- 12 hours ago
Willard and Dibs break down what 49ers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris is doing to help turn things around for the 49ers defense.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00We've been talking about the Niner defense, which is, hold your breath, it's awesome.
00:04It's awesome. Raheem Morris has got something cooking.
00:07I think that this is the side of the ball where most of us had questions going into the year.
00:13They have largely been answered to the positive so far.
00:17And tell everybody what you just told me right before we came back from break about the age of the
00:24defense.
00:25Of all of the regular defenders on the 49ers, there's a grand total of zero that are 30 years of
00:31age,
00:32unless Fred or Dre Greenlaw just had a birthday.
00:35Odigizua is 28, and I think Nicky Bosa is 27.
00:39The majority of these guys, all of the guys really, of the, quote, regular defensive players,
00:45including the D-line rotation guys, Odigizua, Keon White, these guys aren't 30.
00:50So the old part of your team is your offense.
00:54I'll give you one shot at who technically the oldest player on the defense is.
00:59Among people who actually play?
01:01Yeah, and Dre Greenlaw is still 29, and Fred Warner is still 29.
01:08Neither of them have turned 30 yet.
01:10Yeah, so it's got to be one of those two.
01:13Well, no, you said of the people who play a lot.
01:15Right.
01:16I'm looking at, like, everybody.
01:18Oh, okay.
01:18Even, like, some backups and stuff like that.
01:20There are, let's see, one, two.
01:23I saw that Suran Neal is 31.
01:26Actually, he's turned 32.
01:27Okay.
01:28Happy belated birthday.
01:29He is the oldest.
01:31But, yeah, he's just special teams.
01:33Luke Gifford is 31.
01:36And let's see, I think Okoronkwo is 31.
01:42Yeah, I don't think he's there anymore, though.
01:44Well, he's hurt.
01:45He got hurt.
01:46Is he let go, or is he on IR?
01:48I think I got cut, but...
01:48Okoronkwo?
01:50I think he got released.
01:51They're released?
01:52Well, I'm looking at him on the roster right now.
01:55So, I think they might have...
01:56Yeah, he looks like he's in Eagles.
02:00Okoronkwo?
02:00Well, he got released, I believe, recently.
02:03Okay.
02:04All right.
02:04Well, anyway, there, that made him even younger.
02:07Way to go, Niners.
02:10Larry in the city.
02:11Hi, Larry.
02:12Thanks for calling.
02:15Hey, guys.
02:16Man, I gotta tell you.
02:17I think you nailed it right on the button, man.
02:20It's not that Purdy got better.
02:22It's just Purdy has had consistency with Kyle Shanahan calling the plate.
02:27Only Kyle Shanahan.
02:29You know, so he knows everything that he wants to call.
02:32You know, he doesn't have to second-guess it.
02:34You know, second of all, you know the preseason back-to-back Super Bowl winning Seahawks lost the game.
02:42The undefeated Rams lost another game.
02:44And I'm just saying like this, what a great time to be in Niners.
02:47And I want to leave you with one thing.
02:49I'm right next to the substation, so I'm going to have to let you go.
02:52Oh, man.
02:53Best of luck to you, Larry.
02:55I hope everything's okay.
02:56I hope you don't turn green by dinner.
03:00Yeah, I think that's huge in sports.
03:02We don't talk about it enough.
03:04Continuity.
03:05And if you look at what Brock Purdy is doing, that's a great example.
03:12Look at what this defense could do over the next two to three years if nobody's 30 and Raheem Morris
03:21stays for a little while.
03:23And if they are blessed with any sort of health.
03:28And don't forget, you know, the people who are still going to sort of come back and at least be
03:35a part of this conversation.
03:37Certainly, Nick Bosa is one of them.
03:39I don't really know about Collins and West.
03:42I know right now it's popular to not even want them to come back.
03:45But there's Sam O.
03:47There is the continued maturation of Mikel Williams.
03:52There's also the trade deadline.
03:53And the Niners history would suggest that there will be more names that get added to this group by the
04:00time we get to the second half of the season.
