Well Now, This is Certainly Unexpected

I'm not sure what you guys are up to in your lives these days, if you have notifications for posts on this wasteland, or indeed if you are even aware that the San Francisco 49ers are still an organization playing football in the NFL.

If, like me, you've been actively avoiding this goddamn train wreck of a franchise for the last 3 years, bravo! I believe we are better as people for the experience. After having entire weeks ruined by bad performances, I quite enjoyed not being able to name any of the players on the 49ers, or indeed any other NFL team.

The combination of the dull, numb, almost metronomic putridity of the 49ers and the weekly breaking of a new story about a former NFL player killing himself, killing his family, lying in a mental home, or stumbling around blindly thanks to his career choice left me feeling pretty gross about tuning in for games.

Put it this way- for the Super Bowl last year, I chose to watch regular season League of Legends matches over going to a friend's party. I was pretty out, as out as anyone can be on a sport, I suppose.

But, of course, they pulled me back in. I'm still trying to process what exactly happened with the Trent/Jed/Jim unholy trifecta, who turned on who, who was responsible for what, who wanted who to leave and when, and what the fuck Jed was thinking when he decided to choose an inept, insane, moronic GM over the most successful coach the team had seen since Bill Walsh.

The decision Jed made to fire everyone and then hand 6 year contracts to a GM whose bonfides were "hey people seem to think he's a cool dude" and a head coach who'd just overseen an offense that chose to throw the ball 3 times while up 8 on the opponent's 20 yard line with 3 minutes left in the goddamn Super Bowl was sort of classic Jed.

By this point, I'd moved on from thinking this was malicious. Jed wanted what was right for this team, he's just not capable of delivering it. No amount of "HEY FAITHFUL!" videos from this joke of a GM hire were going to change that.

Not sure anyone will ever be able to explain to me how a first year GM with no experience was able to put together a better draft with 3 months of prep than a seasoned career scout and personnel man had since 2012. If you can stand to, take a look at every draft under Trent Baalke. 2011 was pretty good, since then it's been absolute dog feces. Deforest Buckner may very well be the only player he chose in FIVE YEARS that ends up making an all pro team. I hope you're enjoying your time off, Trent. I don't think any other NFL teams will be ringing you any time soon.

I was fairly certain I was out on football. I was following the 49ers this season out of morbid curiosity, wondering if this GM is actually the goods, and whether or not this coach is actually as good as everyone said, or if having Julio Jones and 2 pro bowl QBs would make anyone good.

BUT THEN.

omfg

wait look at those eyes wtf

is it even legal to be that handsome

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Shoot it in my veins, football. I'm back. Get it in between the toes. I'm never leaving again.


This fuckin' guy, you guys. This guy.


a 1-9 team is now 4-0. Sure, the roster improved and got experience but who are we kidding? This guy is taking dudes who would be lucky to be 3rd options on a real team and turning them into 1000 yard receivers. He's making the best defense in the NFL look like a pop warner squad while playing behind a sieve offensive line and throwing to scrubs.

Is there a reason this guy can't be the best quarterback in the NFL? Can you tell me what kind of person is able to come to a team in the middle of a season with 0 understanding of the offense and 0 previous connections with any of the players, with a 1-9 record and then win four fucking games in row?!


This is for real. This guy is legit, and the 49ers went from "holy goddamn this team sucks" to "wow they're actually going to the playoffs" the instant he set foot in the state of California.


Football, I'm back. Please don't take Jimmy G spot from me. I like what he's doing to my insides.

Seven Years Later

I was just thinking how sad it is we're back to the same type of team we had when we initially created and named this website.

THERE They Are!

Normal service has been resumed, everyone. If you'd asked me what the 49ers' biggest issues were going to be this season, I would have responded, in order of importance:

• Defense (nearly 50 points given up!)
• Coaching (2 pointers galore! Who knew that was a thing?!)
• Offense (garbage time is the best time!)
• Literally everything else

I didn't watch even one second of this game, but judging from the box score, it went exactly as I imagined it would- the defense had no answer for a competent NFL offense, and the offense could not keep up because it is being run by people who do not belong in the NATIONAL. FOOTBALL. LEAGUE. 

Maybe it took one week for the system to reboot, maybe there was a lingering program from the previous operating system. Or maybe the Vikings just really suck! Ether way, the team that played yesterday is the team we're getting this season. I hope you guys enjoy the extra time on your fall Sundays as much as I did yesterday! It was fabulous! 

