- 2 days ago
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00:00To me, the lead story is not even necessarily Mike Evans.
00:04It's the idea of Mike Evans.
00:07Do you remember what a year ago today felt like?
00:12Crickets?
00:13Uh-huh.
00:13Yeah, a lot of crickets.
00:14Right.
00:14And actually, the noises being made were not landing planes.
00:19They were planes that were taking off.
00:21Planes that were leaving SFO.
00:23Or those that were just flying overhead and not landing or taking off.
00:27And it's an irrational feeling, but it's not a good one.
00:31In fact, Albert Breer just sent something out a short time ago that was kind of funny.
00:34He goes, remember, if your team hasn't done anything here in these first five hours of free agency,
00:40your GM is asleep at the wheel, your coach does not care, your owner is cheap,
00:44and you are headed for the basement.
00:47Right.
00:47Which is obviously sarcastic and not true, but I get it.
00:51It feels that way as a fan.
00:53You're like, come on, man.
00:54Chop, chop.
00:55The party is starting.
00:56We got it.
00:57We're late.
00:58You got to go to the party.
00:59Get dressed.
01:00Do your hair.
01:00Let's go.
01:01And so Mike Evans is not only doing something, but it's a message.
01:06That's a win-now player.
01:10He wouldn't come here, and they wouldn't sign him unless the 49ers were signaling,
01:16we are absolutely, we're going for it this year.
01:19Yeah, and I'll take it one step further, and I'm just going to play right into your hands
01:23because you're going to love what I'm going to say.
01:24Oh, I know what you're going to say, and I already love it.
01:26He wouldn't sign here if he didn't think that Kyle Shanahan was awesome and that Brock Purdy
01:31was a good quarterback.
01:32If you're Mike Evans and you're leaving Tampa after 12 years and you want to go somewhere
01:37and win, you go somewhere where the coach is really good and the quarterback is good
01:41at throwing the football.
01:42And so you look here and you look at Shanahan and that offense and you think, I like what
01:46you're doing there, Kyle.
01:47And you look at the quarterback and you say, yeah, you can throw it.
01:50You can throw it to me.
01:51And so if you don't believe that Shanahan is any good, or if you're not the president
01:56of Brockistan, which you are, Mike Evans is on board with what you've always said.
02:01Kyle's really good.
02:03And Brock is also really good.
02:04Look, I know that sports fandom.
02:06You're welcome.
02:07That was for you.
02:08No.
02:08Giving you your flowers.
02:09And you are now invited to my party.
02:13Like, sports fandom doesn't work this way.
02:15We all get mad at our teams.
02:16That's what we're doing here.
02:18And so I'm never going to get in the way of that.
02:21But I'll tell you what, it's been a hell of a year for Kyle Shanahan.
02:25And I mean that in terms of even like maybe a year and a half.
02:28The calendar year plus, let's think about it.
02:31Kyle Shanahan got votes for coach of the year.
02:34He didn't win it, but he ends up in the second round of the playoffs with all of those
02:39injuries.
02:40He's got now two quarterbacks who are not his quarterback.
02:45Two quarterbacks who are not his quarterback, who are parading around the league, finding
02:51microphones, telling everybody, yeah, I've been in the league for a while.
02:55Turns out I had no flipping clue what I was doing until I got around Kyle Shanahan.
02:59One of them went off and won the Super Bowl this year.
03:02The other one is his backup quarterback, who at this hour they're not going to get rid of.
03:08And I don't think he is going to go anywhere.
03:10And actually your clue on that is the money that Malik Willis got.
03:13It's lower than people thought.
03:15I think, I don't think that right, this season for quarterbacks, it's not great if you don't
03:21have one and you're almost just better off kind of just stick and stay with whatever
03:25you got.
03:25If you're going to put somebody bad out there, I don't know, tank.
03:28But there just isn't that game changer free agency wise.
03:32And even in the draft, I'm sure the Raiders will grab Mendoza and go from there.
03:36But it's just not great.
03:37So I think the Niners are going to hold on to Mac Jones.
03:39Could be wrong, but we'll see.
03:41But you've got two quarterbacks out and about saying this to anyone who will listen.
03:45And then I agree with you.
03:47Things like what Mike Evans just did.
03:50Just, I wish, and I don't need to because it doesn't matter.
03:55But I would, I would like to be hired as the campaign manager to go on a tour to tell
04:02you
04:02all, just stop it with Kyle.
04:06He's the dude.
04:08The league thinks he's the dude.
04:11You can think otherwise you're allowed to.
04:14The league thinks Rick Stroud just said it to them too.
04:17As far as offense, that's not a dude.
04:20It's the dude.
04:22You have the dude.
04:24And so I'm just, I'm thankful.
04:27I'm thankful that the 49ers have him.
04:28There were 15, I'm sorry, 50 votes for coach of the year.
04:31And he got six of them.
04:33Kyle Shanahan did first place.
04:34And Rick Stroud was one of them.
04:35He came on and said, I voted for him for coach of the year.
04:39And, you know, actions always speak louder than words.
04:41And the actions of Mike Evans, who didn't leave Tampa based on money.
04:46He didn't get more money here.
04:47They weren't trying to lowball him.
04:49He just wanted to go somewhere else.
04:50And when you go somewhere else, you get to pick your spot when you're Mike Evans.
04:54And he chose this one because the coach.
04:56And also, I believe, because the quarterback.
04:59And so, yeah, the Niners wide receiver room got upgraded.
05:02And whether or not it's Mike Evans is the one or, you know,
05:05Pearsall is the one.
05:06It doesn't even matter.
05:07You put Mike Evans out as the boundary X.
