49ers BREAKING: Great news DT | Brock Purdy, Mac Jones updates | Baker Mayfield vs Fred Warner

49ers BREAKING: Great news DT | Brock Purdy, Mac Jones updates | Baker Mayfield vs Fred Warner

All right, some good news for the 49ers up front at that defensive tackle position where things had seemed dire but an unexpected return at least to outsiders for San Francisco today at practice. We’ll talk about that in a bit. First though, no Brock Perie out on the practice field right now. It was not expected, but have to get that report across to you. M. Jones is throwing and throwing plentifully on the practice field. He was not seen throwing by the media on Monday. He technically is limited with the knee issue, but the 49ers only have two quarterbacks available right now, Jones and Adrien Martinez. And both of those guys were getting plenty of work in. I would expect Jones to start on Sunday in this showdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But the good boost for the 49ers at defensive tackle Kevin Given to his pectoral muscle over the course of training camp placed on injured reserve was designated to return at the cut down. took one of those two spots for the 49ers. They only used one of them at the time because they were sure that Kevin was going to come back at some point this year. And he has now resurfaced out on that practice field. It’s big for San Francisco because they are very, very thin at the defensive tackle position. Alfred Collins wasn’t at practice today. Knee sprain suffered against the Rams. Fred Warner today said that the punch out from Alfred Collins was one of the best plays that he has ever seen. I’ve had a lot of punch outs in my career and I’ve never had one of that magnitude in that kind of situation. A got to have it moment on the goal line. Um, incredible play, one of the best plays I’ve seen by any player um because of the play itself and then the situation. So, um, I for sure never made close to that type of play in my rookie year. He’s far ahead of where I was. So the sky’s is the limit. That’s high praise from Fred Warner, who has 17 punch outs, a 49ers franchise record in his career. But well, we’ll see if the 49ers do have Collins on Sunday. It does look good that they’ll have Kevin Given, who he’s coming off his best season as a pass rusher. Three and a half sacks last year, I thought was getting to the quarterback with with some decent regularity in 2024. San Francisco had pencled him in to be a starter before he tore his pectoral muscle. That should help some of the thinness at defensive tackle for the 49ers and probably helps explain why they were comfortable waving Jordan Jefferson who was claimed by the Cincinnati Bengals last week. Also, CJ West still has uh the the brace on his thumb. He he broke his thumbs. It’s like a thumb cast that he’s wearing. Kalia Davis, who broke his hand on Thursday in LA and had surgery on the broken hand Friday, is out there with a club. Kyle Shanahan had initially said that Kalia Davis might miss two weeks, but apparently the club that they put on his hand has made that recovery timetable a little bit quicker. Now, we’ll see if Kalia feels good this week and is able to play in a game. I will tell you that it must be hard to play football with a a club on your hand. It’s like you got your hand cut off and it’s going to be hard. It’s going to feel very foreign to do some of the things that you need to do. But desperate times do call for desperate measures. It’s not like the 49ers are in a great position along the defensive line even though Kevin Given is probably returning on Sunday. They they are thin up front. You Gross MTOS has got that hamstring injury. In fact, why don’t we let Kyle Shanahan run through the entire list of injuries? You could get an idea of just what the 49ers are dealing with right now. Ricky Pcel will knee will be out. Watkins calf out. Robert Beve ankle out. Brock Perie toe out. Jawan Jennings ankle/ri out. Alfred Collins knee out. Uh Yeetour knee hamstring out. Trent Williams vday. Macaffrey vday. CJ West thumb limited. Stout ankle limited. M. Jones knee/oblique limited. Um Kevin Given pec limited. Clea Davis hand limited. Pier Saul was playing basketball in the locker room. did not see Joan Jennings, although on Monday, Jawan was spotted wearing his helmet stepping into the weight room. My gut tells me no Psaw this week. And Kyle Shanahan even said that they were hoping that that he might be able to get involved later this week, but he’s not holding his breath for that. But my gut also does tell me that Jawan Jennings, who’s dealing with multiple things, but the the ribs probably at the top of the list. I think that that he might be able to go against Tampa Bay. Remember last year against the Bucks? Epic game. You saw great plays from Brock Birdie, Christian McAffrey, George KD. That final drive that set up the the field goal that Jake Moody finally made. It was set up by some big Jawan Jennings receptions. So, that’d be a step forward