- 7 weeks ago
Willard and Dibs debate if the 49ers can win without Nick Bosa and break down how the 49ers may be challenged on both lines this season.
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00:00Here's kind of the way I look at the Bosa situation.
00:02I was thinking about this today, because a lot of people are like,
00:04that's the guy we can't win without,
00:08or that's the guy where the trickle-down effect is so large, right?
00:12Nick Bosa, when he's there, seemingly the other pass rushers,
00:17like last year it was Bryce Huff.
00:18Bryce Huff, he's good when Nick Bosa's there,
00:21and then there's no Nick Bosa there, and he just can't function.
00:25Same thing with the secondary.
00:26When Nick Bosa was drafted, the same secondary that only had two interceptions
00:30the year before suddenly helped take the 49ers to the Super Bowl.
00:35So huge trickle-down effect from Nick Bosa.
00:38To me, if I'm the Niners and I see what I saw last year,
00:42that becomes goal number one.
00:44Not to, like, play without Nick Bosa, but you have to still be a viable team.
00:51Quarterback is the only position where if I'm running an NFL team,
00:56I will be comfortable with the idea of if that guy gets hurt,
01:01we're kind of screwed.
01:03Like that, too bad that comes with the territory.
01:06That's just the truth for NFL teams.
01:08Depends on your roster and who you are,
01:10because last year they weren't screwed.
01:12Well, right, correct.
01:14All I'm saying is that's the only position where I'll sort of stomach that.
01:17That is normally the case, that if a quarterback goes down,
01:22your season is sideways.
01:24And I don't know that there's any way to, in other words,
01:27criticize a regime when that happens.
01:31Patrick Mahomes gets hurt.
01:33Somebody else comes in.
01:34The Chiefs aren't very good.
01:35Nobody's like, come on, Andy, you should have been ready for that.
01:38But all the other positions, I sort of feel that way.
01:41And I get it.
01:42Edge rusher, left tackle.
01:44Teams don't have two left tackles.
01:47But I do think you should be trying to bolster your group enough
01:52so that you still have some juice if that player is out.
01:56And the Niner pass rush had no juice.
01:59And so that, to me, had to be off-season priority number one, quite frankly,
02:04is can we still be a pass-rushing team on some level,
02:08not the highest level, but on some level without Nick Bosa?
02:11And I don't know if they did.
02:13I don't know how these guys are going to do.
02:15We haven't seen them play yet.
02:16But it's fair to wonder right now if they've done enough.
02:22And you look at some of the past draft picks,
02:24the Drake Jacksons and the Javon Kinlaws and things like that.
02:28Mike L. Williams is starting the year on the pop list.
02:31I mean, you know, that one's tough for me because I think they like him
02:33and he just got hurt.
02:34But, yeah, they have not gotten the production they've needed
02:39from the defensive linemen that they have recently picked.
02:41And that is, it's difficult because, again,
02:44if you're not picking high in every round,
02:47it's difficult to go out there and get the elite players at a very needed spot.
02:51And I think edge rusher is the same thing as left tackle
02:54where the really good ones are going to go early.
02:56And so you pick at the end of the first round,
02:59then you trade back to 33, and you figure out,
03:01well, we need to also address our wide receiver room
03:04because Ricky Pearsall we're not sure about.
03:06And last year we were third to last in percentage of catches to the wide receiver.
03:12We were 30th of 32.
03:14The only teams behind us were Arizona and one of the other teams
03:18that it was absolutely horrific.
03:19And so you need to be able to get wide receivers who can separate
03:23and deliver the ball down the field.
03:24You mentioned this earlier about McCaffrey.
03:26If you've got a legitimate deep threat, maybe it's dribbling.
03:30If you've got a legitimate catch threat, it should be Mike Evans.
03:34You've got one of the best tight ends in football, George Kittle,
03:36when he gets all the way back.
03:38Well, now you have the kind of offense that the defense has to respect.
03:41And you remember the last two Seattle games,
03:44the Seahawks were just creeping on down, creeping down,
03:47and they'd have eight in the box.
