Best safety tandem in the NFL?

Originally posted by johnnyredneat:
Totally agree with this. I'm kind've shocked to see a niner fan calling Bowman a luxury. IMHO that's crazy talk.

We do things schematically that no one else in the league can mimic. That ability is due to special talents in our front six (our base defense so far has actually been a 3-3-5. Sopoaga has just 15 snaps in two games). It's not due to our defensive backs and definitely not due to Goldson. We heap about 3x the responsibility on our front six than we do our back five.

Goldson is a fine player, in his prime, who to his great credit came into camp in tip-top shape after a long holdout. But in our scheme he is way more replaceable than anyone in the front six. To me it's clear as day.

Bowman has the look of a perennial all-pro. If things break right for him, perhaps more than that. He's that good. Losing him as he hits his prime would be madness.

Our front seven gets all the credit for this defense and its a load of bs. They are the best in football yes, but in gameplans such as the ones you saw the past two weeks when we're in strickly nickel and dime situations Bowman or Willis isn't even on the field. We're rushing 3 or 4 guys at the most. There was minimal pressure on both Rodgers, and Stafford yet nobody was gettin open. Why? Because our DB's are studs. That gameplan doesn't work without top notch safeties. I'm sorry it just doesn't. Its not like Bowman is a pass rusher anyway. He's not responsible for that pass rush that everyone says is what makes our secondary look so good. He's an inside backer. When you have Willis on the field it is a luxury having Bowman. I'll take the elite FS. YOU can have the the elite LB. Watch the the deep TD's start mounting up on blown coverage.

Originally posted by NinerG94:
the past two weeks when we're in strickly nickel and dime situations Bowman or Willis isn't even on the field.

You want to try this again or just admit you weren't paying attention?

Willis has played 113 of 137 defensive snaps
Bowman has played 124 of 137 defensive snaps

We force teams away from facing our base D and make them 1-dimensional.

Seattle

Originally posted by jreff22:
Seattle

we're top 5 i think

Originally posted by NinerG94:

Originally posted by johnnyredneat:
Totally agree with this. I'm kind've shocked to see a niner fan calling Bowman a luxury. IMHO that's crazy talk.

We do things schematically that no one else in the league can mimic. That ability is due to special talents in our front six (our base defense so far has actually been a 3-3-5. Sopoaga has just 15 snaps in two games). It's not due to our defensive backs and definitely not due to Goldson. We heap about 3x the responsibility on our front six than we do our back five.

Goldson is a fine player, in his prime, who to his great credit came into camp in tip-top shape after a long holdout. But in our scheme he is way more replaceable than anyone in the front six. To me it's clear as day.

Bowman has the look of a perennial all-pro. If things break right for him, perhaps more than that. He's that good. Losing him as he hits his prime would be madness.

Our front seven gets all the credit for this defense and its a load of bs. They are the best in football yes, but in gameplans such as the ones you saw the past two weeks when we're in strickly nickel and dime situations Bowman or Willis isn't even on the field. We're rushing 3 or 4 guys at the most. There was minimal pressure on both Rodgers, and Stafford yet nobody was gettin open. Why? Because our DB's are studs. That gameplan doesn't work without top notch safeties. I'm sorry it just doesn't. Its not like Bowman is a pass rusher anyway. He's not responsible for that pass rush that everyone says is what makes our secondary look so good. He's an inside backer. When you have Willis on the field it is a luxury having Bowman. I'll take the elite FS. YOU can have the the elite LB. Watch the the deep TD's start mounting up on blown coverage.

Your post completely ignored run D.

Replace Bowman with a league average LB and play our games with the same gameplan (i.e. playing almost exclusively 3-3-5 or 3-2-6, rush three or four, two deep safeties) and teams would run it down our throats. This is the dilemma every other team faces. Only we can have our cake and eat it too.

The niners D is so hard to plan against because we don't have to do anything exotic to be successful We barely ever blitz. We barely ever zone blitz. We barely even run stunts or twists anymore. Just straight up, dominate-your-man football. Nothing cheap, as Staley would say. So there's little to exploit.

I'm not knocking #38. He's a very good player and fits us well. But is he more invaluable to us, with our scheme, than Bowman? No chance.