04:02Yeah, and you'd figure that of the guys you have on engine reserve, you get to bring eight of them
04:07back.
04:07And some for sure won't be coming back.
04:10Ricky Pearsall, I think Jake Tonjes is going to be on that list.
04:13But you're going to start to, Demarcus Robinson, check.
04:17That's going to be a spot.
04:18Dejan Stribling, eventually, that will be one of the eight.
04:21So now we're down to two of the eight.
04:24And you start to pick through.
04:25You may not be able to activate all the guys you want.
04:28But Collins and West, I think, are the ones that, you know, most people would kind of want to shuttle
04:33to the back of the line.
04:34Yeah, I mean, Sam O., you're definitely going to, you had mentioned the two receivers.
04:39If Christian Kirk ever plays for the 49ers, although he's pup list, right?
04:43Or is he IR?
04:44I think Christian Kirk is IR.
04:47So he's also.
04:48Yes, because he went on after the beginning of the season.
04:50So there's three receivers right there that could take up three of the eight spots.
04:57Okawano is definitely another that I think that they hope ends up going that way.
05:03We'll see if Nick Martin ever gets added into the picture.
05:07So, yeah, a lot of the guys who got injured recently from Bosa to Juszczyk, etc., they have opted not
05:14to use those spots because they're already running thin.
05:17Yeah, and that's, you know, the tough part.
05:19And I guess Christian Kirk and Cavs are tricky.
05:22And so he is not yet able to even get out there and practice.
05:25Something going on there.
05:27Yeah.
05:28Something going on there.
05:29It doesn't take this long.
05:30Depends on how bad the calf is.
05:32It happened back at the beginning of camp.
05:34I think he got put on after the week one had started, which is why he had to go on
05:39IR.
05:40Right, but he has not done anything with the Niners since early in camp.
05:45That's correct.
05:45He practiced one time, and then that was it.
05:48I mean, he's done work on the side here and there and all that stuff.
05:51I've watched him do it, but he didn't participate at any point, which means that a calf injury, we're running
05:59on, like, past two months.
06:01Right, what kind of calf injury do we got going on here?
06:04Unless he re-aggravated it at some point, and we don't know.
06:07Yeah, I mean, if it's a tear, if it's a severe tear, then maybe you're in a spot where it
06:13takes more than just four weeks.
06:15You might be on there for a while.
06:16Anyway, the group as a whole is incredibly impressive to me, and I think that this is sort of the
06:24piece of the puzzle that at some point, the Niner fan base, we've got to start thinking about and talking
06:31about this a lot more.
06:33As I said earlier, the entire assessment of the 49ers sometimes, and I do get why.
06:40I do it too, but we fall into the trap of thinking that the 49ers are their offense.
06:46That's it.
06:47That's all we talk about.
06:48Right?
06:49This is Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan.
06:51And we don't, like, there's a couple players on the defensive side that we love, and it's just like, can
06:57Fred and Nick stay healthy?
06:58And now Dre's back, and that's cool too.
07:00But there really isn't a whole lot else on that entire half of the ball that I think the fan
07:05base has sunk their teeth into over the last couple of years.
07:09Maybe a little bit of demo, but for the most part, it's just kind of like guys where you're like,
07:14eh, they're okay.
07:16I don't always trust them.
07:18No Bosa.
07:18We can't rush the passer, the safeties, or I don't know.
07:22You can't rely on them or whatever.
07:24There's been a total indifference to the defensive side of the football, and what we're watching through these first five
07:31games is the opposite of that.
07:33This is a group right now that I think can get healthier.
07:36They can get better because they're so young.
07:39Raheem has got them pushing all the right buttons.
07:41Those two linebackers in the middle of the field are a problem.
07:46This looks to me like a Super Bowl-level defense, the same way it looks like a Super Bowl-level
07:52offense.
07:53And that's what the Niners have been when they have gone to the Super Bowl under Shanahan.
