- 5 months ago
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00:00All right, here's George Kittle.
00:02Finally.
00:02Y'all need to stop with this idea that the Niners' schedule is easy.
00:09This is from Richard Sherman's podcast.
00:12It's like the Niners have the easiest strength of schedule this year.
00:14It's the NFL.
00:16It's hard regardless.
00:17Sure, yeah, we're not going up against the number ones
00:20from every single conference or division,
00:22but so it's an NFL game.
00:23You still have to go out there and perform at an incredibly high level
00:25because every team is doing that same shit.
00:27So it's just like, what are you talking about, easiest schedule?
00:30Like, relax.
00:31I still have to go out there and play for 60 minutes
00:32and find a way to get a dub.
00:34And find a way to get a dub against a motivated and hungry team.
00:37Exactly.
00:38Especially all the teams that are at the bottom of the division,
00:40no one likes to lose.
00:41Usually the teams that didn't play well last year
00:43are usually the most hungry to go out there and do it again anyway,
00:45so you're getting the most hungry damn teams every single year.
00:48Okay.
00:49Buy or sell, George?
00:50Sell.
00:51Why?
00:51Because by the nature of comparative everything,
00:56one schedule is going to be easier or harder than another schedule
01:01just based on the teams that you play
01:03and how those teams end up performing.
01:05And so it's okay for people to say you have an easy schedule.
01:09He's just trying to avoid the embarrassment of a letdown.
01:14And, you know, George, you're going to lose some games this year.
01:17You're not going to go 17-0 no one ever has
01:19and then gone on to win the Super Bowl.
01:21I don't even think New England did.
01:22They went 16-0 when they went undefeated
01:25and then didn't win the Super Bowl.
01:26So you're going to lose some games.
01:28And the look-ahead lines have the Niners favored in 15 of the 17.
01:33And I would bet that they don't go 15-2.
01:36They probably aren't going to win all 15 games in which they're favored.
01:40So it's okay to look at a schedule and say that it's easy.
01:44And he's right, though.
01:46Like, these are all professional football players
01:48and nobody's going to go out there.
01:49And if you're Carolina, you're not thinking,
01:51God, we're not going to win this game.
01:54I mean, we're expected to go 0-17, so we might as well do that.
01:58So I get that part of it.
01:59But, George, your schedule's easy.
02:02Well, okay.
02:03I agree with you.
02:05But I also agree with him
02:06because I think everybody's looking at it from a different way.
02:10George is like, I don't like the word easy
02:12because I'm actually out there doing this,
02:16and it's not easy.
02:18It's not easy.
02:19It's not easy to beat the Panthers.
02:22You'll do it because you're better.
02:24You'll probably do it.
02:26But it doesn't feel easy.
02:28I get why that would bother me, too.
02:30If I were out there and my knees hurt after every week
02:33and I had to go through treatment
02:34and I had to get acupuncture
02:36and I had to have people come over to my house
02:38just to, like, give me a massage so that I could get out of bed,
02:41like, all the things that these NFL players do,
02:44like, bleep you for calling this easy.
02:46I get that.
02:47But where you're coming from
02:49and where we're all coming from,
02:51we're also, we're not wrong.
02:53We're not wrong.
02:54And so maybe that's the wrong word for it
02:57because I don't think NFL games are easy.
03:00Like, they will be in Seattle on September 7th.
03:03That's not easy.
03:04That's not going to be easy at all.
03:07What happens the next week when they go to New Orleans?
03:09We'll call it easy.
03:11I don't even know what the big easy.
03:13It's literally the big easy.
03:15It is.
03:15But it's also a team that we really don't know a whole hell of a lot about.
03:19We don't even know who their starting quarterback is
03:21and that's why we think it's going to be easy.
03:23I'll just look at it more from the,
03:26I'm not going to collectively call the whole thing easy.
03:30I am going to continue to look at this schedule
03:32the same way I have all offseason.
03:35And I will state that most of the best players in the NFL aren't on it.
03:44That's, that's what I'm getting at.
03:47If you were to, forget fantasy football,
03:50put together an NFL draft of actual players who are in the NFL right now,
03:56you know what I mean?
03:57And in your top 100, how many of them are on the Niners' schedule?
04:02And I know there'd be defensive players and stuff,
04:04so like Miles Garrett would be picked, and I get all of that.
04:08But you understand what I'm saying?
04:09The top picks, if you were to do that,
04:12are going to be Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow.
04:18And then even if you wanted to get into receivers like Jamar Chase
04:21and Justin Jefferson and C.D. Lamb,
04:24and we can on and on, we can go through all this,
04:26and none of them play the 49ers.
