2015 Preseason Game 1: Thoughts on the first preseason game... | Page 9

Marvin49 · 2015-08-17T13:15:28-07:00

1) Kap: Not much to say. Abbreviated performance. Nice little pass to Boldin, missed Torrey deep, threw third pass away with nobody open. On the QBs in general, it was nice to see Gabbert be competent....and we need another #3 QB. Thomspon was awful. 2) Torrey Smith: THIS JUST IN - He's Fast. Man it was really nice if even for one play to see a guy with Jets like that running through the other teams secondary. Still a work in progress to get their timing right...but that was REALLY nice to see. 3) Hyde: Only 2 carries, but I liked what I saw in Hyde. I was there for the SBL Holder event and he was the best player on the field. Spinning, hitting the hole quickly, cutting back on those new stretch run plays. If he stays healthy I think he could be in for a big year. 4) Hayne: OK peeps...lets slow down a bit. :) He looked good, but he had a HUGE hole to run through on that 53 yarder. He still runs WAY too upright. He did look good in the open field though and I liked the way he fielded the kicks and made defenders miss. I think he has a future as a kick returner, but he's still got a LONG way to go as a RB. 5) Mike Davis: Limited opportunities, but his similarities to Garrison Hearst don't end at his jersey number. GREAT body lean and quickness for a man his size. Looking forward to seeing more of him. 6) Jaquiski Tartt: Really liked what I saw. Still a young, raw player but he really flashed a few times. So did McCray for that matter. Safety is a position of strength and I think Dahls time may be done in SF. 7) Arik Armstead and rest of D-Line: Pretty much echo everything Tomsula said. Some real good (pancake of an O-Lineman), some good (recognized the screen but held the guy), and some bad (got pushed clear out of the play at times). I was reading some tweets of people talking to John Middlekoff and they were talking about how disappointed they were on how slow he looked and how he didn't get a big rush. Um...he's a 3-4 end. I think some people are looking for Derrick Thomas when they should be looking for Ray McDonald. He's a work in progress, but we always knew that. He'll never be a 15 sack guy but we already knew that. As for the rest of the line, Purcell really stood out but almost all of them played very well. Tank was a bit invisible, but Lawrence Okoye looks like an NFL player. That's a HUGE step up from the last few years. Tons of depth here. D-Line might be best unit on the team. 8) 400 yards: The D gave up 400 yards...but lets be real here for a sec. Manginis defense will be far different than Fangios. I'm not saying better...only saying different. They will NEVER play CLOSE to as vanilla as they did Saturday Night. No scheming, very few blitzes. THAT. WILL. CHANGE. Whether that's for the better or worse...we'll just have to see. 9) O-Line: Really hard to make any judgment, although the first string line held up better than expected. Then again, Watt and Wilfork didn't play. Still, Kap had all day on the deep pass to Torrey. The line seemed to move really well on those stretch runs. The line struggled late and Thomson didn't do them any favors, but I was pleasantly surprised by the "starting" line. 10) One game down: After watching one game, I'm intrigued by a few guys, but more than any season I can remember I still have really no idea what to expect this year. It does make the preseason more enjoyable than normal though. :)

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:30 PM

#121

9ers4eva
Veteran
Posts: 22,769

It's a big blow because it takes away the player with the highest upside on the defense. Sure he could've played like 2014. But not having a guy teams have to account for does make a difference. We shall see if Brooks and Lynch can make up the slack. Hope they do.

[ Edited by 9ers4eva on Aug 18, 2015 at 3:32 PM ]

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:37 PM

#122

monsterzero789
Veteran
Posts: 24,304

Originally posted by 9ers4eva:
It's a big blow because it takes away the player with the highest upside on the defense. Sure he could've played like 2014. But not having a guy teams have to account for does make a difference. We shall see if Brooks and Lynch can make up the slack. Hope they do.

aldon has 3 more career sacks than brooks in 4 less seasons. Slack isnt gonna get picked up

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:40 PM

#123

JohnMatrix
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Posts: 844

Aldon had 2 sacks in 7 games last year, thats not a ton of slack that needs to be picked up.

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:51 PM

#124

thl408
Moderator
Posts: 33,312

Originally posted by 9ers4eva:
It's a big blow because it takes away the player with the highest upside on the defense. Sure he could've played like 2014. But not having a guy teams have to account for does make a difference. We shall see if Brooks and Lynch can make up the slack. Hope they do.

Agreed. I can't buy the reasoning that, "Aldon won't be missed very much because the defense did fine without him playing well". By that logic, if Bowman shreds his knee tomorrow, then I can apply that same logic, "Defense won't miss a beat because we were fine without him in 2014". To me, it doesn't work that way. The only thing making me cope with the loss of Aldon is telling myself that had he not eff'ed up 2 weeks ago, he probably would have eff'ed up during the Bye week, or after he signs a fat contract - sooner or later it would have happened. Props to those that are able to shake off the loss of Aldon.

