Why does Baalke seem get a free pass from serious criticism?

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:

Then draft replacements next year. You are WAY talking up Wright,Cox,Cully.

Cully was never a 3 down go to player. A project with talent, that was/is Cully. With a refurbished ACL.

And that's why the worry. I'm saying there's too many question marks there not to invest in a couple of corners with real measurables.

Plus forget the catastrophe scenarios. Think sunshine. Think "What would our defense look like with a real shutdown out there to keep the Jerome Kearse's and Torrie SMiths in check?"

What would it look like? I'll tell you what it would look like:

Trading up for a top flight corner was just simply too expensive, when I look at it. I think you are looking at giving up a 2nd, 3rd, 4rth this year and a 1st next year too -- to go to the mid first round position. To go to the top 10, you are looking at RGIII kinds of trades that just simply mortgages your future for multiple years. That's too steep a price. Look at what happened to Shannahan, he's no longer coaching. That's what's going to happen to both Harbaugh and Baalke - they will be out on the street in a year or two. Those number 1 picks are priceless, because they can be used to replenish your depth if you need to, if you win the big one - or if you suffer a substantial amount of permanent injuries to star players.

Originally posted by LoneWolf:
None of our corners last year were shut down corners or the year before for that matter but none of that came between us and a championship, we lost the super bowl and last years nfccg on faulty play calling on offense. And what does me talking about needing to draft replacements for positions we use alot a year before the need is dire have to do with my opinion on cox cook or wright?

Of course it was important, all through the year. Think Atlanta. Think Tennessee. Think Arizona. All those guys came back in games because they started working soft underneath routes and crepy crawled their way back in games they never should have been in.

Do you think a blue chip CB might have made a difference on a couple of those drives? Ya.

And, this was on a backfield with three starters we don't have anymore.

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:

Originally posted by LoneWolf:

None of our corners last year were shut down corners or the year before for that matter but none of that came between us and a championship, we lost the super bowl and last years nfccg on faulty play calling on offense. And what does me talking about needing to draft replacements for positions we use alot a year before the need is dire have to do with my opinion on cox cook or wright?

We could have used those picks to replace cox cook wright, is what I am saying. For this year. Jean Baptiste was right there. We could have drafted robey first round, then traded up for Ward in early second round. And still gotten all our no names if we wanted. I think that would have been more prudent than chasing a tailback we don't need immediately this year.

Mostly true and i partially agree, but plug and play rbs dont grow on trees, hell there becoming more and more rare every season, I would feel alot more confident in our offense next season if we had a rb taking over for gore with a season under his belt and knowing what he can do as compared to letting a rookie (which can always be a question mark regardless of media coverage or praise from college) take over our running game.

If your going to try to make a point against our secondary at least use games we lost. Because when you come with the what ifs about our games and they are games we won they dont make alot of sense cuz there is no reason to complain about games we won. Hell the cornerback play from a corner still on this team is why we beat Atl.

Originally posted by LoneWolf:
Mostly true and i partially agree, but plug and play rbs dont grow on trees, hell there becoming more and more rare every season, I would feel alot more confident in our offense next season if we had a rb taking over for gore with a season under his belt and knowing what he can do as compared to letting a rookie (which can always be a question mark regardless of media coverage or praise from college) take over our running game.

Eddie Lacy made an impact right away. A lot of quality backs make an impact right away because it's such a pure skill position. You don't train how to juke a defender or where to find the crevice for first down. That's instinct. We didn't need that player this year. It's a nice to have.

Originally posted by LoneWolf:
If your going to try to make a point against our secondary at least use games we lost. Because when you come with the what ifs about our games and they are games we won they dont make alot of sense cuz there is no reason to complain about games we won. Hell the cornerback play from a corner still on this team is why we beat Atl.

No, totally disagree. Everything is right because we won? No sorry I lost that perspective many many years ago.

And, Brock made a good play, but it was the aggressive playcalling blitz from Reid that really saved the day. The prior two drives from Atlanta showed awhat a good qb can do to our backfield when there is no pressure.

No its just hard for me to comprehend complaints about wins not being good enough. But better cb play would have been useful against the saints and indy.

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:

We could have used those picks to replace cox cook wright, is what I am saying. For this year. Jean Baptiste was right there. We could have drafted robey first round, then traded up for Ward in early second round. And still gotten all our no names if we wanted. I think that would have been more prudent than chasing a tailback we don't need immediately this year.

