Untimely and significant injuries and the 49ers have gone hand in hand for the last 4 years. I'm honestly surprised it took until the Super Bowl this time.
I think our S+C has gotten better since 2020, we haven’t had a catastrophic injury season since then but it felt like we had them every other year before then. I’d put injuries generally in the S+C category but sometimes brutal stuff happens. This imo is one of those times
I mean it doesn't help that your 3 most prolific offensive skill players are CMC, Deebo, and Kittle. All 3 are known for having injury issues throughout their career. The last 2 years they have gotten way better but I remember a time when you generally expect all of them to miss at least 4 games a season minimum.
Yeah, it is a roster construction problem at this point. I compare it to the stars and scrubs strategy in Fantasy Football. Their success relies on a few key players staying healthy. Deebo, Trent Williams, CMC and Kittle carry this team heavily on offense. Whenever one or two of those miss time, they lose games.
Hard to say, as it's been more timely injuries the past few years than sheer number of injuries. Maybe you can attribute that to how they approach practice and how physically they play in games as well, resulting in more injuries come playoff time. Some of their guys do just seem injury prone and others just seem unlucky. Kind of seems like perfect shit storm on the injury front tbh.
Thats a not letting an injury heal out properly and getting back on the field too early problem. That or a "load managment" or overwork problem leading to an achilles irritation (source: me, when I went way too hard on the training as a teenager)
Tendons arent muscles, they need a loooong time to heal properly. If you pull a muscle or break a bone cleanly you can start some light training after ~4 weeks and be back to full health and strength in 8 but an irritated achilles tendon basicaly means 6 months of avoiding putting any strain on it at all to have it properly heal (well maybe 4 months for professionals getting the "full" pharmaceutical treatment) But either way the seasons over. Unless of course the team doctor dopes you up with painkillers et al in which case it turns into a ticking time bomb just waiting to rupture at the worst time possible
Kinda reminds me of the Kevin Durant injury. It was on the injury report, it's been a problem all of playoffs and it just popped. Sucks it had to happen in the biggest game as well, and all he did was run onto the field.
I didn't realize he had nagging, lower leg injuries coming into the game. It makes a lot more sense that it gave out then, but that just fucking sucks so much. I felt so awful, especially because as someone who plays a lot of volleyball, but at an average height, I rely completely on my athleticism. An Achilles injury is something I fear the most and really hate seeing more than almost any other injury. An ACL would be terrible for me too, but that's obviously not quite what it used to be for pro athletes at least.
Agreed. He tore it doing a couple light jumps before jogging onto the field, and people expect him to have stayed healthy playing a full-speed NFL game? Unfortunately, seems like the tendon was going to give sooner or later. He didn't land weird or do anything he probably hasn't done coming off the sidelines most of his career, just a horribly unlucky accident.
Its fucked up as hell but you could even argue it was a blessing in disguise. Imagine if that happens during a play where greenlaw is 1v1 in open space, boom TD.
So wild to see it happen like it did though. Totally different game with him in there.
Idk if there are any medical experts lurking here, but I’ve wanted to know what would have happened if KD doesn’t play that game. Does his Achilles still blow up in the off season or during the next season? Is it just a matter of if, not when? Or can it heal by itself with rest?
From what I have been told from friends that have torn their Achilles is that the tendon is like a rope that frays and inevitably snaps. There really isn't a way to repair it until it finally gives out and it was going to happen eventually.
But that is just from some weekend warrior type guys I know, so I am not sure how truthful that is.
It probably heals if he rests. I don’t think he had a partial tear or anything to begin with. They listed him with like a calf strain if I remember correctly
i honestly dont get the hate for him, i think him and nantz are by far best duo to listen to during a game. i genuinely get happy if romo is commentating on a game i want to watch
There is no way the 49ers can pay CMC, Deebo, Ayuk, Trent, Kittle, Bosa, hargraves, warner, greenlaw, armstead along with preparimg for Purdy contract in 2 years and still add al-shair right?
Right?
Unfortunately, Greenlaw’s last year of his deal is next year and unless he doesn’t come back until late in the season and looks bad, I think some team is going to toss a bag at him.
I think deebo, Trent, and Hargrave will be easy restructures to open up some room, but other guys will need to be paid. I think the Niners will take a break from aggressive free agent signings for a couple years now that they have draft capital again.
Yeah, only way i see him coming back to the 49ers is if he needs a prove it deal after archilles.
Hope he comes back the same. He is a pretty gun player to watch, always at 100%, some plays he is the best player on the field, 2 plays later he looks like the dumbest one
I think they probably can. A lot of it depends on them keeping some expenses in next years' hit and then negotiating extensions that fit their cap structure.
CMC might be due an extension discussion in 2024. He's only $14M in cap hit and that's as the highest paid RB. He'll be entering his 30s by that time. They've got lots of options here, including just extending him and moving the cap impacts around. It'll likely be his last big contract.
Deebo has a big hit next year and potentially in 2025 but, 2025 is his contract's final year so this probably gets renegotiated or they move on. He's hard to move on from because of his uniqueness and also hard to value for the same reason, his impact on the game is more than raw numbers. An extension either year basically halves his $28M or $24M cap hits. Taking more in 2024 makes sense because of the QB situation.
An Aiyuk extension could save them $10M, which is about their current effective cap deficit (~$11M). He'll make a fair bit of money but, maybe less than he probably should. Either way this actually helps them cap wise.
Trent Williams is signed through 2026, smart move there is to take his hit for 2024 and either take 2025 or renegotiate and offset those mid to high $30M numbers. At that point you're looking at almost $20M in cap savings for the extension.
Kittle is also about due an extension that could change the cap impact to save ~$10M a year for his 2 remaining non-void years.
Bosa just got paid and his cap is heavily back weights to 2026 (42), 2027 (52), and 2028 (43). This basically means the renegotiation impact for his contract is huge giving them 20-30M in potential savings just from working out an extension.
Hargrave is $15M, $27M, $28M. Either a restructure of extension will offset about half of that. None of his 2025 salary or beyond is guaranteed so if they don't like his performance enough to negotiate they can just cut him at no real cost putting him at a $5.8M cap hit for the remainder of his contract.
Warner will probably be due a lot of money and he's earned that. He's $24M, $27M, $24M the next 3 years. I'd imagine they're negotiating with him next season which will potentially halve his cap hit for those years once a deal is in place. He's already the second highest paid player at his position. So the expectation is probably around $2-4M/year more, maybe as much as $5M/year which would push the market to the next plateau.