05:10Shout out Greg Cosell.
05:11He plays the X.
05:13Pearsall can move and, you know, play the other spots on the line
05:16and be a lot more effective.
05:18And now, your passing offense from a wide receiver standpoint got a lot better.
05:22A lot better today.
05:23The signing is just volume.
05:26It's absolute and total volume.
05:28Volume.
05:28Not volume.
05:29Not value and not volume.
05:32Volume.
05:32Gotcha.
05:33Can you all feel that?
05:35It might be all three, actually.
05:36It might be.
05:37It might be value.
05:37But I want, can you feel that volume?
05:40Understand.
05:41Like, Niner fans are like, we're peacocking today.
05:45Yeah.
05:46That's right.
05:47We're involved in free agency.
05:49We got Mike Evans.
05:50You still have no idea who your left guard is.
05:53You still have no idea who your pass rusher opposite Bosa is.
05:56You don't even know when the hell Bosa, Mike L. Williams, or George Kittle are going to be available.
06:01Christian McCaffrey is still about to be 30 and coming off of 8 billion touches.
06:05These things are all true, but we're peacocking.
06:09Because we're like, yeah, we got Mike Evans.
06:12It's a great signing.
06:13It's just step one.
06:15They've got all kinds of things to do.
06:16They've got a draft to conduct.
06:18I get it.
06:18But that's, for me, that's what I mean by it's not just Mike Evans.
06:23It's the idea of Mike Evans.
06:25It's a complete shot in the arm of calm.
06:29It's a veteran player who's awesome.
06:31And it signals something, I think, from and to the entire organization.
06:38We are win now.
06:41And we are going to play with elite players and adults.
06:46That's the other thing.
06:47Yep.
06:47Brandon Ayuk, see you later.
06:50We're going to get a professional in here.
06:53And play football.
06:54And stop messing around and doing YouTube videos when we're supposed to be prepping for Philly.
07:01That's what, so that's, the whole thing feels like Valium to me.
07:04Yeah, and the evolution of them as drafters and as people who acquire players.
07:09And that's John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan.
07:11You go back to the early days.
07:12And it was Reuben Foster with a late first round pick.
07:15And you already knew that he was kind of a knucklehead coming in.
07:18And he did knucklehead things.
07:20And he was all gone.
07:21And that's the way that one went.
07:23And you mentioned Brandon Ayuk.
07:24And that's kind of a similar situation.
07:26And, you know, you have other players who've come in and not acted, quote, the right way.
07:32And so it hasn't really worked.
07:33But now you get Mike Evans in.
07:35Somebody who Rick Stroud said is an absolute, like, not only is he a solid grown man,
07:40but somebody who's going to help the community.
07:42And you're going to love him.
07:42A-plus player.
07:44A-plus human being.
07:46Why does that matter to y'all?
07:47Well, do you, like, especially in football, I don't want to act like we know these guys.
07:52Plus, I, you know, just, I don't know.
07:54The sport of football is just, like, controlled maniacs.
07:59All of them.
08:00You know what I mean?
08:00Like, you have to be two cups of crazy in order to even play this game.
08:04So I'm not going to act like everybody's choir boys.
08:06I don't think that exists.
08:08We're not doing milk and cookies and orange slices at halftime.
08:11But does it matter to you that the 49ers seem to value the no knucklehead idea?
08:20You're not going to always be right.
08:22Sometimes you're going to evaluate someone and be, like, not a knucklehead.
08:25And then it's like, oh, actually, it turns out if I give them $30 million a year, he's a complete
08:29knucklehead.
08:30So you're going to be wrong sometimes.
08:31But I don't know.
08:33Maybe everybody tries to value that.
08:34I don't know.
08:35But the 49ers seem to really at least attempt to value that.
08:38And I think that it's important because then you get a locker room where, you know, you're going to be
08:43able to trust guys.
08:43And you can rely on guys to actually show up and, you know, not go rogue and have their own
08:48independent agendas.
08:50And Mike Evans was there for 12 years.
08:52And in 11 of the 12 years, 11 in a row, he had 1,000 yards.
08:56And, you know, according to Rick Stroud from Tampa, the reporter who joined Steining and Goo,
09:01a guy who never really said, I want the ball or I'm not getting my touches and all the rest
09:06of it.
09:06So all those little things, if you want to be a good community guy, that's fine.
09:11That doesn't really matter to me.
09:12I mean, it shows that you're a good character person.
09:14And that's kind of cool.
09:15But if you're here and you're not getting the ball and you win and you're not complaining, that to me
09:21is what I want.
09:22See, I'm with you.
09:23Like, if you're an A-plus person, that's great.
09:26If you connect with the fans at a big level like Kittle has, that's awesome.
09:29Fred Warner, perfect.
09:31I'm not going to act like I know you outside the thing, but it matters to me from the standpoint
09:35of, like,
09:35I don't want this to go down an Iyuk Road or a Reuben Foster Road.
09:39Like, for football reasons, I want you to be, like, a solid-based human being and good teammate.
09:47Because games get messed up when you're not.
09:50So Mike Evans won't be reading books during the playoffs next year.
09:53Yeah, and I think about Alden Smith, and I'm so happy that he's been able to turn his whole thing
09:57around.
09:58But that guy was a Hall of Famer.
10:00He was on a Hall of Fame track.
10:01You're right.
10:01But because he was unable to control the off-the-field stuff, his career went south.
10:06And, you know, it was not a part of this regime.
10:08But I always think about Alden in terms of a guy who had everything going the right way,
10:13and then it got derailed for a number of different reasons.
10:16And then by the time you get it right, you're too old and the career's over.
10:19Thanks, sir.
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