- 11 hours ago
Rob 'Stats' Guerrera joins Willard and Dibs to debate if the 49ers should trade for a star wide receiver with the way injuries have hit the position over the first five weeks of the season.
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00:00We spent a good, healthy, early portion of the show talking about wide receivers.
00:07Niners play twice in the next 25 days.
00:11About four weeks from now, there might be 48 wide receivers healthy in the room.
00:16But now right now, now there's like four.
00:18So what to do?
00:20We're going to bring on out on the River Islands guest line right now, Rob Statscarrera.
00:26The Gold Standard Podcast is on the Odyssey app and on 95.7 The Game after 49er games,
00:32following overtime with Sterling and Carter, and also the day after every game.
00:37So you can hear Rob and his work right here on 95.7 The Game, or you could just listen
00:42right now.
00:43What's up, Stats? How you doing, man?
00:45I'm doing great. 5-0.
00:475-0 is wonderful, but they're not going to get to 6-0 unless they go big on the wide
00:53receiver market.
00:54Is that your take?
00:57I think it is.
00:58If there was ever a time to do it, how is it not right now?
01:02You're 5-0.
01:02You have the division in a headlock right now.
01:05It's year 10 of Shanahan and Lynch.
01:08Like, I'm tired of playing for a Super Bowl two or three years from now.
01:12Let's go.
01:14Aren't you at all thinking about like a possible logjam situation where if you bring in Brian Thomas
01:19or whoever else you want to think about bringing in and you get to week 9 or 10 or 11,
01:24you're going to have too many receivers at that point.
01:26Wouldn't that be a problem?
01:28I would love.
01:30After 10 years of the injury issues that this team has had,
01:34I would love to wake up one day and say we have too many good, healthy players.
01:39I get what you're saying, Stats, but hold on.
01:42Let's play this out.
01:43Let me ask it this way first.
01:44Who do you want?
01:45Who is it you're advocating the Niners go get?
01:48Off the top of my head, the two guys I would just want to make a phone call,
01:53Chris Olave from the Saints or Garrett Wilson from the Jets would be two that I would love to see.
01:58Okay, so this is what I thought you'd say.
02:02Big game hunting.
02:03This is first-round draft pick material.
02:06And what goes through my mind is not – I'm not saying, hey, don't go all in on this year.
02:12We're all, all of us, we are all, all in on this year.
02:16But to me, if you can on the cheap, whether it's get Juwan Jennings back and put him in the
02:22big slot
02:23or whatever else might be out there that's on the cheap, play out for me how an Olave or a
02:29Garrett Wilson,
02:30how are they going to feel when there's one ball to go around?
02:35It's not a wing-it-and-sling-it football team.
02:39Mike Evans is there.
02:40You've got Dajon Stribling back in four or five weeks.
02:44Debo Samuel's back.
02:46Demarcus Robinson is back.
02:48How are you divvying up the situation when you're bringing in $30 million receivers into this room
02:57and then that does also affect the cap situation next year when Brock Purdy's deal goes through the roof?
03:03That's what the money is for, okay?
03:06You don't have to love it.
03:08You'll like us when we win.
03:10We don't need to take everybody out for an ice cream cone here.
03:13And again, by the way, the odds that all those guys are all healthy at the same time,
03:18like I think that issue will take care of itself.
03:21And Juwan Jennings is nice.
03:22Yeah, that's cool.
03:23But I'm not trying to finish second.
03:25You know?
03:26Like, if you ain't first, you're last, right?
03:28So, great.
03:29You get Juwan Jennings.
03:30You maybe get to an NFC championship game.
03:32Awesome.
03:33I want to go big game hunting because I'm trying to win the whole damn thing.
03:38But when you look at what Shanahan likes to do, and this is where I kind of get stuck in
03:42the whole conversation
03:43because he loves his 21 personnel, use check and McCaffrey, kill the tight end, two receivers.
03:49So, when you get use check back, you probably won't use a lot of three receivers anyway.
03:54So, it feels to me a bit superfluous.
03:57Well, I think if Kyle has shown us anything, he's willing to evolve to suit the personnel, right?
04:03They love to play 21 personnel, like you said.
04:06But on Sunday, without Juice, they had season highs in 11 personnel, 12 personnel, and 13 personnel.
04:12So, I think Kyle will adapt to suit what is there and do what's best for the team.
04:17It might involve changing the offense a little bit.
04:20But the goal is to get your best 11 players on the field at all times.
04:24Rob Statscarrero is with us on Willard and Dips.
04:26See, you just said something right there, Rob, that I just, to me, this, like,
04:31we're running the risk right now playing fantasy football.
