State of the Team, Roster Analysis, & Needs

Originally posted by alwayssecond:

It is clear, as it was said many many times during past years that db is our main weakness. Can not believe how lynch and shanaahan did not see this, especially having Adams James and Fitzpatrick available.

I do agree with the fullback signing (not the money, though), breida was a good find and the offense should be good next year, even without garcon.

We need to use the high picks as well as the fa on db / er , and this team could easily contend. Having a high pick should help get into the playoffs next season, barring a similar injury streak.

Good post. I agree with this

Originally posted by elguapo:

Originally posted by alwayssecond:
It is clear, as it was said many many times during past years that db is our main weakness. Can not believe how lynch and shanaahan did not see this, especially having Adams James and Fitzpatrick available.

I do agree with the fullback signing (not the money, though), breida was a good find and the offense should be good next year, even without garcon.

We need to use the high picks as well as the fa on db / er , and this team could easily contend. Having a high pick should help get into the playoffs next season, barring a similar injury streak.

Good post. I agree with this

Pass rush will also hid a lot of CB issues, but the main point is that Pass Rusher and DB are our 2 big holes.

Originally posted by NCommand:

And like he said, with Garoppolo and McKinnon out, that's 10 of his 11 starters out. Welcome to the curse, Kyle.

Enough about this every team has injuries or there's some teams that have as injured of a roster as a Niners. Nope look at it. Objectively. Just the franchise quarterback alone puts as well above any other team. This is getting f**king ridiculous.

Look at teams like Green Bay when they lose Aaron Rodgers they absolutely suck. When Dallas lost Tony Romo they got the fourth pick in the draft in Elliot. I see a similar trajectory this year for the Niners. Top five pick we're going to get a great player and then be a contender as long as we draft or get a great free-agent pass rusher.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:

There is one thing that really is awful yet not mentioned. We still do not pick up blitzes well. Sometimes not at all. Why is that still happening? It is like Saleh does one thing at time before moving onto the next. I don't want to say picking up blitzes is easy. But he way we let almost all blitzers in is dismaying. And like our tackling woes, we don't appear to be any better picking up blitzers than we were last yr.

We can blame many of the things wrong with this world on Saleh, but not picking up blitzes well is not his fault.

Obvious misspeak, and thanks for correcting, Thl. Whether this be on Kyle or OL coach, probably both, it is dismaying that there seems to be a disconnect wth blitzers. How on earth could that be? It can't be that kyle doesn't see it. Heck he sees everything. But why isn't he...or OL coach doing anything to fix it. Sure, CJ isn't the world's best at handling blitzes, but surely the QB coach could teach him to throw the ball away. But why , 16 months after changing our coaching staff, 100% of it, cannot blitzes by picked up and dealt with? That falls squarely on OL coaching and HC. Ok, QB coach also. CJ has culpability here also. Still we haven't come up with blitzing answer. I don't get that...and i gather most other fans don't either.

I am once again afraid JL has a lot of work to do in offseason regarding coaching improvement. Right now i can't think of anyone coach in particular doing a decent job. Most seem to be substandard. There are a lot of good assistant coaches out there, coming up the ranks. Before we improve on talent, which we badly need, we must improve our coaching staff as well.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

STATE OF THE TEAM

The Negative: It's abundantly clear we have a lot more holes on the roster than many would've liked to admit going into the season. Of course, some voids -- such as a pass rusher -- we all knew was an issue dating back to last season. It would've been nice for us to use capital towards certain areas but understandably, the team had to evaluate its roster in year one and it wasn't going to be able to address everything after that in this recent off-season.

The Positive: One strong off-season to start 2019 could definitely put us on the path towards the playoffs, and a silver lining is that the hype and media frenzy should be far less than it was going into the year. I hated the expectations put on us because we had potential, but it was going to take some luck for us to do some real damage considering the issues we still had. Even though we are unlikely to finish with a good record still this year, we should still end up with a decently high pick to acquire a lot more talent. Plus, I think this is the year we finally use our cap space we carry over to add difference-making players. Our coaches and FO have seen with their own eyes what we lack and these guys do know football and have already picked up some talented players. That said, I personally do trust that we'll overcome the obstacles and get back on track.

Summary statement: Bottom line is that Lynch and Shanahan were given six year deals for a reason and they're not going anywhere for the next two years at least. They've taken some risks that didn't pan out, but they seem more apt to learn from those situations that our prior regime. Let's hope they do.

