- 9 minutes ago
Grandi, along with Willard and Dibs, run through 49ers grades from their Week 2 win over the Dolphins.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Do you know what else would lead to a heap of trouble?
00:02What?
00:03If we neglected to do Grandy's grades.
00:06Especially when it's going to be like A's for everyone.
00:09It's freaking Tuesday, dude.
00:11So let's do Grandy's grades.
00:14Let's have at it.
00:28Time for grades, as always, off another Niner win.
00:32You guys are talking about their 2-0.
00:3435-13 over the Dolphins this time around.
00:36We start, as we always do, with the quarterback position.
00:40And this is by far the easiest grade to hand out of the week for me.
00:46It's actually Brock Purdy.
00:48I know it's not his most accurate game from a completion percentage standpoint.
00:53I thought, though, it was his best game as a professional quarterback.
00:5620 for 22, 287 and two touchdowns.
01:00And there were some wide-open receivers.
01:02But, man, he also threw them open at times.
01:05The play on the first drive on the third down to Mike Evans
01:09where he is facing pressure and has to do the little jump cut backwards
01:13to give himself an extra second to set his feet and find Mike Evans.
01:17And the one in the second half where Mike Evans went all the way down
01:20to the one-yard line where he pumped fakes to get the defender into the air.
01:24And then he flipped his hips, set his feet,
01:27and ripped a throw right past multiple DBs.
01:30I mean, he was great the entire game.
01:32He gets an A+.
01:33There's nothing he could have done more.
01:34I had forgotten, actually, about the opening drive throw to Mike Evans
01:38where I will admit I originally did not think Mike had his feet down in bounds.
01:43His body control on the sidelines, not that we didn't know Mike was already great,
01:48but I've been so impressed by the way he moves and handles all of that.
01:53And that's kind of my takeaway on Brock as well.
01:55It's obviously an A or A-plus performance.
01:58I don't know who on earth with eyes would vote at anything different.
02:03But for me, you can spotlight specific plays,
02:06or you can take the view from 10,000 feet, which is what I'd like to point out.
02:11When you watched Brock move around the field,
02:14when you watched him conduct the offense,
02:17I think you rarely see an NFL game where a quarterback looks that in control
02:23of everything that's taking place.
02:25And that's the vibe that Brock presented on Sunday.
02:28And beyond the throws, and Grandy, you did a good job of laying out
02:31the elite throws that he made.
02:33I'm just looking at the second drive of the game,
02:35and he scrambled for 10.
02:37He ran the bootleg for 18.
02:39And then he eventually got in on a bit of a broken play,
02:43scrambled from two yards out.
02:45So as much as we focus on his vision
02:47and how he can see it before it happens,
02:50for me, the thing that continues to impress me
02:53is the mobility skill and when to run and how he runs.
02:56And it's a solid A for me.
02:59But you don't give A pluses.
03:00No, there's no such thing.
03:01So it's as good as he could have done for you.
03:03Correct.
03:03Yeah.
03:03All right.
03:04Just want to put that out there.
03:05All right.
03:05Up next, it is skill positions, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends.
03:10How cool is it to see George Kittle get involved in a major way once again?
03:14Four targets, four catches.
03:15Of course, had the big one for 40 yards.
03:17Then had the touchdown right after.
03:19We talked about a couple of Mike Evans catches.
03:22He only had three, but two of them were huge.
03:25A third down early in the game.
03:26And then that big one that went for 27 yards down to the one yard line.
03:30McCaffrey scored a couple of touchdowns.
03:32Kalon Black is continuing to do good things.
03:35There was a Debo Samuel drop.
03:37That's really about the only thing that I can think of as a negative.
03:41But it wasn't that big of a deal.
03:43I give the skill positions group an A for their performance.
03:45Same grade for me.
03:46And you highlighted all of it.
03:48Kalon Black continues to do exactly what he needs.
03:51He's a great change of pace.
03:52McCaffrey catching it and running it.
03:54But the reason why this grade is easy for me is, Mark, you mentioned it,
03:58the Mike Evans toe tap.
04:00And then him being able to keep his feet down to the corner.
04:04George Kittle with a third quarter emergence.
04:06The only thing that you can look at is the Debo Samuel drop.
04:09And that was not a super tough catch, but it's going to be a tough catch.
04:13And he didn't bring it in.
04:14So it's not enough to bring you down to an A-.
04:17Well, and I mean, some people like to blame players for injuries.
04:19So I guess you can get mad at Demarcus Robinson for getting hurt or what have you.
