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00:00It's well-traveled on this show.
00:02I'm a Shanna fan.
00:03I don't hide from that.
00:06It's sort of interesting if I turn the spotlight on myself.
00:11Like, why does Nick Sirianni bother me so much?
00:15All right, well, part of it is he's the coach of the Eagles.
00:18Like, I'm not stupid enough to not admit that.
00:21Part of it is he's the coach of the Eagles,
00:23and the Eagles and Niners kind of have a thing.
00:26We've had a thing the last few years.
00:28And so that's a very big part of it.
00:31I'll admit that bias.
00:33Hello?
00:34Sure.
00:36However, whether it be Sean McVay or Pete Carroll,
00:41who, by the way, if you're of a certain age 49er fan,
00:45Pete Carroll used to be one of us.
00:48We loved Pete Carroll.
00:49And then I covered Pete Carroll for years
00:52when he was at USC, director of sports Lucas Alexander,
00:55very excited about that fact.
00:57I covered those teams.
00:59I got to know Pete.
01:00Pete was very, very good to me.
01:02Totally, Grandy.
01:05I mean, not like we didn't have dinner together.
01:08But Pete and I had some conversations.
01:11Pete was great.
01:13And then he chewed gum and went to my rival.
01:17Bleep you, Pete.
01:19There's something about that thing on the sideline.
01:22That's what it, to me, that's the best way I can describe it.
01:26When I see a leader of other people who go do the work,
01:33then the leader tries to make it about them.
01:37That bothers me.
01:38I wonder if it bothered you when Jim Harbaugh was the Niner
01:41coach, because Jim Harbaugh is that guy.
01:44And the what's your deal with Jim Schwartz and the handshake
01:48game.
01:48I'm with Pete.
01:49Right.
01:49And the handshake with Schwartz, when he shook his hand,
01:53he slapped him on the back and kind of pushed him away.
01:55Harbaugh's a weirdo.
01:56Harbaugh made it about himself.
01:58And ultimately, that led to his own demise and his own ouster.
02:01So I wonder if you can think about Mark Willard
02:04in the early 2010s and the early 20-oughts
02:09when he was your guy, Niner fan.
02:11How did you feel about him then?
02:13Yeah.
02:14Yeah, Willard.
02:15Well, was he?
02:16Sorry, that was too much.
02:18Too heavy handed.
02:20No, I never felt like, as a fan, that connected.
02:28Not nearly as connected, I should say,
02:31as to a Shanahan, a Bill Walsh, like the other most successful
02:3649er head coaches in the past.
02:40Certainly, I loved that the 49ers got a lot better.
02:43And then they got a lot worse.
02:45And I was always partially amused and partially confused
02:49by him.
02:49And then let me also admit, I didn't
02:50cover that particular team.
02:53So I wasn't as close to it as like what we do now.
02:58But he's a weirdo.
03:00The Jim Schwartz thing was odd.
03:02The funniest thing that never gets remembered to me
03:04about Jim Harbaugh was that press conference
03:07he held during the Alex Smith-Colin Kaepernick thing.
03:11That was when he lost to me.
03:13When you have a press conference,
03:15and for those who don't remember,
03:16a long time ago now, where Kaepernick
03:19had come in for the injured Alex.
03:21And he was slinging it, man.
03:23He was playing.
03:24And it got to a point where Alex got healthy.
03:27And Jim had to pick a quarterback.
03:29And he held a press conference.
03:31And everyone knew this was going to be the announcement.
03:34Who's starting this week?
03:36They're both healthy.
03:37And Jim goes, we're going to go with Colin and Alex.
03:44We're going to go with Colin and Alex,
03:46because Alex is on our football team, too.
03:49And I was just like, dude, you're just weird.
03:52And I'll admit to you also, because of proximity,
03:56I was not aware of how much Jim rubbed people
03:59in the building the wrong way.
04:02And so there's a lot of Sirianni in Harbaugh.
04:05For sure.
04:05Spoiler alert.
04:06The Chargers will be better.
04:09Then they will hate Jim within five years.
04:11It's a five-year shelf life.
