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00:00And David Lombardi, SF Standard, joining us here on Withered and Dibs.
00:03Great to have you, David. What's going on today?
00:07Good afternoon. I'm happy it stopped raining. Got some sun.
00:10And I heard it's going to be raining in Arizona.
00:13They have a roof there, so that shouldn't be an issue for the game.
00:16But just funny that I guess this storm is hitting the whole western U.S., even Arizona.
00:22So we'll be heading down there.
00:24And Pearsall and Purdy both going to be back.
00:26You know, they played against each other in high school.
00:28Purdy's team dropped 70 on Pearsall's team.
00:31But Ricky had like 200 receiving yards, so it was okay.
00:34But they lit it up that night, though, however long ago, probably seven, eight years ago.
00:39David, let's dive right into both of those players, actually.
00:41And I get that the quarterback's a little different, right?
00:44There's no snap count on a quarterback.
00:47So I get that they're going to try to unleash Brock.
00:49But what about Ricky?
00:51What are your expectations for him in terms of being able to hit the ground running coming off of this injury?
00:58You know, normally when a receiver comes back, it takes a week or two for them just to get reintegrated fully into the offense.
01:05This might be different just because both Ricky and Brock have been out for a while.
01:11But Brock has been at practice.
01:12So I don't know.
01:14I think they're fully stocked offensively, minus Brandon Ayuk at this point.
01:19They've got a lot of weapons, even if Pearsall's not the focal point.
01:22Then the last time they played Arizona, they didn't have George Kittle, for example.
01:26I think that they played one drive this year with Purdy, Pearsall, George Kittle, and Christian McCaffrey all simultaneously healthy.
01:38And that one drive was a 95-yard touchdown drive against Seattle.
01:43At the time, I think that a lot of people weren't registering how good the Seahawks were.
01:48But heading into that game, we said that this was a really good defensive front, had a chance to be a top-five defense.
01:55It's indeed materialized into that.
01:57And I think we just have to remind ourselves that when the 49ers had the totality of their weapons available,
02:02just for one drive this season, they went 95 yards on the road against the Seahawks.
02:07Yeah, and it was impressive.
02:09I have George Kittle on my fantasy team, and I was loving it early.
02:12And then next thing you know, I'm scouring for Cade Otten as his replacement.
02:16I wonder, David, about the depth chart, because you know this.
02:19They run a lot of 21 personnel, two wide receivers, and even occasionally some 12 that also has two receivers.
02:25Does this mean that Kendrick Bourne suddenly now gets crumbs,
02:29and Demarcus Robinson maybe goes deep into the bench?
02:32Well, if everybody stays healthy, then they're going to be pushed out of them sometime.
02:41But that's the problem that you want to have, right?
02:44And it's one of those things where we had talked about stuff like that in the preseason,
02:49but it never comes to fruition for an extended period of time,
02:53because it seems that in this sport, it's not just the 49ers.
02:56Look at the Cardinals right now.
02:57I think they've got three healthy receivers when they're 53, so in this sport,
03:01that rarely ends up becoming an issue over the longer term.
03:05But if the 49ers are lucky enough to have full health at the top, then yeah,
03:09one of those guys is going to be pushed out of at least the regular rotation
03:14where he's getting a ton of looks.
03:16David Lombardi, SF Standard, with us.
03:18David, one of the things, and this is what I think it's special to have one of you,
03:23those of you who are inside the room with these players on the daily basis after practice.
03:29What did you observe this week in terms of how the guys feel about Brock being back?
03:38I think people are really excited about Brady being back.
03:42I mean, this is their starting quarterback, and that's important in his league,
03:46especially somebody who's been as successful as him.
03:49I have to remind people on social media that ever since Brock Birdie joined the league in 2022,
03:55he's been the most efficient quarterback in football.
03:58Allen is two.
03:59Mahomes is three.
04:00You can have all the debates about system and arm talent and mobility, whatever you want,
04:07but the truth of the matter is that Brock Birdie playing with his 49ers teammates
04:12in Kyle Shanahan's system has been the most efficient QB in the NFL when available
04:17since he joined the league in 2022.
04:20And that's not just 2023.
04:22He was really efficient in 2024 as well.
04:24The 49ers just fell off a cliff defensively that year.
04:28So he's gotten the job done when he's been available.
04:31Way more often than not, guys in a football locker room recognize that,
04:37and they all have the best option in there.
04:38So the 49ers, it's businesslike.
04:42That's what they feel.
04:43And all of this drama and noise, I mean, this has been also artificially created on the outside.
04:49They signed Mac Jones to be a good backup, and he's been a good backup for them.
04:53Mac, the whole time, he's waiting for Brock to come back.
04:56Mac has not had designs on grabbing the starting job this year.