04:24But yeah, I don't really see enough to take this down from being an A.
04:28Here's the bottom line.
04:30Those guys have got to go do their assigned thing too.
04:34And when you go five for five on touchdown drives, we touch the ball five times.
04:40We score five times.
04:41I don't know who the hell on your offense is not going to get an A.
04:44I don't know how to give anybody not an A.
04:47So I guess I just gave a clue as to what I'm going to say for the offensive line.
04:52But like five for five, you all get an A.
04:55This is Oprah with a gift for you under the seat.
04:58You all get an A.
04:59And we've got one more offensive skill group to get to or group in general.
05:03That is the offensive line.
05:05Another day where Brock Purdy not only doesn't get sacked, but hardly gets touched.
05:09Only two quarterback hits for the Dolphins in this one.
05:13They only had one tackle for loss.
05:15Only one negative play on the entire game.
05:18Maybe a little concerned about McCaffrey in the run game.
05:22It's not something that I'm going to lose sleep of to this point in the season.
05:25But the offensive line is still playing way better than I was expecting.
05:29I gave him an A as well.
05:31Offensive line, very, very good once again.
05:33I mean, look, when you're watching 49er football right now in two games,
05:37I can't really think of one time where the television broadcast circled an offensive lineman
05:45and goes, watch this, or watch this penalty, or watch this defensive line go flying by.
05:52Like, it just hasn't happened.
05:53They are completely anonymous right now, which is exactly what you want an offensive line to be.
06:00Trent Williams is playing like Trent Williams.
06:03We were hoping that Dominic Pooney would kind of look healthy and play at a really good level.
06:08He has.
06:10They have played as mistake-free as any offensive line in football.
06:15Sorry to sound like Troy Aikman, but there, I said it, yeah, offensive line gets an A.
06:20And you can go to the nitpick file, and I will for a brief moment,
06:25but it doesn't move it off of the highest grade I give, which is an A.
06:29They had the one holding penalty on first and 10 in the first drive where they didn't score a touchdown,
06:35guys.
06:36And, I mean, I was pissed.
06:37Five touchdowns?
06:38Let's get it.
06:39Let's make it six.
06:40And Trent with the hold, that was unfortunate.
06:43And aside from that, you mentioned no sacks.
06:46And I'm less concerned, I guess, about McCaffrey in the ground game and Kalon Black
06:50because they're running it effectively.
06:52You mentioned the one negative play, Grandy.
06:55It was a one-yard loss when Kalon Black carried the ball.
06:58Well, they're avoiding, for the most part, the crushing penalties that if you get to first and 20,
07:04your chances of picking up a first down aren't great.
07:06They've been super clean in today.
07:09All right, up next, as we transition over to the defense, that's the front seven.
07:12That's your down linemen and your linebackers.
07:14First of all, I thought it was interesting that Raheem Horace went to five down linemen at times throughout this
07:20game.
07:20I'll be keeping my eye on that going forward.
07:23I mean, look, Miami, their best player is Devon Achan.
07:26Man, he's going to get some yards, and he averaged nearly four per carry in this game.
07:3120 touches, 20 carries for 74 yards.
07:34Also had three catches for 19.
07:35He clearly was the best part of their offense.
07:39First half, I was a little worried about the defense, particularly in the middle against the run.
07:45We saw that early with Kyron Williams, Blake Corum, and the Rams in week one as well.
07:50It was a whole lot better in the second half.
07:51That's also when the Niners just played keep away for the entire second half as well.
07:56But Miami, two long drives in that first half, and most of it was because of the ground.
08:01But four sacks, Fred Warner's Fred Warner.
08:05Dre Greenlaw looks healthy.
08:06He is flying around.
08:07It was not bad at all.
08:09I gave him an A-.
08:10To this point, the worst grade of any group because I'm a little worried about the run defense.
08:14Yeah, I bumped it down even a tick further to a B+.
08:18And you had the key on White roughing the passer, which you can say was a chicken salad call.
08:24But a flag is a flag.
08:25And he picked that up.
08:26And you can also look at four sacks.
08:28And they were kind of sacks.
08:30One of them was a chase you out of bounds for a loss of a foot.
08:33And, you know, ultimately, the reason why I bumped it down to a B+, is stopping the run.
08:39And yes, Devin A. Chan is a good running back.
08:42I get that.
08:43But too often, we're seeing fours and fives and sixes and sevens.
08:47And so, B-plus is not a bad grade.
08:49But that's where I landed.
08:50Yeah, I landed on B-plus as well.