03:49And by the snap, they'd have everyone in the box.
03:51What's in the box?
03:52Their entire team.
03:54You know?
03:55Yeah, there was nothing the Niners could do.
03:56There was nothing the Niners could do.
04:00And I'm not, you know, a football scout enough to know what caused it.
04:06You know, I know the easy thing is just like the Seahawks defensive line
04:10is really good.
04:11They're really, really good.
04:12So that's the easy thing to say.
04:14But what is it?
04:15Is it the ability to stack the box?
04:17Is it that McCaffrey lost a step?
04:19Is it that this offensive line is better at pass blocking than they are run blocking?
04:24But there's so many outliers from last year.
04:28Weird things.
04:29You brought one of them up.
04:30You know, how does a Kyle Shanahan coach team average under four yards a carry
04:36but end up as one of the best third down teams in football,
04:40number two in DVOA, score the football really well, and win 12 games?
04:46How do you do that?
04:48Yeah.
04:48That doesn't make any sense.
04:50It doesn't.
04:51And I think that you can look at a number of one-off factors,
04:55and among them were, and again, schedule Sam is such a tired and cliched thing to look at.
05:01But I'm just looking at their games last year,
05:03and when you rushed for 77 yards against New Orleans, you still won.
05:07You had your backup quarterback, and you had to make a late play on defense
05:11because the Saints were starting to march down that field to possibly pull off the upset.
05:16But other games, like you beat the Rams in overtime, you rushed for 74 yards,
05:21and that was the game with, you know, two early touchdowns and a couple of great defensive plays.
05:25I'm not saying it's luck, but there was a lot of quirks in what you did.
05:30You beat, I mean, you lost to Jacksonville.
05:33You beat the Browns with 91 yards rushing, and you beat Arizona with 73 yards rushing,
05:39and that was another game.
05:40You won 16 to 15.
05:41That was a Mac Jones game, and that was where Marvin Harrison Jr. had the drop sees really bad,
05:47and you were able to hold on for dear life in that one.
05:50Yeah, thank you for bringing it.
05:51I forgot about that.
05:52It wasn't just that Upton Stout made a great late play, and the Cardinals lost by a point.
05:58I forgot.
05:58Yeah, Marvin Harrison, he dropped that game.
06:01He had that game.
06:02Right.
06:03He had that game.
06:03You look at their numbers, and they were 30th in yards per attempt, and they were 24th in overall rushing
06:11yards,
06:12and yet you went 12 and 5.
06:14You were really good on third down.
06:16You were great in the red zone.
06:17Shout out your guy, CMC, number four in our fantasy draft,
06:20and if he does what he did last year, which is they got in the red zone,
06:24and he scored almost every time.
06:26So good on third down, good in the red zone.
06:28Overall, your offense was not very good at running the ball,
06:32but when you needed it, you were able to get it done.
06:35Doesn't make any sense.
06:36It doesn't.
06:37Last year doesn't make any sense.
06:38Well, it's not repeatable, I don't think.
06:40I agree with you it's not repeatable, but when people hear that,
06:43I think they think immediately, oh, that's a bad thing.
06:46And I'm like, partially.
06:50Yes, I believe that you can't average through, what was it, 3'8", 3'7", as a team?
06:55What were they?
06:55Yeah, let me look at it.
06:56Yards per carry.
06:57I don't think you can do that again and be a really good football team.
07:01I don't think that your best six players can all get hurt, and you're good again.
07:09But I also, I have a hard time believing that they will put those numbers up this poorly.
07:16A Kyle Shanahan or even a Mike Shanahan team never puts up run numbers like that.
07:22They don't do that.
07:24So why did that happen last year?
07:27That's what I would love to get at.
07:29Why did that happen?
07:32And I guess there's only three answers on the board.
07:35It's that the offensive line is much better pass blocking than run blocking.
07:38It's that Christian McCaffrey's not very good anymore, or it's that there was such a lack
07:44of weapons that the defense knew CMC was getting the ball.
07:47It's one of those three.