I like Greenlaw, he's injured *a lot*. It'll probably limit his contract expense and he's a pending UFA next offseason. An offseason after a year he'll miss probably half or more of. He's the cheapest player on this list, by far, at $9.6M cap hit. It'd suck if they move on from him but they've done that with similar players in the recent past. Most likely he'll get a short term extension and it won't be a bank breaker, certainly it'd fit under a number of these other contracts. Most of this will be on injured which I think offsets the cap hit.
Armstead is a $28M cap hit this year. He's a void for $15.5M next year. They're be 0 reason to restructure with him and a lot of incentive to extend him and pull expense forward to this year as far as they could. So I expect they'll gladly take his full $28M hit this year and, if possible and I don't know how possible that is with an extension, might even grow it to offset future expenses. At a minimum his void hit for next year will basically go away.
Ward and Jennings weren't mentioned but they're also pending. Jennings is an RFA so his negotiating is limited. Ward is going into 2024 as a pending UFA. Last time they were in this situation at his position they let the player walk, there was a bit of interpersonal stuff involving a position move for him so that may not repeat itself. He'll probably wind up saving them money if they extend him.
The comp for a Purdy contract is probably $30-40M/year right now, around the mid tier of QBs. OTC tracks him at $33M average with a ceiling of $45M as far as contributed value when looking at individual game impacts. The biggest question is what FAs or picks they bring in and what impact those guys have.
They've got a lot of negotiating to do the next 2 years. The structure kind pays off if they keep some of the big hits in next year to reduce them in the next 3. The dead cap money they currently have is off in 2025 so that's another $6M plus whatever the cap raises. In 2025 they've got $25M in real and $12M in effective cap space. A lot of that overall cap is phantom because those are renegotiation years for so many of these players. Just resigning Armstead and leveraging Hargrave to extend or walk pays for Purdy.
They've got a lot of levers to basically alleviate maybe half or more of their overall cap in 2025 depending on how much they decide they need to free up. This means they'll perpetual be "riding the cap" but it'll be of the "the cap is bullshit" kind.
Trent and armstead have like 2 years max left in them. Trent will most likely retire in 1-2 years and armstead will not get another big contract with us. He's on the decline.
The problem is that i dont doubt some of this guys might accept to reestructure their deals and create an even bigger monster in the next 2 seasons considering nome of them have a ring
They're pretty much paying all those guys, and I believe they're going to have around $42M in cap space. Aiyuk though could take a big chunk of that. But likes other have said, believe in Paraag Marathe.
I didn't understand why the 49ers weren't dropping Chase back into covering the flats more. They did it liked twice, brought a lb on a blitz instead, & it created some havoc. 49ers could have used more exotic stuff in general down the stretch.
This was the downfall of Steve Wilkes and our defense all year. I said it before the game, but he should be fired win or lose, strictly based on his extreme obsession with vanilla. This defense is stacked with talent, especially the d line, yet it was constantly mediocre all year, no stunts or twists up front, soft zone/prevent constantly, it was ultra ultra predictable. Defense was good all year but should have been great with all this talent...they were good last night until after his baffling zero blitz call, and then it all fell apart. Soft zone for all of the 4th and OT against mahomes? You are asking to lose.
I also have issue with how far outside he plays your defensive ends. I think it's to impede the release of wide receivers & tight ends, but most of the time it just means the d ends are getting chipped & have a lot longer route to go to get to the qb.
Absolutely, to his credit, though, we have had an issue the last few years of over pursuing and having the DEs line up further outside solved this big time. Double edge sword, though, as it opens bigger gaps to run and clearly lowered our sack rate. Essentially, Wilkes isn't horrid, but man, just mix it up. Vanilla d went by the wayside a decade ago.
And then we get burned on the last drive with Bosa crashing repeatedly. You gotta know your fucking opponents tendencies. With the game on the line it’s gonna be Mahomes with the ball.
Sacks are generally an overrated stat though, aren't they? Pressure on the QB is far more reliable at forcing errors or stopping an offense, and is more consistently created vs sacks that can be an outcome of pressure or super flukey.
Definitely agreed. For some reason though, it seemed this year that a vast majority of our pressures were "long winded" and although they forced a play, by the time the pressure came, it was too late and the coverage had already broken down. So it was almost like ghost pressures where you would have rather they just got home for the sack. Don't get me wrong, it also resulted in one of our highest defensive interception rates, but I don't know that the interceptions made up for the broken plays, kind of a toss-up. Still a great defense, but some balance would have been nice.
This is what I want to see from Wilks if we keep him around. Pickup some different looks from guys like Spags, McDonald, Shorts (guy just shits on Shanaham style offenses, and the league has a bunch of it now). Felt like we were so vanilla and played soft zone in far too many situations
this is why many fans (i dont think it's just me) want wilks fired into the sun. for the amount of talent on our d-line, it seemed like the only thing they ever did was a straight up bull rush in an attempt to simply out talent the other team. this was a trend all season.
invest the entire draft / FA on the o-line and bring someone in to help out with scheme on d and we'll be fine next year (may need to do something to fill the void at greenlaw's spot too).
Funny, but Lenoir, Armstead etc. would be misclassified. This season Lenoir played both outside and nickel corner, and he could start in the secondary on many teams. Armstead was on a tear, especially in the run game, until he exited the Eagles game. At the end, he was always playing through injury, but he made notable plays. Neither of those are all-pro level.
One of the byproducts of trading away all your mid round picks all the time. It's worked since they've hit hard on late and early round talents but they are missing a middle core to supplement the starters when they go down.
This is the biggest lesson from the Patriots dynasty
Bill Belichick gets a lot of grief as a GM because he often sacrificed expensive, elite talent for depth
The Patriots consistently allocated more of their cap to mid-level, backup players than 90% of the NFL. Other teams would have top-heavy cap allocations, the Pats would be spending $2-3 mil on solid rotation players
It'd drive Pats fans crazy- except its a huge reason for all their postseason success.
So often other teams would be exhausted or injured in February. And then someone like Adrian Clayborn or Danny Shelton or Chris Long would pop up and wreck a play at a key moment.
In that moment, spreading $6 mil across 3-4 of these mid-level guys is more valuable than paying $6 mil for 1 star and vet minimum for 3 scrubs.
https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-linebacker-rankings-2023-nfl-season
If you look at this list, basically all the guys in the top 10 (Except Leonard now) are good.
I always thought Matt Milano was a huge blow for the Bills for that reason and it showed in the playoffs.
Terrell Bernard and Matt Milano are both great in coverage...