04:33I totally get where you're coming from in terms of pizzazz, in terms of the wow factor of it all.
04:40But when you say they might need to change the offense, that's where it kind of loses me.
04:45I don't know if I want to bring in now a big-name, $30 million guy
04:50who's going to want the ball, who needs to get up to speed on the system,
04:53and then now we're advocating changing the system, which is working incredibly well.
04:59Why would you do that?
05:01I don't know that these acquisitions you're talking about
05:04actually help the 49ers win a Super Bowl.
05:07The system has worked well to this point, but it also hasn't, you know,
05:12they've had guys healthier before now, right?
05:14The wide receiver room wasn't down to Mike Evans, Jacob Cowing, and Jordan Watkins.
05:19You know, that's a scary place to be.
05:21And if God help us, if Mike Evans gets hurt, he's already playing with two broken ribs.
05:25The offensive system will not work as well if Mike Evans is out.
05:29That's why you need to do this now before there's even more of a problem,
05:33which potentially there could be.
05:35But you would look at a situation, and I wonder about, you know,
05:38the next two weeks where you've got a Monday game, a Sunday game, then the bye.
05:42All of that happens before the trade deadline actually hits.
05:46Wouldn't it be more prudent to take a little bit more of a wait-and-see approach
05:50just in case somebody's able to get healthy before the deadline?
05:53Well, they might be forced to because these other teams might not be willing
05:57to throw in the towel this early in the season.
06:00But to me, you know what your team is, right?
06:03You know this.
06:04You never have all your guys healthy, ever.
06:06It's been 10 years of this.
06:08So the idea that, like, oh, if we just wait two or three more weeks,
06:11and then maybe we can get some guys back, and then we'll be good,
06:15to me, I just don't think it is something that I'm willing to risk.
06:19I think it's a risk either way.
06:20You either take a risk and push your chips in and make one of these big trades,
06:24or you risk potentially losing out on a Super Bowl team because you don't make a move.
06:29I guess, though, what Dibs is saying, Rob, is, like,
06:33you're going to have that information maybe at another time.
06:37Like, that's why I dove in, and I'm like, let's do the metrics here.
06:41They're 5-0.
06:42I love their chances to, at minimum, be 6-1 before the bye.
06:47They might even be 7-0.
06:49And at that time, let's find out who's available.
06:53Let's find out who's healthy, who's going to come back.
06:57Because I just, I think, starting to talk about giving up first-round draft picks
07:02and bringing in $30 million receivers and creating this logjam,
07:07part of it is also, I'm so convinced by what Dajon Stribling did in August
07:14to gain Kyle's trust to be out there week one.
07:17Like, I don't, to me, it does not make sense to create something that's going to get in his way
07:24for the back half of the season and going forward.
07:27Again, I get the wow factor.
07:29To me, this is, at minimum, this is a wait and see right now.
07:34If you want to say wait and see, I understand that.
07:38But as good as Stribling looked and he looked good, he's unproven.
07:42We don't know.
07:43And, yeah, it would be great if he came in and was awesome.
07:46But, you know, it would be really cool if he was awesome and we had another guy
07:49that was really good.
07:50Like, can you imagine rolling out Mike Evans, Stribling, you know, let's say Chris Olave,
07:56and maybe when he gets back to Marcus Robinson's, like, you're 4 or 5, actually,
08:01because Debo would be there, too.
08:02I mean, who wouldn't want that offense?
08:05I mean, probably Chris Olave.
08:09Does he like winning?
08:10Or does he like losing and wasting away in New Orleans?
08:13Let's be real, though, about wide receivers in this league.
08:16Like, that, honestly, Rob, I get where you're coming from, but that's a thing.
08:19You know what I mean?
08:20Like, I don't want to play fantasy football and then tell everybody, like, this, you know,
08:25we spent all summer with, hey, this is what the Rams are going to look like
08:28because of all these amazing names.
08:30And they don't look good.
08:31They don't look good at all.
08:33And so I just, to me, the Niners, they've got a formula right now that's really working,
08:40even in the absence of some of these guys, to bring in a presence like that
08:44who probably would not be happy.
08:47I just, to me, that's not worth $30 million and first-round capital, my opinion.
08:55Okay, let me ask you this question.
08:57If Mike Evans didn't put on one of the best 49ers wide receiver performances we've seen
09:03in maybe a decade on Sunday, would you be saying the same thing?
09:07Because I think we'd be saying, this offense, it's terrible.
09:11Seattle owns us and we need to get better players.
09:14The wide receiver room is decimated right now.
09:16I think we would be thinking very differently about the 49ers offense
09:20if Mike Evans just didn't decide to completely put the team on his back.