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:55 PM

#125

thl408
Moderator
Posts: 33,312

Originally posted by JohnMatrix:
Aldon had 2 sacks in 7 games last year, thats not a ton of slack that needs to be picked up.

It's not about the sacks. Aldon doesn't get anything on the stat sheet here, but is highly instrumental to the outcome of the play.

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:57 PM

#126

Niners816
Veteran
Posts: 9,990

Originally posted by thl408:
Agreed. I can't buy the reasoning that, "Aldon won't be missed very much because the defense did fine without him playing well". By that logic, if Bowman shreds his knee tomorrow, then I can apply that same logic, "Defense won't miss a beat because we were fine without him in 2014". To me, it doesn't work that way. The only thing making me cope with the loss of Aldon is telling myself that had he not eff'ed up 2 weeks ago, he probably would have eff'ed up during the Bye week, or after he signs a fat contract - sooner or later it would have happened. Props to those that are able to shake off the loss of Aldon.

This pretty much nails it. You know I always wanted Lawrence Taylor on the Niners, but facts are he would have played about 2 seasons in the current climate of the NFL. We had our LT and he busted....he totally f**ked us over because he has a sickness. It wasn't a matter of "if" it was a matter of "when". Totally sucks.

[ Edited by Niners816 on Aug 18, 2015 at 3:58 PM ]

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:57 PM

#127

thl408
Moderator
Posts: 33,312

Not a sack, but again a factor. These are just gifs I have already handy from cutups of other players.

Aug 18, 2015 at 3:58 PM

#128

BodhiPaddlesOut
Veteran
Posts: 9,850

Originally posted by thl408:
Not a sack, but again a factor. These are just gifs I have already handy from cutups of other players.

Please stop

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:03 PM

#129

thl408
Moderator
Posts: 33,312

Originally posted by BodhiPaddlesOut:
Please stop

I'm all done...and all down now. Let's go Eli! Hurry back Lynch!

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:03 PM

#130

BodhiPaddlesOut
Veteran
Posts: 9,850

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by BodhiPaddlesOut:
Please stop
I'm all done...and all down now. Let's go Eli! Hurry back Lynch!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaah!

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:05 PM

#131

Niners816
Veteran
Posts: 9,990

Originally posted by thl408:
I'm all done...and all down now. Let's go Eli! Hurry back Lynch!

That MFer coulda been a 150+ sack guy.....I hope he gets his life straight and doesn't end up killing someone driving drunk.

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:05 PM

#132

JohnMatrix
Veteran
Posts: 844

If I recall correctly he graded poorly in pass productivity last year, but I could be wrong. If that's the case then its just cherry picked highlights that are being shown. Noone is arguing Aldon isn't supremely talented, the question is how productive was he last year, where we had a top defense, and how much will we regress this year with his absence (which we dealt with for over half the season last year).

If I'm wrong about his grading, I stand corrected. Then I would be interested to see how our defense ranked in our games without him last year. If the fall off is big then I will be appropriately dismayed.

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:10 PM

#133

thl408
Moderator
Posts: 33,312

Originally posted by JohnMatrix:
If I recall correctly he graded poorly in pass productivity last year, but I could be wrong. If that's the case then its just cherry picked highlights that are being shown. Noone is arguing Aldon isn't supremely talented, the question is how productive was he last year, where we had a top defense, and how much will we regress this year with his absence (which we dealt with for over half the season last year).

If I'm wrong about his grading, I stand corrected. Then I would be interested to see how our defense ranked in our games without him last year. If the fall off is big then I will be appropriately dismayed.

Those were plays I had handy so I understand if you think it's cherry picked. I don't have PFF so I don't know his pass rushing productivity grade.

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:14 PM

#134

JohnMatrix
Veteran
Posts: 844

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by JohnMatrix:
If I recall correctly he graded poorly in pass productivity last year, but I could be wrong. If that's the case then its just cherry picked highlights that are being shown. Noone is arguing Aldon isn't supremely talented, the question is how productive was he last year, where we had a top defense, and how much will we regress this year with his absence (which we dealt with for over half the season last year).

If I'm wrong about his grading, I stand corrected. Then I would be interested to see how our defense ranked in our games without him last year. If the fall off is big then I will be appropriately dismayed.

Those were plays I had handy so I understand if you think it's cherry picked. I don't have PFF so I don't know his pass rushing productivity grade.

Cherry picked may have been too aggressive, I probably should have just said anecdotal.

Aug 18, 2015 at 4:14 PM

#135

crake49
Veteran
Posts: 13,201

Originally posted by NinerGM:
Or born in the wrong era. If this were the 80's he'd still be on the team. It's just a different age with an instantaneous 24-hour world wide media cycle.

This is a great point. I don't think some people realize that this hasn't always been a deal where everyone knows every little thing a player does. Up until 20 years ago, there was no internet, there were no cell phones, nobody was carrying around nifty little cameras in their phones, there was nothing resembling today's gossip-driven reality TV.

And football fans were just not that interested in the private lives of the players or even listening to coaches talk to the media.