Welcome, everyone- it’s Hate Week 2020 at DFO!  It is my third-favorite time of the football year, trailing only Draftsmas Eve and P*triots Schadenfreude Day.  Hate Will See Us Through.

And there are so many, many things I loathe with a great and abiding passion. The P*triots. Alt-Nazis. People who don’t pronounce the “h” in “human”.

But one of the things I hate most is admitting I was Wrong.

Partially this is because it happens so seldom that I don’t have a chance to practice being graceful about it. But it does happen, and I try to own it.

In the spirit of Doing Something I Hate, I will now revisit my Preseason Preview of the Superb Owl Contender San Francheesey 49ers. Updates are in Blue

Your 2019 San Francisco 49ers:

UPDATE: In my defense that’s obviously a very nice Dumpster. LOFTY Dumpster. New, clean, sturdy-looking wheels. Very spacious too. In the Bay Area, this would be a $3,000 per month studio apartment.

Your 2019 San Francisco 49ers After Jimmy Garoppolo’s Inevitable Week 1 Injury:

UPDATE: Yeah, ok, no. I played the overwhelming historical trend here.  Jimmy Garoppolo in fact was NOT killed and eaten by scavenger beetles in Week 1. He was not (generally) the world-beating, square-jawed, unibrowed God-King some expected, but he was pretty good.

What’s Good:

UPDATE: Nope

UPDATE: Nice.

UPDATE: Also nice, but apparently no longer dating.

UPDATE: Not great

What Isn’t:

UPDATE: Still not good. 28-3, let’s stop running the ball entirely.  The defense caved because they were given all of 30 seconds to catch their breath between Patriots offensive drives. Fight me.

UPDATE: Still shit.

Great Movies You Could Watch In Their Entirety During The Time It Would Take To Get From Downtown San Francisco to a “Home” Game in Santa Clara:

What I Imagine George Kittle, Record-Holder For Most Single-Season Receiving Yards By A Tight End, Looks Like:

What George Kittle, Record-Holder For Most Single-Season Receiving Yards By A Tight End, Actually Looks Like:

Other Famous Georges:

Likely Outcome of the Season:

UPDATE: Maybe not

Prediction: 6-10

UPDATE: 13-3. Oy.

Ok, fine. You want some actual Kontent, huh? The 49ers are staring down the barrel of a Lost Season- a real lost season, where they’re good enough to pull off a few surprise wins and fuck their draft position but not good enough to actually compete.

UPDATE: Whelp, this was…not correct. They didn’t even have any real surprise wins- they started the season beating up on Tampa, Cincy and a Harf-less Pittsburgh team. By the time they got to their first real test, Cleveland had already started giving off strong “Trainwreck in Progress” vibes and the 49ers established that they were at least Pretty Good. The signature win of the year was marching into New Orleans and pulling out the victory in their only shootout of the year. They did fuck their draft position though.

They’ve actually had some nice drafts- DeForest Buckner made his first Pro Bowl, Mike McGlinchey was not the total reach that he appeared to be at 9, Dante Pettis can ball and the aforementioned George Kittle was obtained in the 5th round. Solomon Thomas looks to be an expensive bust, and it appears that Nick Bosa has a hit put out on him by the Travaglini Family, but these are relatively pedestrian fuckups for an organization this dysfunctional. They also picked up a pair of fallen-out-of-the-first-round receivers in Deebo Samuel and Jalen Hurd, who could give Nick Mullens some real weapons on the outside.

UPDATE: Mixed on predictions. Pettis was cold dog vomit and Hurd was injured all season, while Bosa actually managed to make it onto the field and lived up to his billing. Deebo was huge though, Buckner was good and Kittle was unstoppable, leading the team in receiving. Solomon Thomas still sucks.

Yes, Nick Mullens. Because we all know that Jimmy Garoppolololololo isn’t going to make it out of Week 1 intact. I’m betting he’ll get kinda-injured (elbow injury, sprained ankle, etc.) and Kyle Shanahahanananan will try to nurse him along for another 3 ineffective starts before all of his tendons spontaneously dissolve.

UPDATE: ….

The 49ers have the potential to actually be a passable team. Offensively, there’s no reason they shouldn’t succeed for the brief moment Garoppolo is intact- they have three legitimate running backs to go with the pass-catching options. The defense…well, that may be a problem. They managed only 7 turnovers last year- by comparison, Damontae Kazee and Eddie Jackson each had 8. Better hope MAGA Bosa gets healthy quick.

UPDATE: Absolutely spot-fucking-on correct on the offensive side. They were middle-to-upper-middle in most passing categories. The three-headed-monster of Matt Breida, Tevin Coleman and Playoff MVP Raheem Mostert carried the load.

I was completely ass-backward on the defense though. After 7 turnovers last year, Robert Saleh’s crew managed 27 this year- 15 fumbles recovered and 12 INTs. Arik Armstead and Bosa were Meastly. Richard Sherman reminded everyone why they bother listening to him. Saleh put himself on the Next Coach of the New York Jets shortlist, after two disappointing campaigns. 

The real determinants of whether this is a 4-12 season or a 7-8-1 season are the rest of the NFC West and the AFC North, which collectively make up 10 of the 49ers’ games. RAMMIT! is likely due for a significant regression after being pants’d on international television in the Super Bowl, but no one other than Todd Gurley’s rheumetologist knows how far that regression may go. Seattle is balanced precariously on the edge of being The Team That Time Passed By as John Schneider tries desperately to plug in replacement pieces on defense to cover up for Russell Wilson’s deficiencies in everything but late-game-heroics. Kyler Murray is going to have some success early a la Rick Mirer and Vince Young, but that must be balanced against increasingly sophisticated analytics that may reveal his tendencies earlier than was generally possible in the past. And as discussed elsewhere, the AFC North is a weird-ass pyrotechnic fuckaround, where no one knows if Cleveland will actually fulfill their promise to become Not Cleveland, the Ravens are trying to figure out how to use Lamar Jackson and Pittsburgh prays Ben holds his shit together for one more year.

UPDATE: Partial credit. RAMMIT! had the expected regression. Arizona struggled on defense, and Murray only flashed sparks of Potential Specialness.  Most of the AFC North was a flailing mass of dysfunction and helmets, and SF went 3-1 against them. Seattle made a legit run though, and it came down to the last week as to who would win the division, thanks to the largesse of Bill O’Brien and the Detroit Brain(damage) Trust.

Are San Francisco’s players a team worth rooting for? Hell yes. Would success come at the cost of glorifying Shanahan and vindicating Jed York’s idiotic decision to hire John Lynch? Also yes. But the most important thing is this: Jimmy Garoppolo must succeed, wildly and at all costs, in order to torture New England fans with visions of what they could have had after Brady’s career ends.

UPDATE: I stand by every word of this. Garoppolo had a middling-to-good season. Darth Hoodie would have thrown Tom Terrific in front of a Duck Boat midseason if Jimmy was still on the team. It looks like Brady will re-sign, but there is legitimate speculation that Belichick will spend a first-rounder on a quarterback regardless. Given the low-level anxiety already radiating from the P*ts fans in my life, watching Garoppolo raise the trophy would provide enough tears to nourish my black and twisted soul for at least the next 18 months.

Foxborough delenda est.

UPDATE: Forever and ever, amen