ROSTER ANALYSIS

Quarterback
I'm not sure if it was the pressure (boy does that word work in many ways -- media, fans, poor pass blocking from the OL), or just trying to play within the system, but I believe Jimmy is still not at his peak within the Shanahan offense. I felt like he was on the cusp, but we'll have to wait for that to come to fruition. We do have a strong backup in Beathard and we will get to see how he grows throughout this season. He's had just 10 starts to his name and can make all the throws when given the time to do so. Obviously, with barely over half a season of starts, he's going to still be falling short in some areas that often develop with more experience in the NFL. Climbing the pocket, developing that internal clock, and to an extent decision-making all improve over time with most young QBs. So do turnovers. We are good at this position for the foreseeable future.

Running Back
Breida is a star but his physical style at his frame make him a definite injury risk. It's extremely unfortunate McKinnon went down as they would've been a great tandem both healthy. With these health risks, we absolutely need to take a running back next year wherever that player might be a BPA or sign another one. I don't trust Jerrick coming back from an ACL and we need speed to threaten on the edge. Morris is fine inside, but just not the outside threat or pass receiving matchup problem as someone else could be. Honestly, I think we should go three-deep with speed/explosiveness at running back and let Juice be the heavy guy from time to time. I like Jeff Wilson a lot on the practice squad and hope he can show in practices that he deserves to get a shot on the active roster. We'll see what happens this week and beyond.

Receiver
This unit is currently in shambles. Garcon's sticky hands, speed, and durability are all falling off dramatically. Frankly, he doesn't deserve a roster spot next year. Pettis is promising, Taylor is good for using in short, tight spots to move the chains, and Goodwin is our best receiver that makes teams respect us deep. Bourne is solid for a young player but still has a lot of room to improve and has focus drops. Overall, we have no one talented enough to scare teams or anyone with height to challenge teams in the redzone. We need multiple new playmakers and I wouldn't be surprised to see a player or two in this group traded -- Garcon and Taylor seem like prime trade bait for any team willing to bite.

Tight End
Kittle is borderline elite player early on and clearly our most dangerous weapon in the passing game. Get us another tight end who can block and catch like him and teams won't be able to stop us on the seams. Celek is maddeningly inconsistent and has had injury issues in the past. Wick is all blocking, no hands.

O-Line
Staley is still a great player, but not getting any younger. McGlinchey will be considered elite if he continues to build on what has been so far a fantastic season. The interior of our line is still a major issue in the passing game. Person, Richburg, and Tomlinson all excel at run blocking, but are conversely, not as good pass blocking, and the first two guys have struggled with injuries.

D-Line
We need an edge rusher. Two actually. Plain and simple. The interior is stacked with talent between Buckner, Thomas, Day, and Jones, but these guys aren't edge threats and we shouldn't expect them to be. I expect Armstead's large salary to be dumped in the off-season as we let Taylor, Street, and Thomas man the big-end spot and nickel DT positions next season.

Linebackers
Overall, we have a strong unit. Foster and Warner are great. Smith is OK for now, but we could certainly upgrade, and upgrade for cheaper too. Depth is still an issue -- Coyle, Nzeocha, and Lee all struggle to tackle and from what I've seen, the latter two have not done well on special teams either.

Secondary
We have the talent at corner. If Mabin continues to emerge, he may have a "stranglehold on the position" that Saleh has said they wanted to see from the guy opposite Sherman. Witherspoon is talented no doubt, but he has major competition, and that's a good thing. DJ Reed has promise, and Ward should be gone after the season. I don't like that we're using Moore at corner -- frankly, with Mabin's emergence, and Reed's experience there, those guys should be the top 4 corners while he works at his best position -- safety. Colbert has been figured out and should be relegated to backup SS in my opinion. He has range, but doesn't wrap up, guesses in coverage, and just doesn't play with the mental discipline or play recognition ability required in this scheme at his position.

Special Teams
Gould is great, Pinion is above average, and our snapper is fine. Our coverage team however has really fallen off, mainly on punts. We've got to get that corrected.

TOP TEAM NEEDS

1. Pass Rusher (LEO DE)
As mentioned earlier, it is unquestionably our biggest void on the team. We have no one to take double-teams off of Buckner. One on one, he's typically unblockable. We need another player like that on the edge. Thomas can sometimes be like that inside, but he's almost never used there even on passing downs because we're so awful at DE in general.