offensively from last week if the 49ers are able to get Jawan Jennings out there to compliment Kendrick Bourne and Demarcus Robinson. Speaking of Moody, I know it was a horror show against Tampa Bay when he first came back against the from the high ankle sprain last year. Well, he’s no longer with the 49ers, but Eddie Pierro, allaround good guy. Eddie Pinero said that he actually recently reached out to Jake Moody. At the end of the day, I’m just tired of everybody talking about Jake Moody. I talked to him the other day and you know, he’s he’s a great kicker. I messaged him the other day and you know he’s he’s going to do well in this league and he just had a bad stint here and sometimes you just need a fresh start and you know he’s got my support and he’s going to do well. Now Pierro, he’s just a couple made kicks away from passing Justin Tucker for number two on the all-time field goal accuracy list. I know that I’m keeping close track of this. He’s moved past Harrison Buter who’s actually missed five times this year. Well, Eddie Pierro has not yet missed a field goal this year and uh he narrowly made one against the Rams and and he had some funny things to say about hitting the post. Yeah, I mean I I didn’t hit it the best, but I felt like it had a shot and then once it uh French kissed the pole, um I’m going to be taking that pole to dinner soon. So, yeah. So, if this is another close game, and I don’t think that the 49ers are really suited to to blow teams out right now, especially good teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, there may be some more reliance on the kicker down in the Heat at Tampa. Last year was the infamous Taber Pepper Debo Samuel altercation after Moody missed three field goals. Well, this time around, the 49ers got Eddie Pierro and an entirely new kicking battery. Mitch Wishnowski is also gone and Wishnowski wasn’t even playing in that game against Tampa Bay. The 49ers had gone to a backup punter at that point, but they’ve got John Weekes as long snapper. They’ve got Thomas Morstead as the punter and the holder and Eddie Pierro doing the kicking and he’s also got the the jokes. He he is a vibrant guy in that 49ers locker room and he likes to talk a little bit of crap toward division rivals which the 49ers do not mind either. Speaking of 49ers Bucks and just epic battle memories, remember last year Baker Mayfield put up a hell of a fight. It was a good duel between Baker Mayfield and and Brock Perie. Well, Baker is playing excellent football this year. Tampa is 4- one. Their four wins. They’ve come from behind with with game-winning drives to take the lead and obviously then win the game, including last weekend against Seattle. So Baker has led four fourth quarter game-winning drives. He’s thrown a pick on another chance to take a lead against the Philadelphia Eagles in in the red zone. So that’s the loss. But uh what he’s doing is is borderline historic to open this season. And he was paying attention this past Thursday when the 49ers defense was going up against Matthew Stafford. namely Baker Mayfield was paying attention to Fred Warner, the future Hall of Fame linebacker lining up against Matt Stafford. When you play linebackers of that caliber, um their recognition on plays, it’s so quick and so you have to be able to manipulate them with your eyes. When you look at the the Rams Niners game, there’s there’s a chess match with Stafford and Warner u trying to him trying to move him out of the spots, but that’s you got to know where he’s at at all times. He can do everything. runs the ball, kind of sets the tone for the defense, and he’s doing that. He’s been doing that for years. And so, yeah, we got to know where 54 is and uh not let him ruin the game for us. So, there’s that chess match between quarterback and middle linebacker. Those are the two guys on the field at any given time. They got the radio in their helmet. Only one player on offense, one player on defense is allowed. It’s QB and the mic linebacker. So, it’s Mayfield and Warner when it’s that matchup between the 49ers and the Buccaneers. Fred Warner talked about the chess match that that he’s going to be going through against Baker Mayfield from his vantage point. This was some interesting intel from Fred Warner in the locker room. He’s great. Uh I see it all over the tape. Him him being able to manipulate defense, especially his own coverage or man coverage. They’re plug players that maybe trying to take away certain routes. um his the ability to pump uh you know bringing the hand off to then try and get a guy to bite and doing those sort of things that just shows the quarterback is in complete control of the offense and knows exactly what he’s doing right. So being able to identify coverages um and manipulate those things to create the explosive plays and make plays uh he he does it better as good as anybody in this league. So Fred is playing at an extremely high level. Well, I’ve got the piece up on the San Francisco standard right now. Taking