2014: Thoughts on the upcoming season...

I like the fact that when all of the whining and hand wringing was done we were one "short" pass away from the super bowl. So that brings us back to Kaep and Roman. So I would agree Marvin that Kaeps touch passes are still the problem for him, and thus for us. I think it would be great if Kaep would go to an offseason program where he could get schooled in touch passes, corner passes, and get his mechanics and aim better. So lots of work for him. I think our oline needs attention and hopefully Kilgore will be a bright spot at Center. We need help at guard as well especially in pass protection.

I personally would like to see Harbaugh fire Roman, not because Roman is a bad OC but because he gets us close and then can not get over the hump. I do not think Harbaugh will fire Roman but I would do it if I were the coach. I think we need to be more aggressive offensively and I think we need a broader, brighter Offensive scheme which would include screens. I think Roman throws a few token plays in to mollify the fans and then reverts back to conservatism.

I think this draft will be most important for next year. We need a lot of players, and quality players as well. CB, WR, Oline, and safety. I think that as good as Whitner played he is still a liability at pass receiving. Another Reid would be most helpful. I also want to see significant improvement in turnovers. We are simply not very good at catching the football on defense. So Rogers must go - slow, minimal coverage, and few to no interceptions. I hope Daryl Morris becomes our slot CB and between him, Brock, and Culliver we have the nucleus of a good back field. We need at least two CBs, a Safety, and we need continued pass rush. I also agree with you Marvin that RB is a need in the draft. I don't think Gore is able to pull the load himself anymore. But the OLine will be most important for any RB we select.

With all of that said, I think we are still one of the top 2-4 teams in the NFL.

It's us versus Gotohell and his referee goons.

I share in your optimism Marvin. But man, we play in the BEST division in football, and it's really not even close. St. Louis was technically the worst team in our division and it has a ton of draft picks and an emerging young nucleus. If Bradshaw does anything, they will be a very good team. Arizona won 10 games and its defense is legit.

I predict the NFC West sends three teams to the playoffs next year. And the fourth team may very well be a better all-around team than any of the other division winners. It's going to be an awesome few years - EVERY GAME is going to be huge.

Great insight as usual, Marvin.

With the draft coming up, do you have any thoughts on the 49er's FO, specifically in regards to talent evaluation?

I can't dispute that in the past eight years (noting some FO turnover) they have been great at bringing in talent, but I can't help but wonder about some of their evaluations. No team is going to be perfect, but it sure seems like some of their competitors get a helluva lot right where the 49ers don't. In some instances it is a matter of draft positioning, but in others the 49ers have totally whiffed on bad players while passing on good players who get snatched up and turn out to be great for other teams. Yes, this happens all the time, but I think it shows that, as with any other aspect of an organization, the 49ers need to evaluate their player evaluation skills. I see the 49ers have serviceable players in the secondary, but when I see Seattle's secondary dominating opponents with two 5th round picks, its like what the hell are our (the 49ers) scouts seeing out there. They've done enough to merit the benefit of the doubt, but more draft years like 2012 and the 49ers will be heading back to mediocrity. I would like to see the 49ers FO be improved at the ability to identify the tangible and intangible skills of players who fall through the cracks to the later rounds, but end up meriting a higher draft position. Yeah, some folks will say well no s*** Sherlock we'd all like for the FO to be perfect at drafting, but it pisses me off to see our closest rival walking away with the Lombardi trophy when we failed after being so close three years in a row. So close, it seems like just a matter of talent in some areas of the team. We are extremely talented, and most teams would love to be in the 49er's position, but that doesn't mean the 49ers FO can't be better at bringing more in.

KC visiting SF. Alex Smith vs Kap. Watch this forum implode.

Originally posted by 49er-from-Yavin-IV:
Great insight as usual, Marvin.

With the draft coming up, do you have any thoughts on the 49er's FO, specifically in regards to talent evaluation?