04:13And he lasted longer than that in Michigan.
04:15And he left a trail of despair and sanctions
04:19that he would have to face if he ever made it back to college.
04:22So yeah, he's more than just a weirdo.
04:24He lives outside the lines.
04:26And just everything he did here, from demanding
04:30that he had his own bathroom built in the coach's office,
04:33to alienating the owner, and all the rest of it.
04:35But something about Sirianni also, it bothers me.
04:40And maybe for me, it's the fact that he
04:42is the Philadelphia Eagles head coach.
04:44Because my default among sports fandom
04:49is to root against Philadelphia in all ways.
04:51No matter what.
04:52And that's the Sixers, and that's
04:53the Phillies, and the Eagles.
04:55And even if the Flyers happen to make the Stanley Cup playoffs,
04:59I don't pay a lot of attention to hockey.
05:01But if Philadelphia has a good team,
05:03I hope the Rangers beat them, or the Lightning,
05:06or any of the team in the Eastern Conference in hockey.
05:09I'm just down on Philly sports fan.
05:12I love when they get angry.
05:13We have Howard Eskett on our show occasionally.
05:16And he is the epitome of the Philly sports fan.
05:19And I'm sure Philly sports talk today,
05:22they're burying this guy.
05:23It's got to be an absolute inferno.
05:25That was absolutely a hot mess.
05:28And the crowd was stunned.
05:31Stunned and silent.
05:33And again, for anybody who had anything
05:35go wrong with their fantasy, or their bets,
05:38or whatever in that game, I'm one of you.
05:40I feel for you, but I totally was able to recover
05:44because it was the Eagles and Nick Ceriani.
05:48And I'm like, that makes me just happy.
05:50I was just a happy moment.
05:52I'm like, Nick's not happy.
05:54So I'm happy.
05:55Like, you deserve that.
05:57You deserve that.
05:58And Saquon, I love Saquon Barkley.
06:00And Saquon handled it the way you'd love to see
06:02a real leader handle it.
06:05The only time you make it about you is when it's wrong,
06:09not when it's right.
06:11That's another key piece to this.
06:12How did Fred Warner handle it the other day
06:14when they asked him about a 97-yard reception
06:17to Justin Jefferson?
06:19Fred's not looking at the DCs, not looking at the DBs.
06:22He goes, I was supposed to get home
06:24and the quarterback and I didn't.
06:26So that's on me.
06:27Even though all of us know, dude, it's not on you.
06:30But that's leadership.
06:31That's leadership.
06:33If that play had gone well, what would Fred have said?
06:36Well, DC's put me in a wonderful position
06:39and the other guys took up a couple blockers
06:40and so I was able to cook.
06:42How many years now has Fred Warner said
06:44that he's able to play as well as he does
06:46because of the presence of Dre Greenlaw?
06:49Well, now there's no Dre Greenlaw.
06:50How's Fred look?
06:52Yeah, how's he doing without Dre?
06:55He's the best player in the damn game.
06:57So it is Fred, but his leadership style
07:00will never point the positive spotlight on himself.
07:05And that's what Sirianni does that drives me nuts,
07:08especially because he didn't even have a helmet.
07:10Exactly, and that's where I would default to Shanahan
07:14because when things don't go right,
07:15he doesn't usually or almost ever point the finger
07:20at the players who didn't make the play
07:23or the officials who didn't make the right call.
07:25It's about the team.
07:27It's about we didn't execute and the offensive line
07:31or his calls or his scheme,
07:33he doesn't often point the finger elsewhere
07:35than to the overall team unit.
07:37And I love that about a head coach, it's leadership.
07:39I'm looking at a whole board of all the NFL teams
07:42just to jog my memory of all the coaches.
07:44And I'm trying to think, is there any other coach
07:47that I would argue in the NFL,
07:49when a play goes well, makes it about him?
07:52I think McVay did it once,
07:54but I think he learned his lesson.
07:56You don't see him run into the end zone
07:58and jump on people's shoulders anymore.
08:01So that's good.
08:02And by the way, I don't mind personality, okay?