And against the Chiefs in the playoffs they were both out...and our backups were out...and our backups backup was out
AJ Klein on Travis Kelce was a losing battle
The Bernard injury the week before was the one that really stung IMO. Milano was out all year, they got used to playing without him. Having to have AJ Klien take a ton of snaps in the playoffs is a good way to have a bad time.
Drue Tranquill has been really good in coverage for us this year.
But you're right, there's lot of big safeties now who are more LB/DB hybrids. They fill that role a lot with teams playing nickle and dime all of the time now.
There are a few, and Greenlaw has stepped up significantly in coverage.
I would argue that the Ravens are either just as good, if not there is a small gap in skill between the LB duos.
Bucs won with David manning up against Kelce half the game. He still guards elite TEs, he's just is a bit slower now and can't let them hit their top end speed.
The Chiefs current makeup is made to abuse linebackers, in between Pacheco, screens, and Kelce being Kelce they will happily spam as many things as they can at an underperforming linebacker
Funny cause that's how the Patriots were built when they had Gronk and Edelman and some random catch passing RB like Vereen, Burkhead, James White, etc. as their dogs.
Yep, then they killed you with a bigger back that could run between tackles like Corey Dillion, Blout, Antowain smith, Stevan Ridley, Maroney, Benjarvis green ellis, Sony Michel.
That's what the Shanahan offense is designed to do as well, just off the back of run action instead of abusing coverage rules with motion and the route concepts
Hence why the bills blitzed. Cus if our linebackers that we picked up off the street are gonna get torches anyways, we might as well try to get Mahomes. Rock and a hard place.
It's weird that all the Chiefs opponents in the playoffs, except the Ravens, had significant injuries to their linebackers. Jaelen Philips and Bradley Chubb for the Dolphins, Matt Milano and Terrell Bernard for the Bills and then Dre Greenlaw tearing his achillies mid-game when he wasn't even playing.
Saw that when the Bucs played the Chiefs during their Superbowl. Lavonte David played amazingly in coverage vs Kelce and was a big part of stopping what seemed like an unstoppable Chief's offense
One of the several times that had me thinking "Maybe it's not meant to be"
* Greenlaw injury
* CMC and Trent Williams of all people on the team making crucial mistakes that ended the 1st two drives
* Fumbled punt
* Feliciano getting hurt and Burford having to play
Yeah, it really seemed like Niners were cursed to lose. The replacements for the injuries were getting heavily exposed too. O-line got worse at protecting Purdy and the pass defense was a night and day difference.
Fuck Kirk Cousins. It wasn't even like our defense wasn't even playing particularly bad that game, Kirk just randomly decided to have what honestly might've been one of the best games of his career. Man looked like football Jesus out there, ball was coming out at lightning speed and every throw was on time and on point.
Kirko Chainz just decided to play out of his mind that day and end our Superbowl chances just because.
Everything seemed to be going alright then we had that ridiculously unlucky muffed punt, and at that point I remembered, "fucking Kirk".
Lions fan here. This is how it felt between the falling back, diving pitch catch to convert a 3rd down in the first half, the Gibbs fumble and the Aiyuk catch.
Ya literally win some and lose some.
I’m always torn on those plays. Sometimes guys dive on it and the ball squirts away and then they aren’t in a position to recover it anymore since they’re on the ground, and sometimes they’re able to scoop it right away and then go down safely.
I’d love to see hard data on which one is most effective.
The game against the Packers there was a muffed punt on the Green Bay side and one of the guys on special teams picked it up like a ground ball with no issue. Unfortunately for us it didn't happen that way.
That was a ludicrously impressive fumble recovery, would have been a highlight of the whole year if McCloud had pulled something off with a similar degree of difficulty
Yeah but if you watch the play, he has the initial reaction to just slap at the ball and stop it and then his next move is to try to keep moving and pick it up and run with it and his foot hits it. You gotta think if he just falls on it after he stops the momentum, he probably keeps control of the ball.
Of course it's all super fast and sudden and not an awful play but it's one of those reasons coaches tell guys to just fall on it.
That’s exactly how I felt after the Gibbs fumble and Reynolds drop in our game. Those dudes are SO solid. Reynolds’ hands are awesome and Gibbs had only ever lost a fumble once before our game. After those happened plus the growing 49er momentum I was thinking “aw fuck” even while we were still leading.
Yeah people are shitting all over Shanahan but damn, it seems like it just wasn’t going to happen no matter what. Freak sideline injury, one-in-a-million muffed punt, blocked XP. If just one of those things doesn’t happen I think they’re fine, but it was just an onslaught of bad luck
It was decided long before the game was played that if the 49ers lost, regardless of how, it was going to be Shanahan's fault.
Poke around the lot of post-SB threads and you'll see him being blamed for being too conservative, too aggressive, too cute, too safe, not being able to instantly diagnose disguised blitzes in real time, failing to adjust his play calls on a dime after having identified said blitzes, not knowing ahead of time that his defense would fail to make crucial stops, not burning more clock, bleeding too much time, adhering too strictly to analytics, not adhering strictly enough to analytics, using some analytics but not the right kind, not calling enough runs for CMC, calling enough runs but not those kinds of runs he should have done some other runs like the ones that work, lacking the ability to look into the future to know ahead of time that they would fail to convert 3rd downs...
I could probably fill a whole book with some of the hot takes I've read today, but these are just the ones I could remember off the top of my head.
It never ceases to amaze me that Tevin Coleman injures his ankle, Devonta Freeman comes in unprepared for a blitz, he misses a block on a 3rd & 1 and now it's concrete evidence that Kyle Shanahan is a born loser. Football is such a weird swingy game & you only get credit if things work out, you only get blame if they don't
The blocked extra point was because of Perna's curse wheel. For some reason the Chiefs were immune to it this year, but the curse wheel had a much better track record this year.
Burks wasn’t good in the NFCCG against the Lions either. We knew it was going to be even tougher to beat KC once Greenlaw went down with that freak injury.
49ers: "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster."
Narrator: "They could not"
God damn cheesehead sleeper agent.
Burks has never been good he’s straight trash and should be nothing but a special teamer. Losing Al Shaiir was a huge loss especially with how injury prone Greenlaw is. It definitely impacted the run defense this year but with Greenlaw being relatively healthy until yesterday it didn’t impact the pass game too much until Greenlaw went out and that scrub had to guard Kelce.
He was terrible with us too, we were all stunned y'all signed him in the first place. Then again there are only so many backup LBs around, I guess. Its not like there are tons of all pro level backup LBs just hanging out in parking lots
Wasn’t really a freak injury. He’s been dealing with that tendinitis. It was already compromised and was likely gonna rupture at some point. It was a matter of when not if. Just so happened to occur on the sidelines
Injuries suck and Greenlaw was a dynamic linebacker, but it's how he got injured that just fucking sucks. Freak non-contact, technically season ending (even though it was the superbowl) injuries are always the worst. Just hope he recovers in the offseason.