I can't dispute that in the past eight years (noting some FO turnover) they have been great at bringing in talent, but I can't help but wonder about some of their evaluations. No team is going to be perfect, but it sure seems like some of their competitors get a helluva lot right where the 49ers don't. In some instances it is a matter of draft positioning, but in others the 49ers have totally whiffed on bad players while passing on good players who get snatched up and turn out to be great for other teams. Yes, this happens all the time, but I think it shows that, as with any other aspect of an organization, the 49ers need to evaluate their player evaluation skills. I see the 49ers have serviceable players in the secondary, but when I see Seattle's secondary dominating opponents with two 5th round picks, its like what the hell are our (the 49ers) scouts seeing out there. They've done enough to merit the benefit of the doubt, but more draft years like 2012 and the 49ers will be heading back to mediocrity. I would like to see the 49ers FO be improved at the ability to identify the tangible and intangible skills of players who fall through the cracks to the later rounds, but end up meriting a higher draft position. Yeah, some folks will say well no s*** Sherlock we'd all like for the FO to be perfect at drafting, but it pisses me off to see our closest rival walking away with the Lombardi trophy when we failed after being so close three years in a row. So close, it seems like just a matter of talent in some areas of the team. We are extremely talented, and most teams would love to be in the 49er's position, but that doesn't mean the 49ers FO can't be better at bringing more in.

The 49ers talent evaluators are just fine. I have no problems with them. Moreover they know how to work the draft to move around, obtain more picks, and just give themself more maneuverability than any other team. Walsh and Belichick did the same thing.

You are looking at one case in particular with Chancellor and Sherman...but that is really the exception, not the rule. Seattle didn't expect those guys to be that good. Sure they thought they had potential, but if they thought they were going to be that good there is no way in hell they'd have waited till the 5th round to select them.

Seattle has done very, very well for themselves in the later rounds of the draft. They are far from perfect though. They don't hit on all of those pics. They got a bunch of them and picked a number of players. When you take a bunch of guys your chances of getting lucky and hitting on a couple goes way up.

Sound familiar? The 49ers had 11 picks last year and hold 12 selections THIS year.

I'm sorry, but I am not going to doubt the personnel department that drafted Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati, Navorro Bowman, Aldon Smith, Colin Kaepernick, Bruce Miller, and Eric Reid...and those are just the starters. Culliver and Kilgore may very well become starters this year. If they do, that would be NINE players selected in the last 4 years that are starting...and we could even add Vance McDonald to the list. Thats almost half the starters on the team.

Baalke and co. are just fine thank you.

Thanks Marvin for bringing the entire zone back to reality. My concerns for next year is our running game, offensive line, and defensive backfield.
Gore isn't getting younger and Lattimore is unproven. I think the worst case scenario is both Gore and Lattimore are ineffective runners, forcing Hunter to be our feature back, thus keeping running game afloat while our passing game takes the lead on offense. With the assumption that we have Boldin back, everyone stays healthy, and Kap continues to improve I think we will win games but with all the tough teams in the NFC one has to wonder how much of a post season run we could make.

Also, I wonder how this possibility is going to effect our offseason preparations. This could be the first year in a very long time that our running game takes a back seat to our passing game. If we want to compete, our passing game potentially may have to be on point every game. Can we become a great passing offense or if our running game disappears are we dead in the water?

Lets not forget about the offensive line. Goodwin is probably not going to be our center next year. Iupati is coming off a broken leg. Is it safe to bank on an offensive line that has a potential 2/5 turnover?

The defensive backfield is a huge question mark. Brown, Rogers and Whitner may not be back. Who knows how Culliver is going to come back after his ACL injury. That leaves us T. Brock and Daryl Morris as our only other CB's under contract for next year. Who knows....maybe Rogers will restructure but thats pretty unlikely since he almost got cut last offseason. In a perfect world we would sign Brown AND Whitner, but i think its more realistic that we only sign one. If we do get one of them, I'd put my money on Whitner. Having an effective Culliver would be huge, but I hate putting all my chips on a relative unknown. Either way, whichever rookie CB we bring in will more than likely be expected to make a push for the nickel job.

Originally posted by Marvin49:

The 49ers talent evaluators are just fine. I have no problems with them. Moreover they know how to work the draft to move around, obtain more picks, and just give themself more maneuverability than any other team. Walsh and Belichick did the same thing.