04:28Jaden Daniels, they don't play the 49ers.
04:32So George has a point that I don't think football players
04:36will take kindly to the word easy.
04:38He also needs to acknowledge what we're saying,
04:42which is the scariest players in the NFL are not on your schedule.
04:47No, the scariest coaches in the NFL are not on your schedule.
04:52They're not.
04:54And so you're right.
04:56There's no question that this is.
04:59It's a road that is, let's, how do you want to say it
05:03without using the word easy?
05:05It's a road that does not have as many roadblocks as it has in the past.
05:10Exactly.
05:10Not only in opponents, but in the way the schedule is laid out as well.
05:15So not only do you have opponents that are not necessarily great,
05:20and you talked about, you know, the top 100 players,
05:23and, you know, the NFL network is still rolling out their top 100 players,
05:27and how many of those players are you actually going to face this year?
05:30Probably not a ton of them,
05:32but the way the schedule has laid out without difficult back-to-backs,
05:37without rest disadvantage that you had last year,
05:39without facing a bunch of teams, coming off a bye,
05:42all those little things go into what I'm talking about when I call the schedule easy.
05:47And George is right.
05:48You're looking at 17 games over 18 weeks of physical, professional football,
05:54and, you know, George is 31 now,
05:56and he's going to be facing guys who are maybe at some point 10 years younger than him.
06:01And it's not easy playing football and getting up,
06:05and you're so sore, and then you're sore the next day,
06:07and then you get to Wednesday.
06:08It's like, okay, you've got to get back and start this whole thing up again.
06:12You've got to do that 17 different times.
06:13There's nothing easy about what they do physically,
06:17but when you look at it in a vacuum,
06:19and you look at it from the outside looking in,
06:22and you see opponents that only won 40% of their games last year
06:26and aren't expected to be much better this year,
06:28schedule's easy.
06:29George, get over it.
06:31Okay, so what if he were to respond to you and go,
06:33oh, by the way, do you understand that we are one of those teams?
06:36Right.
06:37We only won 40% of our games last year.
06:40Exactly.
06:40Actually less than.
06:41Yeah, 6 out of 17.
06:44Damn near about 33%.
06:46Right.
06:46But you're better than that.
06:47Okay, so there's where I think.
06:50You're better than that.
06:50And Carolina's not.
06:52I agree with you.
06:52And New Orleans is not.
06:54And Jacksonville's not.
06:55Hold on.
06:55And the Giants are not.
06:56And Cleveland is not.
06:57Am I not looking at a man who a thousand times in the last four years
07:01has said to me you are what your record says you are?
07:04Right.
07:05The Niners were 6-11.
07:06Then?
07:07Well, I.
07:08Then they are the Jacksonville Jaguars.
07:10Well, they're not.
07:11They're not.
07:11Okay.
07:12And Jacksonville was, what, 5-12?
07:13And Cleveland won 3?
07:15And the Giants won 3?
07:16And New Orleans won 5?
07:19And.
07:19And you won 6?
07:20Right.
07:21And, yeah, you won 6.
07:23And I look at this year and what you have, and you are what your record says you are.
07:28I get that.
07:29And I'm not going to shy away from that.
07:31And it's a little different in the NFL because, you know, you get to Week 18
07:36and the Niners punted that game.
07:38So, fine, whatever.
07:39You lost it.
07:39It counts.
07:40It's on your permanent record.
07:42But, you know, the Niners 6-11 last year very easily could have been a 9-8
07:47and might have been a 10-7.
07:50It wasn't.
07:50But maybe a lot of these teams would say the same thing.
07:53Like, right now, we look at the AFC South and the Niners are lined up with the AFC South
07:58and we go, well, that's just a whole bunch of easy.
08:01Right.
08:01Well, one of those teams won 10 games last year.
08:05The Colts won 8 games last year.
08:07More than the Niners.
08:08They play each other.
08:10Like, that's got to count for something.
08:12Yes.
08:13So, you do get to play each other.
08:14So.
08:15I'm with you.
08:16I know you are.
08:17I'm just pointing out that that's the kind of context that a lot of people don't bring
08:24to the party.
08:25They don't.
08:26And in these conversations, I'm so glad you're saying this.
08:30This is a landmark day.
08:32I'd like to refer back to this conversation the next time you black and white me.
08:38The next time you do, you are what your record says you are.
08:41You are.
08:42But you're also not.
08:44If you want to bring context to the conversation, if you want to bring some perspective and some
08:51nuance and some opinion and just some depth is all I'm saying.
