Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] All right, time to chronicle some things with a car seat behind us. August 22, 49ers had a practice today on Saturday. Shout out to all the sickos that are hanging out before this thing goes out for public consumption. If you are a sicko and you want in on college fantasy football, check the posts tab, get in on that action. And frankly, even if you're not and you have the time and wherewithal to go into the comment section and find where I put the link to. Go ahead, knock yourself out. Let's have some fun with it. We're looking for at least one more team. We'll take as many as we can get. So looking forward to that. Let me go through what happened today at 49ers practice. Not the most interesting day when it came to the actual football, but some interesting stuff happening with the roster. Do we want to start with the guys who are out? Let's start with the guys who are out. This is the, the fun part. This is the part that we've, we've made so integral to our day to day with The San Francisco 49ers.
[00:00:53] Dijon Stribling's out. He's day to day with the shoulder. D' Amador Lenore is out. He's day to day with the shoulder. All the guys who got injured on Thursday, they still be injured.
[00:01:02] So no Nick Martin, no Renardo Green today.
[00:01:06] That meant, by the way, that you're starting corners today were Jack Jones and Daryl Luder.
[00:01:12] So in case you were wondering who the backups were, it's Luder and Jones. Those guys are on the team now and well, as it stands, and thank goodness this will change, I believe in short order. But as it stands, those guys are starting against the Rams.
[00:01:27] Okay. Fijian's Prysox. Still some work to do if we're reading into that at all.
[00:01:32] Here are the guys who came back today. CJ west came back and I thought he looked excellent. Excellent. A lot of second team reps but I thought he looked excellent. Dominic Puni came back. I didn't notice him. I mean, I saw him, I didn't know he wasn't like giving up sacks or looking bad in the run game. He looked like somebody who is poised to have a breakout at right guard before his injury and I see no reason to change my mind on that after one more practice. And then there's Jordan James, number 29. You might have to double check the roster because you don't see him play football very much. And frankly, outside of the end of the NFC Divisional Round. I don't think most of you have ever seen Jordan James play football.
[00:02:12] That's fine because I've barely seen him and I'm out here at practice. Jordan James, it's not a now or never thing. He was always going to make the team. He was always. But like when Kalon Black goes off, if I'm Jordan James, my ribs are feeling a hell of a lot better. I'm looking to get a role here and it's hard to imagine that Jordan James is going to have more of an impact on this team, pending injuries, than Calon Black, just given what we've already seen from Black, what we saw in the preseason and, and what the expectations were for him with this team coming in, which is he's someone who's going to be great on pass pro and boy, is he. He's somebody who can get you tough yardage in the short yardage and goal line scenarios. Absolutely. Check and check and can catch the ball a little bit. Like we're talking classic third down back. Even when you have a Christian McCaffrey and a little bit of thunder to the lightning of Christian McCaffrey, a white lightning, if you will. Don't read too far into that. There's no obvious correlation there to anything at all. Regardless, Black, black thunder, white lightning. We can work with that. Now I'm starting to think that I should lean into it, regardless.
[00:03:20] Yeah, Jordan James, listen, there's.
[00:03:23] These are all men. These are all adult people. These are all people who have insecurities as well. Not a lot of them show it, but they all got insecurities too. And yeah, if I'm Jordan James, my ribs are feeling a hell of a lot better after watching K on Black kick some ass on Thursday night in la. Knowing that I would like to kick some ass too. I would like a role on this team because last year Jordan James injured the entirety of training camp, to my recollection, and then just sort of had to wait his turn and that turn didn't come until the end of a blowout playoff game. So, yeah, Jordan James back in the mix, especially to add in Sincere McCormick, who looks fantastic and has a special teams role and is going to be the fourth running back on this team.
[00:04:00] There's no reason to say that Jordan James is more deserving of snaps than sincere McCormick as it stands. But that's the beauty of this. It's August 22nd. They're going to leave a week from Wednesday for Australia. They'll have some practices, obviously in Australia, and we'll talk a little bit about jet lag and things like that as that approaches, because I got some thoughts that are, they're intrusive at this point. Regardless, we'll save that and continue to do our own research on the matter.
