- 6 weeks ago
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00:00We all prefer offense.
00:03Even if you won't admit it, you do.
00:06This is how we watch the sport.
00:09I want winners.
00:09Yeah, but when I hear people break down the Warriors,
00:12it's usually about scoring the basketball.
00:16If I were a defensive player in the NFL in 2025,
00:21it's amazing to me that more have not spoken about this publicly.
00:26You're second-class citizens, the defense.
00:29You are second-class citizens.
00:31You are not on anyone's fantasy team.
00:34No one cares how you're doing.
00:35And all of the rules are set up against you.
00:40No one cares until you arrive at this.
00:44And the Niners have reached it.
00:45I have a name for where they have arrived.
00:48And it's called Bengalsville.
00:51And now you know what it's like to root for the Cincinnati Bengals
00:56because over the last two to three seasons,
00:58this is essentially who the Bengals are
01:00and sometimes even without their starting quarterback,
01:04the same way the Niners are without their starting quarterback.
01:07You notice that the Bengals have such weaponry
01:10and have such a system that Joe Flacco can come in at age 48
01:15off of the street, join the Bengals, meet T. Higgins and Jamarche,
01:20say hello, two days later go out and score 40.
01:23And win a game in prime time.
01:26But more often than not, when you're going up against a good team,
01:31you're going to score a bunch and then you're going to blow it.
01:35And I'll give you the example is,
01:38if anybody did not catch the way the Bengals-Bears game finished last week,
01:43that was out of control.
01:45And that's, like, maybe we're not that bad of a situation here with the 49ers,
01:52but it is a frustrating thing to watch football
01:57and know that your offense cannot make errors.
02:02That's, I know Kittle is being a good teammate.
02:05We'll play the sound for you in a second.
02:07That's not a way to survive in the NFL.
02:10You have to be able to ask things of all sides of the ball.
02:13You do, and the Shanahan system is built on complementary football,
02:17as I've always said.
02:18And when you have a wide receiver who fumbles the ball,
02:22and I know that it got punched out,
02:23but when you're a wide receiver and you have the ball,
02:25you have to be able to keep the ball.
02:27And it got punched out, and that was a huge play
02:30where that game could have been a little bit closer.
02:33It could have been 14-7, and you would have held the ball,
02:36and you would have been able to, like, you know,
02:38move it down the field and keep your defense a little bit protected.
02:41And when you have a defense that's not very good,
02:44your number one job is to protect them.
02:47And you didn't do that, and you didn't do it against Houston.
02:50And then yesterday, same thing.
02:52You coughed it up, and they went down.
02:54It was 21-0, and that game's over.
02:57Here's the George Kittle thing.
02:58I'll play it for you.
02:59Again, George Kittle, I don't know George.
03:01Seems like a super nice guy and a really good teammate
03:04and a constant beacon of positivity.
03:08Yep.
03:08I love all of it.
03:10Zenni, Claire.
03:12Zenni.
03:13All of it.
03:13Great.
03:14It's just a fun vibe around everything George Kittle.
03:19But I don't think you can – so this is nice of him,
03:22but I don't think you can do this in football.
03:24I mean, we started the game off with a punt, a fumble,
03:28a fourth down turnover, a touchdown, and a punt.
03:30And I'm pretty sure, like I said, since I've been back,
03:33is that our team is going to have to rely on our really good veteran offense
03:37to score a lot of points and not turn the ball over.
03:40And we didn't really do that today.
03:41And so I think that's going to be the case moving forward.
03:46Our offense has to play at an incredibly high level.
03:47We have to score a lot of points.
03:48We have to not turn the ball over.
03:50And I think our defense is going to get better and better throughout the week
03:53because we still have a lot of young guys.
03:54We have a lot of guys missing.
03:55But we have to help out our defense.
03:58That's the way the season is going to go.
04:00Our offense has to play at a high level, efficient, not turn the ball over,
04:03score points, score in the red zone, and then we'll win a lot of games.
04:06But if we're not doing that, that's going to happen.
04:08Yeah.
04:09So he's not wrong, per se.
04:11He's right.
04:12But it's too much to ask.
04:14You can't be like, so here's our way of doing this the rest of the year
04:18is we're never going to turn it over.
04:20That's not realistic.
04:21That's not realistic.
04:23People drop balls.
04:24People fumble footballs.
04:26Balls get batted in the air.
04:28Interceptions happen, even from the best in the league.
04:32You know, Josh Allen threw the ball all over the freaking place yesterday
04:35and looked like a big old pile of junk in that game.
04:39So like the best in the league, they're going to turn the ball over.