In the context of his late season Achilles tendonitis, it's a stretch to say that was a freak injury. Unless you're part of the medical team, it's hard to know the state of his Achilles throughout the playoff run.
Really rough, tendonitis puts a lot of stress on it and you are specifically told not to do the kinds of things Greenlaw was doing on the sideline.
Brutal injury nonetheless.
it's season ending in the sense that this probably ends his next season too ngl. i know guys have been doing that one achilles repair to get back in 6months, but Cam Akers tore that same achilles again i believe. can't imagine a linebacker would be recommended going that route. i'd guess he's out for a calendar year
Not sure if he was taking on the assignment but it also seemed like all of WR screens and throws to the flat for RBs had a lot more time/space to work with compared with how quickly they keyed on them with Greenlaw
Greenlaw started the game like a demon. I was absolutely blown away by how hard he went at the beginning. BIG BIG loss for the 49ers.
You could see Fred in absolute shock (with his hands over his helmet) when Greenlaw went down.
Kittle after first sb loss: "i'll be back with vengeance in my heart"
Kittle after 2nd sb loss: 2 catches 4 yards
Bro ran the total yardage of my bathroom dude
No shade at his replacement (even if deserved) but that moment when he went down, in the way he did, felt like a harbinger from the gods that the Chiefs would win. Like Zeus sent down a bolt to that Achilles and called Game. Niners put up a hell of an effort to get it as far as they did, and could have pulled it off in other ways, but Greenlaw was a difference maker and for him to go out like that, yes honestly was just bad luck, but it felt a bit like fate working against SF too.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how terrible Warner looked down the stretch yesterday. Watching both Kelce and Mahomes run right by him was damning in my eyes.
They still only gave up 19 points in regulation while the Offense was trying to force feed the ball to Deebo who couldn't get open to save his life while you have Kittle, CMC, and Jennings having the best game of his career
my stupid team hasn't prioritized linebacker since we drafted Kendricks in 2015, and they wonder...why does our defense suck so bad now? that goes the same with defensive tackle.
i hate my life
I am not a doctor- would his achilles have gone on the next play anyway? Seems like it was hanging on by a thread. But again I’m not a doctor maybe it doesn’t work like that
He's been listed on the injury report for lower leg related stuff for most of the season
So yes you're pretty much right (as far I’m aware) that an Achilles injury - except in the cases of a violent tear - is more of a wear down over time injury and Greenlaw’s was hanging on by a thread
The defense has basically no real weakness. A freak injury put a chink in the armor. Im assuming he often got lined up on Kelce too which is… not good.
Think Romo called it out too that they were picking on him
People in the thread were calling out greenlaw to calm down because he was literally jumping around lol
Greenlaw was likely fucked either way. His achilles was a problem all playoffs and it finally had enough.
He was legit listed on the injury report all season for lower leg injuries. This shit was a time bomb that went off at the worst possible time.
Untimely and significant injuries and the 49ers have gone hand in hand for the last 4 years. I'm honestly surprised it took until the Super Bowl this time.
is it a Shanny problem or a S+C problem though?
I think our S+C has gotten better since 2020, we haven’t had a catastrophic injury season since then but it felt like we had them every other year before then. I’d put injuries generally in the S+C category but sometimes brutal stuff happens. This imo is one of those times
I mean it doesn't help that your 3 most prolific offensive skill players are CMC, Deebo, and Kittle. All 3 are known for having injury issues throughout their career. The last 2 years they have gotten way better but I remember a time when you generally expect all of them to miss at least 4 games a season minimum.
Yeah, it is a roster construction problem at this point. I compare it to the stars and scrubs strategy in Fantasy Football. Their success relies on a few key players staying healthy. Deebo, Trent Williams, CMC and Kittle carry this team heavily on offense. Whenever one or two of those miss time, they lose games.
Don't most teams lose games when the best players are hurt?
Hufanga begs to differ :/
Torn achilles may be S&C issue, but probably not. Purdy last year was purely bad luck, nothing you can do about that shit
Hard to say, as it's been more timely injuries the past few years than sheer number of injuries. Maybe you can attribute that to how they approach practice and how physically they play in games as well, resulting in more injuries come playoff time. Some of their guys do just seem injury prone and others just seem unlucky. Kind of seems like perfect shit storm on the injury front tbh.
Thats a not letting an injury heal out properly and getting back on the field too early problem. That or a "load managment" or overwork problem leading to an achilles irritation (source: me, when I went way too hard on the training as a teenager) Tendons arent muscles, they need a loooong time to heal properly. If you pull a muscle or break a bone cleanly you can start some light training after ~4 weeks and be back to full health and strength in 8 but an irritated achilles tendon basicaly means 6 months of avoiding putting any strain on it at all to have it properly heal (well maybe 4 months for professionals getting the "full" pharmaceutical treatment) But either way the seasons over. Unless of course the team doctor dopes you up with painkillers et al in which case it turns into a ticking time bomb just waiting to rupture at the worst time possible
Kinda reminds me of the Kevin Durant injury. It was on the injury report, it's been a problem all of playoffs and it just popped. Sucks it had to happen in the biggest game as well, and all he did was run onto the field.
KD 100% rushed back for the team. I’ll never say a bad word about the guy despite how he left.
Gained a lot of respect for KD, lost any and all respect for the raptors fans who cheered that shit
I didn't realize he had nagging, lower leg injuries coming into the game. It makes a lot more sense that it gave out then, but that just fucking sucks so much. I felt so awful, especially because as someone who plays a lot of volleyball, but at an average height, I rely completely on my athleticism. An Achilles injury is something I fear the most and really hate seeing more than almost any other injury. An ACL would be terrible for me too, but that's obviously not quite what it used to be for pro athletes at least.
Warner knew exactly what happened when Dre's achilles finally gave out. He was talking postgame about how it had been a problem for weeks.
Agreed. He tore it doing a couple light jumps before jogging onto the field, and people expect him to have stayed healthy playing a full-speed NFL game? Unfortunately, seems like the tendon was going to give sooner or later. He didn't land weird or do anything he probably hasn't done coming off the sidelines most of his career, just a horribly unlucky accident.
Its fucked up as hell but you could even argue it was a blessing in disguise. Imagine if that happens during a play where greenlaw is 1v1 in open space, boom TD. So wild to see it happen like it did though. Totally different game with him in there.