a look at the 49ers defense this year. And you know the line, it’s been tough sledding along the defensive line for San Francisco. A lot of red that you see in some of the tables that I put there. And you’d rather have blue. You’d rather have the the blue colors than the red colors because those signify above average performance versus red, which is below average performance. The 49ers have been making up for a lot of these injuries and inexperience on the defensive line with really good play from Fred Warner, downright excellent play from Warner, solid play from their outside uh cornerbacks, and uh they hope improving play from their safeties. I don’t think the safeties have been great for San Francisco. They may get an upgrade there because Malik Mustafa said that he’s expecting the play, expecting to be activated from the pup list as he comes back from an ACL tear. for Malik trying to pick up where he left off. Excellent, excellent rookie season in 2024. All in all, this defense has taken strides forward. They’re number eight against the run this year. They’re number 29 against the run last season. They may not have to face Bucky Irving this weekend. Rashad White will be the top running back for Tampa Bay, but it’s still going to be a huge challenge for San Francisco because Baker Mayfield, Achbuka, uh both I mean that connection has been fire, fire, absolute fire for Tampa Bay. It’s going to be tough in in the Heat, but we’ll see how Warner can orchestrate that effort for the 49ers against the Bucks. Remember, San Francisco underdogs in this game against Tampa Bay, but they have already defied the odds. We saw it on Thursday against LA. We will see what happens this time for San Francisco. There is your full report. Going to be back out here tomorrow. The 49ers probably won’t have Brock Birdie back at practice this week. This is going to be M. Jones trying to earn $400,000. He’s got $100,000 coming his way. Uh for each game that the 49ers win where he takes at least 25% of the snaps and it vests at four games. So the fourth win would be this weekend if the 49ers can get it. That’d mean $400,000 to sweeten the pot for M. Jones and then $100,000 for every subsequent win in which he plays 25% of the snaps beyond that. Anyway, a lot on the line. 49ers trying to move to five and one will be with you throughout the rest of this week. David Lombardi, you can give him a follow at Lombardi himself on X and of course read him in the standard. David, we appreciate you. It’s great to get you on the video feed. And how you doing fresh off that flight this morning? Good. You guys got me in the interrogation room here at Levis. That’s why I call it this little box of a room. But hey, I found some good lighting and you can ask me whatever you want. You look great and I know you go back and forth with your bride in Nashville. You travel more than anybody I know whether it’s off season here, there, and everywhere and even during the year. So, it’s great to have your time and I know you get ready to interrogate Kyle Shanahan on the on the list of injuries. Just just your thoughts going into that. We’ll start there. Uh any feel from being in the building about Ricky, about Jawan? I think we are bracing for a M. Jones start this week in Tampa, David, and maybe a few, certainly the Atlanta game after that, but just your assessment, will the NerS look dramatically different in personnel Sunday in Tampa Bay than the team we saw last Thursday in LA, do you think? I’m feeling Jawan back for the 49ers. So, so that should bolster the the receiving room. We’ll see on Ricky. That one doesn’t seem to me just based on what I have gathered as optimistic, but I’ll find out more today when we talk to Kyle and head into the locker room. You’re right on Brock. I think that, you know, the calculus, too, uh changed for the 49ers with them being able to get that house money win in LA. I I don’t think a lot of people on the outside, myself included, expected them to get that game. Uh they found the very very narrow path to victory and they followed it. So, they’re four- one now. And I think that really means that you you have the luxury of biting your time and making sure that that Brock is as close to 100% as possible. Now, what’s really interesting to me with Brock is that the next two games are on natural grass, but obviously those are the two nearest term games, so uh the healing won’t have a chance to to take as much root. The two after that are on artificial turf against Houston and then Metife Stadium, which is a house of horror as far as injury goes, especially for the 49ers. So, I I don’t know how much they’re factoring in grass versus turf when they try to project the return date for Brock Birdie, but I do know that the 49ers are really happy they’ve got two of these quarterbacks that that can really play and and they’re happy that M. Jones has picked it up the way that he has because I think looking around the league, it’s clear that you need two of these guys to make it