Realistic Season Expectations

Im sorry if this sounds a bit cliche, but that game could not be blamed on any one person.. I agree that Alex is a wuss that is afraid to force the ball in for fear of int's, so he settles for sacks and incompletes, but in all honesty the offense itself was offensive. The o-line looked like 100lb anorexic girls in stilettos blocking. The WR's could not get open even on blitz downs.. and Alex smith did not help with his accuracy issues.. In his defense however, drew brees, and prime nfl QB, was in a better situation and performed the same.. there was plenty of lockout rust.. Did u see any other games going on??? other then the lions, who are always the hands-down superbowl MVP's of preseason, many teams looked rusty.. Overall, heres my unbiased take on our season.. please comment on what u think

Do not have high expectations like we always do for these reasons:

#1 This is our first year (on a lockout year) with a new west coast offense. West coast offense is a highly specialized playbook that emphasizes timing between QB-WR and precision.. It takes tons of practice to perfect.. It took even the great joe montana time to grasp the Walsh system... Much more then two weeks... Please do not expect Alex to be this amazing.. Timing is everything in this system, and if you take into account that our starting receivers, Braylon (2nd team) and Crabtree, are not working with him due to girl injuries, then this makes the transition that much harder. It will take time. Im not saying alex will do well here even with time, but all im saying is that time IS needed..

#2 Alex is a system QB.. plain and simple.. Unless he is completely comfortable, he has no improvisational skills. We have seen it time and time again.. Why fans expect Michael vick out of him is crazy.. His best version of improv is panicking and throwing the ball away from, well, everyone.. It is also why he has never scrambled.. this was always due to that last check-down to gore who got plowed when we all saw the 20 yard opening and yelled at the TV.. When the play-calling was good and people did their exact jobs, alex has done fairly well. im not saying alex is great, im just saying he needs a good coach to do well.. This is why in my opinion Alex has looked like a rookie 5 years in a row. Nolan and sing did NOT even closely provide good systems, and I really doubt we make the playoffs with other QB's in their system unless tom brady or manning were brought in.... (I also doubt we could make this many bad decisions in a row on coaching staff's without putting blame on owners, but thats another thread).. ..

Reasons for possible playoff expectations:

#1 Defense: Our defense looks very good this season, Although I see many people say we have a slight downgrade, I believe the complete opposite. We have the pass rush we needed (although too early), the coverage, and speed upgrade to really put pressure on defenses.. we may have lost a small amount with run stopping, but this is a passing league and overall a huge upgrade defensively... As to how good we are, time will tell.. Our division could easily be won with a mediocre offense and a good defense.

#2 Our team has plenty of talent. On paper, we look good. This is why for a couple years now people have been consistantly disappointed

#3 Crappy division... I really dont see any teams in our divisions able to walk on us offensively... Kolb is overrated.. played like 3 games?.. Sam Bradford is good but needs some time.. and sea-hawks have a worse qb situation then even we do.... I think Alex has gone through crap enough times and learned so many different systems that he will pick this offense up faster and maybe put together a decent season (after the third or 4th game). to take us to the playoffs...

Overall, I would love to say we should make the playoffs, but unless we could get a good starting stride (such as smith picking up the o quick)well end up with a 7-9 record..

let me know what u think.. is this right?

Alex will be benched, as he should.

Originally posted by Ninerman49:
Im sorry if this sounds a bit cliche, but that game could not be blamed on any one person.. I agree that Alex is a wuss that is afraid to force the ball in for fear of int's, so he settles for sacks and incompletes, but in all honesty the offense itself was offensive. The o-line looked like 100lb anorexic girls in stilettos blocking. The WR's could not get open even on blitz downs.. and Alex smith did not help with his accuracy issues.. In his defense however, drew brees, and prime nfl QB, was in a better situation and performed the same.. there was plenty of lockout rust.. Did u see any other games going on??? other then the lions, who are always the hands-down superbowl MVP's of preseason, many teams looked rusty.. Overall, heres my unbiased take on our season.. please comment on what u think

Do not have high expectations like we always do for these reasons:

#1 This is our first year (on a lockout year) with a new west coast offense. West coast offense is a highly specialized playbook that emphasizes timing between QB-WR and precision.. It takes tons of practice to perfect.. It took even the great joe montana time to grasp the Walsh system... Much more then two weeks... Please do not expect Alex to be this amazing.. Timing is everything in this system, and if you take into account that our starting receivers, Braylon (2nd team) and Crabtree, are not working with him due to girl injuries, then this makes the transition that much harder. It will take time. Im not saying alex will do well here even with time, but all im saying is that time IS needed..

