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00:00From the River Islands guest line, isn't it time for you to discover the islands, River Islands in Lathrop.
00:06Matt, thank you so much for joining us.
00:08Let me just play this again. This is when it was suggested that Kyle can use two running backs.
00:16Yeah, two running backs on the field.
00:18Could. Can't give you our game plan though.
00:20But yeah, it's always a possibility.
00:23It feels like he's open to maybe giving Garendo and Mason a little more, a few more touches.
00:31Would you say that's fair?
00:33I'd say he's open to it philosophically, but practically, you know, they've talked about that in the past.
00:45When it comes down to it, it's like 90% Christian McCaffrey, and even more so this year.
00:52It's just two games, but his two snap counts, at least these last two games, have been high even for Christian McCaffrey.
01:02Yeah, and the way I feel about Kyle after watching him for eight years is if Christian McCaffrey's ready to go,
01:10he's going to use Christian McCaffrey because they called him the best running back in football.
01:16If he's the best running back in football, he's got to play the most, or certainly play a lot.
01:21Is there anything he can do to continue to at least integrate, let's say Mason first, a little more than he has?
01:30Or is his philosophy, it's one guy if I can do it?
01:36I think the philosophy, and it's not just him, it's him and Bobby Turner, his running backs coach,
01:42who's really the guy who's kind of controlling who's coming in and out of the game,
01:46is that if they have an elite guy, that's going to be the guy for a huge portion of the game,
01:52and they feel like they've got an elite guy.
01:56When McCaffrey first got here, remember he played a game against the Kansas City Chiefs,
02:02and then his first full game was in L.A. against the Rams,
02:07and they still had Jeff Wilson Jr. on the roster at that point.
02:11They later traded him, but he was still there.
02:14He had been their lead runner to begin that 2022 season,
02:18and he had them both in the backfield at the same time on, I forget how many plays it was.
02:24It may have been a half dozen plays.
02:28This was because McCaffrey was still getting integrated,
02:32but it was also because Wilson was a really good receiver out of the backfield.
02:38So when you had those two guys on the field at the same time,
02:42there was still a, okay, who's going to go out for a pass pattern?
02:46Who's going to get the ball in the backfield?
02:49They had two guys that could do both really well.
02:52Mason, for all of his accolades, is not a great receiving threat out of the backfield.
02:58So that may be the reason why they don't do that very much
03:03is because they would be basically telegraphing their intent.
03:07But McCaffrey is the guy who goes out for a pass,
03:11and Mason's going to be the guy that gets the ball.
03:14So I think that that's probably a reason they haven't done it to this point,
03:18but it is a possibility in the future.
03:21Matt, I read you, so I feel like I should know your answer.
03:24But I told Stani and the listeners, I feel like with this Niner team this year,
03:28I've been left at the altar because every year, I mean every week,
03:31I'm thinking, okay, this is the bust-out, this is the breakout.
03:34And I know there's so many things going on.
03:36McCaffrey coming back, and the offense kind of looks the same.
03:39Has anything – and I expect them to win the division, Matt.
03:42But I want to ask you in totality,
03:44has anything changed in Matt Barrows' mind in regard to how far this team can go?
03:50No.
03:53I mean, like you, I'm waiting for the 2023 49ers to kind of emerge at some point.
04:00And they have not.
04:02I would say that the hope for that is that McCaffrey, by his own admission,
04:08isn't up to full speed yet.
04:11And it's a different offense when he is.
04:15This is a team that's run roughshod over the Seattle Seahawks
04:19in recent meetings.
04:21And their rushing numbers against them on Sunday were good,
04:25but well below what they've usually done against the Seahawks.
04:30And I just feel like that, integrating McCaffrey into the rushing attack,
04:36I don't know whether that's – you know,
04:39they're still kind of adjusting to each other at this point.
04:42It wasn't the week six rushing attack that we saw in Seattle.
04:47So, again, I mean, we talked about this in the context of Brandon Aiyuk
04:52early in the season.
04:53Aiyuk's back in the lineup,
04:55but he doesn't look like the Brandon Aiyuk from 2023.
04:59I'm not sure that the Christian McCaffrey we're seeing looks quite like the
05:032023 Christian McCaffrey either.
05:06They're giving him a lot of snaps.
05:07They're giving him every opportunity to be that guy.
05:11But it might take time.
05:13Matt Barrows joining us on 95.7 The Game.
05:15He covers the San Francisco 49ers for the Athletic.
05:18Matt, I've got to tell you, I read your mailbag,
05:21and there was one answer you gave that I thought was fascinating,
05:24and it was a very simple one.
05:26When a reader of yours said,
05:28do you still think Brock Purdy will get $60 million?
05:32And you said, yes.
05:33The market is the market.
05:36I mean, you don't believe there's any, let's say,
05:40internal concern about Purdy or internal discussion.
05:44Do you think it's, I don't want to say a fait accompli,
05:47but you still firmly believe that he's going to reset the market?