You are looking at one case in particular with Chancellor and Sherman...but that is really the exception, not the rule. Seattle didn't expect those guys to be that good. Sure they thought they had potential, but if they thought they were going to be that good there is no way in hell they'd have waited till the 5th round to select them.

Seattle has done very, very well for themselves in the later rounds of the draft. They are far from perfect though. They don't hit on all of those pics. They got a bunch of them and picked a number of players. When you take a bunch of guys your chances of getting lucky and hitting on a couple goes way up.

Sound familiar? The 49ers had 11 picks last year and hold 12 selections THIS year.

I'm sorry, but I am not going to doubt the personnel department that drafted Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati, Navorro Bowman, Aldon Smith, Colin Kaepernick, Bruce Miller, and Eric Reid...and those are just the starters. Culliver and Kilgore may very well become starters this year. If they do, that would be NINE players slected in the lsast 4 years that are starting...and we could even add Vance McDonald to the list.

Thank you for the response, and for sharing your insight on the FO of the 49ers, Marvin. Your points are well taken. I acknowledge the FO has done very well to put together the team the 49ers have. Their record speaks for itself. All I was suggesting is that they may have some blind spots (see 2012 draft). As you noted no group is perfect. I liked that they have zeroed in on players they wanted and made trades to get them when they had to. That indicates a quality I can embrace and may not have given them credit for in my previous post. Certainly when those players turn out to be as good as they have been. Furthermore, over the last three post-seasons, it has not been the FO that made any of the mistakes which prevented the 49ers from walking away with any one of the last three Lombardi trophies. I just think it's crucial now more than ever that, as they have to make difficult roster decisions, they make the best use of their bounty of draft picks to get cheap and suitable replacements in order to keep us in the hunt for more Lombardi trophies.

Originally posted by Hopper:

Originally posted by 24plus25er:
I have a creeping feeling that Sherman will hold out this off season, and IMO he is a fool if he does not. He's playing for pennies given his production and this teams success. He got injured at the end of a blow out in the Super Bowl, his agent has to be grinding him about this already. If Revis is making 13 mill, Sherman can easily ask for 15. Wilson is a fool if he accepts anything less than 15 mill, Thomas should get about 10 mill if not more, and then guys like Baldwin and Tate could easily go from under a mill to 3-5 a season. Not to mention Mike Bennett who should take no less than 10 mill as a nasty pass rusher. Harvin escelates to a 13 mill cap hit this season. Their kicker was only 600k when he could easily ask for 2-3 mill. In the end I see them being like the Packers, Saints, go their ring and will drop down to a contender but not cream of the crop due to cap issues.

You didn't even mention Earl Thomas. That kid is a stud like Ed Reed in his prime.

Paying Thomas, Sherman, Wilson, Harvin and Okung big bucks will definitely cost them some of their excellent depth.

He's in there, read closer.

Originally posted by 49er-from-Yavin-IV:

Originally posted by Marvin49:
The 49ers talent evaluators are just fine. I have no problems with them. Moreover they know how to work the draft to move around, obtain more picks, and just give themself more maneuverability than any other team. Walsh and Belichick did the same thing.

You are looking at one case in particular with Chancellor and Sherman...but that is really the exception, not the rule. Seattle didn't expect those guys to be that good. Sure they thought they had potential, but if they thought they were going to be that good there is no way in hell they'd have waited till the 5th round to select them.

Seattle has done very, very well for themselves in the later rounds of the draft. They are far from perfect though. They don't hit on all of those pics. They got a bunch of them and picked a number of players. When you take a bunch of guys your chances of getting lucky and hitting on a couple goes way up.

Sound familiar? The 49ers had 11 picks last year and hold 12 selections THIS year.

I'm sorry, but I am not going to doubt the personnel department that drafted Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati, Navorro Bowman, Aldon Smith, Colin Kaepernick, Bruce Miller, and Eric Reid...and those are just the starters. Culliver and Kilgore may very well become starters this year. If they do, that would be NINE players slected in the lsast 4 years that are starting...and we could even add Vance McDonald to the list.