Huh

I'm not sure you could have scripted a more perfect metaphor for this franchise over the past 5 years than what happened on that opening drive. Expectations are historically low, their performance out of the gate surprises you: hey, maybe they're on to something here! Whoa! WHOA!!!!...holding, fail, fail, blocked FG.

"They show promise, they come away with nothing- YOUR San Francisco 49ers!"

Even the little promise they've shown in this game is very deceiving. The Vikings are not a good club. This is a battle of 2 sub-par teams doing an NFL impersonation, and none of us knows any better because it's week one. Very amateur mistakes on both sides, failure to capitalize on glaring opportunities, poor clock management, and Jarryd Hayne.

3 plays that sum up what we have to look forward to this season: blocked FG, Hayne dropping a punt, and the defense needing Bridgewater to run into his own offensive lineman, and still hardly getting a sack out of it.

This is precisely what I would have expected from this crew: talented players at some spots, but held back by poor planning and mental mistakes, which will not go away as time passes. If anything they will get worse. I feel confident posting this halfway through the 2nd quarter because I will not be proven wrong by this lot.

Edit 1: Oh hey guys they did it again! You knew as soon as Ellington caught that punt that it was going for a TD, and that it would be called back. A horrendous decision by Zimmer is bailed out by horrendous execution by the 49ers. These are professional teams, y'all!

Edit 2: Carlos Hyde is pretty OK- there, I said something nice about them. That was quite a spin move. Dayum.

Edit 3: The defense always has and always will own Adrian Peterson. So...that's cool I guess. But they're about to give up a hail mary at the end of the half.

Edit 4: Even better! A holding call! hahahahahahahah here we go you guys!

Edit 5: Holy s**t Carlos Hyde.

Why Don't the Seahawks Want Marshawn Lynch to Win Them A Game?

Everything possible has been said about Seattle's decision to pass rather than letting their 450 pound steroid-riddled running back walk in to the end zone and deliver them a second championship, so why go there again? Well, they kind of made us go there with their (there's no other word for it) bizarre play call yesterday.

Does Pete Carroll feel an obsessive need to be smarter than everyone else? Do they really, really, really not want to pay the man? Do they just not like him personally? How else does one explain those two situations- one in which a simple handoff from the one yard line was shunned in favor of an overly complex pick play against 3 defensive backs, and one in which a simple handoff on a 4th-and-one game-deciding play was shunned in favor of a shotgun draw?

Everyone in the stadium, on the sidelines, in the press box, watching at home, and on the friggen space station knew that Lynch was getting the ball on that play. There's no way that Carroll, after facing the absolute avalanche of hate and abuse this offseason, was going to pass in that situation. So why pretend? Why on earth would you handicap your offense like that, when you know the defense is thinking one thing? Why wouldn't you pass there? If you're really smarter than everyone, that's the play to make. I quite literally do not understand what they were thinking.

All of which is a very long way to say: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

We are relegated to cheering other people's failures this season. We may as well enjoy it. The Cardinals look good, they're my pick for the division. We'll be fighting with St Louis for the last spot. They did everything they could to lose that game, and Seattle refused to take it. That was quite a show.

Dealing with the Devil's Tortured Analogies

You know those old b.s. stories about Led Zeppelin, where Jimmy Page supposedly used his occult magick to help record sales and all that shit. How the band's spiritual payment came due, and Robert Plant got in a bad car accident, and his wife almost died, and his son did eventually die? And they recorded Presence and In Through the Out Door? And of course, it eventually led (no pun) to even worse fates, and Zeppelin disbanded? 

That reminds me of the 49ers right now. Still paying the piper for 1981 - 1998. 

It's just going to get worse. When has a rumor not culminated in reality for this group? Remember scoffing at the Harbaugh to Cleveland trade rumors. 

Remember, rich kid got his rich guy stadium. 

Me the rest of this offseason. 

49ers: Sign Andre Johnson

Sign Andre Johnson. That is all. Sign Andre Johnson.

Adding This to the Pile

Oh hey, there's more proof that the guys in charge have no idea what they are doing. This is getting comical, I'm really not a betting type but I'm strongly considering laying down whatever I have on the "under" for 49ers wins next season.

I mean, you were going to force this guy to hire your DC? Then you tried to bring him back after you denied him the head coaching position?! What the hell is wrong with these people?