07:57I ran the numbers by you earlier, and they were basically top five, if not top three, in points allowed
08:03and points scored in each of those seasons.
08:05So right now you've got a quarterback who is the frontrunner for MVP.
08:09The defense is doing things differently, and I know you gave up 29 to Seattle, which is a fairly big
08:15number, but you're playing winning football.
08:18They had five sacks on Sunday.
08:20They had 20 sacks all last season.
08:23So you're telling me you got a fourth, 25% of last year's total in one game, one day at
08:29the office against the defending champs?
08:31That tells me that you're doing a lot of things differently and better.
08:34We're not the only ones noticing.
08:36Check this out, ESPN, from the Mina Kimes show.
08:41Here's Mina Kimes.
08:42Watching this defense under Raheem Morris, their new defensive coordinator, I think the thing that really stood out in this
08:49game,
08:50he is getting more out of these young players than we have seen in San Francisco in a minute.
08:55That there's old guys like Werner, still awesome.
08:58Osa Deguzoa was a monster in this game.
09:01But like young players at all three levels.
09:05I mentioned Renardo Green.
09:07Renardo Green's played some bad football in the past, man, but he's playing good football right now.
09:11And with Mina on this show, the one listening to her say all that is analyst Ben Solak.
09:17And he chimed in with this.
09:19Diners defense is fast.
09:20It's a fast defense.
09:22Players get around the field quick.
09:23They understand their assignments, and they just got juiced up dudes.
09:26Upton Stout is twitchy as all get out, right?
09:28We brought in Malik Mustafa.
09:29For how many years has the safety position been a problem for the 49ers?
09:33And then because of the injuries in the carousel, all of a sudden they come out of camp with,
09:36J.R. Brown's going to start.
09:37Marcus Siegel's going to start.
09:39And we're going to have a backup that we trust?
09:41This hasn't happened in ages.
09:42And so Siegel's down for this game.
09:44Mustafa's to go in.
09:45And Mustafa's doing what Mustafa does, playing with his hair on absolute fire at like 183 pounds soaking wet.
09:50In the game of inches, this is true of his Falcons defenses the last couple years, and it's true again.
09:55Raheem gets the defensive players, especially the back seven, playing extremely quick to the football.
10:01Raheem defenses always crank it to 11.
10:02And you see the opportunistic nature of that show up in games like this one.
10:06It's such an interesting comment.
10:07How?
10:08What does he do?
10:10What does he do?
10:11I mean, the defensive back spent all August being like, oh, Raheem's here.
10:16So you became faster?
10:19You became better?
10:20You became smarter?
10:21This guy, like, that's what they're saying.
10:25And then they go out and they're doing it.
10:27And Solak is sitting there saying, not only do we see it, we've seen it in the past with Raheem.
10:32Don't forget who the defensive coordinator for the Rams was when they won the Super Bowl.
10:36It was this guy.
10:38Yeah, yeah.
10:39I'm so impressed.
10:40Like, I would love to know what is it you're doing?
10:44I think that what I've heard from the people who really know, first of all, he's kind of simplified it
10:49where the rules are much more straightforward.
10:52So you don't have to do as much on the snap decipher.
10:56Okay, if the tight end goes this way, then now my responsibility is to do this.
11:00And if the tight end goes in, then I do that.
11:02And then he does this.
11:03I think it's a lot more straightforward.
11:05And what I read from Malik Mustafa after the game Sunday was kind of basically that, which is, you know,
11:13you trust your technique, you trust your role.
11:15And then once you do that, you just fire.
11:18You fire your gun.
11:19You get one shot.
11:20And Mustafa on Sunday, you decipher it, and then you go full speed, and you throw your body into whoever
11:27has the football, and that's what they're doing.
11:28And that's who he is.
11:30Like, that's who he is at his core.
11:32I remember when Mustafa first showed up out of the draft.
11:35We were very excited.
11:37People were like, this guy has just a total reckless abandon about him.
11:41At the same time, you know, he's got to refine it.
11:44He doesn't always make the right decision.
11:46And I'm like, that's okay.