07:50And that's what we're about to find out the 49ers definitely think that it's number three based on their behavior,
07:58because their behavior was, let's go get new skill position guys and essentially bring back the exact same offensive line,
08:05except for one spot, which we're going to fill.
08:07Well, but we don't know who it is yet.
08:10And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
08:12They'll try to pitch that as a good thing.
08:15Now we're getting production from three different people.
08:17We haven't decided who it is yet.
08:19I think it's fair to also look at that and go, you don't know who your left guard is yet.
08:24There's a game a week from, you don't know who your left guard is yet.
08:28The answer is all of the above.
08:30I don't think that any of those guys is going to get 100% of the snaps.
08:33It's probably going to be, you know, you get a chance to win the job.
08:36And I hate to make the comparison to the Giants bullpen, but because, you know, they win it a year.
08:43We don't have a closer, but we're going to give this guy a try.
08:46And then we'll go over here to this guy and how'd that work out for you?
08:49Not great.
08:50And the closer in baseball is more important than the left guard.
08:52But if you're going to be one of these fancy Shanahan offenses where we want to run it, we want
08:58to possess it.
08:59And that's what has always led to Kyle Shanahan teams winning.
09:02You get the lead, you run the ball, you possess it more than the other team, and you win the
09:07game.
09:07And the stats meet that out.
09:08And I won't bore you with all the research just yet.
09:11But as I've done the nine-year look at Shanahan, that's been the formula.
09:16When they do that, they win.
09:17Are you planning to bore me later?
09:19Of course.
09:20Oh.
09:20I've got stacks and stacks of notes over here.
09:23Oh, okay.
09:24You know, in response to your thing about it, it has to be one of the three.
09:27The part about him losing a step, I don't think you can look at the stats and say,
09:32oh, yeah, he's lost a step because on the ground, 3.9 a carry, which is 0.7 below his
09:38career average.
09:39In the pass game, 9.1 a catch, which is half a yard ahead of what he has done in
09:45his career.
09:46So if you lost a step to me, Mark, that would mean your yards per reception go down, your yards
09:53per carry also go down.
09:54And if you look at his yards per reception, and he, you know, mainly was getting the same types of
10:00catches, you know,
10:00that option route out of the backfield or, you know, screens and passes to the flat, those numbers went up.
10:06So for me, I look at just the raw stats, forget the eye test, and I don't think that he
10:11lost a step,
10:11but somehow his yards per catch went up, and his yards per carry went down, and we're going to say
10:16he lost a step.
10:17So I'm taking that one off the list.
10:19Even if he lost a little bit, like I don't even know what that, we always do that.
10:23He lost a step.
10:24I mean, what if he lost like a third of a step?
10:27Do you know what I mean?
10:29We've watched Christian enough to know he was still a really good football player.
10:34So I'm with you.
10:35Like, that's the first one that I would remove from the board.
10:38But here's where I'll meet some people halfway.
10:41You know how everyone's always calling Kyle Shanahan really arrogant?
10:44And I get where you're coming from.
10:47Sometimes arrogance is just the way someone comes off.
10:52It doesn't mean they're actually arrogant, or it doesn't mean that they think that, like, they're narcissistic or whatever.
10:59The one that I always love is when people say,
11:02Kyle is so arrogant.
11:04He thinks that he can outsmart every other NFL coach, which is why he ends up with Garoppolo and Purdy.
11:13As if Kyle doesn't want good players.
11:16Right.
11:16Like, he'd rather not so that he can show off.
11:19That's right.
11:19How many.
11:20He wants to show the league.
11:22I can do it with mediocrity.
11:23No, no, I don't believe that.
11:26Right.
11:28But here's something that I do think plays as, I guess, arrogant is a fair word.
11:36Look, when your offensive line gets completely manhandled by division mates, okay, and you come back the next year with
11:52the same group.
11:54That's, like, he clearly, at least to my way of thinking, the 49ers feel that they know something.
12:02I'm only going to say four because there's four offensive linemen that are back as starters.
12:08They think they know something about those four guys that the rest of the world doesn't know.
