Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Rich in Mountain View on whether to dibs.
00:02Hi, Rich, thank you for waiting.
00:03What's up?
00:05Hey, no problem.
00:06First of all, dibs, I feel your pain.
00:08I needed 12 points from McCaffrey on Sunday night
00:11to make the playoffs.
00:14Yeah.
00:15He was gonna get it too, Rich.
00:17He was gonna get it.
00:18First overall pick in the draft, right?
00:21Yeah, we got a guy here who took him number one overall
00:24and he's in last in our league, so there you go.
00:26Sam was eliminated in week six somehow,
00:33but anyway, go ahead, Rich.
00:35Yeah, to your point, at five and seven,
00:39the Niners, they've lost arguably nine
00:42out of their 10 best players have either been injured,
00:43hurt, or they're out for the season.
00:46And to be five and seven at that point isn't great,
00:49but it's not terrible.
00:51And if they can win out, which is unlikely,
00:53they're 10 and seven, right?
00:55Which brings me to my point, Detroit, they're 10 and two.
01:00They have half their defense missing,
01:01but Campbell's motivating them,
01:03so it's time for Kyle to step it up,
01:06find some heart in these backup players
01:09and get them to win maybe even four games,
01:12nine and eight, maybe we sneak in, I don't know.
01:17But and then to your point with Fred Warner
01:20was playing on the bum ankle,
01:22like look at Curt Schilling for the Red Sox,
01:25the bloody sock, right?
01:26He won a World Series on a broken ankle,
01:28so just if these guys can suit it up,
01:31I think this week's the must win.
01:34If they lose this week, then shut it down,
01:35but I think we go all out this week.
01:39I mean, Rich, thank you.
01:40Dibs and I are both with you that the,
01:44I've sort of spotlighted the next nine days,
01:48and if the 49ers can win two football games
01:51in the next nine days,
01:52that reboots the conversation a little bit.
01:55I get it's not where most people's heads are right now
01:57because of just all of the disaster,
01:59everything that's falling with the three losses in a row
02:02and two of them just not even being competitive.
02:06I struggle with this.
02:07If you want to talk about injuries on defense,
02:12and he said Detroit's lost a bunch
02:15of their defensive players and they're 11 and one.
02:18If you're gonna, this is me now,
02:19if you're gonna criticize something
02:20on the defensive side of the ball with their performance,
02:23particularly in the last two weeks
02:25when all of their top starters have been hurt,
02:28I would not be criticizing their performance
02:32in the last two games.
02:34I would go back to the months of March, April,
02:38May, June, and July and criticize the defense there.
02:42Kyle Shanahan once said it is his job
02:45to go through all of the scenarios
02:48and be ready for all of them.
02:50So in other words, a coach has to go into a season
02:53and go, all right, what happens if we lose our QB?
02:56What happens if we lose Kristen McCaffrey?
02:59And you're supposed to be ready for that.
03:01I would argue the 49ers were not ready for this.
03:04And you could even talk about Warner and Lenore.
03:07I would focus in on one player.
03:09The 49ers are not prepared for a Nick Bosa injury, period.
03:14Well, no team is other than Detroit.
03:16But you gotta have something that you can go to.
03:19It looks like what they've gone to is,
03:21well, we'll just huck another body in there,
03:23and as you've pointed out, not change our scheme at all,
03:27and just ask people to do,
03:29and this is kind of what I'm getting at.
03:30We're like, well, you gotta, you gotta,
03:33come on, win one for the Gimper, and you gotta get,
03:35you can't just tell people to go be good
03:37and then they're good.
03:38You can't tell Ronnie Bell,
03:40go catch the ball, because I told you to.
03:42So, like, they don't have the people.
03:46That's not an excuse, because that's still on them.
03:49It is on them.
03:50It's on them to get the people,
03:51and they didn't get the people.
03:52But here we are, and now they don't have the people,
03:55so I'm not gonna come down their road for saying,
03:57you gotta get these guys to play better.
03:59They're not good enough.
04:00Well, then you need to get players who are good enough,
04:02and this is where I look at Kyle again,
04:04and maybe he needs to be less involved in the draft process,
04:08because I'm looking at the 2024 draft,
04:10and I see, of their eight picks, no defensive linemen.
04:14Last year, they had nine picks,
04:17and I see, counting up, no defensive linemen,
04:20and I see 2022, you took Drake Jackson in the second round,
04:24and he's been hurt.