[00:04:26] But yeah, Jordan James, you got to get in the mix, baby. Best abilities availability. He made himself available today. He looked fine. He looked fine. Kalon Black looked exceptional again. And I'm starting to wonder if these two should have ever been considered neck and neck for much of anything. But first practice back, that's how it goes. What else stood out today? Oh, yeah, left guard, the position that we talk about more than any other, it seems. You know, you all can have your quarterbacks and oh, Brock went X, Y and Z. Now let's talk left guard, right? That's what the people really crave. And you have new left guard. So San Francisco 49ers fans, and that man is Carver Willis, rookie out of Washington. He is.
[00:05:05] He's the starter.
[00:05:07] He's the starter. Connor Colby, in theory would have been bumped up into the number one role given the the injury to Bob Jones, given the injury to Austin Pleasance, who I maintain has looked the best at the position, albeit in very few snaps, specifically just game snaps on Thursday. And he did have an abysmal snap. But man doesn't get to practice, so you're going to have situations where he don't know the play at left guard.
[00:05:33] I thought Willis looked fine today. I, I actually didn't have any problem with it at all. I can buy what they're selling when it comes to Carver Willis as a guard.
[00:05:42] It does probably hurt. I mean, it's definitely not part of their plan. This was never part of their plan. The idea was that he would get some, some reps at center and he would get plenty of reps at guard and that he could take at least a couple of months and particularly this training camp, and cross train across all three spots on the interior, find a spot for him, develop his game, and then next year, maybe he's your starting center, maybe he's one of your starting left guard. All good things. And now it's like everyone else has failed. So we're going with Carver Willis. This was the inevitability, but the inevitability is now, now. And that's probably too soon for comfort if you're Chris first.
[00:06:25] What's the alternative?
[00:06:26] They clearly do not trust Connor Colby at all. I cannot blame them. Watching the tape and Willis, at least you can sell yourself that he can get better Whereas with Colby, now we're in year two, and the issues that showed up in training camp last year after the Saints game last year, he was wonderful in the Saints game. To his credit, all of these issues that keep showing up, they haven't gotten any better.
[00:06:50] So at least with Willis, you're betting on, hey, he's young. Maybe he'll improve and maybe he will, and maybe this will just be a little green, but worthy of the time. And frankly, the sacrifice that will come from having somebody who's never played guard before starting at left guard for you in week one of the NFL season. Again, I, I, it's hard to imagine that they'd be giving him these first team reps now if they didn't expect him to be the starter in week one. Right. That gives me the indication that that Pleasance's knee is in a bad spot. That gives me the indication that they certainly do not trust Connor Colby, as aforementioned. Why? And Bob Jones, who you really had to squint to find the good stuff with. And I'll take the L on that. I was excited about him coming in off of his 24 tape, but it ain't 24 anymore, it's 26. And it was not working.
[00:07:38] So, yeah, Connor Colby, I thought it'd be week four, week five.
[00:07:42] Turns out it's week negative four, week negative three for, for old Conor Colby. I'm sorry. For old Carver Willis. And yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna find out what that's all about. I imagine Thursday is going to be very interesting in terms of how he plays and if he can disqualify himself, because again, I don't think he did anything to earn the spot. I think everyone else quit, disqualified themselves from the spot. Yeah. No Renardo Green, no d' Amador Lenore. That means that Daryl Luder and Jack Jones, where you're starting corners. In case you were wondering what it is, the depth charts looking like Effusion's Price. Sock, you got up the game.
[00:08:21] All right, let's go through it. Oh, here's another little interesting thing. Okay. No Jordan Watkins. Practicing punt returns today. Could just be nothing, could be everything.
[00:08:31] We have been talking a lot about the punt return situation as it pertains to sort of the last wide receiver on the depth chart or penultimate wide receiver on the depth chart. That means second to last for all you, all you folks who don't use the word penultimate because you're not an obnoxious douche.
[00:08:46] So, Jordan Watkins, you look fine in practice. Jacob Cowing Had a bad drop in practice, but then he had a nice catch right after that. So let's call it a wash.
[00:08:55] I do think that those two guys are battling it out for one spot. If Christian Kirk can ever return.