05:51I mean, even if they have some questions about Brock Purdy in the future,
05:58I think the questions are all kind of revolving around, okay,
06:01defenses are adjusting to us,
06:04and I'm not sure that Brock Purdy has handled that adjustment all that well.
06:10That's another long answer.
06:13But, yeah, I mean, I don't know really what the recourse would be.
06:17I mean, if we play hardball with Brock Purdy,
06:21who else is going to be your quarterback?
06:23Do you want Brandon Allen to be the quarterback?
06:25Are you going to go out and sign Sam Darnold, who will be a free agent?
06:31The one sort of intriguing possibility is if, in New York,
06:38things just fall apart with the Jets,
06:40and all of a sudden Aaron Rodgers,
06:43a guy that the 49ers were definitely interested in in the past,
06:47becomes available.
06:49But I just think that two things.
06:52One is that the 49ers are not as down on Brock Purdy as the public is.
06:59I think that they realize that Purdy is dealing with a lot of challenges this year.
07:03We can go over them.
07:05It's a laundry list of things that are different from last year,
07:09and that they're very happy to have him for the future.
07:13And B, probably most important, is that, I mean, like I said in that mailbag answer,
07:18the market is the market.
07:20They're not going to, just like with Brandon Ayuk and wide receivers,
07:24they're not going to be able to get a discount if Brock Purdy's numbers dip
07:30a little bit this year.
07:32That doesn't come with a discount.
07:34They have to kind of pay what the going rate for a starting quarterback is,
07:39and it's been well established.
07:41Some guys that we don't think of as top-tier quarterbacks
07:46certainly have gotten paid as top-tier quarterbacks recently.
07:49Hey, Matt, I'll never forget a saying by the old Miami, Florida,
07:53and Dallas Cowboy coach Jimmy Johnson.
07:56He said, if you don't have the horses, you're not going to win.
08:00And that jarred me.
08:01Like, I don't agree with that.
08:02Horses matter, and we know they do, but if there is no Bosa,
08:06the Packers have allowed the least amount of sacks in the NFL.
08:09If there's no Bosa, how much pressure and what's the reality that Sorensen
08:15can come up with something to have Jordan Love under pressure?
08:19Because if I'm a Niner fan, that's the scariest part of this game.
08:22If he can't go, how do you cause disruption?
08:27I don't know.
08:28It would be a scenario with no Bosa and no Javon Hargrave,
08:32two of their best pass rushers.
08:35So it's difficult.
08:38You know, the 49ers are not a very good blitzing team
08:41because they don't blitz very often.
08:43I mean, it's not what they do.
08:45It's not what they're good at.
08:46That was sort of an issue last year with Steve Wilkes.
08:50Wilkes was having them do things that weren't in their nature.
08:54So if you don't have your usual top-tier pass rusher,
08:59I don't know what they're going to do.
09:01I mean, I think they would have to manufacture it.
09:03They would have to have guys kind of step up.
09:07Malik Collins has done a good job from the interior.
09:11He's not as good as Javon Hargrave was.
09:14These two young guys, Sam Okawano and Robert Beal,
09:21are really kind of beginners at defensive end, I'd say.
09:25And Okawano certainly has shown more potential than Beal has.
09:30But they're the two guys that would have to play quite a bit in this game.
09:35And this would be the time to really kind of break out,
09:39really kind of put in a tent pole for next season to basically declare that,
09:48I'm going to be part of this pack rush in 2025.
09:51That would start in Green Bay on Sunday.
09:54Matt Barrows joining us on 95.7, the game.
09:57He covers the San Francisco 49ers for the Athletic.
10:01We know Brock Purdy has a sore shoulder.
10:05He suffered it in the game against the Seahawks.
10:07I guess we still are under the impression that we're not sure exactly when it happened.
10:12But he didn't throw, at least during the open portion that you guys saw yesterday.
10:17And then I think about the fact, the stat that he didn't throw one pass over 20 yards against the Seahawks.
10:25Where's his arm, and is there any correlation maybe between the injury
10:31and why they didn't go downfield, or was that more Seattle's scheme?
10:36I think it was more Seattle's scheme.
10:39We're going to talk to Brock Purdy later today.
10:41At least I think it's going to be Brock Purdy.
10:44The team has to make the starting quarterback available.
10:47If it's not Brock Purdy, then all of a sudden we've got a pretty big story going into Green Bay.
10:52But yeah, it wasn't just this past week.
10:57It wasn't just Sunday against the Seahawks.
10:59It was the week before as well against Tampa, where you're having these teams play the two-deep shell,
11:07which basically discourages any deep downfield passes and makes you matriculate the ball down the field.
11:14And so both teams sort of used that, and I think that's probably the overarching reason.
11:20I don't think any of us saw any real difference in Brock Purdy's throws in the Seahawks games,
11:26other than it was mostly a case of he's taking what the Seahawks were giving him.
11:33And he did a good job in that.
11:35The completion percentage was 75%, which is what you'd expect.