#2 Alex is a system QB.. plain and simple.. Unless he is completely comfortable, he has no improvisational skills. We have seen it time and time again.. Why fans expect Michael vick out of him is crazy.. His best version of improv is panicking and throwing the ball away from, well, everyone.. It is also why he has never scrambled.. this was always due to that last check-down to gore who got plowed when we all saw the 20 yard opening and yelled at the TV.. When the play-calling was good and people did their exact jobs, alex has done fairly well. im not saying alex is great, im just saying he needs a good coach to do well.. This is why in my opinion Alex has looked like a rookie 5 years in a row. Nolan and sing did NOT even closely provide good systems, and I really doubt we make the playoffs with other QB's in their system unless tom brady or manning were brought in.... (I also doubt we could make this many bad decisions in a row on coaching staff's without putting blame on owners, but thats another thread).. ..

Reasons for possible playoff expectations:

#1 Defense: Our defense looks very good this season, Although I see many people say we have a slight downgrade, I believe the complete opposite. We have the pass rush we needed (although too early), the coverage, and speed upgrade to really put pressure on defenses.. we may have lost a small amount with run stopping, but this is a passing league and overall a huge upgrade defensively... As to how good we are, time will tell.. Our division could easily be won with a mediocre offense and a good defense.

#2 Our team has plenty of talent. On paper, we look good. This is why for a couple years now people have been consistantly disappointed

#3 Crappy division... I really dont see any teams in our divisions able to walk on us offensively... Kolb is overrated.. played like 3 games?.. Sam Bradford is good but needs some time.. and sea-hawks have a worse qb situation then even we do.... I think Alex has gone through crap enough times and learned so many different systems that he will pick this offense up faster and maybe put together a decent season (after the third or 4th game). to take us to the playoffs...

Overall, I would love to say we should make the playoffs, but unless we could get a good starting stride (such as smith picking up the o quick)well end up with a 7-9 record..

let me know what u think.. is this right?

7-9 could win NFC west again this year. We looked bad last night, but I would rather have this happen in a preseason opener vs. a regular season opener. We had quite a few guys out last night. And not much of a game plan. Saints defense game planned as we saw. Coaches will certainly make adjustments and performance will be better next game.

i think this post is about 1 month to early a lot is going to change from now till the begining of the regular season. we dont even know what the starting rosters are at this point.

Bit too early for this.

7-9 could win the West, but I doubt it. What you had last year was a once in 35 years type fluke. The other West teams are better than people give them credit for, and they've all improved with key free agent additions.

And even if say 7-9 were sufficient to win, I think this team realistically falls 2-3 games short of that.

This is a bit early, but most of our roster is set for the regular season... a couple weeks will give us a better view of how well look i think...

As said by others, I'd like to go through all of preseason and maybe 3 games before I can really grasp the season outlook.

After 3 horrible series, I can definitely not make a fair assessment.

Expect our Defense to not be so solid once teams actually gameplan, and target goldson again once he is back on the field.

Originally posted by unst4bl3:
Expect our Defense to not be so solid once teams actually gameplan, and target goldson again once he is back on the field.

if that happens then niner fans better pray that the offense gets a great understanding of the WCO because if not well.............

Originally posted by chico49erfan:
As said by others, I'd like to go through all of preseason and maybe 3 games before I can really grasp the season outlook.

After 3 horrible series, I can definitely not make a fair assessment.

This. That is what it is going to take to really tell what we have. I can see us starting off slow the first 8 games of the year(with the people of the webzone loosing their minds) then begining to play better for the last 8. My head tells me 7-9 or 8-8, but my heart is still longing for 9-7 and will until we get there.

A great coach with personnel that he believes in, can take a team to the playoffs the first year. It seems that those are usually the teams that improve drastically on defense, which create low scoring games, while the offense simply plays it safe with error free football and scores just a few points more than their opponents. This is a possibility. For fans and players that came of age in the 80's, the goal was always a Super Bowl victory. Anything less was a failure. Regular season records weren't so relevant. For this team, a playoff berth would be a good start. After that, it will be back to Super Bowl win or fail mentality, probably.

Originally posted by OptimusPrime52:
i think this post is about 1 month to early a lot is going to change from now till the begining of the regular season. we dont even know what the starting rosters are at this point.

agreed, lets get the preseason out of the way first

Without a qb, niners go no where. Maybe 2-3 wins.
With a decent vet qb, maybe 8-8 record.

Originally posted by Jamespowers:

7-9 could win NFC west again this year. We looked bad last night, but I would rather have this happen in a preseason opener vs. a regular season opener. We had quite a few guys out last night. And not much of a game plan. Saints defense game planned as we saw. Coaches will certainly make adjustments and performance will be better next game.

6-10 will win it this year.