[00:09:02] I don't know if Christian Kirk's ever going to return. I have no earthly idea what's going on with that calf injury. It is finicky to say the least. And they're certainly being hyper careful. That is what the Niners do.
[00:09:13] They. They really push that recovery window as long as they can. As many guys get injured, they really easy on, hard off. That's the way that the 49ers work when it comes to injuries.
[00:09:25] I don't think it's auspicious for Jordan Watkins that he's not even being considered in the punt return game anymore. And you got Debo back there, you got Jack Jones back there, you got Will Pauling back there. Obviously you have Jacob Cowling back there.
[00:09:37] For me not to see 17 and maybe I missed him.
[00:09:40] Seemed like I saw him on another part of the field when that was happening, and he looked plenty fine to me.
[00:09:45] That is inauspicious for him. I have been maintaining and I'm not going to change this percentage that he is 70, 80% on the team. This is Watkins. Now. I'm going to keep it at that. I do think that he is more likely than not to be sure to make the team, but I don't think he's a lock. I really don't. And I think a lot of people out there think he is a lock because of his draft pedigree or, you know, his name comes up a lot. I do think that that will give him the benefit of the doubt. But he can disqualify himself now and they're going to give the benefit of the doubt to Christian Kirk. They really are. Now, Watkins would be a prime example of roster chicanery. Right? You don't want to exactly put them out for waivers. So maybe you keep them on the roster and then drop them when everyone else isn't looking and then bring them back on a practice squad, something to that effect. Maybe you can do the same thing with cowing.
[00:10:33] Probably more likely that you can get cowing through waivers than you could walk ins at this point, again, just because of pedigree. But you don't know. I mean, how many teams are out here looking for a little wide receiver that can't really give you that much from scrimmage?
[00:10:45] I don't know. Well, I think a lot of teams would be willing to take a take a swing on a backup X and especially too let's add in this, I mean they wanted Dijon Stribling to train as the backup X for this team. But now that he is like the Z and the flanker and I guess he's also a backup X on top of that, you probably do need a true backup back. So again, again I maintain that Watkins is probably going to make this team, but it's not a lock. And the fact that it's not a lock after all of this roster attrition, after all of these injuries, after everything, the fact that it's not a lock and I feel very confident that it's not a lock tells you a lot about what it is that's going on with him in practice. And then you see what's happening in the games. You got a block to get the rock. I did think he was pretty good. I saw a couple nice blocks from him today. But then you also just see a lot of, just wandering, just oh, the safety is over there, sir. It's your job to dig him out. Oh, where is he? Oh, I guess the play is over.
[00:11:40] So it's something we're going to keep an eye on here. Certainly tomorrow, Tuesday when they practice again, at least in front of us. And then Thursday in the game, Watkins versus Cowing feels big. It feels big. But again this is all also contingent on the idea of a Christian Kirk being in or out. Malik Turner is somebody who I thought had a shot at it. He's working on a side field. He's not practicing. So there's there Kadel Hodge is a special teamer. He feels like a practice squad bump up guy if there ever was one.
[00:12:09] You know, I want, I want to just say this once and then we're going to let it sit for, with all of us for a little bit.
[00:12:16] Trenton Irwin kind of makes plays at practice.
[00:12:21] Like second teamer trying like he makes plays. And you know who really likes him? Mac Jones. Mac Jones is kind of always looking for Trenton Irwin.
[00:12:30] I don't think it's going to be a thing.
[00:12:32] Let's just put a pin in that for now. The Trenton Irwin situation keeps popping up today. Here's who kept popping up. Tanjas. Jake Tanjis. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Jake Tanjis. I just wrote Tanjas, Tanjas, Tanjas. Which does not have a ring to it. He, he, he absolutely, you know, burned a cover six on a wheel route where Drake Greenlaw like didn't carry him.
[00:12:55] He. It was really good. It was a really good day for Tanjas. I also think that Tanjas has looked really solid blocking. He had a great sith block in the game on Thursday.
[00:13:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would have been Tanjas.
[00:13:09] I think Tanjas has had a great camp, and it's not something we talk about a lot because Farrell's out here dropping balls left and right, and we're trying to figure out who the third tight end is. And, oh, well, you know, maybe Kittle comes back and this is all moot point. Ton just.