04:26He hasn't really panned out.
04:27You took Kalia Davis in the sixth,
04:29and he's a rotational guy, and he's a guy.
04:31Sixth round, yeah, whatever.
04:33The year before that, you took, well, nobody
04:37on the defensive line, so you don't want to address it,
04:40and you go back to Javon Kinlaw, and that's-
04:42But why would you?
04:43Back then, the defensive line was humming.
04:46You would look to the future, and that's what you do,
04:48and you drafted Javon Kinlaw, and now he's still playing,
04:51but he's playing for the Jets.
04:53Do you notice what we do?
04:54Two years ago, no one was saying draft a D lineman.
04:57We're screaming for two years,
04:58you need to be drafting more offensive linemen,
05:01and now we're gonna go back to two or three years ago
05:04in the draft-
05:04Well, they haven't done that very well either.
05:05And suggest that they should have been drafting
05:07for two or three years down the road
05:09to be ready for that.
05:11You drafted a wide receiver this year
05:13when you already had a wide receiver,
05:15well, in the first round.
05:16Could you not have taken a defensive lineman,
05:18a defensive tackle, a defensive somebody
05:21on the D line with the 31st pick?
05:23You could've, you could've taken an offensive lineman.
05:25You could've done anything, but instead,
05:27you took a wide receiver who, yes, he got shot,
05:31and his season got derailed,
05:32but since he's gotten back and gotten healthy,
05:34the one thing he's supposed to be able to do,
05:36beat man coverage, he's not doing.
05:39He doesn't get open.
05:40If you watch Ricky Pearsall in the All-22,
05:42he doesn't get open.
05:43And the offensive line doesn't give Brock time
05:46to where he can even find him.
05:48Ricky Pearsall went from, man, good to have you,
05:51finally, you're an impact player,
05:53to now, my God, is he even out there?
05:55I mean, how many games has Ricky played?
05:57He's probably played five.
05:59Yeah, since he came back.
06:00And one of them was with Brandon Allen.
06:02Yep.
06:03And another one is in a blizzard
06:04where they attempted 17 passes.
06:06Like, I'm not, put it this way.
06:08The last two games, no catches.
06:09I'm not concerned yet with Ricky Pearsall.
06:12I'll be concerned with Ricky Pearsall
06:14when they trade or cut Debo Samuel,
06:17and he still goes out there and doesn't produce,
06:20or whatever.
06:20I get it.
06:21He's played six games.
06:22I never thought Ricky was about this year.
06:25You know, you talk about the future.
06:26But when you look at this team,
06:27you could've used some players who help you this year.
06:30Yeah, you could've used all kinds of stuff.
06:32Like a defensive tackle.
06:34Who can actually defend and tackle?
06:36And to John Lynch's point,
06:37maybe there was no defensive tackle that they liked
06:40at the bottom of the first round or whatever.
06:42You know this.
06:44Like, there's six positions they could've addressed.
06:47They could've got a safety.
06:48I don't like their safety room right now.
06:50I don't like their safety room.
06:52They could've done that.
06:53You get one pick.
06:55You get one pick.
06:56You gotta address a position of need
06:58plus go from your board based on who you really love.
07:00They love Ricky, and the jury is still very much out.
07:03Maybe Ricky's gonna be a star.
07:04Oh, for sure it's out.
07:05I don't know.
07:07This year, there are holes that you have
07:08that you could've filled as opposed to drafting.
07:11To my point, you drafted Ricky Pearsall as a future piece.
07:15And you made this point back in April
07:16where you can't expect a rookie wide receiver
07:19to come in and make a big impact.
07:20And you're right.
07:21Especially when he gets a bullet.
07:22Right.
07:23I mean, unless he's Pukanukuwa,
07:24and Ricky Pearsall got shot.
07:26So that definitely derailed it.
07:28But even if he didn't get shot,
07:29I don't think that Ricky Pearsall right now
07:31would be sitting on 50 catches.
07:33He's had no catches the last three weeks.
07:37Here's what, by the way,
07:37Brian Baldinger was on with the guys in the morning,
07:40and this is what he said about Pearsall.
07:42What surprised me about that stat right there,
07:44which I did not know that,
07:45is that he's even run 63 routes.
07:48Because you don't even notice him.
07:49You don't even know he's on the field.
07:50Like, that's how invisible he is.
