- 2 days ago
Willard and Dibs discuss what they want to see from the 49ers in their second preseason game, down in Inglewood vs. the Chargers.
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00:00We're going to see actual 49ers.
00:03So there's going to be some starters out there.
00:06Apparently, Brock Purdy is one of them.
00:09Okay, let's take a look.
00:10Let's see if Purdy completes his first pass to Dajon Stribling.
00:14Yeah, and beyond that, I think you're right.
00:17Once it's a one series, or if it's three and out, he'll get two series.
00:20If the Niners go on a, I don't know, seven or eight play drive that ends however it ends,
00:25that probably will do it for Brock Purdy.
00:27If it's a three and out, I think he'll get another chance to go three and out
00:30or do whatever they'll do on the second series.
00:33I don't think that he even gets more than ten plays,
00:37unless the first drive is like a 12-play drive.
00:39Beyond that, it's going to be a brief little in and out cup of coffee,
00:43and then you move on.
00:44If they go three and out, then we've got to show up tomorrow
00:47with a high level of concern.
00:50No doubt.
00:50No three and outs.
00:52No.
00:52No three and outs in the preseason.
00:54Not for starters.
00:55Right.
00:55I mean, your starters against their starters in August,
00:59I think we can go ahead and chalk that up to preseason rust in cobwebs.
01:04I don't know.
01:05Game one was for Stribling.
01:06Game two is for Kalon Black.
01:10That's my call tonight.
01:13My call is that tomorrow this fan base, and fingers crossed,
01:18is very, very excited, intrigued, and thinking about maybe a new way
01:25to go about the backfield with the San Francisco 49ers.
01:29And I say that with the absolute most respect and admiration possible
01:35for Christian McCaffrey, and I'm not dumb.
01:37Christian, I want 20 touches a week.
01:40Not 25, but 20 touches a week.
01:43Do your thing.
01:45Be your Hall of Fame self.
01:46Be the bell count for the San Francisco 49ers.
01:49But at the same time, I want these two things to be true this year.
01:53Fewer touches.
01:55Like, I do not want to see him get 400 touches this year.
01:58I think that that would be inappropriate, number one.
02:01I think number two, I would love to go back to the days,
02:05the last time this was true was when Jordan Mason was here,
02:09where Christian McCaffrey could miss a football game,
02:12and you would still feel like you can do some damn things
02:15coming out of the backfield.
02:17That's how I want to feel about this year's San Francisco 49ers,
02:21and Black is going to be the first guy to have a shot at doing that.
02:25It could be James when he gets back from the broken rib,
02:28and so it all comes down to the reality, which is if McCaffrey's healthy,
02:32he really, really wants to be out there.
02:35And when he's out there, and I was doing some of the numbers
02:37from just last year, on all the snaps that he took on the field,
02:42he was either targeted or ran the ball or caught the ball
02:47in nearly half of those plays.
02:49It was about 47% of the play.
02:51So when McCaffrey was out there last year,
02:54they either threw it to him or they handed him the ball,
02:57and the other half of the time, they didn't.
02:59And so the only way to really kind of save him
03:01is by not playing him for a series,
03:04or maybe you take him out for first and second down,
03:07and then you bring him in on third down.
03:08Whatever it is, you have to find a way to get him off the field.
03:11If not, Kyle Shanahan's going to try to get him the ball.
03:14Well, and then here's the other thing that it would achieve, right?
03:17If Kalon Black ends up being really good,
03:20it would also represent the San Francisco 49ers
03:25finally drafting a running back in the third round
03:28and having it work.
03:29And I would love for that,
03:30it's almost like the Steph Curry's never won finals MVP thing.
03:35He's a three-time champ, he's an MVP,
03:38but he had never won finals MVP.
03:39Kind of feel that way about the Niners
03:41and the third round of the NFL draft with running backs.
03:44Like, how many times is this going to go sideways?
03:48Ty Davis-Price, Joe Williams, we can keep going.
03:51How many times is this going to go wrong before it goes right?
03:54I really hope this is the one, and I think it might be.
03:59And so hopefully tonight is the first night
04:03to kind of grab everybody's attention with that.
04:05It could be, and it's exciting to think about
04:08because he's a guy who had a really good year last year in college,
04:12and you went out there and you did the thing,
04:14which is you took a running back in the third round
04:16and everybody's holding their head,
04:17and, you know, please don't do that.
04:19And then they did the thing,
04:20and you've heard different people,
04:22like Greg Cosell has come on our show and said he likes him,
04:25and he actually is a better pass catcher
04:28than what he showed last year.
04:29They didn't really use him in that role,
04:31and so he could be, if healthy,
04:33and if he's able to, you know, be good at picking up the blitz
04:36because we know that Shanahan demands
04:38that you are a blocker first.
04:40No matter who you are outside the quarterback,
04:42you've got to be out there and do your dirty work
04:45more than you go out there and just catch the ball.
04:47Greg Cosell yesterday with us on Kalon Black.
04:50I really liked, you know, watching him.
04:52I thought he was tough, physical, a grinder,
04:55powerful, kind of a no-holes-barred runner.
04:58I mean, he was the kind of back.
05:00He would run over people.
05:01I forget, he ran over someone who was a big-time player.
05:04He's just a very, very physical guy,
05:06and I really liked him a lot watching his tape,
05:09and I think he fits the 49er run game.
05:12You know, he's a grinder.
05:13He sustains an offense.
05:15The pass-catching stuff,
05:16just because he wasn't thrown to in college
05:18doesn't mean he can't be a receiver.
05:20We just didn't have exposure to that on his tape.
05:22I'm sure when they studied him and they worked him out,
05:25they probably threw him the ball quite a bit,
05:27and first of all,
05:29he's not going to be their third down back anyway.