04:43So if you're saying the way for us to win is for our side of the ball that has more experience
04:49and more firepower to be awesome every time, every time we touch the ball,
04:55to be absolutely clean, that's not life.
04:59No, but be better than they were.
05:01Okay.
05:01That's where, you know, the Rams get the ball.
05:04And, you know, Stiney was talking about, like, do they ever get the ball first?
05:08No, they don't believe in that.
05:09They want to double up, they want it last, and they want it first in the third quarter.
05:13And I believe in that philosophy.
05:15And then yesterday, okay, the Rams get it.
05:17They go 64 yards, touchdown.
05:20Fine.
05:20It was not ideal.
05:21And you had a third down conversion in there.
05:23And then you get the ball, and you go three and out.
05:26That's where the Niners cannot go three and out.
05:29And then they go down, they score.
05:30It's 14-0.
05:31Okay.
05:32Now you have the ball.
05:33Okay.
05:33Deep breath.
05:34Go down there.
05:35Get points.
05:36And that's where the Juwan Jennings fumble is so painful, because you had the ball,
05:41and you actually got a first down.
05:42You actually got two first downs.
05:44And then you're thinking about, okay, if we score here, we're down 14-7.
05:48And then at least it's a little bit more of a ball game.
05:51But the ball gets punched out.
05:53They get the ball back.
05:53They score again.
05:5521-0.
05:56It's game over, basically, at that point.
05:58All right.
05:58888-957-9570.
06:00Kyle Shanahan has started his Monday conference call.
06:03We go to Mark Grandy for these updates.
06:06Hey, bud.
06:07First of all, Shanahan opened it up by saying, indeed, no injuries from the game yesterday.
06:12That's what he said last night.
06:13But they confirmed that again today.
06:15So no new injuries to speak of.
06:17But, of course, we still know there's a lot of old injuries that they're still dealing with.
06:22First of all, Ricky Pearsall dealing with that knee for a long time.
06:26Kyle Shanahan said they are hoping that he could return to practice on Wednesday.
06:30That seems a little bit different than the last number of weeks has been.
06:33Hoping that Pearsall returns on Wednesday.
06:36On Brock Purdy and his toe, he says that he continues to progress.
06:39And they hope to get more practice time in with him this week.
06:42And then when asked on Ayuk if this is the week that they open his practice window, no.
06:48So still no practice window opening for Brandon Ayuk.
06:51Those are the big updates.
06:53Gone.
06:54Like.
06:55Maybe.
06:55Gone.
06:56Like, why bother at this point?
06:59Well, I wouldn't say that.
07:00I wouldn't say that.
07:01But remember, we're not saying, like, would he play against Arizona?
07:06You're talking about when do they feel confident that there's a three-week window in which he will play.
07:14So if it's no Arizona, like the way, to my thinking, the second you open up the practice window, you're not going to play that game.
07:22Nope.
07:23You might play the next game.
07:25Probably not.
07:27But whenever you do play, it's an ease-in.
07:30It's a, like, let's do 15 snaps kind of a thing.
07:34So, like, I would say now, no Arizona, no Carolina.
07:39Maybe Cleveland, but why?
07:41Because there's a bye right after that.
07:43So I could see them opening the practice window maybe.
07:47Before Cleveland.
07:48Well, maybe, yeah.
07:50Cleveland, bye, one more game.
07:53Maybe before Carolina, but probably before Cleveland.
07:56Right.
07:56And then see if he can come in and help this team down the stretch.
08:01Because after the bye, you get what feels like a very good chance to win with a home game against Tennessee.
08:08And then you've got three pretty difficult games at the end of the year.
08:10Yep.
08:11With the Colts, Bears, and Seahawks.
08:12And my whole thing, too, is, like, if you want to look at what's wrong with this team, it's not the wide receiver position.
08:18Like, Jawan Jennings.
08:19I agree with that, yeah.
08:20The fumble.
08:20The fumble was bad.
08:22And, yeah.
08:23The fumble's the fumble.
08:24And, you know, they had another one where it bounced off him.
08:27And McCaffrey had to come in and go Mutombo and try to knock it out of the air.
08:30But the offense has not been really the problem.
08:34The problem is what you can't fix, which is the defense.
08:37Like, can Brandon Ayuk come in there and, like, play three technique?
08:41Of course not.
08:42So, like, the issues that you have are not Ayuk and his window, to me.
08:48Oh, I agree with that.
08:49Right.
08:50Especially if they can get Ricky Pearsall back into the fold.
08:53Right.
08:53I don't really have a problem with their receiving core, minus, and you know this,
08:58I don't think that you or me at any point this year were ever counting on Brandon Ayuk as a key piece,
09:07or certainly as their one.