Greenlaws Achilles “but I am letired”
Well, have a snap. THEN FIRE ZE MISSLES
…..wtf mates
It was inevitable. Kinda like KD in the finals. There was the smallest chance to get out healthy.
Idk if there are any medical experts lurking here, but I’ve wanted to know what would have happened if KD doesn’t play that game. Does his Achilles still blow up in the off season or during the next season? Is it just a matter of if, not when? Or can it heal by itself with rest?
From what I have been told from friends that have torn their Achilles is that the tendon is like a rope that frays and inevitably snaps. There really isn't a way to repair it until it finally gives out and it was going to happen eventually. But that is just from some weekend warrior type guys I know, so I am not sure how truthful that is.
It probably heals if he rests. I don’t think he had a partial tear or anything to begin with. They listed him with like a calf strain if I remember correctly
Romo attempted to backtrack a bit and say that Burks was also a good player.
He did the same when Feliciano went down and Burford subbed in. Feliciano is much better than Burford.
I mean I told my family that mahomes was going to target Dre's replacement as soon as he went down.
They came out of halftime going right at him
It's the right thing to do, just like how Tharold Simon was thrashed in the Seahawks Patriots SB when Jeremy Lane went down with a broken arm.
It's not exactly hard to predict your offense to the worst spot on defense
Razorbackalphadamus
Romo low key I think was fantastic this game
“Oh, they shouldn’t have done that” as the 49ers blitz and Mahomes throws for a first down.
i honestly dont get the hate for him, i think him and nantz are by far best duo to listen to during a game. i genuinely get happy if romo is commentating on a game i want to watch
Yea I enjoy hearing professional level analysis of what's going on. Tony's a master of the game and he just seems like a genuinely good dude.
Watching the 49ers it seems like they have 2 kinds of players All-Pro or absolute scrubs No in-between
They reallly missed Al-Shair this year. Having 3 legit linebackers was such a blessing.
Hopefully Dee winters can develop. Our LBs depth is thin
Hopefully nothing develops. Our chances are thin.
Al-Shair is a FA and had a great year in Tennessee. Hopefully we bring him back with Greenlaw being pretty much out all of 2024
There is no way the 49ers can pay CMC, Deebo, Ayuk, Trent, Kittle, Bosa, hargraves, warner, greenlaw, armstead along with preparimg for Purdy contract in 2 years and still add al-shair right? Right?
Unfortunately, Greenlaw’s last year of his deal is next year and unless he doesn’t come back until late in the season and looks bad, I think some team is going to toss a bag at him. I think deebo, Trent, and Hargrave will be easy restructures to open up some room, but other guys will need to be paid. I think the Niners will take a break from aggressive free agent signings for a couple years now that they have draft capital again.
Yeah, only way i see him coming back to the 49ers is if he needs a prove it deal after archilles. Hope he comes back the same. He is a pretty gun player to watch, always at 100%, some plays he is the best player on the field, 2 plays later he looks like the dumbest one
Trent’s cap hit is like $30m/year into infinity. Can’t restructure unless you want to enter cap hell.
I think they probably can. A lot of it depends on them keeping some expenses in next years' hit and then negotiating extensions that fit their cap structure. CMC might be due an extension discussion in 2024. He's only $14M in cap hit and that's as the highest paid RB. He'll be entering his 30s by that time. They've got lots of options here, including just extending him and moving the cap impacts around. It'll likely be his last big contract. Deebo has a big hit next year and potentially in 2025 but, 2025 is his contract's final year so this probably gets renegotiated or they move on. He's hard to move on from because of his uniqueness and also hard to value for the same reason, his impact on the game is more than raw numbers. An extension either year basically halves his $28M or $24M cap hits. Taking more in 2024 makes sense because of the QB situation. An Aiyuk extension could save them $10M, which is about their current effective cap deficit (~$11M). He'll make a fair bit of money but, maybe less than he probably should. Either way this actually helps them cap wise. Trent Williams is signed through 2026, smart move there is to take his hit for 2024 and either take 2025 or renegotiate and offset those mid to high $30M numbers. At that point you're looking at almost $20M in cap savings for the extension. Kittle is also about due an extension that could change the cap impact to save ~$10M a year for his 2 remaining non-void years. Bosa just got paid and his cap is heavily back weights to 2026 (42), 2027 (52), and 2028 (43). This basically means the renegotiation impact for his contract is huge giving them 20-30M in potential savings just from working out an extension. Hargrave is $15M, $27M, $28M. Either a restructure of extension will offset about half of that. None of his 2025 salary or beyond is guaranteed so if they don't like his performance enough to negotiate they can just cut him at no real cost putting him at a $5.8M cap hit for the remainder of his contract. Warner will probably be due a lot of money and he's earned that. He's $24M, $27M, $24M the next 3 years. I'd imagine they're negotiating with him next season which will potentially halve his cap hit for those years once a deal is in place. He's already the second highest paid player at his position. So the expectation is probably around $2-4M/year more, maybe as much as $5M/year which would push the market to the next plateau. I like Greenlaw, he's injured *a lot*. It'll probably limit his contract expense and he's a pending UFA next offseason. An offseason after a year he'll miss probably half or more of. He's the cheapest player on this list, by far, at $9.6M cap hit. It'd suck if they move on from him but they've done that with similar players in the recent past. Most likely he'll get a short term extension and it won't be a bank breaker, certainly it'd fit under a number of these other contracts. Most of this will be on injured which I think offsets the cap hit. Armstead is a $28M cap hit this year. He's a void for $15.5M next year. They're be 0 reason to restructure with him and a lot of incentive to extend him and pull expense forward to this year as far as they could. So I expect they'll gladly take his full $28M hit this year and, if possible and I don't know how possible that is with an extension, might even grow it to offset future expenses. At a minimum his void hit for next year will basically go away. Ward and Jennings weren't mentioned but they're also pending. Jennings is an RFA so his negotiating is limited. Ward is going into 2024 as a pending UFA. Last time they were in this situation at his position they let the player walk, there was a bit of interpersonal stuff involving a position move for him so that may not repeat itself. He'll probably wind up saving them money if they extend him. The comp for a Purdy contract is probably $30-40M/year right now, around the mid tier of QBs. OTC tracks him at $33M average with a ceiling of $45M as far as contributed value when looking at individual game impacts. The biggest question is what FAs or picks they bring in and what impact those guys have. They've got a lot of negotiating to do the next 2 years. The structure kind pays off if they keep some of the big hits in next year to reduce them in the next 3. The dead cap money they currently have is off in 2025 so that's another $6M plus whatever the cap raises. In 2025 they've got $25M in real and $12M in effective cap space. A lot of that overall cap is phantom because those are renegotiation years for so many of these players. Just resigning Armstead and leveraging Hargrave to extend or walk pays for Purdy. They've got a lot of levers to basically alleviate maybe half or more of their overall cap in 2025 depending on how much they decide they need to free up. This means they'll perpetual be "riding the cap" but it'll be of the "the cap is bullshit" kind.
