            1. You do realize that you are not convincing anyone with this stupidity. All you are doing is annoying everyone. I’m sure #48 will be just as nonsensical as the rest.

            2. And you know what they say about someone doing the same thing over and over again (in reasons case over and over and over and over and over……) and expecting different results.

            3. Even Seb would be a welcome respite from this nonsense.

               1. I assume seb is 49 and vice versa.

                  Dude makes long winded posts…then replies to them 4 times in a row…he’s literally talking to himself.

                  Was seb the one who always talked about his dad and doing work in landscaping…and also posted his own personal info??

               2. That’s OK guys, I understand how blind-fandom works. I do understand that, when their favorite team is losing, fans have a natural blind spot, and they are more likely to either simply ignore the facts, or are willing to make excuses, rather than acknowledging the reasons why they are losing. I was thinking right along with you guys back in 2019, and even at the start of 2020, although Jimmy’s Super Bowl performance was a turning point for me.

                  For instance, PFF just released a fantastic QB chart, which charts both TURNOVER WORTHY plays and BIG TIME throws, and what I like about these charts is that they aren’t simply numbers (stats) without context. These charts are based on both hard data, as well as context.

                  I’ve included the link below which is titled: Jimmy G woefully stands out among NFL QBs, per PFF chart

                  I’ve also included another NBC Sports link, and this one is in reference to Josh Schrock’s Monday morning article titled: Schrock’s observations: Jones, Fields showing 49ers the way

                  This article discusses how two of the rookie QB’s whom the 49ers passed on in order to draft Trey Lance, were given the keys by their respective franchises and are learning, developing, and, in some ways, thriving as young NFL quarterbacks. Now, Schrock isn’t suggesting that Fields and Jones have been world-beaters – far from it.

                  He writes about how Justin Fields thought he had a free play Sunday, when DT Kenny Clark jumped into the neutral zone before the snap. Justin snapped the football and, thinking he had a free play, took a deep shot to the endzone even though the WR wasn’t exactly open, and he was ultimately picked off. In theory, Justin Fields made the right decision on the play, at least he did what he was taught, unfortunately, the refs didn’t throw the flag, so the interception stood.

                  This was a perfect example of the difference between learning by playing, as opposed to learning by watching on the sideline, and running the scout team in practice. While Fields made a costly rookie mistake, he also almost certainly learned a valuable lesson, a lesson that will be valuable for the young signal caller as the season progresses.

                  Schrock went on to write about how, when the Bears have let Fields be Fields, he’s made the off-schedule plays, and he’s exhibited his toughness in the pocket, that Trey Lance is so naturally good at. And sure enough, Fields has already been able to win on the road, beating the Raiders in convincing fashion. While he’s obviously still a rookie and has a long ways to go, the Bears have been competitive while he develops, in fact the Bears are ahead of the 49ers in the playoff standings.

                  While there is a strong chance that trey Lance will go back to holding a clipboard after the bye week, at least if Kyle Shanahan is to be believed, Justin Fields will continue developing while showing off the arm talent and athleticism that had many believing he was the second best QB in his draft class! And by the time December rolls around, and NFC teams are jockeying for playoff positioning, Justin Fields’ development will be leaps and bounds ahead of Trey Lance’s, giving the Bears a leg up on the 49ers not just in December and January, but going into 2022 as well.

                  But, like I said above, it seems like you guys are still in the denial stage, as I was at the beginning of 2020, so I FULLY EXPECT YOU GUYS TO BLOW THESE LINKS OFF! And that’s OK. I understand exactly what you are going through.

                  1. https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/49ers-jimmy-garoppolo-woefully-stands-out-among-nfl-qbs-pff-chart

                     https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/nfl-week-6-observations-49ers-can-learn-mac-jones-justin-fields

                  2. The above links are the ones that I referenced above.

                     Give it a shot guys, go ahead and click on the links. They aren’t portals to the BOOGEYMAN, and you aren’t going to suffer a curse if you click on them. In fact, they might not even turn your 49ers-fandom-bubble upside down, although it might be easier to read if you take off your ROSE-COLORED GLASSES before hand. And if you do, you just my experience the joys of a liberated mind – FREE OF THE MENTAL SHACKLES that are preventing you from confronting the truth about your 2021 SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS!

                     Enjoy!

                  3. And there he goes, off to the races, replying multiple times to his own long winded, scatterbrained post.

                     Just stop, please.

                  4. Now you are just being pathetic and YELLING “look at me, look at me!”

                  5. Arrogance and stupidity wrapped into one package.

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