08:08How about McDaniel in Miami?
08:09We love Mike.
08:10Mike's a wackadoodle.
08:11He's hilarious.
08:12He always looks like he's coming out of,
08:14he looks like Bradley Cooper in the movie, The Hangover.
08:16Like he's got those shades on,
08:18always looks like he was out till three in the morning.
08:21And the hair has grown out now too, it's a little wild.
08:23I love Mike, but Mike's not over here going,
08:26whenever Tyreek Hill scores,
08:28do you see Mike doing somersaults on the sideline?
08:32No, turn around, walk away, get ready for the next play.
08:37I don't need you to fit into a box,
08:39but to me, that's leadership, especially in football.
08:44These dudes' bodies are on the line.
08:47They go out there and make a play.
08:49Let them go dance in the end zone.
08:52Let them have that moment.
08:54They're the ones that are doing the blood,
08:56blood, sweat, and tears.
08:58And you'll get your credit, you'll get your credit.
09:01But that to me is a very, very big thing in leadership.
09:05If it goes well, push everybody else around you forward.
09:10If it goes bad, shove them behind you.
09:12Exactly.
09:13That's the way to do it, and Nick does the opposite.
09:15Right, and I think because of that,
09:17that's partly why there is definitely a divide
09:21between he and not only the fan base,
09:23but maybe the starting quarterback as well.
09:25And you heard rumors from last year
09:26that they were not on the same page,
09:28Jalen Hurts and Nick Sirianni.
09:30And you have a game like last night,
09:32and that's a classic time where the head coach
09:35should step up and say,
09:36you know, I probably should have run the ball,
09:38I put Saquon in a tough spot,
09:40and Jalen Hurts, I put them in a difficult situation
09:43where if we do complete that,
09:45we're probably gonna win the game,
09:46but looking back at it,
09:48I probably should have run the ball,
09:49and a little humility and a little ownership
09:52is what you're talking about.
09:53Absolutely, and so let's take that
09:55to things that we've seen from Kyle Shanahan
09:57through the years.
09:58Let's go back to last year in Minnesota.
10:00And I've always described what he did
10:03with Steve Wilkes in that game as simply a surprise.
10:07I found it to be very surprising,
10:08I thought it was telling.
10:10This is no criticism of Steve Wilkes,
10:12it was more a moment where I went,
10:13oh, something's wrong in that relationship.
10:17But I can also say this,
10:19if Kyle were really being an awesome leader in that moment,
10:24he wouldn't have said it that way.
10:26Because again, what do you do as a leader
10:28when things don't go well?
10:30You take all your people,
10:31and you shove them behind your back,
10:33and you stick your chest out,
10:35and you take the bullet for them.
10:37That's what you're supposed to do.
10:39Because you get paid the most,
10:40you have the word head in front of the name coach.
10:44And so you're the guy.
10:46And that's the way it works.
10:47And it's fair and unfair, we know this.
10:50Coaches get wins and losses,
10:51quarterbacks get wins and losses,
10:53nobody else gets wins and losses.
10:55Nobody else.
10:56So, but that's the way it works,
10:57and so we miss the context sometime, and that's fine.
11:02But yeah, I don't love it when the leader
11:03of the football team does a press conference
11:06to be like, so the other people all know
11:07that they messed up.
11:09I don't know, did you not hear?
11:11Well, we had that last year from Shanahan.
11:13That's what I mean.
11:13Yeah, which is.
11:15In Minnesota, that's not good.
11:18It's not good, but it was pretty obvious.
11:20And this year, you had the same thing in Minnesota,
11:24and we can play the Brian Baldinger cut
11:26on the way he broke down the 97-yard touchdown reception
11:30from Justin Jefferson, but if it was last year,
11:35or if it was Steve Wilks as the coordinator,
11:37I wonder if Kyle would respond differently,
11:40because for me, last year, the zero blitz
11:43at the end of the half, and Mooney Ward tried
11:45to get the pick, and he didn't.
11:46They scored a touchdown, and that turned the game.
11:48This one's not too dissimilar in that
11:52it was a devastating play.
11:54Totally.