11:39It was just a real lack of any explosive plays, either in the running game or the passing game.
11:45Matt, I know you didn't ask me, but I feel like we're friends.
11:49I was disappointed in Debo with the whole Pepper situation and Moody.
11:54Our morning show had Terrell Owens on this morning, and he made a comment about Debo worried about his outfit and wardrobe more than football.
12:04But all in all, this hasn't been a Debo Samuel type of year, and I just want to run by what are you seeing?
12:10And it just feels like the defensive have caught up with the way Kyle's trying to use them.
12:16How did they fix that?
12:19It's been a big challenge over this last stretch of games, because it's been really one thing after another for the team.
12:28Brandon Aiyuk's holdout, Brandon Aiyuk's injury, I think that if you're adding up things, reasons why this passing attack in general hasn't been the way it was last year, those are probably the two biggest ones.
12:45And then that has sort of a domino effect.
12:48It means that Juwan Jennings is playing on the outside a lot more than he ever has.
12:53He's doing a great job at that.
12:55He's been the one bright spot.
12:57It's put Ricky Pearsall into a more starring role.
13:02I think that Brock Purdy is still sort of catching up with Pearsall and they're getting their chemistry together.
13:09But having Aiyuk in there, having Aiyuk at the top of his game loosens things up for everybody else.
13:19Debo Samuel, to answer your question, was able to get open more last season than he is this year.
13:28This year, frankly, teams aren't fearing the 49ers passing attack like they did last year.
13:35They're playing a lot more press coverage against them.
13:38Debo Samuel is not a great press coverage beater.
13:42He's more of a zone beater.
13:44He's the guy that they go to when they're playing a team that plays a lot of zone defense.
13:48He's great against them.
13:50This year, league-wide, there's been a rise in press coverage.
13:57Against the 49ers in particular, there's been a rise.
14:00I think it's because nobody's really scared of the receiving crew.
14:05Interesting.
14:06Matt Barrows joining us on 95.7 The Game.
14:09Writes for The Athletic, covers the 49ers.
14:11Let's take care of some X's and O's here, or injuries, if you will.
14:16Kittle's going to play, right?
14:19But then what about Bosa?
14:22What about Trent Williams?
14:24And where are we with Charverius Ward and his unfortunate situation?
14:28Yeah, these are all guesses, but Kittle seemed pretty adamant that he was going to play.
14:34He was visible in the open period of practice yesterday and looked like himself.
14:40I'd say that's the one that you can pretty much count on.
14:45The other three, I would put Bosa as the lowest percentage.
14:52His point was, okay, let's just wait and see if this issue gets better by the end of the week.
14:59But he did say that he was feeling worse on Wednesday than he did the Wednesday prior.
15:06It was close for the Seahawks game with him as well.
15:10Now he's dealing with the issue on both sides of his body.
15:14It all seems to be pointing to him not playing.
15:18They signed a defensive end to the practice squad, for example.
15:21So the 49ers at least are preparing themselves for not having Bosa on Sunday.
15:28Trent Williams got through the game with the help of a painkilling injection.
15:34So I assume that he would do the same thing this time.
15:38I think his chances are a little bit better.
15:40And I would think that Charverius Ward is a little bit better than those guys.
15:45He's not dealing with any sort of injury issue.
15:48He's merely getting back into the swing of things.
15:52And the fact that he's back in practice probably suggests that he's going to play in Green Bay.
15:58Yeah, Matt, I was telling Stiney, you know what?
16:01Right now it seems like there's one way or one route for the Niners to make the postseason.
16:06And that's the division.
16:07But if somehow you can win this game, I feel like you opened that door for the possibility of a wild card.
16:12I don't know if you're a gambling man, Matt.
16:14But if I asked you if you had to bet if the Niners are going to make the postseason, how would you answer that?
16:21I would bet against that only because, like we talked about at the beginning, we haven't seen it yet.
16:29We're just waiting and waiting and waiting for this team to make its move.
16:34I'll throw it back at you guys.
16:36I would say that this is still, even without IUK, the most talented team in the division.
16:43And that alone ought to allow them to win it.
16:46We haven't seen that talent really come to the forefront yet.
16:50They haven't used that talent like they did last year.
16:53And until they do, it's hard to pick them.
16:56Yeah, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt from years past.
17:00But the thing that worries me is it doesn't feel like they've played a complete game all year long.
17:06Would you agree with that?
17:08They looked awesome in the third quarter against the Cowboys.
17:13That's the only quarter where I think they looked like their 2023 selves.
17:20And then they almost lost the game in the fourth quarter.
17:22So they very quickly reverted in that game.
17:25It was sort of a microcosm of the season.
17:27It looks great for a little bit, but then they look very, very ordinary at other times.
17:32Matt, thank you so much for joining us.
17:34We always love talking to you. You're great with your information.
17:37And enjoy the game at Lambeau on Sunday.
17:41All right. Thanks a lot, guys.
17:42Yes, sir. That's Matt Barrows of The Athletic.