- 11 minutes ago
Willard and Dibs open the show by reacting to the full Week 1 slate of the 2026 NFL season and explain why they think the 49ers' roster has been overlooked across the board.
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00:00let's talk about the phrase on paper let's do this for a second on paper not on town oh my
00:08god
00:08oh you were in my head already on paper i literally said the same thing i looked at you
00:14and i went oh god behind his eyes he's going on town the best roster on paper maybe i didn't
00:22do
00:22a little research on him too well i did some research brother i did some research um my two
00:28great boys thank you uh tune in friday it's coming anyway on paper so i was thinking about this
00:36i know that there's this caveat that's got to go with every one of your 49er takes and it breaks
00:43my heart every time i hear it breaks my heart i know so many niner fans who want to be
00:49optimistic
00:49they feel like the opportunity's there but you have to couch everything you say with if healthy
00:58how many times have you said if they stay healthy in the last month how many times has that thought
01:05crossed your mind or those words come out of your mouth in the last like four years we could talk
01:10about the warriors like you know if if they could just stay healthy if chris taps can get over the
01:16pots dot dot dot so yes we always do that so um the 49ers like all of the teams they've
01:25already
01:25suffered some injuries right stribbling is out and alfred collins gone for the year and jake tonjus
01:30we'll get an update tomorrow if we're going to see him again at some point this year and all of
01:35these
01:35things so they're they're not immune but uh steve young was on with rich eisen recently and talked
01:42about five future hall of famers and then rich started going through names and it actually kind of uh he
01:49convinced him that it was actually six so uh listen to this for example here's steve young
01:56rich eisen show i saw uh a team that we know is really susceptible to injury and we've got become
02:03a theme that's all we talk about and we've all said if if if if healthy you've got five hall
02:09of
02:09famers on that football team this is five hall of famers then they start going through names
02:13uh let me play this again though for you here's steve young with again what will happen with the
02:19niners if they stay healthy if if if everybody can stay healthy with kyle doing his thing the rest of
02:27they'll run through the rest of the league pretty if they stay healthy pretty well and now it's just
02:32going to be those games against seattle another game against the rams against the eagles at the end
02:36of the season maybe the pack like maybe some someone shows up at the end of the season there's going
02:40to be a playoff game or two and that's where it all happens and you know we could probably just
02:44jet ahead to january and see we'll see where we are steve whips out a cigar now he twice says
02:51if
02:51healthy and one of the times went if if if healthy but he whips out a cigar and goes they'll
02:57cruise
02:57the cruise through this league there's not even an issue if they're provided health by the way the
03:04five slash six guys that they're talking about for the hall of fame uh christian mccaffrey
03:09george kittle trent williams fred warner nick bosa um who am i forgetting mike evans mike evans okay
03:18so and i guess bosa we've decided bosa is the only one where you can kind of be like these
03:24yeah are we
03:24there yet right right still kind of young in his career he's got a dpoi um some say george kittle
03:30needs a couple more years i think he's already there but whatever right you you get the idea
03:34so we spent a month or more with they're going to face the rams who are the best team in
03:42the nfl
03:43quote on paper well now it doesn't feel that way because miles garrett's on ir we don't know when
03:50aaron donald's gonna play and matt stafford for one day looked old um i don't know if that changes
03:55anyone's opinion or not but here's what i do think people forgot what if we could play a game
03:59and we could remove this anxiety just for the sake of conversation i know we can't do it in real
04:06life
04:06but we remove this phrase if healthy what if i just looked today and let's take into account injuries
04:15that have already happened and are current but let's go with as rosters stand today who's got the
04:23best roster in the nfl well and also if you want to just add in like the regular amount of
04:27games missed
04:28for a 38 year old left tackle who maybe he's not injured maybe he's just hurt and he misses a
04:34game or
04:35two maybe it's three whatever i think that that's kind of a common number in the nba now like 65
04:42games
04:42is where we put yeah the load management the rest of it so if you want to just look at
04:47the roster i think
04:48you'd be hard pressed to find any of the team that has five and i'll just say five hall of
04:53famers because
04:54you know i don't think nick bosa has yet reached that point and so if you look at any of
04:59the team
04:59you'd be really hard pressed to find five let alone five who are trending in that direction i don't know
05:06if you can i think we forgot i think we we we sent ourselves to a space where we were
05:13not willing
05:14to talk about what the niner roster would actually look like against this league if for some crazy
05:23experience these guys actually played football this year i i really do i think we forgot or everybody
05:31forgot or people wouldn't allow themselves and they wouldn't allow their imagination to go there um
05:36let's go back again on paper convince me on paper that someone is actually supposed to dominate the
05:45san francisco 49ers if their players are playing and i know there was a secondary if to that it's not
05:51just if they're on the field but how do they respond to the injuries they they experienced last year
05:57um we got really really good vibes off of that from bosa and kittle and warner they all kind of
06:03look
06:03like themselves kittle still got i think some markers to hit but they all looked like themselves
06:09trent williams did christian mccaffrey had some cramps but he looked great they ran the ball what
06:15did he average over six yards a carry while he was out there black can get mixed in all of