11:54And the defensive coordinator might've messed up
11:57with the way he schemed it.
11:59Listen, I'll admit sort of our layman's weakness,
12:03which is that we're just, I always say,
12:05we're just sitting on a couch with bad food
12:07in front of us.
12:09I don't know how this whole thing,
12:11every single piece of how the play call comes together.
12:14I understand that on defense,
12:15that's the defensive coordinator's responsibility.
12:18I get that, and so I'm not saying on the sideline
12:22Kyle should've run up a flight of stairs
12:24the same way he did when Brandon Ayuk
12:26was about to get traded and be like,
12:28Steve, stop, sounds like a terrible play call.
12:31Let's do, no, dude, you've got 30 seconds.
12:33I understand that other people on the sideline
12:36do have responsibility, but I also wonder
12:38if Kyle Shanahan, if he was given that press conference
12:41again, might choose his words a little bit differently.
12:43Look, we got caught in a play call there
12:47that I didn't like, and we don't really feel
12:51looking back on it like it was the right thing.
12:54That was unfortunate, and we as a coaching staff
12:57have had that conversation, and we will try
13:00to not be making that mistake in the future.
13:03That would land so differently with people,
13:05even if that makes Kyle's skin crawl.
13:09I get it, even if it makes your skin crawl,
13:11because maybe, Kyle, you had nothing to do with it,
13:14but you have the word head in front of the word coach.
13:18That's the way you do it.
13:19I think that's the way you try to do it.
13:22You should, or if you're gonna do what you did last year,
13:26then that normally would portend to where
13:28that person's gonna be replaced and removed immediately,
13:31not at the end of the year.
13:32So when you say that, and he knows he can't do that,
13:36wow, that was pretty scathing, and yet,
13:39Steve Wilkes was able to coach through the rest of the year,
13:42and then he got fired about nine minutes
13:44after the Super Bowl ended.
13:45Even though some of the games still looked really good.
13:48Their defense looked amazing in Jacksonville after the bye.
13:50It looked great in the Super Bowl
13:52and maybe Kyle learned his lesson coming off of
13:55Sunday's game where you had another situation
13:58where you blitzed and you had two safeties deep.
14:01You had two of your corners
14:03who were not guarding their best player.
14:05That feels to me like a schematic breakdown.
14:07Well, you referenced what Baldy,
14:09who was great this morning on the morning roast,
14:11you referenced what he said about that play.
14:13I referenced yesterday that Richard Sherman
14:15came down on the defensive coordinators,
14:17Nick Sorensen, Brandon Staley.
14:19What are you guys doing?
14:20What was that setup?
14:21You can't put your safeties in that position
14:23with the best wide receiver in the league.
14:25Baldy seems to agree.
14:27I don't know what they're thinking.
14:28Diamond or Lenoir's on the other side
14:30of the field guarding grass,
14:31like there's nothing over there, there's no work.
14:33You got Naylor and Jefferson over here in a stack.
14:36I got, you gotta get, you get, sometimes you can,
14:38I don't know why you would drop down
14:40your backup safety in that situation.
14:42You know, him and Tago, the safety's in the play,
14:45and Odom is down there.
14:46If you're going to play that stack,
14:49at least put Treverius on Justin right there,
14:52and let Ward take Naylor.
14:53I mean, at least put your best corner
14:56on the best receiver in that situation.
14:58And so, not only did they get caught
15:00with their second corner on the other side of the field,
15:03but they got caught with, you know,
15:05their third safety on Jefferson like that.
15:07And that's, you know, I mean, Sam saw that all the way.
15:10I think he saw it pre-snap, actually.
15:12You know, and the biggest play
15:14that I've seen the 49ers give up
15:16since Shanahan has been there, you know,
15:17happened on the play.
15:19I mean, obviously, looking back on this,
15:23in the moment, you're just frustrated.
15:25You can't believe that it plays out that way.
15:27But the more sort of NFL people I listen to,
15:30yeah, this was set up very, very incorrectly.
15:34And they tried to blitz,
15:35and I think that they thought that that would handle it.