09:09Like, you know that I haven't thought that since July.
09:12I'm like, I think Ricky's their one.
09:15And Ricky is their one.
09:16But Ricky has now missed a lot of games.
09:18But if you can get Ricky Pearsall back into the fold and put him opposite Juwan Jennings and have a rotation that includes Kendrick Bourne and Demarcus Robinson and maybe whatever, you know, a little bit of Sky Moore or something like that as your receivers with George Kittle now back into the fold.
09:36Christian healthy.
09:37Christian healthy.
09:37Brian Robinson healthy.
09:39Yeah, like this can be a good offense.
09:41And I do think it will win some games.
09:44But this kind of puts a cap on it.
09:46I wonder what, like, what do you now consider a successful season in this moment?
09:51You're 6-4.
09:52Yep.
09:52You're technically the 8th seed.
09:54In this moment, you're on the outside looking in.
09:57You're a half game behind the Chicago Bears, but they're on your schedule.
10:01So you will have the opportunity to take care of that yourself if you want.
10:04And you have what would be considered a favorable schedule over the next month plus.
10:10The next five weeks of football.
10:12The Niners will play four times.
10:13They'll be favored in all of them.
10:15So, like, put that up against what you're looking at defensively and what are your hopes and expectations the rest of the way.
10:26What's considered a good season?
10:28Just make the playoffs.
10:29Just make the playoffs and go on the road to wherever because I don't think you're going to win the division.
10:34And, you know, you've got Seattle still ahead.
10:37And Seattle, I think that, I mean, forget yesterday.
10:39Yesterday was kind of a wild game where they got two defensive touchdowns.
10:43But I think that you're probably going to be third place in your division.
10:46But you can go 10-7 and make the playoffs.
10:49Just make the playoffs for me.
10:51That, to me, is where you would look at it and go, yeah, that's a success.
10:56I think I'm with you.
10:57Yeah.
10:57Like, and if you go to Green Bay or Tampa or wherever you go to, can you win?
11:05Yeah, of course you're allowed to.
11:06But you're going to be heavy, heavy underdog.
11:08And so I don't think you actually will win.
11:10Yeah, you're probably right.
11:12I mean, I do think that there is a scenario on the table where you could arrive at the playoffs
11:17with what other teams would consider a scary offense.
11:21Like, that scenario does sit on the table.
11:24Yeah.
11:24Like, the Niners, if with a few more healthy pieces, have a lot to offer offensively.
11:32Even if it's Mack Jones.
11:33But, like, I'll take it beyond that.
11:36You put Brock Purdy in with his mobility.
11:39That elevates, no question in my mind, that elevates the offense for the 49ers.
11:45We'll see kind of, I go back and forth a little bit on this offensive line.
11:49But it's performing well enough.
11:52Yeah.
11:52It's performing better.
11:53Better yesterday, yeah.
11:54Better than it was the last, you know, like, three, four weeks ago.
11:58It's performing better.
11:59Certainly than we felt coming out of the Houston loss.
12:02They're performing better.
12:04Your wide receiver core.
12:05You get Ricky back.
12:07George is back.
12:08The running backs are doing better.
12:10Right?
12:11Remember when it was the last group in the league and there were no rushing touchdowns.
12:14Yeah.
12:14And three yards to carry.
12:16Everything is trending better.
12:18You get a couple more bodies back.
12:20They can have an offense that'll scare you.
12:22But, yeah.
12:24Yeah.
12:24Like, again, those six quarterbacks are the ones I'm focused on.
12:28And I don't know how this particular defense stops any one of them.
12:31And I don't think that this offense can actually outscore any of those teams, honestly.
12:36Like, if you think about, even if Brock comes back and you've got Pearsall and you've got maybe Ayuk,
12:42whatever you have, I don't think that this offense has enough to go out there and put up 40 or 35 or whatever it takes to beat one of these good teams.
12:51I mean, I think that this team ultimately is still built on that complementary aspect.
12:56And yesterday is a great example where you could not run the ball because you were down 21-0.
13:01So you can't really, like, commit to run it and run it and, like, you know, go ahead and, like, design that and, you know, try to chip away in 21-7 and 21-10 and whatever.
13:12And so I think yesterday was a great example of where you got behind so much that now you have to throw it and you don't have the weapons to really go out and win that way.
13:21All right, so the three big pieces of news from Kyle Shanahan, they're hopeful that Ricky Pearsall practices Wednesday.
13:28They'll keep ramping up Brock, so that's a total kick can down.
13:31I have no idea what that means.
13:32Right.
13:33They're going to keep practicing him.
13:35Well, you've been practicing him the whole time.
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