07:52I'm thinking, well, where is he?
07:53I see Juwan out there slipping and sliding.
07:55I see George doing what he's doing.
07:57Like, where's the ball even going, for the most part?
08:00It's not really, I don't even know who it's going to.
08:02Obviously, it's not going to Pearsall.
08:04I talked to him on the field before the game in Green Bay,
08:06and he said he's here to beat man coverage.
08:09I haven't seen him get open.
08:10I haven't seen him even look out.
08:12Where is he even being featured in any way right now?
08:14I mean, like, to his point.
08:17I mean, we're watching on TV,
08:19and if they're not throwing him the ball,
08:21like, I'm not diving into the All-22.
08:24I have no idea where Ricky Pearsall is at this point.
08:28Again, since Ricky Pearsall hit the field,
08:31he had one good game,
08:33and then there was kind of a whatever game,
08:36and then we got into these last two weeks,
08:39where, like, he's out there with Brandon Allen,
08:41and he's out there.
08:42I know why you couldn't see him,
08:43because he's wearing a white jersey,
08:45and there's a blizzard.
08:46Last three weeks, yeah,
08:47he's got three targets and no catches.
08:49And before that, he had 11 catches in three games,
08:52and it looked like, okay, he's healthy, he's back,
08:55he's going to be a factor,
08:56and then, subsequent to that,
08:58three targets in three games?
09:00It's not a lot.
09:01I mean, he's wide receiver three.
09:03If you go around to most teams,
09:04you're wide receiver three is not a target monster.
09:07Well, none of these guys are target monsters,
09:09and part of it is because
09:10you had Brandon Allen in Green Bay,
09:11and I get that.
09:12In Buffalo, you had a blizzard, fine.
09:14That's fair as well,
09:15but I look at Debo, who doesn't get open,
09:18and it's Jawan Jennings.
09:19He's the only guy who goes down the field,
09:22gets space, gets open, and catches the ball,
09:25outside of George Kittle.
09:27Let's have a conversation about Debo Samuel for a second.
09:31You know what I mean?
09:33We went from two, three weeks ago
09:34to he's lost a step,
09:36which I don't buy.
09:38I do not think Debo Samuel's lost a step,
09:40but I do think there's a different point
09:44that's worth exploration,
09:46which is, okay, if there's no Iyuk on the field,
09:51and there's no Christian McCaffrey on the field,
09:55and now Debo's not going to go out there
09:59and beat man coverage on his own,
10:02and therefore, defenses are able to be like,
10:04well, just watch for the bubble screen,
10:06or whatever, you know?
10:09Watch for the jet sweep,
10:11and if they're sitting there waiting for it,
10:13then it has completely stripped Debo Samuel of his powers,
10:18and I do think that there is a fair conversation
10:22to be had with regard to where do you go next?
10:25Where do you go next with the wide receiver room?
10:27Because it went from,
10:29man, all we talked about it was this offseason,
10:32because of all of the rumors and the contract stuff,
10:34but we certainly felt like when it was at full strength,
10:38boy, it was one hell of a room.
10:40You had 1,300-yard receiver Brandon Iyuk,
10:43you had Debo, who's the ultimate Swiss Army knife,
10:46and boy, you loved having Juwan,
10:48third in Juwan as wide receiver three,
10:51and you drafted two rookies you were excited about.
10:54Where did all of that go?
10:56Brandon now is an I don't know for training camp next year.
11:00He had surgery last week.
11:01At best, at best, that's an I don't know.
11:03That's probably, that feels like someone
11:06who won't be 100% week one next year.
11:09Probably till September, yeah.
11:10Debo Samuel, is he even on the team?
11:12Now Ricky.
11:13Well, he restructured, so that's a huge eat
11:15if you want to get rid of Debo.
11:17We think, yes.
11:18Because of what they did on the restructure,
11:20all that dead cap would accelerate
11:22over the next year or two.
11:23Or you could trade, you know what I mean?
11:25Like you could send that.
11:26Still a dead cap hit when you trade him.
11:27Sure, sure, and then Ricky,
11:29now we're having conversations about
11:31he's invisible out there.
11:32Jacob Cowling is never.
11:33Joel's a free agent, too, I believe.
11:35Ah, I thought he signed a two.
11:37I think he's a free agent after next season.
11:38Yeah, you could be right.
11:39It's a small contract is what it was.
11:41I'll look it up, but.