05:00He knows that he's in a similar position as Sam Darnold was back in 2023,
05:04where if he puts good stuff on tape, maybe he gets an opportunity somewhere else next year.
05:08I know he's under contract with the 49ers, but obviously a trade can happen.
05:12And one main thing, you know, if you want to talk about the vibe in the building,
05:16the QB room, those guys really like each other.
05:18They really get along.
05:19It's not just Brock and Mac.
05:20It's also Adrian Martinez, and they're all around the same age.
05:24If you talk to any of them, they say that they have a really good time.
05:27Mick Lombardi is the younger quarterbacks coach as well.
05:30There just seems to be a really uplifting, positive dynamic in the quarterback room,
05:33and the only reason I bring it up is because it is literally the polar opposite
05:38of the online and media discourse that's been manufactured around the situation.
05:43Like, none of what's being talked about on the outside is being talked about
05:48in the 49ers building.
05:49Like, I haven't – there's a lot of situations where the media and social media is off
05:53as far as what's actually happening in the building.
05:56I have never seen anything as off as this.
05:57It's 180 degrees polar opposite.
06:00Well, there's nothing nebulous about the contracts and the reality that he's
06:04the franchise guy, and Mac has even said as much repeatedly.
06:09I wonder, David, what you think, hypothetically, they might be able to get
06:13for Mac Jones considering what he put on tape.
06:16Like, what could they command in the offseason if a team was really covetous?
06:20Well, you'd think that it starts with a two.
06:22That's been the price in the past for situations like this, a second-round pick.
06:27But if he has to play some more – because, remember, they're not fully out of the woods
06:31of the toe yet.
06:33It's one of the trickiest injuries that there is.
06:35It's probably not going to be 100%.
06:36They think they got it to a place where Brock is going to be able to stay in.
06:40But as we know, the plan has not very often been what's actually happened
06:46for the 49ers this year.
06:47I mean, it's gone so far off the rails, and somehow they're still 6-4.
06:50But say that Mac has to play some more, say that he notches a few more big wins,
06:56maybe that asking price can increase for the 49ers.
06:59I don't know.
06:59But maybe they'll want to keep them in the next year.
07:02They're going to have some options.
07:04They were able to build that into the contract.
07:06I don't know if there was a tacit agreement that he'd be traded if there was value
07:10and if there was demand for him to be a starter elsewhere.
07:13That could have very well done the pace.
07:15It's obviously something the 49ers and Jones and his agent aren't going to talk about.
07:20But sometimes that can happen.
07:22Because when I saw a two-year deal, that really made me scratch my head.
07:27That's a lot of team control here.
07:29But maybe that team control is only there so the 49ers can recoup a higher draft pick
07:34in case Mac Jones' value is what we think it's going to be on the market.
07:38David, I want to ask you a couple of other side-of-the-ball questions.
07:42And one of them is just, do you think D'Amador Lenore is playing Sunday?
07:47I'm not sure about that.
07:48They were talking MRI today.
07:50That's never an overly optimistic thing.
07:54I mean, Shanahan said it was just tightness, but he wasn't able to go on Friday.
08:00He suffered it during a drill on Thursday.
08:02And I think the 49ers formula, regardless of who else you lose on defense,
08:09if you have to play with 10 guys on defense, the defense has fallen off such a cliff at this point
08:14that this has to be a ball-hogging offensive performance for the 49ers week in and week out,
08:21no matter what happens.
08:22That's the mentality they have to go in this way.
08:25So if it's no D'Amador Lenore, then that's the third and final foundational pillar of the defense
08:30to fall this year.
08:31You've already lost both.
08:32You've already lost Warner.
08:34It would be Darrell Luter Jr. in his place, but it might be the week where you can actually shoulder
08:41that kind of loss because the Cardinals don't have Marvin Harrison Jr.
08:46They don't have Zay Jones.
08:47They don't have Simi Fajoko.
08:49I mean, they're down to Michael Wilson and Greg Dorch at receivers.
08:52So I think that this might be the one week where the 49ers could play ball with yet another one of these defensive injuries.
09:00But regardless, they have to control the ball offensively.
09:03They have to do what they didn't do against the Rams.
09:05I know the opponent's worse, but the formula is the same.
09:09And that is 40 minutes of possession, keep the ball away, keep the defense on the sideline,
09:14score over 30 points, and then you should win the majority of your games the rest of this season.
09:19You might see some trouble against the Colts with that formula.
09:21You'll probably see some trouble against the Seahawks with that formula.
09:24But against every other team on this schedule, they can win if they follow that formula
09:28and they have the offensive firepower to do it.