[00:13:24] Ton just can play now, and I think he's much better than he was last year. You can tell that he has upped his physicality in the block game, mainly because he doesn't have any other choice. They got to inline him a lot in order for this offense to work, and I think it's really working. I think it's been really positive. It helps to have two really good tackles on this team in Colton McKivitz, who has been outstanding, like, somewhat dominant this entire camp, and Trent Williams, who is Trent flipping Williams. So, yeah, Tanja's ton just Tanjis. I don't think it's a coincidence, though. This is what I was getting at. And then I went off on a tangent. It's how we do things here. Kyle was calling the plays today.
[00:13:58] There's no if, ands, or buts about it. He had the walkie talkie. He was calling in the plays, and Clay Kubiak looked a little perturbed about it. Now, that is generally his face. I'll give him that. Those Kubiaks are very stoic folk, but he. Yeah, you know, Clay Kubiak's been calling everything up until this point. And then there was Kyle Flanker, right? 12, 14, 8, laying it all in there. Sounding, you know, probably sounds like a air traffic controller going on in that microphone. He's just like a black Motorola walkie talkie. They don't even use the headset in practice.
[00:14:29] But, yeah, Kyle calling plays, obviously, that's something that Kyle probably wants to get into the practice of here a little bit.
[00:14:36] Not just in his recovery, but also in the fact that he's got to do it in week one, and that is like two weeks away.
[00:14:42] So probably a good idea for him to, you know, start calling some plays, start getting some stuff ready to go. Just get those, you know, get some. Some grease on the treads when it comes to calling plays. I also, and I really don't mean this as any disrespectful, Kubiak, but Clay Kubiak did not seem to have that offense very well coordinated.
[00:15:02] Was underwhelming. It was underwhelming. And I wouldn't be shocked if probably majority has to do. And this is my personal conjecture. I haven't talked to anybody about this one.
[00:15:15] My personal conjecture is that, you know, Kyle's letting Clay call the plays in preseason. That doesn't matter against the Chargers. You're playing the Chargers later in the year. That is the most vanilla game plan you're ever going to get. There's nothing new. There's nothing funky. There's nothing that you're seeing. Same thing for Raheem Morris. Like, do not show them a thing. And the 49ers won big on basics because the Chargers were doing the same damn thing. But you flip it Tuesday, they got their ass kicked, by all accounts, by the Chargers in the joint practice. And I have been dropping, you know, little hints here or there that Clay Kubiak had not been covering himself in glory, if you will, with the way that he had been calling plays in practice and that Raheem's defense oftentimes had an upper hand and that Brock was having to make more out of plays than probably he should have to be making at this point in practice. And sometimes some of that you can just contribute to the attrition of the roster and all that. But it's also, you know, I, I think I've said flat out it's not a very well coordinated offense so far in camp.
[00:16:15] Now, to be fair, not a very well coordinated offense today. If we're just going off of the, the, the results. There were moments and the Tanjis of it all was good. They could really run the ball today. Now, and maybe that's just having Carver Willis in there at left guard and a lot of Trent, but they were running the ball with some aplomb, especially early in practice today.
[00:16:35] But yeah, it wouldn't shock me if Tuesday's ass kicking resulted in Saturday's Kyle having the microphone.
[00:16:49] Not that he wasn't going to take it eventually, but maybe, maybe we'll let the pros handle this one.
[00:16:56] All right. Just a couple other things to note from Raheem Morris's presser afterwards.
[00:17:03] You know, he was very positive about the bounce back they had from the Tuesday to the Thursday practice. Again, they're not showing anything, but they did play. They played well. They played well, did well in the one series against the ones here. Here was the most telling thing.
[00:17:16] And let's just Loop this in a sort of a film analysis here.
[00:17:20] I watched the first three quarters of all 22 of that preseason game.
[00:17:25] Please subscribe and like, please become a member of this channel so that I'm not doing it in vain.