This Team is a Joke, and This Season Will be a Disaster.

Now that we're nearly out of the glow of watching Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson fail in the most spectacular and high profile way imaginable (I will never, ever, EVER get tired of watching that play. Russell Wilson just failed on the most high profile stage in his entire career, and he reacts as if he's playing a preseason game. I'm convinced he is secretly a sociopathic serial killer who has no emotions), it's time to get back to business: compiling reasons to believe this team is going to be a complete dumpster fire.

First, the weak stuff: the 49ers have the "third hardest schedule" in the league next year. This is utter bullshit, because we all know the teams they're playing will be significantly improved/worse/otherwise drastically different than they were last year. I'm not sure why articles like this get written, other than to serve as sweet sweet link bait for blogs and to give ESPN something to fill airtime with. But: they will at the very least be playing teams who were good a season ago.

Second, their coaching staff is LOL. Their offensive coordinator was their 3rd? 4th? 35th? choice, is in his mid 50s, and has only been a coordinator once before, for the Chargers. When they had Ryan Leaf. Cool!

Their tight ends coach is a failed former head coach. Their defensive coordinator is a (multiple time!) failed former head coach who presided over one of the worst defenses in NFL history in his only previous stint as a coordinator.

Their quarterbacks coach- a guy, I might add, who will be VERY VERY important to this team's offense getting better next season- was out of football coaching completely for the last THREE YEARS. He's literally been a sports talk radio host. He also looks a hell of a lot like Super Dave Osborn:

At least the team are embracing their punchline status and just straight-up hiring dudes who look like comedians. His claim to fame is coaching Matt Ryan in college, a guy who may be one of the most overrated NFL quarterbacks in recent history. This is the guy we are counting on to turn Colin Kaepernick into an NFL player. Right. 

I wasn't that great at math in school, but even I can see that these parts do not add up to an NFL-caliber staff that can take a team deep into the playoffs. 

When this team hired Jim Harbaugh, I knew immediately that they had changed forever, for the better. I knew the days of losing and being a pathetic laughing stock were behind us. I knew this because Jim Harbaugh had a track record not only of winning wherever he went, but of taking over teams that were absolute TRAIN WRECKS and transforming them into powerhouse institutions. Michigan will be challenging for national titles within 2 years. You cannot let a guy like that walk away. 

And thus brings me to the final reason why the people running this team are complete and utter morons, people who should not be trusted with a fucking HAMSTER, let alone a football team: not only did they not let him walk, they actively pushed him out the door when he wanted to stay. Maybe it's in his best interests to say that, sure. Maybe. I'm not sure why he would want to take a step back in level of competition, though. He's already proven by his actions that winning a super bowl is his biggest motivation. He wasn't going to go to any of the crappy NFL teams that wanted him, because their talent levels were years away from being super bowl ready. An NFL team with super bowl talent pushed a super bowl level head coach out the door because...why? Because they can't get along? Because he's hard to work for? Because he's too expensive? Any and all of those excuses are unacceptable. We're going to watch a super bowl team go 6-10 or 7-9 next season because the guys running the team are more worried about being in charge than they are about WINNING THE GAME, which is, after all, why we play. 

This team is a joke, the people in charge are morons, and next season is going to be a disaster. Congratulations on your 2015 division championship, Arizona! God, the season when Seattle is going to absolutely self-destruct, and we have to watch our team be even worse. This is horse feces. 

That.....was beautiful.

So wonderful. I can't belive it. I think that might be the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. How marvelous. There is no better way that could have ended. You know every single seahawks fan was completey INSUFFERABLE after that ridiculous catch. They were so sure they were going to win. It was guaranteed. They were strutting around because they have #beastmode and #skittles and Russel Wilson has #god on his side. But then their precious family man robot THREW AN INTERCEPTION ON THE GOAL LINE AND THEY LOST THE SUPERBOWL. How awesome is that??

That's worse than the way SF lost. 10 point lead with the worlds most incredible defense, you have a chance to walk in from inside the 5 and you TURN IT OVER!!! AHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I don't care how pathetic I sound, I loved that. I was watching with a friend who's a Patriots fan, we left our super bowl party early because neither of us could stand to see seattle win. I kept an eye on the game and we turned it on right at the end. Absolutely fabulous. It couldn't have happened to a worse fanbase, coach, or franchise. That was fabulous.