15:37And once again, like all game long,
15:40the Vikings offensive line won this football game.
15:43They were incredible.
15:45They won the game.
15:46I know Nick was okay,
15:48but the Viking offensive line won that football game.
15:52Yeah, Nick was, I thought Nick was great.
15:54And he had two sacks, and he had another pressure.
15:56And Floyd, I don't believe he recorded a tackle.
16:00And your guy, Javon Hargrave, in the middle,
16:03who's supposed to be a great pass rusher in the interior,
16:07he's not doing anything.
16:07He's not good.
16:08I would excuse Nick Bosa from this criticism,
16:12because I thought that he was really good.
16:13He was disruptive, but he didn't get any help
16:17in the pass rush, and that 97-yard touchdown drive,
16:19or touchdown throw, rather,
16:21was one of only four times they blitzed.
16:23So Nick Sorensen, in his defensive approach,
16:27was we're just gonna rush four,
16:28and that's gonna be good enough, and it wasn't good enough.
16:31And they got beaten in the run game,
16:33and Sam Darnold was mostly unpressured in the game.
16:37So I wonder if going forward in this next game here
16:41against the Rams, without two of their top wide receivers,
16:44if they try to heat up Matthew Stafford a little bit,
16:47because they didn't do that to Sam Darnold,
16:49they made it too easy on him.
16:51Like, this is what I look for,
16:52when people sort of wonder,
16:55okay, why are you a fan of this coach?
16:57Why are you not a fan of that coach?
17:00And maybe this is like the training
17:02through the years of watching Steve Kerr coach the Warriors,
17:06the training of when I was in L.A.
17:08watching Phil Jackson coach the Lakers.
17:11Does it mean that schematically they're perfect?
17:14Of course not, of course not.
17:16Steve Kerr's rotations coming up soon on 95-7, the game,
17:21we're only a couple months away.
17:23But it doesn't mean that they're schematically perfect.
17:26The number one thing I look for in a coach
17:29that we can see from the outside is togetherness.
17:33You know, Stiney was making the point,
17:35well, people have been frustrated with Kyle before.
17:37Nobody's ever, ever free from frustration.
17:40It's football, it's emotional.
17:43You ever worked at a restaurant?
17:45Everybody's screaming at each other
17:47all the time in the back.
17:51And this is football.
17:53This is 18 times as emotional
17:56and a billion times more physical.
17:58So sure, people are gonna be frustrated,
18:01but what I've loved about the Kyle Shanahan era
18:04is that the Niners usually look together.
18:08They're buttoned up most of the time.
18:11And if there's a concern I have right now
18:14with what I see, it's not that Christian and Debo
18:16are gonna be out.
18:17It's that the defensive coordinators
18:19have been caught again in Minnesota
18:21letting people get over the top, number one,
18:24and Charverius Ward, after two games,
18:28is already speaking into microphones going like,
18:30well, I would rather play this way,
18:32but that's not the game plan the coaches are giving me.
18:35We're two games in.
18:36Two games.
18:37To a new defensive regime.
18:39Right.
18:41And you got a loss.
18:43You got a corner saying he'd do it a different way.
18:45And the entire NFL media being like,
18:48what the hell were you doing?
18:49Yeah.
18:50Not good.
18:51Not good at all.
18:52And you look at what this team has been
18:55over virtually every year,
18:57and it's been a new defensive coordinator
18:58almost every year.
19:00You have Sorensen.
19:01You had Steve Wilkes.
19:02You had D'Amico Ryans.
19:03You had Robert Sala.
19:04And I know that it's good that these guys
19:06are going out and getting head coaching jobs.
19:08That means that they're good coaches
19:09and that they deserve their promotion to be head coaches.
19:13But you're going year after year
19:15with a new defensive coordinator.
19:17And so far, it's not really working.
19:19I'm just looking at the numbers
19:21and they are second to last in blitz percentage.
19:24They've only blitzed six times in two games.
19:27Nine and a half percent of dropbacks.
19:30Their pressure rate is toward the bottom of the league.
19:33Their sack numbers toward the bottom of the league.