P.S. There was way more than "minimal" pressure on both Rodgers and Stafford, even rushing three. Watch the games again.

Originally posted by ChazBoner:

Originally posted by WookieOftheYear:
I dont like Goldson for some reason, I just think once he gets paid his play is gonna fall off big time

you could say he should be doing that this year since he has no safety net contract, why would he put his body on the line? But he is. He's out there smackin heads with no regard for his health.

Um if he doesn't smack heads this year he turns into Aubrayo Franklin. He HAS to play big this year. I also think when he gets paid he might take a step back. But he did impress me by coming to camp on time and signing his tender. I thought for sure he was going to take the lazy route just like Franklin did.

We have one of the top ones, there are better safeties in the league individually but our group is definitely one of the top combos.

Originally posted by OKC49erFan:
Yes, coverage of the secondary and LBs.
Goldson's strong suit hasn't really been his strongest suit. He really excels at hard hitting and support.
Those plays he made running up 15 yards to make the tackle on the runner were fantastic. The question still remains:
Who brings more to the defense as the 49ers scheme it?
Safety or ILB? Tough call.

Also, we talk about Willis being a futor HOFer. Bowman complements Willis about as well as is possible. Where one lacks, the other is strong.
Bowman being nearly identical to Willis, a LBer considered a future HOFer... does that not say a lot about Bowman?
Of course, the question of whether we can afford Bowman could make the decision to keep Goldson easier. Don't know what Bowman will be asking when his contract is up.

You can't say Goldson has had nothing to do with the 2 victories. Hard to tell from tv angles but I am sure he did plenty of covering these 2 games. Either way though I just think we won't know how much Goldson means until we try to replace him. It's not easy replacing one of the better FS in the league. Also, not every safety will go stick his head in and make tackles either. He adds a lot of intimidation with this defense and it's hard hitting. I would at least tag Goldson and get 1 more year out of him if we can't resign him. We can work some money around by restructuring/cutting guys/extending guys. Also, if we can always tag bowman twice to keep him for 3 seasons after this. He is signed for this year and next. Then we could tag him twice. I'd prefer to hang onto both but it would be tough. If tagging them is what we have to do I do it.

his open field tackles are perfect and he has that great speed and awareness to change from pass coverage to darting to the LOS to help with run support

Originally posted by oldman9er:

Originally posted by NinerG94:
the past two weeks when we're in strickly nickel and dime situations Bowman or Willis isn't even on the field.

You want to try this again or just admit you weren't paying attention?

Willis has played 113 of 137 defensive snaps
Bowman has played 124 of 137 defensive snaps

We force teams away from facing our base D and make them 1-dimensional.

AND, the safeties were playing 2-Deep. They can do that when the DL and LBs are doing so well in containment and coverage in the middle.

Whitner will be 28 and Goldson just turned 28. Figure the good lifespan for a Safety is around 32...after that the injury bug starts to creep up. Even if we can retain both high quality players should be drafted behind them. Looking at the depth now:

Trent Robinson-2012: Signed a four-year, $2,210,500 contract. The deal included a $110,500 signing bonus. 2012: $390,000, 2013: $480,000, 2014: $570,000, 2015: $660,000, 2016: Free Agent
Darcel McBath-2012: Signed a one-year contract.
CJ Spillman- 2012: $750,000, 2013-2014: $1.225 million, 2015: Free Agent

All these guys are just ST players who I doubt could be trusted with the keys to the car. McBath can, will, and should be dumped at the end of the year so we have 1 spot open when the season ends.


Eric Reid
TJ McDonald
Kenny Vaccaro
Robert Lester
Shawn Williams
......take your pick

Originally posted by Gore_21:

Originally posted by OKC49erFan:
Yes, coverage of the secondary and LBs.
Goldson's strong suit hasn't really been his strongest suit. He really excels at hard hitting and support.
Those plays he made running up 15 yards to make the tackle on the runner were fantastic. The question still remains:
Who brings more to the defense as the 49ers scheme it?
Safety or ILB? Tough call.

Also, we talk about Willis being a futor HOFer. Bowman complements Willis about as well as is possible. Where one lacks, the other is strong.
Bowman being nearly identical to Willis, a LBer considered a future HOFer... does that not say a lot about Bowman?
Of course, the question of whether we can afford Bowman could make the decision to keep Goldson easier. Don't know what Bowman will be asking when his contract is up.