through this marathon, especially given the situation the 49ers are in with Brock’s toe. Yeah, no question. And I know that Papa wants to get into some of the contract specifics with M. Jones and just how much of a bargain that that’s been. So, I’ll let him get to that. But, if just looking at the big picture here, there’s a lot of similarities between the Niners and the Buccaneers. I mean, they both have had statement wins on the road. Neither has necessarily popped in the running game despite the skill that they got in the back field. Both are in top five of wins above expectation if we want to get analytical about it. Does the similarity, would you say, does that bode as an advantage for one side over the other or do you think this really is just about who comes into this game a little bit healthier because they’ve also had their fair share of injuries to deal with? Yeah, they’re probably not going to have Mike Evans and and Bucky Irving, although they were able to to beat Seattle on the road without those guys. that that’s what these two teams have in common, right? They have uh lastminute wins against the Seattle Seahawks short-handed on the road. The 49ers by the end of that week one game uh they didn’t have George KD anymore and and Brock Pury was playing with the the toe injury as they whittleled their way downfield. So I, you know, last year I go back to the the game last year against Tampa Bay that was one of the the few bright spots in that 49ers season, but it was Christian McAffy’s return and it took some real real superstar moments for the 49ers to pull that out. They’re down 1713 in the fourth quarter and that’s when M Pie got absolutely leveled there. There was the blitz coming in from Tampa Bay and he just threw that rainbow pass out to to the sideline where where Christian McCaffrey ran under it and made the catch. And then a little bit later in that game, maybe it was that drive, but it was definitely later in the fourth quarter, Pertie went off schedule and found George KD in the back corner of the end zone. And it was basically, you know, star players showing up for the 49ers at a time that they needed it most. In all likelihood, only one of those three stars is going to be available on on Sunday because I think George KD’s more likely to return uh the following week against Atlanta, although we’re going to get an update on that in a few minutes. So anyway, the the calculus has changed. Now Tampa Bay is favored. Last year, I think the 49ers were were slight favorites in that game. And the 49ers, it’s going to be up to them to to decide the odds again. And I picked against them twice, guys, this year. I picked against them week one in Seattle. I picked against them in LA and they’ve proven me wrong both times. They have defied the odds uh in both of those situations. So, I’m not sure if I have the guts to pick against them again. Yeah, they won last year in November the 5th 23-20 in Jake Moody’s return game. Didn’t go well, but he did make a gamewinner uh to win. So, I remember that McAffrey catch and when Brock threw it, it looked like it went up in a silo when he got hit and somehow was able to hit the wheel route to McAffrey, which leads to to Christian’s year. Obviously, it’s been more catch CMC than run CMC. They’re they’re just not running the ball uh the way they they have in years past. Obviously, uh but Christian’s on pace for 132 receptions this year, which would shatter the NFL record for the most catches by a running back, but he’s he’s not just a running back. But you’ve talked about it and and I’ve broken it down, you know, going back to 23 here when they got off to the 5-0 start and 30 for Pury and 35 for Pertie. They were perfectly balanced. You could not tell on that outside zone if Brock was going to hand off to Christian on 19 structure fool like in Pittsburgh or pull it in the keep game and get it was just it was they were top five passing the ball, top five running the ball. The defense was top five. As you project where they are, there’s such an imbalance right now. You got M. Jones dropping down 40, dropping back 49 times in a game in LA. They got their 30 runs, but it was different. They’re not running it. They’re throwing it. The quarterback’s getting hurt way too much. When you start to get these eligibles back, David, do you see this being arguably a top 10 running team, top 10 passing team, and a top 10 defensive team? And and now you’re talking about what the Niners are when they’re one of the best in football. Yeah, I’m not sure where the defense is going to end up without Nick Bosa, but I do know that the locomotive that pulls the train is going to have to be the offense. And I think with the eligibles back, with Brock Birdie and his mobility back and healthy, once that does happen this season, it’s going to be incumbent on the offense to be an elite unit. Now, George KD and Kyle Yuschek, those are the two pieces I love to highlight, but KD’s the one they’re missing right now. That’s automatic