2. Red Zone Threat (WR)
We absolutely need a jump ball guy with height. Someone who can box out defenders and is considered open whether they're covered or not. Without this type of player, your options are more limited in the RZ. Having this one player opens up things for multiple other guys on offense -- Kittle, Goodwin, and whoever is playing running back all would benefit.

3. Single High Safety (FS)
If we don't ever try Moore at this spot, we'll never know if he can be that guy, but if we insist on having him play CB, we need someone else with the range, discipline, and tackling fundamentals necessary being the last line of defense back there. This, in conjunction with need #1, are what make this Cover 3 system run smoothly.

4. OG
As previously mentioned, everyone on the interior has struggled pass blocking. Garnett hasn't played, but this was never a strength of his either. I still have high hopes for Magnuson, but we definitely need some competition at the RG spot. Person was signed somewhat out of desperation and he's been solid overall, but we have to protect our investment in Jimmy G by surrounding him with players that give him a lot more time to throw. Additionally, a better OL will prevent us from having to keep Kittle in to block so much, which effectively takes away our best playmaker in the passing game currently.

5. SAM Linebacker (OLB)
Smith is currently playing this spot because he's the best we have and most experienced in the scheme. At his current price tag though, there's almost zero chance he returns after this season. We have no one else worthy of starting when he leaves unless Pita were to make major strides, but we should definitely invest in a durable, speedy player who can cover as well as offer some pass rush when asked to do so.

6. RB
We saw how the losses of McKinnon and Breida devastated the team's rushing attack. We also have seen how we can't trust a player coming back from injury to perform as good as they used to (see: Garcon). Yes, McKinnon is young but we still need to be prepared to ensure we have the necessary depth to make a run. Good teams have great depth. We're not there yet at all.

7. LT
I love Staley but he maybe has one or two years left max. McGlinchey is great and would be a fixture at RT for years to come but we need a starter of the future and whether that's through the draft or free agency, we need to find that guy. Plus we badly need to upgrade the depth of talent at OT.

8. TE Depth
Get someone similar to Kittle who has a balance of athleticism and blocking promise to give us a better balance of what we can do up front in 2-TE sets. Celek is actually a decent athlete, but has really struggled to block, leaving the team to take it's top playmaker and keep him blocking due to the failure of the OL to provide adequate time for our QBs to throw.

Final statements: We currently only have five 2019 draft picks to work with (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th), hence why I think we'll move some players in the off-season, but we should have well over 50 million in cap space (probably more, right AB?). With that at our disposal, the time will be right to spend some to make this team a threat next year. Again, we have resources, we just need to use them wisely this next off-season.

how many f**king threads do we need about the same thing. we dont need a new thread every week examining everything thats already been examined on here.

Originally posted by stefano89:

how many f**king threads do we need about the same thing. we dont need a new thread every week examining everything thats already been examined on here.

Maybe not, but OTC pretty well enecapsulated every stinking shortcoming we have, and why. So say what you will, hats off to OTC...well done. I would add something but you have nailed it all, OTC...Thx.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:

There is one thing that really is awful yet not mentioned. We still do not pick up blitzes well. Sometimes not at all. Why is that still happening? It is like Saleh does one thing at time before moving onto the next. I don't want to say picking up blitzes is easy. But he way we let almost all blitzers in is dismaying. And like our tackling woes, we don't appear to be any better picking up blitzers than we were last yr.

We can blame many of the things wrong with this world on Saleh, but not picking up blitzes well is not his fault.

Good thing Franks not here anymore. HeS god awful at pass pro. Couldnt use him there at all.

Last April there were many people on this forum crying for Harold Landry or Tremaine Edmunds as a solution to our edge rush. I just checked and between the 2 they have a combined 31 tackles and 2 sacks (5 games for Edmunds and 4 for Landry) Could have been one more player for everyone to say Lynch whiffed on.

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:

Originally posted by stefano89:

how many f**king threads do we need about the same thing. we dont need a new thread every week examining everything thats already been examined on here.

Maybe not, but OTC pretty well enecapsulated every stinking shortcoming we have, and why. So say what you will, hats off to OTC...well done. I would add something but you have nailed it all, OTC...Thx.

You know, like many of us here, I am a highly emotional fan prone to outbursts on gameday and making emotional accusations or indictments of the team in the heat of the moment. However, knowing this, I find it is good to take time to reflect, dive deep, and take a full, detailed look at what is really happening to see if it's really as bad as we think it is.