12:13And they might be right.
12:14But I, like, I get why people think that that feels arrogant.
12:19I can look at the Seattle defensive line and go, oh, my God.
12:23Okay.
12:25And they played them twice in the final three weeks of the year.
12:28One was a close game, but good Lord, the Niners could not score.
12:33And then they go to Seattle and they are completely and totally outclassed, overwhelmed, all of those things.
12:41And the brass heads into the offseason and goes, yeah, those are our guys.
12:47I get why somebody could think that that's a little bit of an arrogant maneuver.
12:51You could see it as arrogance or you could see it as the way I see it, which is they
12:55didn't have a lot of terrific options out there where they were drafting and, you know, who they already have.
13:01You have your left tackle and your right tackle.
13:03They like their center and, you know, the experts like the center a lot more than the majority of us
13:09actually do.
13:10They do.
13:11I think your right guard has not admitted it, but I think he was hurt for the first third or
13:15more of the season.
13:16Totally agree.
13:17Played every snap anyway.
13:18Yep.
13:19And now you've got a left guard situation and it's going to be to be determined.
13:22I do think that the arrogance might come from the idea of what you do from a scheme standpoint, the
13:29pre-snap motion and all the other eye candy, the stuff that sets Shanahan apart.
13:34I'll give you that if you want to look at the arrogance, but his system has consistently worked year in
13:40and year out.
13:41Right.
13:41So what's the one off?
13:44Like, that's what I want to know.
13:47To me, that's what I'm I'm looking at this year.
13:49Kyle Shanahan or anyone with his last name, they have made their name in this league by almost being able
13:58to get production from any running back, from a blocking scheme and a pre-snap motion collection that is just
14:06apparently it's wizardry.
14:09That's what every single person in the NFL says.
14:11How many defensive coordinators need to publicly state that Kyle Shanahan is the hardest preparation for them all year long?
14:20They almost to a man.
14:23That's what they say.
14:25And then you've got these offensive linemen and it doesn't really produce a great run game.
14:32And then you bring them all back.
14:34But to your point, we did that, I don't know if it was PFF or whatever those deep dive grades
14:40were, and every single offensive lineman individually for the 49ers graded out as top half of the league at their
14:48position.
14:49All of them.
14:50So, I don't know, man.
14:52We have a, this is a puzzle.
14:55This is like, this is a riddle.
14:57Well, I, like, if that's the case, if you got Shanahan as the coach and you have offensive linemen who,
15:06by metrics, are better than what the fans think, and boy, I'm going to listen to that.
15:11Because let's just all admit as fans, we don't know what the hell.
15:14You're not watching the offensive line.
15:17You're not.
15:18The only time you're watching the offensive line is when somebody flies right through it.
15:22Or there's a hole.
15:23A hole.
15:24You don't know how to assess offensive line play.
15:27With nacho cheese on your cheek from your couch.
15:30Neither do I.
15:31And we all got burned in the Super Bowl where we thought it was, what, was it McKivitts who made
15:35a mistake?
15:36And turned out it was Burford who went the wrong way on that play in the lower red zone.
15:41Correct, yes.
15:41And I think it was as Boye who was breaking open in the back of the end zone.
15:46And so you couldn't deliver the ball because there was a missed assignment.
15:51And we all didn't realize it was a missed assignment until John Feliciano Mungo pointed it out.
15:56Sweeted it out.
15:57Right?
15:57And so you're right to the extent of, you know, the majority of us are not experts like Ted Wynn
16:03of The Athletic.
16:04Okay, you go ahead and break it down and I'll totally buy what you're saying because he watches that stuff.
16:09Don't make it make sense.
16:11Why did the 49ers have a hard time running the ball last year?
16:17If McCaffrey's still got his juice and your offensive linemen are actually good and your last name is Shanahan,
16:25why did the 49ers not run the ball better last year?
16:29I think you can look at a few micro things such as George Kittle missed a lot of games.
16:35He missed games early and he's a great blocking tight end.
16:38And I think you could look at the right guard who I believe was a little hampered for the majority
16:43of the year.