08:51But I'm not, like, as openly concerned about the run defense as you guys are.
08:56Maybe because it's expected.
08:58This is where the Niners are right now.
09:00They lost Alfred Collins.
09:01They've lost James Thompson Jr.
09:03They've lost some people there.
09:05Michael Williams is not back yet.
09:07And so, I sort of go into these games expecting that the Niners have a little bit of a soft
09:14spot there.
09:15And they're going to have to overcome that.
09:17And Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw do a great job of that.
09:20And the most important thing is you button it up when you get to the red zone.
09:25And this group did that very, very well.
09:27Four yards per carry.
09:29I bet it felt like a lot more.
09:30Or that's not that much.
09:32Which means for every time that they ran for eight, they stuffed them for zero on the next play.
09:37So, I thought B-plus is the right grade.
09:40But it also comes down to expectations.
09:43And right now, the 49ers are not going to be the best interior defensive line in the league.
09:50But Grayson Halton looks phenomenal.
09:53And Osa Odigizua has been everything that we would hope that he would.
09:57And let's talk about sacks, baby.
10:01Because I don't care if they're fake right now.
10:04The Niners had 20% of their entire season sack total last year in this game.
10:12I'll take it.
10:13Up next, it's the defensive secondary, your cornerbacks, and your safeties.
10:18This was largely a really good day for this group.
10:20I bumped them down to a B-plus mostly because of what happened late.
10:25And yeah, it's a garbage time touchdown.
10:26Not a big deal.
10:27But Upton Stout just gets ran by Miller.
10:3077-yard touchdown in the second half once the game was already decided.
10:34You might say, well, Grandy, it doesn't count.
10:36They were up by 28 or whatever it was at that point.
10:39And yeah, you're probably right.
10:41But I can't in good conscience give that effort an A with that one major, major mistake in there.
10:47So I gave the secondary a B-plus.
10:48But I like what I saw from Jair Brown.
10:50You guys know me.
10:51I've been pretty anti-Jair Brown for most of his career with the 49ers.
10:56A lot of good in this performance still as well.
10:59I only bumped it down to an A-minus.
11:01And because time and space suggested that, you know, you're not supposed to allow for a mental lapse.
11:07But good Lord, how closely were we paying attention to that football game by then?
11:12So yeah, there was a little bit of a miscommunication there.
11:15But outside of that, Upton Stout, really good game.
11:17You mentioned Jair Brown.
11:19I think Seagull was fantastic in this game as well.
11:22And we continue to never say the names of Diamant or Lenore.
11:27And in this game, Renardo Green as well.
11:29You mentioned it's a 77-yard touchdown.
11:31That means outside of that play, the Dolphins threw for 120 yards.
11:37That's it.
11:38Nobody was a factor in the passing game at all.
11:42And so I'll only give them a minus just for that one play.
11:46But outside of that, that's a top grade.
11:48Yeah, and I'm landing in the same department with the A-minus.
11:51And I'm kind of feeling you on the garbage time.
11:53Because if that is one of your starters who's getting beat,
11:56well, that actually counts on your permanent record.
11:59Just because you have an A in a class and you completely don't turn in an S-minus,
12:04well, you go down to an A-minus.
12:05I'm sorry.
12:05That's just the way that has to go.
12:07But by and large, Willard, you're right about the other explosives.
12:11I'm not seeing another pass play other than the one to Washington
12:14at the end of the half that went for 23.
12:17Beyond that, there were no explosives.
12:19But it's an A-minus.
12:20Up next, it is special teams.
12:23This was a game where the big special teams play of the game was old friend
12:28Bradley Pinion just simply dropping the ball before he decided to punt it.
12:33Really strange moment there.
12:35Other than that, for the Niners, it wasn't a special teams day to write home about,
12:39which I guess is both a good thing and a bad thing.
12:41You didn't make any bad mistakes.
12:42But you also didn't really have to do anything on special teams.
12:46Pinheiro didn't attempt a field goal.
12:47Made all five of his extra points.
12:50Nothing to write home about, good or bad, in the return game.
12:54So solid A-minus.
12:56Didn't do anything wrong.
12:57But I don't really know if they did enough to earn more than an A-minus.
13:00It's a B for me because you had the punt return when Cowling went for a big return,
13:06but it was holding.
13:07That one had to come back.
13:08And then the subsequent punt, he got bottled up.
13:11The guy missed a block.
13:12That was a zero-yard return.
13:14And also, Miami had a couple of decent kickoff returns.