The fact of the matter is, Lynch and Shanahan have hit on a lot of picks and UDFA players in these two first off seasons. I have, at minimum, seen promising things from all of this year's class, and last year the only obvious miss is Joe Williams. Outside of that, at worst, Thomas is disappointing but it's still too early (five games into year two) to say he's anything close to a failure or bust.

We just need to make more effective moves in free agency going forward. I get what we're going for. We want to establish the young core so we can set up the team for long term success once it's finally rebuilt, ideally by next year. But free agency is where you get those established guys to be bookends to that core group. We missed there.

I think we probably would've liked to see the team upgrade the supporting cast on offense more but I'll concede the team may not have expected Garcon's drop-off and couldn't see the future as far as the injuries to McKinnon, Goodwin, Trent Taylor, and Pettis.

Again, we were one play away in three games this year from being 4-1 instead of 1-4.

Originally posted by NYniner85:

Originally posted by 49Fever:

The biggest problem this team has ? Here's my 2 cents
I think it's their schemes on offense and defense
They tried to upper the complexity of it this offseason but they have too much young players that aren't used to the systems
I think they finished great last year cos kyle adapted his scheme for Garoppolo and the result was great
This year they were and are still on the learning curve and so they overthink too much
And i dont even expect us to master it in 2019
Look the job mc vay is doing with Goff : he knows Goff has to see the all field from the snap if not he's confused so he adapts his scheme to his players
The problem with kyle and saleh is that they expect players to adapt to the scheme.
What solomon is still doing has a down lineman. I totally agree with donte whitner he's a 3-4 OLB à la Ahmad Brooks... etc

You don't hire Kyle Shanahan and then dumb down his scheme. There's no pt of hiring a offensive mind of his caliber if that's the plan. Also the scheme overall isn't awful, just the verbiage.

Same with the defensive scheme it's not complex at all. The system is fine they're just blowing coverage assignments and missing tackles

And to say Thomas is a 3-4 OLB and that he actually played it in college (which he stated) is straight laughable...so we want Thomas in coverage more? We want him to continue to rush off the edge? Those are things a 3-4 OLB does. Also I'd love to see the flim of him doing all that in college.

He did dumb down his scheme late last year for garoppolo and it worked beautifully...
The defense has been upgraded with Sherman and Warner and yet the other blow coverages and miss tackles. You just gave me more amunition to explain that the palyers CLEARLY overthink too much and i put that on trying to upgrade the scheme from last year...
Right now Thomas doesnt help us for what we drafted him for : putting pressure on the QB so yes let's try him à la Ahmad Brooks !
I stand for all i said.
To simply continue the way we play right now is just straight stuborness. You wont make me believe that almost all the players are on a sophomore year and that scheme has nothing to do with it. We have a good young roster with talented players to be 4-1 right now. I also agrre with Barrows we were not well prepared enough entering the season,

Originally posted by stefano89:

how many f**king threads do we need about the same thing. we dont need a new thread every week examining everything thats already been examined on here.

Then don't read it. Pretty simple fix for you. This happened to be a very good post that was extremely in-depth.

Originally posted by stefano89:

how many f**king threads do we need about the same thing. we dont need a new thread every week examining everything thats already been examined on here.

And yet you had to quote the ENTIRE post.

Originally posted by elguapo:

Originally posted by NCommand:

And like he said, with Garoppolo and McKinnon out, that's 10 of his 11 starters out. Welcome to the curse, Kyle.

Enough about this every team has injuries or there's some teams that have as injured of a roster as a Niners. Nope look at it. Objectively. Just the franchise quarterback alone puts as well above any other team. This is getting f**king ridiculous.

Look at teams like Green Bay when they lose Aaron Rodgers they absolutely suck. When Dallas lost Tony Romo they got the fourth pick in the draft in Elliot. I see a similar trajectory this year for the Niners. Top five pick we're going to get a great player and then be a contender as long as we draft or get a great free-agent pass rusher.

I like this kind of positivity!

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by stefano89:
how many f**king threads do we need about the same thing. we dont need a new thread every week examining everything thats already been examined on here.

And yet you had to quote the ENTIRE post.

Originally posted by stonecold590:
Then don't read it. Pretty simple fix for you. This happened to be a very good post that was extremely in-depth.

This