You can't say Goldson has had nothing to do with the 2 victories. Hard to tell from tv angles but I am sure he did plenty of covering these 2 games. Either way though I just think we won't know how much Goldson means until we try to replace him. It's not easy replacing one of the better FS in the league. Also, not every safety will go stick his head in and make tackles either. He adds a lot of intimidation with this defense and it's hard hitting. I would at least tag Goldson and get 1 more year out of him if we can't resign him. We can work some money around by restructuring/cutting guys/extending guys. Also, if we can always tag bowman twice to keep him for 3 seasons after this. He is signed for this year and next. Then we could tag him twice. I'd prefer to hang onto both but it would be tough. If tagging them is what we have to do I do it.

When or where have I ever said that?

Originally posted by OKC49erFan:
When or where have I ever said that?

Yeah, that came out wrong... From what we seen which is hard to tell without having the all 22 angle Goldson has been pretty good in coverage the 1st two weeks. Or at least you would think with his name not getting called. I do think he is getting better in that aspect overall. I dont think we can go with even a 1st round rookie and have him come in here and do as well off the bat as Goldson is. If we don't tag him or sign him we definitely have to go 1st rounder but I'd expect them to take awhile to learn the defense and we will probably see missed assignments. It might take awhile and to me I'd rather not risk this defense on a potentially bad FS. Might really bring this defense down... all it takes is for a FS to miss an assignment and it's a TD. It happens with Goldson who is a vet, it will happen more with a rookie.

This is to everyone but I think Goldson could play out his 4-5 years still at a high level. Any more than that would be too much but he only wants 5 so he is still young enough. However, if we tag him again next year it might be too late because he would be 30 heading into that season with say a 5 year deal head of him.

Originally posted by Gore_21:
Yeah, that came out wrong... From what we seen which is hard to tell without having the all 22 angle Goldson has been pretty good in coverage the 1st two weeks. Or at least you would think with his name not getting called. I do think he is getting better in that aspect overall. I dont think we can go with even a 1st round rookie and have him come in here and do as well off the bat as Goldson is. If we don't tag him or sign him we definitely have to go 1st rounder but I'd expect them to take awhile to learn the defense and we will probably see missed assignments. It might take awhile and to me I'd rather not risk this defense on a potentially bad FS. Might really bring this defense down... all it takes is for a FS to miss an assignment and it's a TD. It happens with Goldson who is a vet, it will happen more with a rookie.

This is to everyone but I think Goldson could play out his 4-5 years still at a high level. Any more than that would be too much but he only wants 5 so he is still young enough. However, if we tag him again next year it might be too late because he would be 30 heading into that season with say a 5 year deal head of him.

We should tag him and grab a replacement just in case it doesn't work out. Goldson was responsible for ony one serious breakdown I have noticed so far, in the GB game he came up to cover Cobb vacating his spot in the zone where Brown caught the TD, other than that I think he has been solid. I like the guy and hope when it comes down to it he chooses team over an extra million.

Originally posted by NinerG94:

Originally posted by OKC49erFan:
This is the problem. It must be decided who is more valuable and worth the contract... Bowman or Goldson for example.
Tough decisions are going to have to be made. Losing some of our players is really going to suck, but we can't afford to pay everybody what they deserve.
In my opinion, it would be easier to find a safety with similar (although raw) skills as Goldson than a ILB like Bowman.

I totally disagree. Bowman is a luxury considering we have Patrick Willis Ahmad Brooks and Aldon Smith locked up. I know they are totally different positions but I'd much rather be looking for a second ILB than trying to find an elite safety. If one of your LB's gets burned you have the safety on the back end to make a play. If you get burned on the back end its play/game over. Do people not remember how long it took for Goldson to develop and how many piss poor safeties we went through before him? Last line of defense is much more important than the TED backer IMO. Bowman is better suited for MIKE backer position anyway. I know the 49ers are a bit different than the norm as far as how they use their backers but I still think it would be easier to find a veteran LB or draft a LB for that spot than it would be to try and wait on an elite safety. We'll never be picking hight enough in the draft to get one anyway.

We wouldn't even need to look for a replacement ILB we have Larry Grant who is starter material.