2023 Season

[49er4life1979]

It's official, Huf has torn ACL and is done. Very excited to watch Brown. This pretty much puts contract extension that Huf was eligible for on hold. He's got one more season on his rookie deal so next year I guess our safeties will be Huf at SS and Brown at FS.

[Samurai]

Shanahan said that Hufanga "most likely" has a torn ACL and is out for the year. Sounds like Ji'Ayir Brown will have some big shoes to fill the rest of the way.

First big injury this year. Huf had regressed this year a bit, Brown seems to be a similar player so let's hope he can take to the starting position quickly

Yea a tough break for Huf indeed. Brown is definitely a similar player which includes neither being particularly fast. Last draft a few scouts thought Brown was a more natural SS and not the position he was drafted to take over FS. Although the 10 picks last two college seasons indicate he's a ball hawk. So we'll see. Anyone know if Luter got any snaps today? Didn't hear his name which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Looks like Luter was in for 11 snaps, all on special teams.

[Samurai]

It's official, Huf has torn ACL and is done. Very excited to watch Brown. This pretty much puts contract extension that Huf was eligible for on hold. He's got one more season on his rookie deal so next year I guess our safeties will be Huf at SS and Brown at FS.

Shanahan said that "if everything goes smoothly", he should be ready for week 1 of the 2024 season. That's good news; I was expecting he'd be out for a full year and not be ready until the second half of next season. This is now Brown's chance to shine.

[arich35]

It's official, Huf has torn ACL and is done. Very excited to watch Brown. This pretty much puts contract extension that Huf was eligible for on hold. He's got one more season on his rookie deal so next year I guess our safeties will be Huf at SS and Brown at FS.

Shanahan said that "if everything goes smoothly", he should be ready for week 1 of the 2024 season. That's good news; I was expecting he'd be out for a full year and not be ready until the second half of next season. This is now Brown's chance to shine.

ACL injuries seem to heal up in 9 months or so nowadays

[wco81]

Actually Seattle losing at last minute after winning most of the game is not a good thing for the 49ers.

Team will play better, especially when they probably gave the game away with over a dozen penalties.

Plus it's a short week.

And no, that game doesn't determine the division. 49ers have a heavy schedule remaining.

[49er4life1979]

Actually Seattle losing at last minute after winning most of the game is not a good thing for the 49ers.

Team will play better, especially when they probably gave the game away with over a dozen penalties.

Plus it's a short week.

And no, that game doesn't determine the division. 49ers have a heavy schedule remaining.

Seattle has a heavy remaining schedule too. They will play us twice, host Philly, go to Dallas. Plus, in the division we have the better record. They got swept by the Rams which may come back to haunt them as we already beat the Rams once. So one victory for us against Seattle could spell trouble for them.

[CrimsonCrew]

Hufanga's loss is a blow, but there are silver linings to it. He's a very good player, but he came out like gang-busters last year in a way that he has not sustained. Granted that was an incredible level. It turns out that he's a guy who has very good instincts, but he guesses fairly often. And as with anything that way, he guesses wrong sometimes and gets stung. We could have been in a tough situation this offseason if he was up for a new contract. Now that issue has effectively been put to bed.

The other silver lining, of course, is that Brown will get some snaps and we can see what he can do. Hate to see a guy lost for the season, but of all the starters on either side of the ball that we could have lost, Huf is near the top of guys we should be able to replace without a major drop-off.

[CharityStripe34]

Sucks to lose Huf for the season. Barring the first snap yesterday Brown played solid the rest of the way.

Sent from my LM-K500 using RealGM mobile app

[49er4life1979]

Hufanga's loss is a blow, but there are silver linings to it. He's a very good player, but he came out like gang-busters last year in a way that he has not sustained. Granted that was an incredible level. It turns out that he's a guy who has very good instincts, but he guesses fairly often. And as with anything that way, he guesses wrong sometimes and gets stung. We could have been in a tough situation this offseason if he was up for a new contract. Now that issue has effectively been put to bed.

The other silver lining, of course, is that Brown will get some snaps and we can see what he can do. Hate to see a guy lost for the season, but of all the starters on either side of the ball that we could have lost, Huf is near the top of guys we should be able to replace without a major drop-off.

Nailed it. Huf was eligible for contract extension this off-season but now he will end up playing out his contract and be a free agent in 2025. And based on how Brown played yesterday, I feel good the rest of the way. Those two will be our safeties next year.

[Samurai]

Hufanga's loss is a blow, but there are silver linings to it. He's a very good player, but he came out like gang-busters last year in a way that he has not sustained. Granted that was an incredible level. It turns out that he's a guy who has very good instincts, but he guesses fairly often. And as with anything that way, he guesses wrong sometimes and gets stung. We could have been in a tough situation this offseason if he was up for a new contract. Now that issue has effectively been put to bed.

