San Francisco 49ers: a Team Preview of Who’s Left

Hey, guess what’s better than writing a season preview for a loser team that no one cares about, i.e. the Browns? Writing it for a loser team that is your own!

Super Bowl 50 will be held at Levi’s Stadium. The Niners are in contention to be the first NFL team to play in the Super Bowl at home, just like I am in contention to appear on Martin’s Sexy Friday and to go three in a row for RTD’s puzzles. It’s good that the Super Bowl will be in Santa Clara this year, though. At least this way we Niners fans should finally have the opportunity to see good football played at Levi’s, even if not by the team we call our own.

This preview was surprisingly difficult to write. I feel like I am in detention in school writing an essay about the bad thing I did. This is my team. Even when I am thousands of miles from the Bay, being a Niners fan makes me feel like I am home when I get to watch them… but here I find myself trying to say anything good about them that doesn’t come from a place of halcyon dreams or pure nostalgia. The last couple seasons have been bad for us, and it managed to get worse this summer.

This offseason has been meteorically bad. In bullet format, here is where recognizable Niners have gone:

Jim Harbaugh -> University of Michigan
Frank Gore -> Colts
Michael Crabtree -> Raiders
Aldon Smith -> Betty Ford Center
Retired:
Chris Borland
Anthony Davis
Justin Smith
Patrick Willis

COACHING

Look, I know Harbaugh was a world class a-hole, be he was our a-hole. He wanted cake, and he wanted it now, and since he wanted it for our team, he was wonderful! Yes, he may have been a franchise cancer and cantankerous between brass and players, but he had an outlandish personality and one to which many Bay Area folks could embarrassingly relate. Outspoken. Asinine. Intense. And from that we move onto an era of the coach that everyone has had at one point or another in our own lives, the coach who knew it was hot and saw you guys busting your balls all practice long and would sometimes call your run a couple laps short and let you hit the showers early, the coach you would hope your own kids would have if it weren’t a particularly fiercely competitive league.

Tomsula is the Every-Man’s-Coach and I hope that paternal sentiment resonates in the Niners players this year and can guide the team away from its proclivity for possession charges and criminal offenses.  Otherwise, I fear the team will reach the final form and we fans will become the degenerate thugs we used to mawkishly goad the Raiders fans across the Bay for being. Unless Tomsula has rabbits to pull out of what I am assuming would be a hat with greasy fingerprints on the brim, we have stared into the abyss, and the late night stabbings on BART and lifted Raider Nation Expeditions ludicrosity stared back.

OFFENSE

Despite loss after loss and a dismal downward spiral, we still have Joe Staley. From the left, more credit should go to him than any other member of the O-Line for the reason that Kaepernick hasn’t been snapped in two yet. Boone also returns alongside Staley at Left Guard and has also been a stable and solid asset.

Here is where it hurts: we enter the season without Frank Gore. I should leave that statement at that, I might as well try to find something nice to say about that sucking chest wound. We have Carlos Hyde who was a great acquisition for a rookie year and shows promise to be a younger, thus-far-less-concussed Frank Gore (not that Gore is replaceable by any means). Alongside Hyde is RB procurement Reggie Bush from the Lions and should actually pair well with Hyde.

If capitalizing on former Ravens WR is a thing, then SF has it down pat. Anquan Boldin was an addition that has paid dividends for the Niners, if not with some chagrin to his attitude on the field from time to time. Hoping to benefit from this move for a second time SF acquired Torrey Smith for WR. Davis returns as TE and provides impressive talent and tenure on the field as he enters his 10^th season.

Can’t we skip QB discussions? Blaine Gabbert is N^o. 2 so we best make the most of Kaepernick—however that will look. Unbelievably, this marks his 5^h season in the NFL because. Probably because I still view him as an ostrichy manchild I still find a tiny piece of resilient optimism towards this kid deep in the cervices of my heart. The 27 year-old has yet to blow out one of his spindly 11’-long legs yet so I guess his number is up for that this year. If there is anything positive to look for out of Kaep it is this: when he did make a completion it was frequently to Boldin; if Kaep is indeed part ostrich as I assume, he may be naturally drawn towards throwing to former Ravens WR because he knows the whole birds-of-a-feather idiom to hold true.

Probably the most exciting turn of events will be seeing what comes of Jarryd Hayne, a thus far very promising RB coming to Santa Clara from a noteworthy rugby career. Aside from a likely future of hearing “Hayne Train” said far too often (twice is too often), he may actually surpass Kaepernick is sales of women’s NFL merchandise.

DEFENSE

Who the fuck needs linebackers anyway?

Corey Lemonier is currently slated to take the OLB hotseat at the moment. Ahmad Brooks hasn’t killed or maimed anything that’s about the best thing I have to say about the Niners linebacker situation since Aldon Smith decided to test the limits of the human body’s capacity for alcoholism. And while Brooks may not be blinding anyone with his stats, I still wake up in cold sweats thinking about what would happen were he to be injured. NaVorro Bowman will be back though having missed 18 months of games dampens the heart. There is so much promise in this LB assuming that his knees don’t betray him. Again.

Skuta found his way to Jacksonville this year and I really think his presence will be missed amongst the linebackers. Chris Borland leaves the Niners this year as well not through trade, but via retirement. The absence of both of these players will be painful, but nothing diminishes the agonizing loss of prospective Hall of Famer, Patrick Willis, the two-time 49ers MVP and seven times Pro Bowler.

Hard at work to scrounge up linebackers, we took a longing look to the north and snatched up Shawn Lemon. Lemon has seen some time in the CFL and the Arena Football League and to all but the weirdest of you is hitherto unknown. Godspeed, Lemon, whoever the fuck you are. I know nothing about you but I am assuming you have legs and arms and that’s more than most of the team.

Cornerbacks are a hot mess, too. Perrish Cox (TEN) and Chris Culliver (WSH) scattered to the winds with free agency and both now stand a ten-fold greater chance of being on a championship team than had they stayed. Tremaine Brock and Dontae Johnson will have a chance to show their mettle this year and also hopefully some youthful speed.  Shareece Wright was picked up for the next year from SD and we’ll see how that goes.

SUMMARY

What? 5-11? Maybe. 4-10? Probably. If any of those are against the Seahawks I’ll call it a banner year.

So this is what it feels like to be powerless to protect the things you love? This is a terrible feeling. I should have been so much nicer to Jaguars fans. Come on you weird and wonderful cheesesteak of a man, Tomsula. Just let me be pleasantly surprised once this year.

^{I’ve been drinking and depressed after writing this. I should have given you sources but I am too lazy, too tired, too suicidal to go and hunt them down again. If you don’t believe my review look for Niners shit @ the following: ESPN, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, NFL, Bleacher Report, SB Nation, oh yeah, and even Rolling Stones had to chime in about the garbage that is SF this year. These writers deserve more credit than I am capable of giving them at the moment.}