08:57Of course, if you're 6-11, then the data moves on in life that you're 6-11 and that's the draft
09:03pick you get and that's the schedule you get and all of those things.
09:06But isn't it fascinating that we look at all these other teams who last year won 4, 5,
09:116, 7, and 8 games and we go, well, Niners can beat them and the Niners are one of them
09:17unless we bring context to the conversation.
09:24And by the way, also be open to the fact that our context might be wrong.
09:29I know we want to bring context in.
09:31We don't believe that that was the real Niners, but maybe it was.
09:35We won't know until this year.
09:37We won't.
09:38And it sounds like you're listening to Steine and Evan a little too much because that's
09:43where...
09:43Well, that's the only show that was on while I was driving to work.
09:46Yeah, and that's where Evan was landing like 9 to 10 wins is kind of what he sees them landing
09:52at.
09:52I think that they'll be...
09:53Oh, I think they're north of that.
09:54...better than that.
09:54Yeah, so do I.
09:55Agreed.
09:55And, you know, a lot of it comes down to health.
09:58We know that.
09:58But when you look across the league at who they're going to face, I don't see many of
10:03these teams who are going to be markedly better than what they were last year.
10:07And yes, the Niners were 6-11.
10:09And you are what your record says that you are.
10:11But I look at the Niner team and how they went 6-11, and there is context to it.
10:16It doesn't mean that I automatically think, oh, they're going to win 12 this year just because
10:20the schedule's easy and they're better than they were last year.
10:23But I do think that the teams they're going to face, I don't see how many of them are
10:28markedly better than they were last year.
10:29I want to play this for everybody again.
10:31From the Richard Sherman podcast, George Kittle firing back on the idea that the Niners
10:37have an easy schedule.
10:39That's what's crazy.
10:39It's like the Niners have the easiest strength of schedule this year.
10:42It's like, it's the NFL.
10:43It's hard regardless.
10:45Like, sure, yeah, we're not going up against the number ones from every single conference
10:48or division.
10:49But still, it's an NFL game.
10:51Like, you still have to go out there and perform at an incredibly high level because every team
10:54is doing that same shit.
10:55So it's just like, what are you talking about easiest schedule?
10:57Like, relax.
10:58I still have to go out there and play for 60 minutes and find a way to get a dub.
11:01And find a way to get a dub against a motivated and hungry team.
11:05Exactly.
11:05Especially all the teams that are at the bottom of the division.
11:07No one likes to lose.
11:09Usually the teams that didn't play well last year are usually the most hungry to go out
11:12there and do it again anyway.
11:13So you're getting the most hungry damn teams every single year.
11:16Look, if I were the 49ers, I'd use George Kittle right now as the guide, as the captain
11:22of the ship.
11:23They should push back on this.
11:25This is actually the dangerous part of the offseason.
11:28I don't think it'll work.
11:29I think that we're all going to continue to say the exact same thing that we've been saying.
11:33I think we will continue to use it as a security blanket to our mentals.
11:37We all think even if the 49ers aren't at their best, even if some of the things that they're
11:42trying this year don't work, they'll still be pretty good just because of that schedule.
11:47It's kind of a fallback opinion for a lot of us.
11:50And if I'm the Niners, I'm going to push against this idea that it's a, quote, easy schedule
11:55because where's the win then?
11:58Where's the win for the 49ers?
11:59If you play poorly and lose these games, my God, you lost against those teams, but if
12:06you win, well, that's all you did was beat those teams.
12:11I mean, I still hear people do that to the Jimmy Butler Warriors.
12:15You know, people will say, oh God, the Jimmy Butler didn't actually change the Warriors
12:19that much.
12:19They just had an easy schedule at the particular time that he came in.
12:23You'll hear stuff like that.
12:25So the danger on this schedule conversation is that I don't know what it is the 49ers
12:31can do to actually impress people this year until they get to the playoffs.
12:35That's right.
12:36Well, they can impress people by winning the games they're supposed to win.
12:40And I actually tweeted out something about the Jimmy Butler data.
12:45I did not a deep dive.
12:46It was a medium dive.
12:47I looked at the record that the team had when they got Jimmy and then the record against
12:52playoff teams, and it's almost identical.
12:54Like, the teams that they played with Jimmy that made the playoffs, they won 71% of those
13:00games, and they won like 75% overall with Jimmy.
13:04They were really good.
13:05But it wasn't that they feasted on just the bad teams.
13:07And I wanted to take a look at that because that's been something that was bugging me.
13:12I wanted to have it be proven out in a small sample.
13:15Like, did they really feast on bad teams?
13:17No, they beat just about everybody.
13:19I think they went 24-8 after they got him.