09:24I get that.
09:25But my answer to that would be, I don't think you can run a team based on PTSD.
09:31Like, Evans did do that.
09:33And I'm not going to operate right now on the assumption that Mike Evans is not going to play football
09:39going forward
09:40due to the fact that he wears a Niner uniform, therefore he's clearly going to get hurt.
09:44That guy barely ever misses games.
09:46I'm going to take, I'm going to roll the dice after what I saw the last two weeks
09:50that Mike Evans is going to play.
09:53I think there's room for both.
09:56Yeah, and I think that if you, well, I look at the game against Seattle
10:00and I don't think about the offense being that great other than the must-have-it drive
10:05where Mike Evans, as you said, came through with monster catches.
10:09That game was won by the defense.
10:11It was a punch out at the nine, which was an 11-yard drive.
10:15It was a fumble recovery in the end zone that you were able to get.
10:19So I can't help but think about 2019 when the Niners were 6-0 in that season
10:25and they had a truly decimated wide receiver core
10:28and they went out and they got Emmanuel Sanders.
10:30So don't you think it's more plausible that they make an Emmanuel Sanders type of move
10:35as opposed to an Alave or a Brian Thomas?
10:39I think it is.
10:40Those moves are generally easier to pull off, too, because teams, you know,
10:44it's hard to get a Garrett Wilson from the Jets or an Alave from the Saints.
10:47They're going to want a lot.
10:48So it does make more sense that that would be the type of move that they could make.
10:52And if they did, I certainly wouldn't be upset about it.
10:55But I think where I was coming from with this is like, what do they say?
10:59Shoot for the moon.
11:00So if you miss, you land in the clouds or whatever.
11:02Like stars, you're right.
11:04Yeah.
11:05Don't settle.
11:06Don't start at Emmanuel Sanders.
11:08Settle for Emmanuel Sanders, if that makes sense.
11:10Stats.
11:11What about elsewhere around around the field?
11:13That's the other thing I think about.
11:15You use all your assets at wide receiver.
11:17Now you're at a deficit.
11:18If you need anything at another position, is there anywhere else you want to see the Niners add?
11:22Well, I was going to say defensive line, but with the way they all stepped up on Sunday,
11:27I thought that was unbelievable.
11:28I mean, Grayson Halton just announcing his presence with authority.
11:31I thought Romello Haidt looked the best he's ever looked.
11:34Obviously, Michael Williams coming back looked strong in his first game.
11:37So I felt a lot more reassured about the defensive front after what I saw in Seattle,
11:42especially considering all those guys are young.
11:45So I think wide receiver became my sort of biggest priority based off of that.
11:50And Sebastian Valdez and Keon White, somebody for whom they've traded, also making big plays.
11:55I wonder what you make of the draft talk, because everybody's been critical of the draft going back to Trey
12:02Lance,
12:02and you lost two first round picks.
12:04Not judging this past draft too harshly just yet, but the last couple of drafts on defense, what have you
12:10made of it?
12:12These guys are looking better and better now.
12:15And I think that, you know, the Niners sort of got dinged, especially this year,
12:20because they did have such poor draft years in 2022 and 2021.
12:26So people just sort of didn't give them the benefit of the doubt.
12:30And then when those guys don't come in right away and look unbelievably awesome,
12:34you know, you sort of get dinged a little bit.
12:36Now these guys have played a little bit.
12:38Certainly the picks from this year look good.
12:41Some of the picks from 2025 look a little bit better.
12:43And so now we're starting to say like, hey, maybe we overreacted to a couple of bad draft years
12:49and didn't give them the benefit of the doubt that we should have.
12:52Stats, we're giving out flowers on the show today as well, but we're taking out the obvious.
12:56If I said no Brock, no Kyle, no George.
13:01No Mike Evans.
13:01No Mike Evans, no Christian McCaffrey, and no Fred Warner.
13:05Who do you want to give flowers to?
13:08Raheem Morris.
13:09No question about it.
13:10Sam Darnold was either sacked or threw a pick on 20% of his dropbacks on Sunday.
13:17That is the single biggest difference between last year and this year.
13:21They could not make him uncomfortable at all.
13:24At any point last season, he was completely uncomfortable on Sunday.
13:29And to me, that is a huge credit to Raheem Morris.
13:32Hey, my friend, thanks for coming on.
13:34That was fun.
13:36Oh, thanks.
13:37Anytime you want me.
13:38Okay, Rob Stats Guerrero, who by the way, the gold standard podcast, Odyssey app, 95.7 the game.
13:45Also after Niner games following overtime the day after the game as well.