16:43And, you know, outside of Juwan Jennings, who's a great blocker, I don't think Ricky Pearsall is known for his
16:49blocking.
16:49And Demarcus Robinson actually is a good blocker.
16:52Look forward to seeing more of that.
16:53But in general, everything that the film experts like Greg Cosell, who joins us tomorrow,
16:58and maybe we can kick this to him again tomorrow, because it seemed like the people who do watch the
17:04film at that level,
17:05they would all say, you know, they were just one player away on a lot of these plays.
17:11Like somebody just didn't quite execute their block and it's different people on different plays.
17:16And as a result, and I can show you my play-by-play notes, there's a lot on there of
17:21CMC 0, CMC 1, CMC minus 1.
17:25There are a lot of his carries that turned out to be bupkis.
17:29And no explosives is the other one.
17:31They had no explosives.
17:33That's what changes your average per carry.
17:35Why not any explosives?
17:37Because you, well, for the one you played...
17:40It's a great question.
17:41Seattle and the Rams, that's four games.
17:43You played Houston.
17:44Cleveland was a really good defense.
17:45You did face some good defenses, but...
17:48Yeah, but I mean, like explosives.
17:49That's just like you got through.
17:51Like you can do that against a good defense.
17:53You can, but...
17:54They didn't do it against the bad defenses either.
17:56And I think that's where, you know, the Cosells of the world will say,
18:00okay, you get by the first level,
18:02then you need to get your blocker out to the second level of linebackers
18:05and get another block.
18:07That way McCaffrey can get up to full speed and turn something into an explosive.
18:11So other than Juwan, the wide receivers that they all grabbed off of the street
18:14are not great blockers.
18:16And also, I think that, you know, the guards in the center
18:18are getting out into the linebacker level.
18:20They didn't do it consistently enough.
18:22And so those guys had a free run at McCaffrey.
18:26It appears that Puka Nakua's ex-girlfriend has made new abuse claims.
18:34And she is not the one who has made the original abuse claims,
18:41which have Nakua currently facing a civil lawsuit alleging physical assault and battery.
18:47That's from a different woman.
18:48But now we have his other ex-girlfriend who is doing a bit of a media tour
18:54and speaking publicly about why she wants help with her mental health.
19:01And she doesn't get into, like, a specific act.
19:05She just speaks of, quote,
19:08I went from loving somebody so deeply for four years,
19:11I felt it in my bones,
19:12to experiencing extreme betrayal, abuse, and complete neglect.
19:18Those are the claims from Puka Nakua's ex-girlfriend.
19:25Let's see.
19:26Her name is Holly Aiono.
19:32Okay.
19:33And I don't know enough about the allegations
19:36to know whether it rises to the level of, you know,
19:39being put on the NFL commissioner's exempt list or not.
19:42I was doing some research earlier before our fantasy draft,
19:45and it didn't seem like Puka Nakua was heading in that direction.
19:49But now that there's a second allegation,
19:52a second inference of a certain level of, quote, unquote, abuse,
19:57and, again, I don't know what the nature of the incident is,
20:01nor do most people.
20:02So something to definitely keep an eye on
20:04as you head into nine days from now, the opener in Australia.
20:09She is the mother of Nakua's son,
20:12and they already went through a public paternity ordeal last year.
20:17But it is proven that she is the mother of Nakua's son, Kingston.
20:24So I'm going to add that into the whole thing as well.
20:28It feels to me, and maybe this is just because of where we live,
20:31but it does feel to me like the anxiety and the hand-wringing
20:36over who's available week one sort of seems to just be different
20:42when it's a 49er.
20:44Nick Bosa, George Kittle, Mike Evans.
20:47Meantime, there's Ashton Gentty, Jamar Chase, and Puka Nakua,
20:51and everybody's just kind of like, yeah, no big deal.
20:55Yeah, well, it's just two different things, obviously.
20:58Like, the category for Puka Nakua, he's healthy.
21:01It just comes down to what the league would want to do
21:03in terms of, you know, not letting him play.