2021 Season news/notes/discussion thread

[thesack12]

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I'm surprised it took Montana that long, but it was an entirely different game back then. Young backed up Joe and played sparingly for a lot of years which explains why he isn't on this list.

[thesack12]

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STUD

[wco81]

Kyle doesn't expect Ford to play this season.

Ford has reportedly told teammates that he expects to be released.

Huge disaster of a trade and contract.

[CrimsonCrew]

Dee Ford officially done for the season. Cursing myself a little bit. Went into the season anticipating that we wouldn't get anything from Ford or Hurd, and that it would be a pleasant surprise if we did. But I'll admit, I started letting myself believe - just a tiny bit - that we might get one or both of them back. Ugh.

Ford gets at least some credit for helping us get to the SB in 2019 (we probably don't get the #1 seed without his early season pass rush help), but will still go down as one of the worst transactions in team history given that we gave up a second-round pick and a huge contract to bring him in. We could have saved the pick and signed Za'Darius Smith instead. Or saved a ton of money and signed Shaq Barrett, as I and several others on this board were encouraging them to do that offseason.

[wco81]

As long as we have the same people in charge of player personnel, there will be more absolute misses and head-scratching moves.

[CrimsonCrew]

It's also worth noting that if we hadn't signed Ford, we could have easily kept Buckner. Worse still, the same is probably true of Kwon Alexander and/or Malcolm Smith. We paid those two guys a combined $37 million for 25 incredibly underwhelming starts.

[Jikkle]

Falcons game is the biggest game we have left for the rest of the season as beating them would almost certainly knock them out as a threat to take our playoff spot.

As it stands I feel the team needs to win 2 out of it's next 4 games to gain a spot and ideally they'll have one locked up before the final game so they can just rest everybody.

Washington and Philly play each other twice in the next 4 games so at least one of those teams will be knocked out. We own the tiebreaker against Philly so it's in our best interest that they win that battle.

Vikings we own the tiebreaker against and they have a pretty tough schedule at the end. They get the Bears twice but they also get the Packers and Rams.

Saints and Falcons both play each other and the Saints still have the Bucs and the Falcons still have the Bills to play.

It's difficult for me to imagine two teams making the runs they need to boot us out of a wildcard spot. Team obviously can't relax but they are in a relatively healthy playoff situation.

[CrimsonCrew]

Titans down to their third LT tonight after Lewan's backup tested positive for Covid. Run D better come to play. They may only throw ten times.

[wco81]

Titans down to their third LT tonight after Lewan's backup tested positive for Covid. Run D better come to play. They may only throw ten times.

Given the defense Achilles Heel is the secondary, why wouldn't they pass?

Their identity is to run but now they're activating AJ Brown for this game.

[Scott T]

Apparently Jimmy has a significant thumb injury that is just now being reported. Obvious thought is that this is just an excuse to bench him and soften the blow but who knows, I kinda doubt that. But I'm beyond ready to put Jimmy in the rear-view and see what Trey can do so I'll take Jimmy getting benched whatever way I can get it.

[CrimsonCrew]

Apparently Jimmy has a significant thumb injury that is just now being reported. Obvious thought is that this is just an excuse to bench him and soften the blow but who knows, I kinda doubt that. But I'm beyond ready to put Jimmy in the rear-view and see what Trey can do so I'll take Jimmy getting benched whatever way I can get it.

Even with Lynch's odd liking of that Tweet, I can't see them moving on from Jimmy at this point. Certainly over the offseason, and I just hope he rebounds enough to entice a team to give us a second or more for him. But if we moved on from him now, I'd have serious questions as to why we didn't do so two months ago. He's the same guy he's always been.

[thesack12]

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That's definitely not a phantom "save face" type of situation.

Since its Jimmy's throwing hand, this likely ends his season. Although, apparently the injury happened on a sack in the 2nd quarter of last week's game. Which if true, maybe its not super debilitating since he never came out of the game.

But for at least the Texans' game its probably going to be the Trey Lance dance. We'll see what happens after that.

[arich35]

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That's definitely not a phantom "save face" type of situation.

Since its Jimmy's throwing hand, this likely ends his season. Although, apparently the injury happened on a sack in the 2nd quarter of last week's game. Which if true, maybe its not super debilitating since he never came out of the game.

But for at least the Texans' game its probably going to be the Trey Lance dance. We'll see what happens after that.

There is just no way you can put him out there with that injury, does not help us at all. Kyle better game plan much better than he did with Lance against ARI

[thesack12]

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That's definitely not a phantom "save face" type of situation.

Since its Jimmy's throwing hand, this likely ends his season. Although, apparently the injury happened on a sack in the 2nd quarter of last week's game. Which if true, maybe its not super debilitating since he never came out of the game.

But for at least the Texans' game its probably going to be the Trey Lance dance. We'll see what happens after that.