The other silver lining, of course, is that Brown will get some snaps and we can see what he can do. Hate to see a guy lost for the season, but of all the starters on either side of the ball that we could have lost, Huf is near the top of guys we should be able to replace without a major drop-off.

Nailed it. Huf was eligible for contract extension this off-season but now he will end up playing out his contract and be a free agent in 2025. And based on how Brown played yesterday, I feel good the rest of the way. Those two will be our safeties next year.

Perhaps. I think Brown was drafted thinking free safety was his natural position but in practice he had coaches thinking strong safety may be his better position. Huf seems too slow to be a FS so we may have two safeties that are both better suited for the same position.

[arich35]

Both Burford and Banks are up in the air for Thursday. We signed Ben Bartch from the Jags practice squad, he has started a few games this year for them.

[CrimsonCrew]

Not Niners news, but Brady on the current NFL:

"I look at a lot of players like Ray Lewis and Rodney Harrison and Ronnie Lott and guys that impacted the game in a certain way -- and every hit they would have made would have been a penalty [today]," Brady said. "You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled and not necessarily -- why don't they talk to their player about how to protect himself? ... We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time. Now they're trying to be regulated all the time.

"Offensive players need to protect themselves. It's not up to a defensive player to protect an offensive player. A defensive player needs to protect himself. ... I think a lot of the way that the rules have come into play have allowed this -- you can essentially play carefree and then if anyone hits you hard, there's a penalty."

I don't disagree with him, but it's pretty rich that Tom Brady - the guy whose single serious injury directly resulted in a rule change that basically makes it illegal to hit the QB - bemoaning rule changes that make the league too soft. I don't know what Brady thinks about that rule change, but I sure can't recall him speaking up against it.

[wco81]

Yeah I rolled my eyes at that too.

But in games when there are personal fouls for hits, you often get color analysts, who are former players, being critical of many of those calls.

Sure some of the rule changes were to protect stars like Brady but a lot of the changes were for protecting the PPE, which was potentially an existential threat to the game.

The next time a Hall of Fame player kills himself and head injuries and concussions are suspected, these discussions will come to the fore again.

But the strategy of these former players criticizing these new rules, which are clearly driven by the aim of protecting player health, is to basically say that they played "real football" not this "soft" game we have now today.

So it's self-aggrandizing to an extent.

It's undeniable that the big hits are broadly appealing to fans. The clips of hits are kinetic and can't help but draw lookers.

Not because people want to see players get hurt, though often it's like watching cartoon violence, where the observers don't necessarily understand the pain and the health impact in the moment.

Despite these "softer" rules, players are still encouraged by coaches -- or at least not discouraged -- to attempt these hits leading with the head, as an intimidation factor, even at the risk of some costly penalties.

The NFL wants to have it both ways. They want to show they're for player safety with concussion protocols, which are sometimes ignored as with Tua last year, and have the players wear those funny foam covers over helmets during training camp.

But they wear regular helmets during the games because it would probably trigger huge outcries.

[zman1]

So where do we stand now late in the season? It's a weird year where no team or teams truly stand out as totally dominant. The eagles of course have the best record but they have no blowouts and have given up a lot of points. I think we Dan beat them but that darn tush push gives them a big advantage. It makes every 3rd and 5 like 2nd and 5 for most teams. They can call a play to get 3 or 4 yards and still know they can get get 1 or 2 yards on 4th with the push. We ought to look around for a couple of monster sized guys we can put in just for their tush push.

In contrast, almost all our wins have been blowouts. Does that mean we are better? Maybe. Dallas too has had some big wins, but I have a hard believing they can beat us. Detroit is good and would be a challenge.

I sure like our chances at this point. Yeah, our qb is not proven in big games but I think he will be fine.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

[CharityStripe34]

There are no juggernaut teams this season. A handful of really good ones, then a handful of good or sometimes very good ones. Then the rest.

49ers possibly have the highest two-way ceiling, though you'd like to see them be able to win a game from behind, or win ugly.

[Samurai]

So where do we stand now late in the season? It's a weird year where no team or teams truly stand out as totally dominant. The eagles of course have the best record but they have no blowouts and have given up a lot of points. I think we Dan beat them but that darn tush push gives them a big advantage. It makes every 3rd and 5 like 2nd and 5 for most teams. They can call a play to get 3 or 4 yards and still know they can get get 1 or 2 yards on 4th with the push. We ought to look around for a couple of monster sized guys we can put in just for their tush push.

In contrast, almost all our wins have been blowouts. Does that mean we are better? Maybe. Dallas too has had some big wins, but I have a hard believing they can beat us. Detroit is good and would be a challenge.