leverage at the line of scrimmage. And you said, you know, back in 23 when this was an elite unit, you didn’t know what they were going to do uh coming out of the the huddle or even at the line of scrimmage. That’s because George KD, he’s essentially a sixth offensive lineman with how effectively he could run block. And he’s one of the top wide receivers in the game, too. I mean, this is a future Hall of Famer, allpro, all everything for the 49ers. But specifically for what Shanahan wants to do, and that is leveraging opponents at the line of scrimmage, getting them into the right personnel packages to where you can expose them. I think the 49ers are really, really missing George right now. No, I think they’re also missing some of the perimeter blocking that that they had in that 23 season from Brandon Iayuk who who did a such a good job of that on you talk about 19 structure fool against Pittsburgh. Brandon Iayuk blocked two guys on that play. He took out a defensive end and then he took out a safety about Ray Ray Mloud. I can see him speeding across the field to knock a guy out. So, so even Ray Ray Mloud who was like your gadget weapon that year was ran what 60 yards on that play across the field on the on the hypotenuse to clear the way for Christian McCaffrey. I mean, they were firing on all cylinders. But the way that this offense h has to fire on all cylinders is if it has its leverage weapons and they don’t don’t currently have George KD. So, it’s really important that they get him back. Then you could talk about getting all the receivers back and you could talk about the QB back and then yeah, I think there’s real top five potential in this offense. And I think if they’re going to go the distance, if they’re going to be one of the challengers at least to go the distance, that’s what the offense is going to have to be because I I don’t think this is going to be a 2022 or a 2019 49ers defense. I think they could scrap it together. They’ve shown the propensity to be clutch and and and make some plays at those very high leverage moments, but I I I don’t see this being a top five unit. Maybe they could squeak into the top 10, but you can win a Super Bowl with an elite offense and a top 15 defense, and I think that’s the most realistic formula for the 49ers. Talking to David Lombardi of the SF Standard here, and we’re going to find out a lot in the next 48 to 72 hours as far as injuries. But let’s just say that your instincts coming into the week play out and that Jawan Jennings is able to return, but Ricky Pieralt is not. How would you see the rest of the wide receiving room playing time shake out with that? I mean, Kendrick Bourne ended up being the guy, but he’s not technically ahead of the depth chart for Demarcus Robinson, but then the chemistry he had with M. Jones ended up proving so paramount in that Thursday night thriller. So Kendrick Bourne, I mean, I know he came off the three drops, but considering the 10 catch game he had, I’d have to think that if you don’t have Ricky Pieraw back, yes, McAffrey is going to get his touches. Obviously, Jawan and M. Jones had a great thing in week two. I’d have to imagine they would want to get a lot of snaps for Kendrick Bourne, even if some of that space is being taken up by the return of Jennings. Well, and I think they may go with uh some personnel packages that more heavily favor receivers this week. Remember that Tampa Bay, they year in year out have a really good run defense and it all starts with VA from Milpa. See basically unblockable in the middle just because the sheer size that he plays with, but they’re the top run defense in the league uh this year. We talk about the 49ers struggles to to run the football. We talk about the fact that George KD probably won’t be back yet for this game. So those struggles might continue. Uh maybe the the strategy for the 49ers here is to space Tampa Bay out a little bit and still get rid of the ball quick. That was the uh key to the performance against the Rams, but you know when spacing out, getting rid of the ball quickly, looking for fast separation is the strategy. You’d rather have more wide outs than fewer wide outs. And uh Kendrick Bourne was really good against the Rams, but I think he could be even better if Jawan Jennings is out there taking some pressure off of him. He’s attracting some defensive attention. Same thing with Demarcus Robinson. This is going to be his third game. So, I think he’s going to be fully integrated now. He’s back in shape, right, for the 49ers. They’ve also had a few days off. Uh that they give them a rest advantage over what Tampa Bay has. So, I I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 49ers try to spread the ball out a little bit and and and run with it like they did against the Rams. You are going to get the Todd BS blitzes obviously the exotics and led by Vea. tough to run on Levante David and Antoine Winfield, but the quarterback is just getting pummeled. Um, we saw the Rams try to really take out