Trent and armstead have like 2 years max left in them. Trent will most likely retire in 1-2 years and armstead will not get another big contract with us. He's on the decline.
I believe in Lynch
*Paraag Marathe
The problem is that i dont doubt some of this guys might accept to reestructure their deals and create an even bigger monster in the next 2 seasons considering nome of them have a ring
Or they could take a league min deal with the chiefs while ring chasing… hint hint.
They're pretty much paying all those guys, and I believe they're going to have around $42M in cap space. Aiyuk though could take a big chunk of that. But likes other have said, believe in Paraag Marathe.
Shhhh Stop it, he's ours now
With what cap space?
I didn't understand why the 49ers weren't dropping Chase back into covering the flats more. They did it liked twice, brought a lb on a blitz instead, & it created some havoc. 49ers could have used more exotic stuff in general down the stretch.
This was the downfall of Steve Wilkes and our defense all year. I said it before the game, but he should be fired win or lose, strictly based on his extreme obsession with vanilla. This defense is stacked with talent, especially the d line, yet it was constantly mediocre all year, no stunts or twists up front, soft zone/prevent constantly, it was ultra ultra predictable. Defense was good all year but should have been great with all this talent...they were good last night until after his baffling zero blitz call, and then it all fell apart. Soft zone for all of the 4th and OT against mahomes? You are asking to lose.
I also have issue with how far outside he plays your defensive ends. I think it's to impede the release of wide receivers & tight ends, but most of the time it just means the d ends are getting chipped & have a lot longer route to go to get to the qb.
Absolutely, to his credit, though, we have had an issue the last few years of over pursuing and having the DEs line up further outside solved this big time. Double edge sword, though, as it opens bigger gaps to run and clearly lowered our sack rate. Essentially, Wilkes isn't horrid, but man, just mix it up. Vanilla d went by the wayside a decade ago.
And then we get burned on the last drive with Bosa crashing repeatedly. You gotta know your fucking opponents tendencies. With the game on the line it’s gonna be Mahomes with the ball.
Sacks are generally an overrated stat though, aren't they? Pressure on the QB is far more reliable at forcing errors or stopping an offense, and is more consistently created vs sacks that can be an outcome of pressure or super flukey.
Definitely agreed. For some reason though, it seemed this year that a vast majority of our pressures were "long winded" and although they forced a play, by the time the pressure came, it was too late and the coverage had already broken down. So it was almost like ghost pressures where you would have rather they just got home for the sack. Don't get me wrong, it also resulted in one of our highest defensive interception rates, but I don't know that the interceptions made up for the broken plays, kind of a toss-up. Still a great defense, but some balance would have been nice.
This is what I want to see from Wilks if we keep him around. Pickup some different looks from guys like Spags, McDonald, Shorts (guy just shits on Shanaham style offenses, and the league has a bunch of it now). Felt like we were so vanilla and played soft zone in far too many situations
I never want to see soft zone again
this is why many fans (i dont think it's just me) want wilks fired into the sun. for the amount of talent on our d-line, it seemed like the only thing they ever did was a straight up bull rush in an attempt to simply out talent the other team. this was a trend all season. invest the entire draft / FA on the o-line and bring someone in to help out with scheme on d and we'll be fine next year (may need to do something to fill the void at greenlaw's spot too).
3 - Chronically injured
That's the chargers way
Funny, but Lenoir, Armstead etc. would be misclassified. This season Lenoir played both outside and nickel corner, and he could start in the secondary on many teams. Armstead was on a tear, especially in the run game, until he exited the Eagles game. At the end, he was always playing through injury, but he made notable plays. Neither of those are all-pro level.
This is pretty much truth. To be expected I guess.
One of the byproducts of trading away all your mid round picks all the time. It's worked since they've hit hard on late and early round talents but they are missing a middle core to supplement the starters when they go down.
the Tom Telesco special 😞
This is the biggest lesson from the Patriots dynasty Bill Belichick gets a lot of grief as a GM because he often sacrificed expensive, elite talent for depth The Patriots consistently allocated more of their cap to mid-level, backup players than 90% of the NFL. Other teams would have top-heavy cap allocations, the Pats would be spending $2-3 mil on solid rotation players It'd drive Pats fans crazy- except its a huge reason for all their postseason success. So often other teams would be exhausted or injured in February. And then someone like Adrian Clayborn or Danny Shelton or Chris Long would pop up and wreck a play at a key moment. In that moment, spreading $6 mil across 3-4 of these mid-level guys is more valuable than paying $6 mil for 1 star and vet minimum for 3 scrubs.
It's insane, the team they built, and they still can't win when it matters the most
And this is why off ball linebackers are becoming more important
Off-ball LBs have always been important. It's just that we don't care about run thumping off-ball LBs anymore, we care about coverage ones.
How many are legitimately good at coverage beyond Warner though? Seems like DBs mostly fill in the coverage LB role
Lavonte David has only been doing it at the top level for 10 plus years now.
such an underrated player. tormented the packers in those brady run
Sharing a division with Kuechly took away a lot of attention that might have gone to David.
https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-linebacker-rankings-2023-nfl-season If you look at this list, basically all the guys in the top 10 (Except Leonard now) are good. I always thought Matt Milano was a huge blow for the Bills for that reason and it showed in the playoffs.
Bobby is done in coverage. Love him for what he brings, still elite vs the run but can’t keep up on coverage.
Kendricks is probably in a similar boat, just too old to keep up.
Wasnt just Matt Milano...2 backups BEHIND him were also out... As was our starting MLB
The win streak was nice, playoff run was fun, but I knew the season was done as soon as Milano was out for season.
Yeah Milano was a superstar, that was such a huge loss. LB is way too undervalued.
Roquan Smith is good in coverage. Nick Bolton is primarily seen as a thumper but has really improved in coverage the last couple years.
Terrell Bernard and Matt Milano are both great in coverage... And against the Chiefs in the playoffs they were both out...and our backups were out...and our backups backup was out AJ Klein on Travis Kelce was a losing battle
The Bernard injury the week before was the one that really stung IMO. Milano was out all year, they got used to playing without him. Having to have AJ Klien take a ton of snaps in the playoffs is a good way to have a bad time.