I sure like our chances at this point. Yeah, our qb is not proven in big games but I think he will be fine.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

I really hope the Rules committee does something about the "Brotherly Shove" this off-season. But unless we can sign the Hulk as a DT before Sunday (if we sew 8 or 9 jerseys together that should fit him!), all we can do is recognize that a 3rd and 1 is essentially a first down and call our defensive plays accordingly. Or my preference is just blow them out so big early on that no one will care if they pick up a few firsts that way in the second half!

[SK21209]

I'm pretty confident going into Philly on Sunday, but not so confident we'll ultimately catch them for the 1 seed. They'd have to lose to Dallas next week as the rest of their schedule is pretty easy, and we'd have to win out. We're capable of doing so, but its hard to count on that.

ESPN put out a playoff seeding prediction piece this morning which gave us a 20% chance at the 1 seed and 62% chance at the 2 seed. The most likely playoff picture was:

1. Eagles
2. Niners
3. Lions
4. Falcons
5. Cowboys
6. Vikings
7. Packers (22%, followed by the Rams at 20% and the Seahawks at 29%)

Obviously getting the bye is easily the preferred outcome, but the prospect of Packers/Rams/Seahawks in the Wild Card round and then hosting the Lions while the Cowboys and Eagles beat each other up isn't terrible either. The Cowboys match up much better with the Eagles and those games are always close, I have a feeling they'll beat them once either in two weeks or in the playoffs.

[CrimsonCrew]

I'm pretty confident going into Philly on Sunday, but not so confident we'll ultimately catch them for the 1 seed. They'd have to lose to Dallas next week as the rest of their schedule is pretty easy, and we'd have to win out. We're capable of doing so, but its hard to count on that.

ESPN put out a playoff seeding prediction piece this morning which gave us a 20% chance at the 1 seed and 62% chance at the 2 seed. The most likely playoff picture was:

1. Eagles
2. Niners
3. Lions
4. Falcons
5. Cowboys
6. Vikings
7. Packers (22%, followed by the Rams at 20% and the Seahawks at 29%)

Obviously getting the bye is easily the preferred outcome, but the prospect of Packers/Rams/Seahawks in the Wild Card round and then hosting the Lions while the Cowboys and Eagles beat each other up isn't terrible either. The Cowboys match up much better with the Eagles and those games are always close, I have a feeling they'll beat them once either in two weeks or in the playoffs.

If we're not the #1 seed, then pretty good chance we're the #3 seed. Detroit has looked shaky since the bye, eking out a win at the Chargers and needing a late TD drive to beat the Bears at home, then losing badly to the Packers at home. Still, they're a talented team with remaining games at the Saints, at the Bears, vs. the Broncos, vs. and at the Vikings, and at Dallas. Only Dallas is a better team on paper. Though that is a lot of road games, and Goff does not typically perform well on the road.

Actually, reviewing that, I'm feeling a bit better about it. The Vikings aren't good, per se, but they should give the Lions a challenge. And we've already seen them lose to Green Bay.

[Pattersonca65]

Not Niners news, but Brady on the current NFL:

"I look at a lot of players like Ray Lewis and Rodney Harrison and Ronnie Lott and guys that impacted the game in a certain way -- and every hit they would have made would have been a penalty [today]," Brady said. "You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled and not necessarily -- why don't they talk to their player about how to protect himself? ... We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time. Now they're trying to be regulated all the time.

"Offensive players need to protect themselves. It's not up to a defensive player to protect an offensive player. A defensive player needs to protect himself. ... I think a lot of the way that the rules have come into play have allowed this -- you can essentially play carefree and then if anyone hits you hard, there's a penalty."

I don't disagree with him, but it's pretty rich that Tom Brady - the guy whose single serious injury directly resulted in a rule change that basically makes it illegal to hit the QB - bemoaning rule changes that make the league too soft. I don't know what Brady thinks about that rule change, but I sure can't recall him speaking up against it.

LOL, even before reading your comment, that was the first thought that came to mind. Brady benefited from rule changes protecting the QB. The QB he is most often compared to for GOAT, is Joe Montana. I would say Montana's career could have been longer were not for the injuries he sustained during his career. Montana took some brutal hits over his career that Brady never had to experience. The cumulative hits Montana took I believe shortened his career.

[CrimsonCrew]

Niners activated Robert Beal. I thought they had already relegated him to IR for the season. Interesting development. Hopefully he can add some juice to the pass rush. I guess the good news with these guys is that these young players are getting promoted instead of sitting out the whole season. Presumably it means they've shown something during their three-week practice windows, though somewhat bad timing as there effectively was no practice window last week.