05:31The more important thing for him, I think, is blitz pickup.
05:34He's not going to be their receiving back,
05:36so blitz pickup, to me, would be the more important thing.
05:39It is both my opinion and also my hope,
05:41let's be honest with you,
05:43that what we saw last year in the 49er run game,
05:47the reason that in the Kyle Shanahan 49er era,
05:52this was the worst yards-per-carry group,
05:55even though you had a healthy Christian McCaffrey the whole time,
05:58the reason for that, in my opinion,
06:01is sort of an extension of what you just said.
06:04I don't think the Niner offense
06:05was offering enough on the field to scare the defense.
06:09So everybody knew that there was a 50-50 shot
06:13when Christian was on the field,
06:14that he was going to get the ball.
06:15Therefore, everybody was completely and totally focused on Christian.
06:19Therefore, everybody was able to stack the box
06:22and stop Christian a little bit earlier
06:24than maybe they used to.
06:26What the 49ers have built this year,
06:29I think, if blessed with health,
06:31is they have built, again, a group that can scare the defense,
06:35and if you do want to completely focus on Christian McCaffrey,
06:38they're going to make you pay.
06:40That's why the Niners were oddly still No. 2 in DVOA last year.
06:45They were still really good on third down.
06:47They were still a really good offense
06:50because Brock Purdy's a good quarterback
06:52and they've got a good system,
06:53and so they were able to still kind of move the chains
06:56from third and five and all of these things,
06:58but it wasn't downfield.
07:01It wasn't like, it's like, okay, you can move the chains,
07:03but can you get all the way down the field?
07:05Can you make a defense pay for cheating up on the line of scrimmage?
07:10The answer was no.
07:11The Seahawks knew that no one was going over their head.
07:14This year, that's not the case.
07:16You've got a Swiss Army knife in DVO.
07:17You've got a real boundary X number one receiver in Mike Evans.
07:21You've got a speedy kid,
07:23Dajon Stribbling, who also has size.
07:25Hopefully, George Kittle will be back and Kalon Black,
07:29others who can mix in and do some things.
07:32That is my opinion, but it is also, I admit, my hope.
07:35My hope that that's what makes it different this year.
07:38I think that the hope is one that's well-founded
07:41because of the different options you have,
07:43and you look at last year where you open up
07:45and you didn't have Demarcus Robinson for three,
07:48and then George Kittle got hurt fairly early,
07:50and you didn't really have that field stretcher,
07:53and Ricky Pearsall played nine of the 17 regular season games,
07:57and so you were left with Jawan Jennings,
07:58who's not a stretcher,
08:00Kendrick Bourne, who had a couple of monster games,
08:02but he's not somebody who's going to get over the top on you,
08:04and so if you are one of the defenses,
08:07and I'm thinking about the Rams in Seattle,
08:08you go ahead and creep on down with those safeties
08:11because you're not scared of play action
08:14and of somebody getting behind you
08:15and having the big explosive play,
08:17and just looking at Christian McCaffrey's success rate last year
08:21when running the ball,
08:22and they measure this based on if it's first down,
08:25do you get 40% of the needed yards?
08:28If it's second down, do you get 60%?
08:31And if it's third down or fourth down,
08:33do you get the first down?
08:34He was less than 50% on his success rate,
08:38meaning first and 10, you get two yards or three yards.
08:41That's a failure.
08:42That's not a success,
08:43and it feels like there was a lot of that last year
08:45where he'd get zero or he'd get one,
08:48and eventually you'd chip away and get the first down,
08:50but it wasn't through McCaffrey and explosive runs.
08:53No doubt.
08:54No doubt.
08:55I hated third and three, third and four,
08:58even first and 10.
09:00Yes, it felt like it was second and nine all the time.
09:05Somehow they were still able to move the ball up and down the field,
09:08be a pretty good offense, score enough points,
09:10go 12 and five, all the things that we know,
09:12but yeah, that's got to definitely be better this year.
09:16Let me run a little test with you.
09:18Okay.
09:19Okay?
09:19So preseason game tonight, seven o'clock, Niners and Chargers.
09:23Many of the starters are playing.
09:26What's the first thought that goes through your mind when I say that?
09:29Many of the starters are going to play tonight.
09:32Just be careful out there.
09:35Got to keep it safe.
09:36And I know that it's football and you can't protect anybody,
09:39but yeah, if you want to play your starters
09:42and you're not going to play all 22,
09:44you probably play, I don't know, 12 or 13 of your starters,
09:47but go ahead and get in and get out and be healthy.
09:52So you passed the test.
09:53Okay.
09:54Slash proved my point.
09:57There's nothing wrong with your answer,
09:59but I wish so badly for it to go away.
10:02So badly.
10:04I, I just, I want that.
10:06I want that for the 49er fan base
10:08to go back to a day when we used to just be excited to see the game.
10:13Excited to see the actual players who are going to be on the 49ers play football,
10:18as opposed to going into a game where the first emotion that we have is worry.
10:25How do we do that?
10:27How can we collectively do this?
10:28How can we get 49er fans to replace worry with excitement?
10:35This is what I want.
10:37This, I am taking this on as a project as we approach this season.
10:42How do we replace the emotion of worry with excitement?
10:49How do we do it?
10:50You get to the regular season and then some fans will still be worried,
10:55but I get into real regular season football
10:58and you put the worry aside because it's football.
11:00But right now, this is not a meaningful game.
11:02It's meaningless other than you break a sweat and develop that callus.
11:07So for me personally, when you get to regular season football,
11:10I don't worry any longer about injury.
11:12It happens.
11:14Maybe you don't.
11:15Right.
11:15I know that you know that many do.
11:18This has become a characteristic of the fan base.
11:22Worry.
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