Jean Babtiste, as the scouting reports say, is comparable to Browner -- here's the problem, Baalke didn't think so. For some reason he thought there was better value down in the lower rounds. He's had some pretty good success with cornerbacks, so I'm not going to second guess the guy. I'm thinking that perhaps our defensive system won't fit Jean the way Donte Johnson would. I'm thinking in the Fangio/LeBeu defenses, it's the safties that are the muscle and enforcers/run-supporters in the secondary. The Fangio/LeBeu cornerbacks are the guys that stay back and cover. Whereas in the Seattle Single high safety defense, it's the cornerbacks that blitz/run support while the safties stay back and ball hawk and cover. That's why Baalke is taking safties (like Reid and Ward) so high in the draft because they have to have multi-dimensional talent in the Fangio defense, whereas the cornerbacks Baalke drafts can get buy with sub-par talent because all they need is one dimensional speed and good coverage ability here. So for whatever reason, Baalke didn't agree with your draft evaluation. Not much you can do about it but let it out here on the boards I guess.

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:

However good our coaching staff is, they will produce better outputs if they get better inputs. How simple is that?

Plus, think big. Don't settle for starting material. Think shut down corner. What would we do with one of those?

(See prior post).

Not necessarily, different defensive systems (see my prior post to you).

Yes, I would like a shut down corner, but Deion, Lott, and Woodson - I think - were all top ten picks or even higher. Looks like nobody was giving us that this year, unless we gave up multiple high round draft choices in multiple years. The only thing keeping us afloat, considering we've drafted almost dead last the last couple of years -- is the Talent of Baalke in trading those high round picks for good lower round multiple draft choices. The only way we are going to get another Aldon (ie a top ten pick) is either to lose a lot of games (which is an unacceptable route) or just get lucky and trade with a team that is going to lose a lot of games - a very unlikely scenario. You take those high round draft choices away from Baalke and you basically neuter his ability to make the draft our advantage, instead of disadvantage.

What I like is that Trent draft mix for need and future, yes we don't need a RB that early but at Franks age he's going to need help and putting The future on Lattimore is crazy so IMO drafting Hyde at 2nd is good. Drafted players that can develop and start in 2 years, a lot people say the 49ers "window is closing" guess what? Same people that said its closing are now saying its now wide open and it'll remain wide open for more years to come.

Originally posted by 49ersOnMINE:
What I like is that Trent draft mix for need and future, yes we don't need a RB that early but at Franks age he's going to need help and putting The future on Lattimore is crazy so IMO drafting Hyde at 2nd is good. Drafted players that can develop and start in 2 years, a lot people say the 49ers "window is closing" guess what? Same people that said its closing are now saying its now wide open and it'll remain wide open for more years to come.

The way I look at it, better to get Hyde now and be prepared in case Gore hits the wall, because when RB's finally "hit the wall", it happens quick and it isn't pretty. I was fairly confident about the 49ers RB situation prior to the draft but was interested in some bigger backs such as West. Now I'm fully confident in their situation. Hyde, Lattimore, Gore, Hunter, that is a lot of depth at that spot.

Still dont see how anyone can complain about this draft... we got:

-the top ballhawk
-the top RB
-The top C who can also be a guard
- more picks for next year
-a replica of Cooper who so many b*tched about losing last year
-not to mention redshirting a 4.3 CB, a guard many think projects as a starter, the top FB
- and landed a probowl receiver.

You know times have been good in Ninerland when people still wanna complain after a weekend like that

Originally posted by 5280High:
Still dont see how anyone can complain about this draft... we got:

-the top ballhawk
-the top RB
-The top C who can also be a guard
- more picks for next year
-a replica of Cooper who so many b*tched about losing last year
-not to mention redshirting a 4.3 CB, a guard many think projects as a starter, the top FB
- and landed a probowl receiver.

You know times have been good in Ninerland when people still wanna complain after a weekend like that

And with his masterful manipulation of the draft board, he basically got us Stevie Johnson for nothing. I think Baalke has done a decent job with the draft but when you add in how well he works free agency, I just can't complain much.

Atlanta and Baltimore torched us because our pass rush fell off a cliff with the injuries to the Smiths. That exposed the poor coverage abilities of our safeties. No cornerback can cover for 7+ seconds with Ryan or an on-fire Flacco behind center. You know what we have upgraded since then? Our backup pass rushers and our safeties.

Plus there has been some play calling issues, but saying upgraded corners would have brought us super bowls is just revisionist history.

Anyway, The FO decided that drafting multiple late CBs is a better strategy than taking one in a higher round. You act like first or second day picks are sure things and third day picks are garbage, but really its all a statistics game.

Show me a defensive backfield that can make up for zero pass rush. Even Seattles DBs would struggle if there was no pass rush.

People put to much emphasis on individual play and not enough as a unit.

To say a CB was saved because of a blitz is retarded. What if there was no blitz? Maybe the CB would have played different knowing he had help or something else.