19:35And I know it's a small sample, just two games in,
19:38but you saw it on Sunday.
19:40You didn't heat up Sam Darnold at all, really.
19:43And other than Nick Bosa, you had no heat on him.
19:45You said six blitzes the whole season?
19:47According to pro football reference.
19:50And one of them ended with a Justin Jefferson gritty.
19:53Correct.
19:54Yeah.
19:55Yeah.
19:56Yeah.
19:57A gritty, a 97-yard gritty.
19:58A 97-yard gritty.
19:58Super gritty.
19:59I was surprised he had the energy left
20:00to do the gritty after that.
20:01That's tiring.
20:02That is.
20:03The Falcons have blitzed four times in two games.
20:06The Niners have blitzed six times.
20:09According to profootballreference.com.
20:13Meanwhile, Minnesota, your leading blitz team,
20:16they've blitzed 33 times, Mark.
20:1833 out of 78 pass attempts, they've blitzed.
20:22So you saw it on Sunday where Minnesota's bringing five,
20:26they're bringing six,
20:27and they're bringing them from all different angles.
20:29And I know every defense is not the same,
20:31and the Niners are more a team
20:34that is just gonna rush four and trust the other seven.
20:37But I'd like to see them mix it up a little bit
20:39and maybe bring a little bit more heat at times.
20:42There's only two good things that happened
20:44with that Kirk Cousins drive last night.
20:47One is the Sirianni was upset.
20:51That's number one.
20:52Well, I know a couple other ones, but.
20:54Number two is I was sitting there going,
20:58dude, Saquon drops the ball,
21:01and that turns into a six-point Eagles lead
21:05instead of a three-point Eagles lead.
21:08And Faye, the Dibbers had done Falcons plus five and a half.
21:11I have to admit, I was chuckling a little bit.
21:14I'm like, oh, he not gonna be happy about this.
21:17This is a bad beat.
21:18Remember earlier you talked,
21:20I'm like, that wasn't a bad beat.
21:21This was a bad beat.
21:22This would not have been a bad beat.
21:23It would have been a bad beat.
21:24If Saquon catches the ball, the Eagles win by three.
21:27Ball game over.
21:29Ball game over.
21:30And you would have won.
21:32And then they kick a field goal,
21:33and I'm like, oh, he's gonna lose.
21:35And then he didn't lose.
21:36Congrats.
21:37Well, honestly, I don't think it would have been a bad beat
21:41because Philly deserved to win that game by six.
21:43They should have kicked a field goal.
21:45They should have won by six.
21:46They were in a prime position.
21:48And the beauty of it for me was in my pick and pool,
21:52where there's actual money involved,
21:53I had the Falcons plus six and a half.
21:56So deep down-
21:56Oh, I thought they were five and a half.
21:58Five and a half was the real time, but the pool I'm in-
22:01Now I'm even more upset.
22:03The spreads come out on Tuesday.
22:05So I already have my sheet for the week,
22:07and those numbers don't change.
22:09So that spread actually went from six and a half
22:11to five and a half.
22:12So fade the Dibbers, ha ha ha, whatever.
22:16I don't want to lose that because I'm proud to be a winner,
22:19and I won again.
22:20But for me, in the money pool,
22:23I'm thinking, go ahead and kick the field goal, Philly.
22:25I got six and a half.
22:26I didn't know that.
22:27Is winner.
22:28That makes me more mad.
22:29And the little cherry on top,
22:31Grandy.
22:32No, no, no, no, no, no.
22:33Oh, no.
22:33Yes, yes, yes.
22:34The L for Grandy.
22:36I'm going to call him Glandy.
22:37I'm starting to feel bad for the guy.
22:39Yeah.
22:40I'm going with two.
22:41You don't need to keep rubbing it in.
22:42Okay?
22:42I do.
22:43And then remember last year in the playoffs?
22:44Also, the flip side of this is Stiney won.
22:46You can't be happy about that.
22:47Yeah, that hurts me a little bit.
22:48No, that's a good point that he just made there.
22:50But his team-
22:50Point for Grandy.
22:51His team's over.