[00:17:31] I thought Jaden Duggar had a brutal game, a brutal game. I take back nothing of what I've said about the worthiness of the experiment and the possibilities that exist with him. Those are all true. But if we're just talking about how well he plays football in a competitive environment at the positions that he's asked to play, I got, I got nothing good to say. I got. He can carry, he can carry a tight end kinda. I got nothing else good to say. And I don't even blame the kid. He is swimming in it. He is in the deep end. And I know I mentioned this in the game after the game on Thursday, but going back and watching the tape, it's even more apparent that it is just way too fast for him. And he does not have the kind of instincts that are necessary to play linebacker in the NFL right here, right now. He can develop them, he can get better at it, but he does. He does not have the trigger. He doesn't. And it's not a shock to me that they moved him around a lot at ull. The instincts are simply not there. And all you need to do is watch him run into his own defender and his own teammate on defense in the open space twice.
[00:18:40] No one was pushing. There was no like rub route or anything like that. He is just running to the exact wrong spot or he's the most unlucky guy in the world in which two of his teammates were in the wrong spot where he was supposed to be, you know, controlling it. You can't be running into your own teammates in the open field. You can't do it and then expect me to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're ready to rumble. And here's, you know, he was asked remorse, was asked about Jaden Duggar afterwards and he ducked that question like it was a five foot five pole and he was running 80 miles per hour at it. He couldn't have gotten out of that question faster, by the way, the Raheem Morris press conferences are wild.
[00:19:20] Not in the sense that you're getting anything just in the cutoffs. I mean, you can't even get out half a question. And then Raheem Morris is all out here like, let me tell you what I think about something that's maybe partially tangential to that. He is Operating under the premise of, you know, stop, stop asking. Once you get the answer you want, he stops you from asking so that he can give the answer that he wants. It's really a fascinating experiment, all things considered. He was very complimentary of Wallow and Bethune. As well he should be. They've looked well. And then this was an interesting quote that he had about Alfred Collins. He says that the last couple days he's looked better. I agree. I thought Alfred Collins actually had a really nice day today and that the, you know, the legs take a while to get under him because he's a big man.
[00:20:05] Okay, that sounds right. But that the hands come last.
[00:20:11] Okay, so now we're saying that the legs are under him. And again, I thought he had a lovely, very good day today. Alfred Collins did.
[00:20:17] I don't think that that's a knock on the offensive line at all. I just think that Collins looked. He had a little bit more bounce to him.
[00:20:25] I'm wondering when I see the hands, and without the hands, there's going to be big time. Question mark.
[00:20:31] So Raheem Morris knows a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do. And if he says the legs take a while and the hands come last, the grace period shall be extended.
[00:20:42] It could get there. He played good football last year, but you were looking for a jump, and he's still trying to catch up.
[00:20:52] They don't have to have him ready today.
[00:20:54] It would have just been nice. Would have just been nice.
[00:20:58] I'm. I'm very, very interested to see how Alfred Collins comes along. And I bet that he plays a hell of a lot of football against the formerly Oakland Raiders in Las Vegas on Thursday night. We'll have another practice tomorrow. We'll have another Car Seat Chronicles tomorrow.
[00:21:13] I'll talk to Jake at some point. Probably Monday. Definitely talk to Larry Monday night. Tuesday, we'll do another practice and give you the lowdown. And then after that, things get real weird, real fast for the San Francisco 49ers. And Jake and I are going to be breaking it down every which possible way. If you are not a member and you wanted content like this and all the other good content that we produce at a sooner rather than later pace. If you feel like you're on Jaden Duggar pace right now and you want to be on Fred Warner pace at linebacker, become a member, become an official sicko, and you get videos like this sent directly to you. I don't know if that's true or not. You can click a bell or something. But like that. You'll have access to them sooner. You'll know more sooner. Isn't that what you want?
[00:21:55] Or you could just make fun of me sooner. That's even better if you are a member. Thank you. We love you. And the community grows strong every day.
[00:22:03] And what a time to be alive.
[00:22:06] I'm so excited to get on 880 and drive home. God, I'm so excited for that. And. Yeah, but you'll. You'll have this video by the time I do that.
[00:22:16] Dieter and Hutch. It's coming fast. It's coming furious. And then there's the Australia thing.
[00:22:23] 53. Australia, man. What a time to be alive. We'll talk to you tomorrow.