There is just no way you can put him out there with that injury, does not help us at all. Kyle better game plan much better than he did with Lance against ARI

Yeah, it was pretty clear that at that point Kyle did not trust Trey as a passer. Trey throwing a pick on his 2nd pass of the game probably played a big factor in that as well.

Hopefully, Trey has earned more of Kyle's trust since then and he will utilize an expanded playbook.

They can't look past Houston or take them lightly. Texans beat the Titans earlier this season and are coming off a win over the Chargers. 9ers are going to need a better approach than one based around repeated QB runs up the middle.

[thesack12]

Another thing to keep an eye on is Mitch Wishnowsky was placed in Covid protocols today, and a handful of Titans players were as well.

49ers have been very fortunate so far to avoid any Covid related effects (Mitch is the 1st 49er placed on the Covid list all season), but today's developments are concerning. Having an outbreak now would be terrible timing.

[arich35]

Another thing to keep an eye on is Mitch Wishnowsky was placed in Covid protocols today, and a handful of Titans players were as well.

49ers have been very fortunate so far to avoid any Covid related effects (Mitch is the 1st 49er placed on the Covid list all season), but today's developments are concerning. Having an outbreak now would be terrible timing.

It is very likely we will have more as the week goes on. This will be tough

[Samurai]

If we are going to roll with Trey Lance this weekend, then we should really roll with him. No more of keeping the Jimmy G playbook and just inserting Lance in the QB spot. Jimmy and Trey are two entirely different types of QB's; they are not interchangeable parts. Lance needs a playbook that plays to his strengths and doesn't require him to do the things he hasn't developed yet. Shanahan needs to have a game plan specifically designed for Lance and not try to force him to execute the Jimmy G game plan. And he doesn't need to call 16 rushing plays for Lance unless he has a death wish for the guy he gave up all those first round picks for.

[CrimsonCrew]

Re: game-planning for Lance, I want them to let him throw it more than they did against AZ, though Houston has a garbage run D, so it makes sense to utilize the run. But if they run him on draws or power up the middle more than once or twice, I'm not going to be happy about it. If you're going to run him, give him option stuff to the outside.

In terms of the passing game, I'd like to see us move the pocket more than we did against AZ (which is to say at all; the only rollout I can recall was on the failed TD run where Lance got crushed). He's very good throwing on the run, and on the edges, he can use his legs more effectively if it comes to that. At this point in the season, in the playoff hunt and (hopefully) gearing up to make at least a little noise if we get in, I don't want to see them trying to force him into the Garoppolo offense. Please, please, please let him play to his strengths. That includes some deep shots, even though he's a pretty poor deep ball thrower. He can still lay it in there from time to time, and we'll need that threat to push back the defense.

[CrimsonCrew]

Dolphins did us a huge favor by knocking off the Saints. Thank you, Covid. We're in decent shape, projecting the remaining schedule for our WC competition, but that loss this week could knock us out. We can't catch the Cards, but that probably doesn't matter. Besides, the way things stand now, the first WC team will get Tampa Bay, which is the absolute worst matchup for us (great run game and a QB who will absolutely shred us).

I'm projecting us to beat Houston (not a given at this point) and lose to the Rams, who will be playing for the division/playoff seeding, even though we've had their number lately. That puts us at 9-8. The Eagles play Washington this week, which should be a win, then the Cowboys, which should be a loss, which leaves them at 9-8. The Vikings play Green Bay, which looks like a loss, then they get the Bears the following week and should win, but you never know with those divisional games. Most likely they'll be 8-9 and out of it. The Falcons play the Saints then the Bills. I don't want to dismiss them, but they're likely to go 0-2 in those, putting them at 7-10. But the Saints play the Panthers and Falcons, so barring starting Book again, they're pretty likely to end 9-8.

As noted, the most likely outcome is that we end up tied with the Eagles and Saints, and only two teams get in. That's probably bad news for us. If the Saints are in the mix, our win over the Eagles is meaningless and the tie-breaker is conference record. That's not great for us, as our division has owned up. We're 6-5 and project to 6-6 with a loss to the Rams. The Eagles are 6-4 and project to 7-5 assuming they beat Washington and lose to Dallas. The Saints are 5-5 and would end up 7-5. That would put us as the eighth seed and out of the playoffs. Everyone needs to be rooting their asses off for another Saints loss, and for Washington this week.

Some sites are putting our playoff odds around 75%. I think that's awfully generous given these projections.

[Pattersonca65]

I had a chipped bone in my left thumb once. It was painful. That healed quickly. I was good after three or four days but a torn ligament is serious. That can take several weeks. This is going to be Lance's turn to do something. Supposedly, he has cleaned up his mechanics and compacted his throwing motion. I don't have big expectations for him yet like some do over at the 49ers big blogsite.