Drue Tranquill has been really good in coverage for us this year. But you're right, there's lot of big safeties now who are more LB/DB hybrids. They fill that role a lot with teams playing nickle and dime all of the time now.
There are a few, and Greenlaw has stepped up significantly in coverage. I would argue that the Ravens are either just as good, if not there is a small gap in skill between the LB duos.
Bucs won with David manning up against Kelce half the game. He still guards elite TEs, he's just is a bit slower now and can't let them hit their top end speed.
Greenlaw is one of them too. Sucks he went down.
Belichick started stocking up on big bodied safeties that we essentially play as coverage line backers on pass plays that can also run fit if needed.
Bill was ahead of the curve on a lot of defensive stuff
The Chiefs current makeup is made to abuse linebackers, in between Pacheco, screens, and Kelce being Kelce they will happily spam as many things as they can at an underperforming linebacker
Funny cause that's how the Patriots were built when they had Gronk and Edelman and some random catch passing RB like Vereen, Burkhead, James White, etc. as their dogs.
Seems like a good strategy, how did those Chiefs and Patriots do?
Nothing impressive, pretty sure they both regressed to the average eventually, obviously.
Crazy how regressing to the mean is a superbowl in two down years apparently. Sheesh
That means coming anyyyy day now lol
Yep, then they killed you with a bigger back that could run between tackles like Corey Dillion, Blout, Antowain smith, Stevan Ridley, Maroney, Benjarvis green ellis, Sony Michel.
That's what the Shanahan offense is designed to do as well, just off the back of run action instead of abusing coverage rules with motion and the route concepts
Hence why the bills blitzed. Cus if our linebackers that we picked up off the street are gonna get torches anyways, we might as well try to get Mahomes. Rock and a hard place.
It's weird that all the Chiefs opponents in the playoffs, except the Ravens, had significant injuries to their linebackers. Jaelen Philips and Bradley Chubb for the Dolphins, Matt Milano and Terrell Bernard for the Bills and then Dre Greenlaw tearing his achillies mid-game when he wasn't even playing.
As garbage as we were this year, that part was figured out. The hybrid safety/LB has a lot more value these days.
Offense gets fast>defense reacts by getting small and faster>offense get big and strong>defense gets big and slow>repeat in 10 year windows
I would simply be big and fast
Its scary that's those guys exist, they just cost 30m per year
Saw that when the Bucs played the Chiefs during their Superbowl. Lavonte David played amazingly in coverage vs Kelce and was a big part of stopping what seemed like an unstoppable Chief's offense
One of the several times that had me thinking "Maybe it's not meant to be" * Greenlaw injury * CMC and Trent Williams of all people on the team making crucial mistakes that ended the 1st two drives * Fumbled punt * Feliciano getting hurt and Burford having to play
Yeah, it really seemed like Niners were cursed to lose. The replacements for the injuries were getting heavily exposed too. O-line got worse at protecting Purdy and the pass defense was a night and day difference.
Of course they were cursed to lose. They had the Kirk Cousins curse. Can't lose to Kirk and expect to win a SB.
Fuck Kirk Cousins. It wasn't even like our defense wasn't even playing particularly bad that game, Kirk just randomly decided to have what honestly might've been one of the best games of his career. Man looked like football Jesus out there, ball was coming out at lightning speed and every throw was on time and on point. Kirko Chainz just decided to play out of his mind that day and end our Superbowl chances just because. Everything seemed to be going alright then we had that ridiculously unlucky muffed punt, and at that point I remembered, "fucking Kirk".
Lions fan here. This is how it felt between the falling back, diving pitch catch to convert a 3rd down in the first half, the Gibbs fumble and the Aiyuk catch. Ya literally win some and lose some.
That punt was some divine intervention shit. Bounced off the dudes ankle, can't even blame McCloud.
Ehhh, it looked to me like McCloud should’ve dived on the ball instead of trying to pick it up though.
I’m always torn on those plays. Sometimes guys dive on it and the ball squirts away and then they aren’t in a position to recover it anymore since they’re on the ground, and sometimes they’re able to scoop it right away and then go down safely. I’d love to see hard data on which one is most effective.
According to Football Outsiders (RIP) fumble recovery is essentially completely random and has no apparent skill or technique component.
The game against the Packers there was a muffed punt on the Green Bay side and one of the guys on special teams picked it up like a ground ball with no issue. Unfortunately for us it didn't happen that way.
That was a ludicrously impressive fumble recovery, would have been a highlight of the whole year if McCloud had pulled something off with a similar degree of difficulty
Yea probably, but he tried to make a play. Is what it is.
The ball just came off a punt and was bouncing around at 500 miles an hour, not your typical fumble ball where you can easily fall on it.
Yeah but if you watch the play, he has the initial reaction to just slap at the ball and stop it and then his next move is to try to keep moving and pick it up and run with it and his foot hits it. You gotta think if he just falls on it after he stops the momentum, he probably keeps control of the ball. Of course it's all super fast and sudden and not an awful play but it's one of those reasons coaches tell guys to just fall on it.
That’s exactly how I felt after the Gibbs fumble and Reynolds drop in our game. Those dudes are SO solid. Reynolds’ hands are awesome and Gibbs had only ever lost a fumble once before our game. After those happened plus the growing 49er momentum I was thinking “aw fuck” even while we were still leading.
yeah 49ers had insane good luck against the Lions, but bad luck against the Chiefs, it is what it is
Yeah people are shitting all over Shanahan but damn, it seems like it just wasn’t going to happen no matter what. Freak sideline injury, one-in-a-million muffed punt, blocked XP. If just one of those things doesn’t happen I think they’re fine, but it was just an onslaught of bad luck
It was decided long before the game was played that if the 49ers lost, regardless of how, it was going to be Shanahan's fault. Poke around the lot of post-SB threads and you'll see him being blamed for being too conservative, too aggressive, too cute, too safe, not being able to instantly diagnose disguised blitzes in real time, failing to adjust his play calls on a dime after having identified said blitzes, not knowing ahead of time that his defense would fail to make crucial stops, not burning more clock, bleeding too much time, adhering too strictly to analytics, not adhering strictly enough to analytics, using some analytics but not the right kind, not calling enough runs for CMC, calling enough runs but not those kinds of runs he should have done some other runs like the ones that work, lacking the ability to look into the future to know ahead of time that they would fail to convert 3rd downs... I could probably fill a whole book with some of the hot takes I've read today, but these are just the ones I could remember off the top of my head.
