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00:00Let's go back to the phones. Steve-O in the city. Hi Steve, thanks for calling, what's up?
00:06Hey guys, thanks for taking my call. I want to go back to, it was Baldinger I think it was,
00:11talking about how slow the guys were. Indeed.
00:14And yeah, I want to put a nuance on that and I don't think it's about slowness as much as it's
00:22a lack of quickness. And that equates to a lack of urgency, which I think is really
00:31troubling the Niners right now. I think maybe there's a sense of overconfidence that they feel
00:37so confident about themselves. You know, Bose has never been the most energetic guy and we love him
00:44for that. But you know, Brock Purdy's not the most energetic guy. Kyle's not the most energetic
00:50coach. There just, there seems to be this lack of spark that maybe is from overconfidence
00:58and it's translating on the field and it's translating to a lack of W's.
01:04This is a really interesting comment. Steve, thank you. And I do think this is what we're
01:09trying to access, okay? So, I think we do this with certain teams. We want people to be outwardly
01:17fiery. Like, we want to be able to see it. And I would argue you don't always get to see it.
01:23That does not mean the fire's not there. See, I would argue Brock Purdy, what we've learned about
01:28him, there's quite an inner fire. There's quite an inner fire there. It comes in a funny package.
01:34This is not how we think that fiery quarterback leaders should look like. We don't think they're
01:40going to show up looking like they're 17 with a backpack on. That's not what we think of. But
01:45that's what we got. But I think that we've learned that there's something on the inside
01:50that burns pretty nicely. And that's great. I actually think that that's what you want,
01:55no matter if you're talking football or anything in business. You want that accountability,
02:00somebody who really has the get up and go. So, I don't care what it looks like from the outside.
02:06But when the results collectively aren't there, that's when we can start asking questions.
02:12And I do think this is a difficult question to ask. It's also a difficult one to answer.
02:17But are the 49ers, in some way, shape or form, talent or performance deficient? Or
02:26are they simply suffering from, we think we're better than we are, so we really just kind of
02:32need to show up? That's impossible to determine from the outside looking in. You could look at
02:38a team that looks a little bit slow or lethargic or whatever you want to put on there. And I look
02:43at the defensive front and you had two quarterback hits and you had one quarterback sack. And that,
02:48no matter who you're going up against, is unacceptable. And I know that Kyler Murray
02:52is slippery and elusive and all the rest of it, but you didn't really make him that uncomfortable.
02:58And then in the second half, mainly in the fourth quarter, James Connor, he had 12 carries for 72
03:04yards. And that includes his last three carries, which were basically kneel downs, where he just
03:10wanted to keep the ball and get ready for the field goal. But beyond that, he was getting you
03:14for seven yards a tote. And so was it all of a sudden hot and you were worn down? Yeah, that's
03:20plausible. But ultimately, time of possession wise, you won the time of possession game again,
03:27as you have all five games. And yet you were the team that wore down. Is it because you're not in
03:32good enough shape? Do you not have the fire? Do you not have the playmakers up front? What is it?
03:37Is it the scheme? Is it the players? Is it the fitness? It's all of the above, in my opinion.
03:43I look at a team for the second straight or the third time in the last three games, second time
03:48in three games, where the other team showed more force than you. They showed more will than you.
03:55And down the stretch, they made the plays and you didn't.
03:59I don't want this opinion to be real. I really don't. Unfortunately, I think it's two pronged.
04:07It's easy when we watch people on TV and they don't do what you want them to do to just form
04:13whatever you want in your own mind about like, oh, well, Kyle Shanahan called the wrong play.
04:19Well, I was looking at it and I go, I don't even know what the hell he called. I know what I saw.
04:23I don't know if the players execute what was called. I don't know. So I don't know. Is this
04:28all on the player, all on the coach? And in the end, it doesn't matter because it's all on all
04:32of them. And the people in leadership positions are the ones that have to be most accountable.
04:36So that's all fair. But what I'm looking at right now is A, what I see on the field and then B,
04:43what I hear afterward. And this is a bad combo. The bad combo is you're not effective enough on
04:50the field. And then after the game in the locker room, you're all lined up to tell everybody about
04:56how you're still the best. And you don't understand how on earth you lost this game.
05:01And in the round, these parts, we don't lose the Cardinals. We don't lose the Rams.