09:30Okay, so let's go there because I know Robert Sala said this this week down at camp,
09:37which is to say if that offense does play well, and David, this team does end up in the playoffs,
09:42he believes that by then this defensive group, haggard though it may be,
09:48can be up to snuff and they can compete at a high level.
09:52Do you buy that?
09:53Well, I think he's saying that within the context of what he knows the offense can be.
09:59If you've got an elite offense, if you're top two, top three offense,
10:02and I think the Florida Anners really believe that they can get to that level with their guys back,
10:08to compete in the playoffs, your defense only needs to be at like number 20.
10:12I shouldn't see why.
10:13It doesn't need to be a top, it could be a below average defense.
10:16What you can't have is a bottom barrel unit.
10:18You need the basic framework in place.
10:21And that means solid against the run so you don't get run out of the building.
10:24And then even if you're leaking oil everywhere else,
10:27just have the ability to reach deep into the bag of tricks and make it two or three high leverage stops the game.
10:33That's the luxury of having an offense that could put up 30 plus at any time.
10:36You don't need that much from the defense.
10:39And I think that, so it's all relative, right?
10:42On a team like the Denver Broncos, who are barely skating by,
10:47even though they have the best defense or one of the best defenses in the league,
10:50that would be a horrific defense.
10:53But in the context of the 49ers, who have an offense that's a lot better than Denver's,
10:58they don't need a top five defense.
10:59They don't even need a top 15 defense, in my opinion.
11:02I think they just need to stabilize this and get it to around number 20,
11:07maybe even 23, 24, just so it's not 29, 30, 31, or 32.
11:11And I think that they've got a shot.
11:13And I think that's what Robert Sala is talking about.
11:15And I think, yes, I do think that's possible.
11:18I do think that the hardest times when you lose superstars at the time,
11:22like right after you lose them, because everything was planned around them.
11:27Guys were used to playing with them.
11:28You know, Fred Warner was taken away a third of the field just with his height.
11:33And then his intelligence would take away another third of the field.
11:35So guys now have to adapt to life without them.
11:38So every successive week, they should be doing a better job of that.
11:43And every successive week, they're also getting more experienced in general in the NFL
11:46and Sala is having a chance to coach them up.
11:49So getting it up to number 20, to me, that doesn't seem like that tall of a task.
11:53I think that's why Robert sounds so confident.
11:56You're listening to 95.7 The Game, KGMZ FM, and HC1 San Francisco,
11:59and Odyssey Sports Station in the home of the Golden State Warriors and Valkyries.
12:02He's always live on the free Odyssey app coming to you live from the Laughing Monk Studios.
12:06It's also a Football Friday presented by Merit America.
12:09Visit them at meritamerica.org forward slash super.
12:12David, you talked about the defense really struggling of late,
12:16and I can't help but look at Dee Winters.
12:17What do you see from Dee that has caused him to really slide back so far?
12:23That's a really good question.
12:25I've been wondering that for a few weeks
12:26because he was really good out of the gate the first two weeks.
12:29And then the play dropped off.
12:33And, you know, that coincides with Nick Bosa getting hurt.
12:36I think, you know, the whole defense,
12:38they were number four the first two weeks in the efficiency rankings,
12:41and they've been number 28 or 29 since then.
12:46So the clear delineation point of the slide of this defense
12:49was the Nick Bosa injury, which happened against Arizona, actually, in week three.
12:54I think that Fred was also a massive injury,
12:57but when we looked at the pass-rushing plan that the Port Anahors had
13:00those first couple weeks with Bosa, Hoff, Uter, Gross, Matos,
13:06I mean, all those guys, they were coming in hot on that NASCAR package.
13:09I think the back seven had it really nice.
13:13And as soon as Bosa got hurt,
13:14and I know Uter has been limited throughout this,
13:17even when he's been available, now he's not available,
13:20I think that really, really made life harder on the linebacker level.
13:23I know that he's been on and off the injury report as well,
13:27so you have to wonder if he's fully healthy during these games.
13:32But I always look back at the first two weeks,
13:35and I draw a line between them and the rest of the season,
13:38and the play just hasn't been as good.
13:40Now, you know, losing Warner next to you, that's obvious, right?
13:44I mean, Warner covers up a whole heck of a lot.
13:47So at this point, you know,
13:48Dee Winters has shown flashes for the 49ers,
13:51but he's not shown that he's a consistently good player,
13:54especially without a good supporting cast.
13:57So he is who he is, and that was a sixth-round draft pick.
14:00And until proven otherwise,
14:02I think the 49ers just have to live with that.
14:04David, great stuff.
14:06We appreciate the insight heading into a very, very big one in Week 11.
14:10We'll talk to you soon.
14:11Yeah, thanks, guys.
14:12Have a great weekend.
14:13Okay, you too.
14:14David Lombardi, SF Standard.
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