13:18They've got a 35-yarder in their final possession of the first half.
13:22So nothing too damning.
13:24But the other piece of it is the Niners may have a punter problem.
13:29I don't necessarily...
13:30I mean, they've only had to punt twice in the game, but neither punt was really that good.
13:34The first one was, you know, went about 28 yards.
13:38You were at their 46, and you only got it down to their 18.
13:42I think the punter's going to have to be better, so it's a B.
13:45The box score disagrees with your punting assessment.
13:49There were two punts in the game.
13:50One was 47 yards and one was 45.
13:53And both of them were pinned inside the 20.
13:55So I'm going to push back on the punter problem, but I'll share your B-plus for the same reason
14:02that you mentioned it,
14:03which was the penalty that took away another Jacob Cowing strong performance in the return game.
14:10I think we're dying to see Cowing break one.
14:13And Cowing, he did it in the preseason, and he almost did it in this game, and it gets called
14:19back.
14:19So for that, combined with the fact that, as you pointed out, Grandy, it's kind of a day where they
14:25didn't really need him,
14:26that's a good thing, but I don't know how to get excited about it either.
14:30So B-plus for me.
14:31And last but not least, it is coaching.
14:33One thing that I'm just excited for every single week other than the game itself is to see the wrinkles
14:39that Raheem Morris throws out there.
14:40We saw some dime week one.
14:42We saw five down linemen in week two.
14:45So I'm interested in that, and I've been pleasantly surprised with those things from Raheem Morris, including in this game.
14:52I think larger, just Kyle Shanahan having this group ready to play off of the travel home from Australia,
14:58and you saw all the other teams that were supposed to be playing teams that they should dominate
15:05and either lost or needed to pull wins away at the last second.
15:10That was not the case here, and I think the coaching staff gets credit for that,
15:14for having this group ready to play.
15:16I mean, it was a dominant win.
15:17Coaching, they get an A for me.
15:19No doubt, yeah.
15:19It's absolutely an A.
15:21You watch the 49ers play football right now, it's like you can see and feel the coaching.
15:25You can see and feel the game plan.
15:28You can watch Brock Purdy kind of fake a handoff one direction
15:32and watch the entire defense just be on skates,
15:35and then we bootleg run the other way, and you've got wide-open receivers.
15:40Everybody's in control.
15:41What this tells to me, very few penalties.
15:43I know they had seven, but, like, even if you look at just the two games as a whole,
15:48you can see that everybody is coached up and they're doing their job.
15:54You can just see it.
15:55You can see the extension of the coaches on the field.
15:58They have won both of these football games going away
16:02because they have the better game plan, the better execution.
16:07They are very, very buttoned up, and even most of the penalties that I've seen,
16:11I'm kind of like, ooh, that was a tight penalty.
16:14Not too sure about that.
16:15So coaching across the board gets an A,
16:19and they are the coaching staff of the year through two weeks of this season.
16:23It's been a clinic for Kyle Shanahan, and you look at the plays and the design of it.
16:27I can't wait to talk to Greg Cosell tomorrow.
16:29One of the ones that I've watched about four or five times is it's a third down pass to Christian
16:35McCaffrey.
16:35He comes out of the backfield, and it's the old arrow route, kind of a choice route.
16:39But before that, they send the other four receivers out of the way.
16:43Go ahead and go down the field, leaving the entire middle open.
16:47McCaffrey's able to just wiggle out there.
16:49Nobody can guard him in that spot.
16:51It was just a beautiful play design, and there were so many of those,
16:54including the Brock Purdy bootleg, where he goes naked boot for 18 yards.
16:59Shanahan is not only in his bag, he is the bag, and it's a Birkin bag,
17:04and he is an absolute maestro right now with the way he's calling these games.
17:08All right, and that is Granny's Grades Week 2.
17:11A lot of good grades being handed out through the first two weeks.
17:14How many B-pluses have we given in two weeks?
17:19Uh, probably...
17:20Did we give any last week?
17:21I don't think we gave any last week.
17:23Did you give any?
17:24For sure.
17:25It was not a straight-A performance yet.
17:27Against the Rams?
17:27Yeah, I think Dibs gave one.
17:29In the front seven.
17:30That's mean.
17:31Whatever.
17:32Keep it in the buck.
17:33They didn't have a sack last week.
17:34They gave up seven points to the Rams.
17:36Right.
17:37I mean, whatever, to each his own.
17:39You guys can just do it, and I can take 50 minutes off.
17:42No, I mean, we're allowed to disagree.
Comments