11:47We're used to that.
11:48That's how I felt about Hufunga, who, by the way, is going to be out for a few weeks.
11:52He's missing tomorrow night.
11:53I'm bummed about that.
11:55I wanted hair flying out of the back of the helmet and doing a pick six on Sammy.
12:00I was really hoping for that tomorrow night.
12:01But Hufunga, he's out tomorrow night.
12:05But anyway, I'm like, we're used to that.
12:07But all of these guys, Mustafa, Jair Brown, Marquis Siegel, each of them have had moments where we were like,
12:14ooh, this looks like a player.
12:15And then it feels like they fall into a doghouse, and they're out of favor.
12:21And then Raheem Morris has shown up, and the opposite is true.
12:26Nobody's falling out of favor.
12:27They individually, to a man, each look better.
12:30One of them goes down.
12:32You bring in the next guy, and he looks even better than what was happening before.
12:37Mustafa was not playing that much.
12:40And Coach Sal, an hour ago, literally was like, hold on before we keep talking.
12:45We got to bring up Malik Mustafa.
12:48He was fired up with the way he's playing.
12:53Raheem Morris right now is in the bag.
12:57He is absolutely in his bag right now with regard to whatever the trick is.
13:02He has got everybody playing phenomenal, just fly-to-the-football sort of action right now.
13:11And they're playing with supreme confidence, and look no further than Bernardo Green.
13:15And that's why I wanted to ask Greg what he saw on the film with the two interceptions.
13:19One, he's right.
13:20He just, you see the quarterback plant, and I love the way he described it.
13:23It's a triangle.
13:24You're looking at the quarterback and the receiver, and when the quarterback plants his back foot,
13:29you know he's ready to throw.
13:30And so then you look, and JSN is running a route, and you decide to run the route first,
13:35and he jumped it and picked it.
13:37And the other one, he let the tight end go by him, knowing he's faster than the tight end,
13:42and he kind of baits the throw, and then he put on the burners and jumped in front of that
13:46one, too.
13:47Just great technique.
13:47See, what I hear, and this is that trade deadline thing, and I'd love to, maybe we could dig into
13:54this next,
13:55and then Matt Barrow's going to join us in a half hour.
13:58When I hear 49er fans say, we need to trade for this, and we need to trade for that,
14:03what I actually hear in the moment is not that you're wrong.
14:07Like, sure, they're going to add to a team, I would think, that has Super Bowl aspirations,
14:13but I hear PTSD, that's what I hear.
14:17I hear fear talking.
14:18I hear we've got to go get Juwan Jennings because we know more wide receiver injuries are coming.
14:25I wonder if anybody's ready to sort of arrive at the opposite opinion.
14:31What the hell is the league going to do about this team?
14:36They're balanced.
14:37They're kicking butt on both sides of the ball.
14:41They are clearly able to handle an injury and not fall off.
14:48Debo missed half the game.
14:50Kyle Juszczyk didn't play in that game.
14:54Dre Greenlaw got kicked out of that football game.
14:57Marquis Siegel was playing really well.
15:00He missed that football game.
15:02And then we could, boy, we could keep going with the people who were contributing early in the season
15:08from DeMarcus Robinson and many more, and then the fact that they're the first draft pick that they made this
15:15year
15:15only played one quarter, and he's missed.
15:18And they're not missing the tiniest of beats.
15:22If these are all your characteristics, one of the best offenses, one of the best defenses,
15:27and able to handle many injuries, Nick Bosa, I didn't even mention.
15:34What's the league supposed to do with this team that now has a two-and-a-half to three-and
15:38-a-half game lead
15:39over the rest of their division already?
15:41This is a problem for the league.
15:43Big, big problem for the league.
15:48We'll see if they're susceptible to the running quarterback on Monday.
15:51It's the one thing that they haven't really faced yet this year.
15:55Yeah, I mean, Bo can run, but, yeah, not at Jaden's level.
15:57A little bit, yep.
15:58And, I mean, he was running a ton against New York.