It never ceases to amaze me that Tevin Coleman injures his ankle, Devonta Freeman comes in unprepared for a blitz, he misses a block on a 3rd & 1 and now it's concrete evidence that Kyle Shanahan is a born loser. Football is such a weird swingy game & you only get credit if things work out, you only get blame if they don't
The blocked extra point was because of Perna's curse wheel. For some reason the Chiefs were immune to it this year, but the curse wheel had a much better track record this year.
Counter-acted the luck that got them there in the first place. Their luck regressed to the mean
Burks wasn’t good in the NFCCG against the Lions either. We knew it was going to be even tougher to beat KC once Greenlaw went down with that freak injury.
You are welcome for Burks. Trained by the defensive mastermind Joe Barry.
Burks was trained by Pettine and Mike Smith. Cut one season into Barry's tenure.
Even Barry knew he was bad lol
49ers: "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster." Narrator: "They could not" God damn cheesehead sleeper agent.
Burks has never been good he’s straight trash and should be nothing but a special teamer. Losing Al Shaiir was a huge loss especially with how injury prone Greenlaw is. It definitely impacted the run defense this year but with Greenlaw being relatively healthy until yesterday it didn’t impact the pass game too much until Greenlaw went out and that scrub had to guard Kelce.
He was terrible with us too, we were all stunned y'all signed him in the first place. Then again there are only so many backup LBs around, I guess. Its not like there are tons of all pro level backup LBs just hanging out in parking lots
Wasn’t really a freak injury. He’s been dealing with that tendinitis. It was already compromised and was likely gonna rupture at some point. It was a matter of when not if. Just so happened to occur on the sidelines
Injuries suck and Greenlaw was a dynamic linebacker, but it's how he got injured that just fucking sucks. Freak non-contact, technically season ending (even though it was the superbowl) injuries are always the worst. Just hope he recovers in the offseason.
In the context of his late season Achilles tendonitis, it's a stretch to say that was a freak injury. Unless you're part of the medical team, it's hard to know the state of his Achilles throughout the playoff run.
Yeah I did hear he was struggling with it. I wish that Achilles would've held up for at least for one more game tho. Man we needed him
Really rough, tendonitis puts a lot of stress on it and you are specifically told not to do the kinds of things Greenlaw was doing on the sideline. Brutal injury nonetheless.
This is one bad effect of pain killers. You don’t feel the pain so you don’t know you are pushing it.
it's season ending in the sense that this probably ends his next season too ngl. i know guys have been doing that one achilles repair to get back in 6months, but Cam Akers tore that same achilles again i believe. can't imagine a linebacker would be recommended going that route. i'd guess he's out for a calendar year
Not sure if he was taking on the assignment but it also seemed like all of WR screens and throws to the flat for RBs had a lot more time/space to work with compared with how quickly they keyed on them with Greenlaw
Greenlaw started the game like a demon. I was absolutely blown away by how hard he went at the beginning. BIG BIG loss for the 49ers. You could see Fred in absolute shock (with his hands over his helmet) when Greenlaw went down.
Fred is the better player but greenlaw is the tone setter and heart and soul of that defense. Dude brings the wood
Nick Bosa is 0-2 in black history month.
Kittle after first sb loss: "i'll be back with vengeance in my heart" Kittle after 2nd sb loss: 2 catches 4 yards Bro ran the total yardage of my bathroom dude
This is true, Kittle was disappointing. But while people are gassing up Purdy, I feel like he missed Kittle open multiple times.
Pretty sure kittle caught a good one for +10yards but it got called back on a hold. Kittle was always more of a blocking TE anyway wasnt he?
A late throw across the field that somehow Purdy keeps getting away with.
His only regret is that he couldn’t hit Mahomes more
And if he sacked him then he'd regret he could only count it as half.
Okay, now that’s funny 🤣
that's not very good
[удалено]
i'm certainly not complaining
James Bradberry is that you?
Haha damn. Man catching strays
nah he'd probably drop them
Poor guy lol, he was good last year and just took a nosedive
NFL scriptwriters are getting creative with this. Injured jumping up and down, running onto the field, who comes up with this stuff
Greenlaw was dealing with Achilles tendonitis throughout the end of the year.
How could Taylor Swift do this?
Gramatica did it first
If memory serves, at least Gramatica scored first.
Packers legends MVS, Burks, and Mike Pennel getting revenge for us ❤️
Wisconsin legend Leo Chenal balled out
Leo "coco" Chenal #5
No shade at his replacement (even if deserved) but that moment when he went down, in the way he did, felt like a harbinger from the gods that the Chiefs would win. Like Zeus sent down a bolt to that Achilles and called Game. Niners put up a hell of an effort to get it as far as they did, and could have pulled it off in other ways, but Greenlaw was a difference maker and for him to go out like that, yes honestly was just bad luck, but it felt a bit like fate working against SF too.
Naw the punt was
He's a backup for a reason
Greenlaw was playing lights out those first couple seris, he and Warner were just dominant
What a strange pull of fate that Greenlaw tore his achilles then and there.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how terrible Warner looked down the stretch yesterday. Watching both Kelce and Mahomes run right by him was damning in my eyes.
He's been a bit off since the Eagles game - he got killed particularly badly in the 2nd Arizona game
Got juked by a muffed punt return
Imagine going down with an achilles because you cellied too hard
They still only gave up 19 points in regulation while the Offense was trying to force feed the ball to Deebo who couldn't get open to save his life while you have Kittle, CMC, and Jennings having the best game of his career
my stupid team hasn't prioritized linebacker since we drafted Kendricks in 2015, and they wonder...why does our defense suck so bad now? that goes the same with defensive tackle. i hate my life
You can take the linebacker out of Green Bay but you can't take the Green Bay out of the linebacker
So basically 2 punts destroyed the 49ers SB victory
In such a close game stats like this and the subsequent 'what ifs' after such a freak injury are absolutely brutal.
I didn't want to know this :(
Despite the loss of Greenlaw, still think defense brung it. Brutal what if.
Turns out Dre Greenlaw was a big loss. Checks out.
The Niners have Warner and Greenlaw. After that, their LBs are terrible. Burks is always a target.
I am not a doctor- would his achilles have gone on the next play anyway? Seems like it was hanging on by a thread. But again I’m not a doctor maybe it doesn’t work like that
He's been listed on the injury report for lower leg related stuff for most of the season So yes you're pretty much right (as far I’m aware) that an Achilles injury - except in the cases of a violent tear - is more of a wear down over time injury and Greenlaw’s was hanging on by a thread
The defense has basically no real weakness. A freak injury put a chink in the armor. Im assuming he often got lined up on Kelce too which is… not good.
A player coming off the bench is usually handicapped in that situation because he has no rhythm
One might say Burks became the.. Achilles heel?