11:43Either way, you've got a lot more
11:46of a question on your offense.
11:48And I do think, and you talk about changes,
11:50not wholesale changes, but adjustments
11:53is the word that you used.
11:54I think one of the adjustments you have to make
11:56is deciding how you want to run your offense,
11:59because the way they've done it,
12:00and Kurt Warner said this to us last year,
12:03this offense is not built to come from behind.
12:06And a lot of it is because of what they do
12:09out of 21 personnel, two running backs,
12:11one tight end, and that's Kyle Juszczyk,
12:13your fullback, so do you still want to use a fullback?
12:16Do you still want to play the same way
12:18that you've always played with a lot of two running back
12:21and one tight end, and you do a lot of two tight end?
12:24Not as much this year, because you don't really trust
12:26your second tight end as much as you did
12:29when you had Charlie Warner on the team,
12:30but do you need to change the way you go about offense,
12:33because this year, for me, the offense has been
12:36less dynamic, it's been less unique,
12:39it's been more predictable.
12:40Yeah, well, this is, now there's sort of two questions
12:43that come out of that.
12:44And the one that I've always sort of, not always,
12:48I guess the question sort of developed
12:50over the last year and a half,
12:51when people really started to point to
12:53all the fourth quarter leads
12:55that Kyle Shanahan can't overcome,
12:57and then we've got a lot of people,
12:58starting with Kurt Warner, come out,
13:00and Dan Orlovsky talked about it this week,
13:02RG3 with, I thought, a great post on social media
13:06about what, like, this is someone who played
13:10for the Shanahans, so philosophically,
13:13the way they go about it, and why it's so hard
13:17for Kyle Shanahan teams to come from behind.
13:20Because philosophically, the way he goes about offense
13:25is, in many ways, beholden to the idea
13:29of getting a lead, and running the ball,
13:31and being forceful on the offensive line,
13:34and going down the field, and getting at least
13:36a three-nothing, or hopefully a seven-nothing lead,
13:39and try to play that clock game,
13:40so you get the ball to start the game,
13:42or you get the ball, or the lead early,
13:45and then get the ball in the second half.
13:46All the things that have been fundamental
13:48to Kyle Shanahan's offense, I gotta be honest with you,
13:52I'm really torn on it.
13:53I really am, because on one hand,
13:56obviously, whatever people with the last name Shanahan
13:59have been doing on offense in the NFL is very good.
14:02There's a long, long, long resume of success
14:05in the NFL with whatever they're doing.
14:08On the other hand, does that still pop
14:12in the same way in 2024 in the NFL,
14:16where rules have been changed to allow passing,
14:20pass throwers, pass catchers, the rules are all tilted
14:24in their favor now.
14:26So now what you're left with is someone
14:28who has to get a lead in order to feel good
14:31in the second half, and oh, by the way,
14:33if you do get that lead, you don't feel good
14:35about that anymore either, because everybody can just whoop.
14:40I mean, did you see this football game last night?
14:42My God, 93-yard touchdown this way.
14:4595, I'm like, good God.
14:48I don't know how easy it is to stop anymore.
14:51So what you're looking at, and this is to your point,
14:54is there a fundamental flaw that's developed
14:57in the Kyle Shanahan offense because of the fact
15:00that it is dependent on getting a lead,
15:03which is hard enough as it is,
15:05but now your leads aren't safe even when you do get them
15:09because of the way NFL teams are structuring their rosters
15:12and the ability to huck the ball all over the field.
15:15They've had all these leads.
15:17That was never the problem.
15:18They're losing the leads they've got.
15:20I think that the loss of leads, though,
15:22if I look back at the Ram game
15:24and I look back at the Cardinal game,
15:26those to me were not based
15:28on what Shanahan does offensively.
15:30Those were things that are outside of the offense.
15:33You had a special teams, couple of breakdowns.
15:36You had Jordan Mason fumble inside the 10
15:39where that's not a Shanahan problem
15:41where you have a young running back who just coughs it up.
15:43You had Charverius Ward give up a 50-yard pass play.
15:47You had Devondre Campbell with a grotesque PI on a play.
15:51So for me, the blown leads are separate
15:53than the overarching question of,
15:56is it time to change the way you approach offense?
15:59Because I'm looking at use check right now, snap counts,
16:02and he is the fullback, and when he's in,
16:05it is going to be 21 personnel or 22 with two tight ends,
16:09and that's been half the snaps this year, 52%.