05:07When you both look bad on the field and then sound arrogant in the locker room afterward,
05:14that's when I do start to wonder if you truly are performing on the field without urgency.
05:22Because you do kind of, whether you admit it or not, you kind of think you just need to show up.
05:30You really do. You kind of, even though you would never say it out loud,
05:35you would never even tell yourself this in a private room. But it's that thing in the back
05:40of your head that you can't really battle, which is that you still think you're the best team and
05:47you just need to show up. And even when something doesn't go right early, we'll rectify it. Don't
05:54worry. We're going to fix it. And how long down the road do you go before you get the wake-up call
06:01of actually your process is not working and it's not going to be good enough? And the question is,
06:08will that wake-up call come too late? Well, hopefully it comes on Thursday because there
06:11are parallels to this and the Warriors season last year where you tried to find that wake-up call and
06:18you struggled early and you kicked four or five games early in the year that you should have won,
06:22but you didn't. And a couple against Oklahoma City where you should have fouled, you didn't,
06:27and then you shouldn't have fouled, and you did. And Chet Holmgren got you two times and you lost
06:32a bunch of games early that you shouldn't have, but it was okay because you got that championship
06:36pedigree and then you kept fighting it and you kept chasing it and you wound up in the play-in
06:40game and you went to Sacramento and you got boat raced and that was it. End of season and yeah,
06:4646 wins, nothing to sneeze at. You're right, but you probably should have won 50 if Draymond Green
06:51didn't get suspended twice and all the other things we want to look at, you know, the should-haves
06:57were greater than the actual dids. And I'm looking at this year similarly where you're two and three
07:03and yeah, it's not over and you could beat Seattle fine. You get the three and three and
07:07you're in first place and all the rest of it. And you might be seven and six after 13 and you might
07:12need to win three or four and you might do that and you get in the playoffs and then you go wherever
07:17on the road and you lose. And we'll all look back similarly and say, well, that Ram game,
07:22you should have never kicked that one. And that Arizona game, you never should have kicked that
07:26one. And so these are the things where, yeah, you've been a team that's been really good and
07:31you've made it deep in three of the last four. And so you've been there and you know it and you
07:36know you're good enough, but being good enough or thinking you're good enough is not enough.
07:41You have to go out there and do it week in and week out and they have it. No doubt. No doubt.
07:45I do see parallels with this game Thursday to the game in Jacksonville last year. This has gotten
07:52here way too quick. This should not be happening week six, but it is. And if you remember the
07:57feeling at that time, three consecutive losses, at least two of them were real head scratchers
08:03in the way they went down. You know, it's one thing to miss a field goal in the rain in Cleveland.
08:07Okay. Get mad about that weird game. But then when you're just wholly outplayed with, you know,
08:14with Minnesota and Cincinnati moving the ball the way they did, and then you have a buy. And so you
08:19had to sit there and just eat those three losses for two weeks. And then you were going to
08:25Jacksonville, who was also coming off a buy and was also at that time a pretty good football team.
08:30And you thought to yourself, boy, they better look like their old selves, not their current selves,
08:37or else we're hitting panic buttons. It came out. They played great. They put together another win
08:41streak. They end up in the Super Bowl. I feel that way Thursday night. Like this is, you are
08:47in real, real trouble if you lose this game. And if they win it, it's going to be a big old volume.
08:55Even though the Chiefs and Cowboys loom, you could split those games and go into your buy
09:00at four and four and truly you're still okay. You're still okay. And who knows? Maybe they
09:05win them both. But like, dude, if you lose this one and you're already six weeks in, you'd be
09:12Owen four in the conference. Owen three in the division, two games under 500 with Patrick Mahomes
09:19getting ready to get on a plane to come to town. Dude, this is as far as regular season games go.
09:27I would argue in the last four years in the NFC championship window of the 49ers and their
09:35football, this is a top five regular season game. As far as it's urgency that we have seen during
09:42that entire time. It's big, it's big. And you go to Tampa out of the buy, which Tampa is better
09:48than you thought. And Dallas is actually a team that is still fighting and playing better and
09:54coming off a Monday night win where, you know, I don't think you can just wipe off Dallas from
09:59your schedule and think that's an easy win. And, you know, you've got five of your final
10:03nine on the road off the buy, including a back-to-back green Bay and Buffalo on the road.
10:10I mean, you want to like bank some wins early if you can, cause it gets tough after the buy.