06:20these things
06:20but i i really came away from week one with that i think we're sleeping on the niners roster because
06:29we
06:30refuse to let ourselves believe that they're actually going to play this year and maybe they
06:36won't but right now they are and i think you gotta we got a healthy dose of this in australia
06:41take a look
06:43at what they can still do when they play i think i could argue i don't know that i'd win
06:49but i think i
06:50can argue today as the current designations stand that the 49ers might have the best roster in the nfl
06:59they might and if you want to like go team by team and project out hall of famers they probably
07:05have
07:05the most hall of famers but i think that when you look at it on paper and this is going
07:10into the game
07:10last thursday you've got kittle who is rushing back off an achilles and he's on a pitch count and he
07:17didn't really have that big of a game he played about half the snaps and it was a great step
07:23in the
07:23right direction both the three acls later you didn't know what he would be and snap one he showed you
07:29that he could still get low and get around the corner and disrupt trent williams is 38 and so
07:34you you weren't really sure how he would be christian mcafree coming off 400 plus touches which
07:40only two other players in the last 26 years this late in their career have done this and so the
07:47fear
07:47is that you know you you've had all these touches and so you're probably slowing down and you've lost
07:52a step and you know mike evans had his first real injury laden year and so you weren't sure what
07:59he
07:59was going to be i think fred warner was about the only one i could look at and say yeah
08:04fred's gonna
08:04be fine he'd probably be fine and he could have played if they would have made the nfc championship
08:08last year he would have been ready in the other guys i do think you can look at legitimate questions
08:14going into week one and those continue they continue right into week two yes you know what i mean
08:19if if the guys then they never asked but the thing they were doing on their show like whatever
08:24your prediction for the niners was what is it now um i don't know if you like i would have
08:30said my
08:30prediction was 11 and 6 and now my prediction is 11 and 6 like i'm i'm not changing a damn
08:36thing let's
08:37not like i don't want to act like adversity is not coming it's coming it comes for every team the
08:43rams are already facing it um the ravens are really good they lost two wide receivers this week i don't
08:49know if either of them are playing um two teams lost a quarterback who and i don't know if either
08:54of them are playing this week and both of them are playoff contenders like adversity's on the way i
08:59have no doubt about that but it's going to be how bad like how adverse is it and um how
09:06do you handle
09:07it and obviously they handled it really really well last year so all those questions you bring up they
09:13still exist they still exist but i to me it's both fun and prudent to allow ourselves to imagine
09:22what if the 49ers have a healthy ish season from their top players because all summer long i don't
09:29believe anybody talked about the 49ers having one of the best rosters in football because there was
09:35this underlying assumption that a bunch of them won't play well i think it was a reality because you
09:41had bosa off a third acl and they didn't really play him at all and kittle didn't play at all
09:47and
09:47mccaffrey was bubble wrapped and all the rest of it so you thought that especially mccaffrey well he
09:52wasn't injured you just thought that they were you know cramps and whatnot they were going to slow play
09:56him but george kittle came back after eight months off an achilles repair which is almost unheard of it
10:03might be completely unheard of and you know nick bosa with all the injuries he's had to his knee you
10:09didn't know what he would look like so i think the questions that we had were all fair and they
10:14haven't been answered with just one game certainly but one week in it sure looks like i mean to that
10:21extent the answers are are good yeah i don't know they ever get answered you always have to go play
10:25another game and and you can get hurt in that one or something bad can happen so uh this changes
10:31every
10:31single week but as we sit here right now and i'd love to put this out to the audience eight
10:37at eight
10:37nine five seven nine five seventy take all the current designations into play okay so that means
10:45still don't know if aaron donald when he's going to be ready miles garrett is on ir and don't know
10:51when
10:51he'll be back but so stribbling and tonjus and alfred collins take everything that you watched for week one
10:58if you are the 49ers is there a roster out there you'd rather have right now current designations
11:08in play is there an nfl roster out there you would rather have than the san francisco 49ers and if
11:16you
11:16even have to stop and think about that for a second then i'd argue it's kind of funny that we
11:23weren't
11:23more optimistic or at least hopeful coming into this season if after one week you can come up with
11:30my think they might have the best roster in football even if your answer is maybe then i think it's
11:36funny
11:36that we many of us weren't more hopeful last month i think that we were not more hopeful because of
11:43the
11:43giant question marks that surrounded kittle and bosa and even mccaffrey and to an extent trent williams
11:50who and i love the steve young piece from the rich eisen show because he talked about trent maybe
11:55playing until he's 43 like the way he is playing the way he looks right now trent williams at 38
12:01is
12:02still i mean and steve said he might go down as the best player in the history of the nfl
12:09forget
12:09like best left tackle or best he said he might be the best player ever and he was talking about
12:16him
12:16playing four more years maybe five more years my god i mean we'll let you hear what steve said about
12:21trent here coming up next but 888-957-9570 current designations in play as life we know it to be
12:29right here after week one is there a roster in the nfl you feel is better than the one the
12:3549ers have
12:36you
12:36you
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