16:12Last year, 46, the year before, 50.
16:15So what that tells me is that half the time,
16:17you don't have three wide receivers on the field,
16:19and when you don't have three wides,
16:21that means it's gonna be Jawan and Debo and not Ricky,
16:25or Ricky and Debo and not Jawan.
16:27It's always gonna be Debo,
16:29but if you have Debo as one of your two wide receivers,
16:32and he's not a guy who can really get open
16:34down the field very often, what are we doing offensively?
16:37That to me becomes one of the adjustments
16:39you have to look at as Kyle Shanahan.
16:41Are we too married to the old school,
16:45two running back with a fullback,
16:47and even though use check a lot goes up and he's a slot,
16:50or he's a tight end and all the rest of it,
16:52the one thing that they've had an advantage on, Mark,
16:54is positionless football when you have McCaffrey
16:58and Debo, Ayuk and George and Juice.
17:01Well, when you don't have all five of those guys,
17:03you can't play this positionless football
17:06because teams know you're not gonna throw it to Mason,
17:08and they know that use check is primarily a blocker,
17:11and they know Debo can't get open down the field,
17:14so if you don't have the personnel,
17:15you gotta change what you're doing offensively.
17:17Yeah, and see, this would be my response to that.
17:20I think that you have some points tucked into there,
17:23but because of-
17:24I should've saved that for Cosell tomorrow.
17:25That was good.
17:26Well, but here's the thing.
17:28I think fundamentally, we are spending too much time
17:31on the wrong side of the ball,
17:33and this is why when we talk about
17:35what's the bigger issue with the 49ers right now,
17:38because of who they are,
17:39and because of who their head coach is,
17:41I think we lean immediately to talking about the offense.
17:45The offense is not having a great year.
17:47I understand all of that,
17:49but the fundamentals of the Kyle Shanahan offense,
17:52run the ball, get the lead, pre-snap motion, and what?
17:59Pair it with a great defense.
18:01They were-
18:02Complimentary football.
18:03They were not good.
18:04It wasn't just they were good when they got Jimmy.
18:08They were good once they got Jimmy,
18:11and then they were able to pair it with a defense
18:15that was devastating, a pass rush that was devastating.
18:19You have to have that,
18:21and so it is my belief that you can look right now
18:25at the 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs
18:27and see the difference between an angry fan base
18:30and a happy one.
18:32Brock Purdy, at this hour,
18:34remains a higher-rated quarterback this season
18:37than Patrick Mahomes,
18:39but that team has a beautiful record,
18:41and everyone thinks he's the face of the league,
18:43and he is.
18:44Why?
18:45Because he is paired with a great defense.
18:48Therefore, what he does on offense works,
18:50even when it's not working that consistently.
18:53Even when they only scored 20,
18:55which is what they did Friday against the Raiders,
18:57they scored 19 points, and they won a football game,
19:00and earlier this year, they scored 17 points,
19:03and they beat the Denver Broncos,
19:05but nobody freaks out
19:06about why the offense isn't scoring more,
19:08because it's been paired with a great defense.
19:10This whole thing doesn't work
19:12when the defense is as bad as it is right now,
19:15and that's not an excuse or a pass for Kyle.
19:19That is, go back to the offseason
19:21and realize you did not build the depth
19:25that you needed to build
19:26and be ready for the injuries when they come.
19:29That's the way I look at it.
19:32The defense right now, to me,
19:33is a way bigger concern than the offense.
19:35It's a bigger concern, but the offense is a concern,
19:38and you look at Kansas City,
19:40and you just mentioned
19:40how they tend to score 17 points a lot.
19:43They've scored more points this year than the Niners have,
19:46289 to 270, so even though-
19:48Pretty close.
19:49It's close.
19:50It's pretty close.
19:50But it's better.
19:51It's 19 points better over the course of 12 games.
19:53That's one point a game,
19:55and 11 and one versus five and seven,
19:57and the Chiefs defense is way better,
19:58so all those things-
19:5949ers play the game without their QB.
20:01Right.
20:02That's part of it.
20:04The Chiefs played six games without their running back,
20:05so much like the Niners did,
20:07so we can go tit for tat all you want,
20:09but the Chiefs have scored more points,
20:11and they're obviously, they've won more
20:13because they play complementary football,
20:15and the Niners don't do that.