Thank you for the response, and for sharing your insight on the FO of the 49ers, Marvin. Your points are well taken. I acknowledge the FO has done very well to put together the team the 49ers have. Their record speaks for itself. All I was suggesting is that they may have some blind spots (see 2012 draft). As you noted no group is perfect. I liked that they have zeroed in on players they wanted and made trades to get them when they had to. That indicates a quality I can embrace and may not have given them credit for in my previous post. Certainly when those players turn out to be as good as they have been. Furthermore, over the last three post-seasons, it has not been the FO that made any of the mistakes which prevented the 49ers from walking away with any one of the last three Lombardi trophies. I just think it's crucial now more than ever that, as they have to make difficult roster decisions, they make the best use of their bounty of draft picks to get cheap and suitable replacements in order to keep us in the hunt for more Lombardi trophies.

I remember reading awhile back (I wish I could remember where) that the 49ers view every pick as a crap-shoot. They are all 50-50...so they get as many picks as they can to maximize their odds.

Sometimes, you are going to have down years. In 2012 in particular people only ever think of AJ Jenkins and LMJ. They forget how many times they traded out of the draft in order to at one point have 13 picks in the 2013 draft. The early returns on 2013 look pretty good but we'll see as time goes on. Hell, they al;ready have 12 picks this year and 8 picks next year (extra 7th). Don't be surprised if they trade down again this year or even trade some of those picks strait up for 2015 picks. They will get as many picks as they can in future years in order to always have flexibility.

As for blind spots...I think the only one that concerens me a bit is WR. They have only one real swing and miss though as all the rest were late round picks. Patton may be a find though.

Who would have thought that Eric Reid was going to be a probowl Safety? So if we hit on another safety, a CB, a WR, and a Center we would all be wowed. But that is the draft. If we hit on enough players we look like geniuses, and if not we look like bums. But Baalke has hit some real homeruns in his tenure as GM. Now we get to see if he has another home run or two in this draft. If Kilgore works out at Center and Looney works out as a guard we would have a better past draft. If Patton works out as a WR we will have disproven the myth that Baalke can not draft WRs. So we get prepared for this draft and see how we do.

Marvin, another great post. I would hope that Kaepernick will continue to grow and this coaching staff grow as well, especially the passing game. Harb/Roman really needs to come up with something this off season to improve the passing game to help out the run game.

For me, I'm ok with letting Rogers, Whitner, Goodwin go and build through the draft. Re-work Gore's contract and cut his carries to see if we can see if someone else can emerge as the new guy, moving forward. I'm hoping we can resign Boldin as well and extend our young nucleus before they become more expensive than what they already are.

I'm really excited especially the draft. If we can come away with a WR, CB, S, and OL from 1st-3rd round. I hope the WR they draft is a polish player/more NFL ready. Would not mind if we moved up a few spot and got a starting CB or S if the option is there. If we can land a starting CB, S, I would be very happy. Whether someone steps up or we draft a C, I hope he's a badass. Remember when we use to have one?

As a Free Agent wishlist... would anyone love to see the 49ers bring in Hester on a 1-yr deal as a return specialist and cut LMJ?

About the upcoming draft.

Many have said, and I agree, that this team is built with the Oline and Dline (front 7) as its foundation. The RBs and DBs are the beneficiaries of this. Meaning the RBs and DBs should be plug and play while the team continues to keep the Oline and Dline strong. If anyone subscribes to this thinking like I do, then I question the use of high draft picks on need positions such as WR and SS. Not because I don't think there is a definite need to fill them in order to continue success into the 14-15 season, but because once it is time to extend these guys (Reid, soon to be rookie CB/SS/WR with a high pick) the cap allotment may shift from Oline/Dline to WRs/CBs/DBs, which doesn't jive with how the team philosophy.

There is a lot of cap being spent on Oline and defensive front 7 right now. I am very fine with this. I fear that spending high picks on the 'ancillary' parts will cause a shift in cap allotment that will see the Oline/Dline suffer as WRs and DBs are extended. I may be thinking 3 years into the future, which may be out of the scope of this thread. Just wanted to see what others thought.

Originally posted by threelittlebirds:
As a Free Agent wishlist... would anyone love to see the 49ers bring in Hester on a 1-yr deal as a return specialist and cut LMJ?

I love that idea.