13:21It was something like that, and I'm glad you did that because I'll tell you this right
13:25now, and this won't surprise anybody, but if the 49ers win most of these games, let's
13:32say they went 12-5, I'll be impressed.
13:35That's where I agree with George.
13:37Like, I disagree with George.
13:39George, it is kind of an easier schedule, and it's not even just the opponents.
13:43It's the travel.
13:45It's the rest advantage.
13:46We know all these things.
13:47It's better this year.
13:48This is a better schedule.
13:50But where I'll agree with George is if they do really well with that schedule, I will be
13:56impressed because I don't care who you beat in the NFL.
13:59I think the definition of a good team is a team that beats the teams that aren't as good
14:02as it is.
14:03That's the definition of a good team.
14:04But I can also feel that the Niners could go 12-5, and we'll get to the end of the
14:10year, and there will be plenty of people to be like, who the hell couldn't go 12-5 against
14:15that schedule?
14:16Yeah.
14:17I mean, that's part of it, but I do think that just the football aspect of it needs to
14:22be paid attention to because George is right about that part of it.
14:26Like, football is hard.
14:28And one thing that I was reading in the Warren Sharp piece earlier that he posted on Twitter
14:32at Sharp Football, and he was talking about missed field goals, fumble recoveries, and
14:39deflected passes as some of the wild variables in a football game.
14:44You can be better than the team you're playing on a Sunday, and it could be a fumble that you
14:50just don't happen to recover, or a tip pass that gets intercepted, or a field goal that
14:55you doink off the upright, all these little micro plays that turn out to be huge in a
15:01football game.
15:01They're huge.
15:02You can outgain your opponent by 250 yards and win the time of possession battle and all
15:06the rest of it, but you don't recover a fumble, you have one tip pass, and you doink a field
15:11goal, and you lose 21-20.
15:13And that's an L.
15:14Right.
15:15And that's just the way that goes.
15:16Well, and the Niners had a bunch of that last year.
15:18Yep.
15:18You know, our favorite one was when they went to L.A. to take on the Rams, and I've always
15:23described that in the fourth quarter as the most unbelievable parlay of crap that you
15:28could ever imagine.
15:29That, by the way, let me add, just because we love to talk about him the most, none of
15:35it was Brock's fault.
15:37Literally, none of it.
15:39Go through all the things that went wrong at the end of that Rams game and tell me which
15:44one was Brock's fault.
15:45Was it all the DBs that kept committing pass interferences?
15:49Yeah.
15:50Was it Jake Moody missing field goals?
15:52The punt coverage.
15:52The punt coverage.
15:53Was it Ronnie Bell dropping balls that were between his numbers?
15:57Which part was on Brock Purdy when he, quote, lost that game?
16:03Which part?
16:04Yeah.
16:05No, none of it.
16:06So that's what happens.
16:07And then we go, oh, you went 6-11 and you can't play well when you don't have good players
16:11around you.
16:12He played phenomenally in that game.
16:15And Jawan Jennings was a beast in that game.
16:18But a bunch of players lined up, screwed up, and they lost the game.
16:23And none of those players were Brock or Jawan.
16:26Yeah.
16:27I mean...
16:27What are you going to do?
16:28What are you going to do?
16:29And, you know, the Arizona game and the Seattle game and, you know, we can pick nits all we
16:34want.
16:35Thankfully, we have a new season coming up.
16:36So 6-11 goes in the rearview mirror.
16:39Just checking my tweet.
16:41It was 23-8 after they got Jimmy.
16:43And 10-4 against playoff teams.
16:46And that's not counting the play-in game where they actually beat a team that was also very
16:52good in Memphis.
16:52They were 13-4 against the bad teams.
16:5810-4 against the good teams.
16:59And I still, like, again, everybody gets to look at this however they want.
17:03I know that the last thought that I take to bed when I think about the Warriors and the
17:08way their season ended, like, I know that it was a difficult series, but they won it.
17:14They won the series against the Houston Rockets.
17:17And then on the road, they grabbed a 1-0 lead against the Minnesota Timberwolves in round
17:22two.
17:23And then Steph left.
17:24And they never won another game.
17:26That's right.
17:26But the team that we actually talk about and watch for the majority of the year, that includes
17:31Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler, they were very good.
17:34And that is the situation in which they sat until Steph left.
17:39And that's pretty good.
17:41Very good.
17:41That's a pretty good situation to be in.
17:43Yeah, and you could draw the parallel to the Niners when they lost Brock with a 7-0 lead
17:47at Philadelphia in the NFC Championship game.
17:50No doubt.
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