M. Jones in the second half with that with that knee. Uh, which leads to his contract. It is unbelievable. And even if it was a one-year deal, David, it would be a really good deal for the Niners. And Jimmy Ston’s been doing this for a while and Tom Condan at CA. How did the ners get him to take a second year on the prove it contract? I mean, the numbers are affordable and you explained to me the incentives. If he wins four games and he’s already got three, he gets a $400,000 bonus and he may make another 550 later depending on, you know, the playoffs and all that. That’s an extra million. But still to have him under contract and the base five the ba the paragraph five the base salary for next year is still incredibly affordable as you build the quarterback room and you got one quarterback who was number 262 in the draft now it’s 265 whatever it is and 53 million but the other guys making less than three million how do you see this proceeding forward economically and I mean the best guy plays and I know when Brock is fully healthy They feel that way. But it’s able to offset Brock making this much money by having would you say he’s the most costefficient player in the entire NFL. What M. Jones is giving the Niners this year. David, it’s crazy how it how it comes full circle, right? Especially with a player who went in that 2021 draft where the 49ers picked Trey Lance where obviously the pick of Lance was not not very costefficient since they had to use all of that capital. But just one clarification on the incentives. There’s even more incentive money than you list it. It’s $100,000 per game that the 49ers win and M. Jones takes 25% of snaps in. That doesn’t vest until he gets four wins. So, if he could win on Sunday, that will vest and he’ll get $400,000 because it was 100,000 per game. But every subsequent win with Max Jones would be another hundred,000. Yeah. So, this this could go on for a while. And then if he plays 50% of the snaps in the regular season and the 49ers make the playoffs, that would be a onetime bonus of 550,000. So So this can really really add up. Most of this is not likely to be earned since he wasn’t the the full-time starter in in uh Jacksonville last year. So he didn’t attain these incentives last year, which means that this money doesn’t count against the 49ers cap in 2025. If he does attain a lot of this, then it will count against the 49ers cap the the following year. That’s the incentives work against the salary cap. So anyway, even even if he earns absolutely everything, uh then this is still a great deal, right? Because you see what quarterbacks are going for. The 49ers went through a negotiation with Brock Fury over the offseason. I wasn’t privy to to these negotiations. I was shocked when I saw that second year there. Uh I it gives the 49ers a a tremendous boost heading into this off seasonason because you let this play out in your head. Say you even now if if say Brock Birdie comes back in two weeks and is healthy for the rest of the season and plays really well. Even now Jones’s value I think has really been rehabilitated kind of like Sam Darnold without really playing in 2023. So the 49ers would would be able to turn around and and trade M. Jones for I think significant draft capital in return. Right. It it may be though that that both of these guys given the dynamics that we’re talking about both of Birdie and Jones have to fight through this season. They’re never fully healthy. And then the 49ers will be really really happy to enter 2026 with with both of these QBs because the reality of the moment right now is that the 49ers have the best room in the league. Maybe rivaled by the one in LA, right, with Matthew Stafford and and Jimmy Garopppolo. It’s a really good quarterback room as well, but uh this one has shown that it can go toe-to-toe with with any QB room in the league. And in a situation where guys are getting hurt and not just on the 49ers, but but across the whole league at the QB room. Look at the Bengals right now. Uh with with Joe Burrow out, they just had a trade for Joe Flacco. I think it’s important to have a very very competent number two. Yeah, Joe Flacco going to wear number 16. So I said, “Hey, best Joe to ever wear 16.” All right, I kid. Uh David, I liked reading about the run and pass efficiency as far as defense goes. Run efficiency right now with Robert Salah is drastically improved. Pass efficiency could still use a little bit of work. So I guess a two-part question here. Number one, how do they deal with the short-term challenge of containing Amecha Ibuka even with Mike Evans likely out? And then two, just looking forward, how do you envision the secondary changing with the return of Malik Mustafa, whose practice window opened on Monday? Well, teams have been picking on Maris Seagull a lot in the past game. We’ll see if Mustafa is ready to go on Sunday, and if he is, if this is going to be a throw him in there full time kind of thing, or if they’re going to work him back slowly. I think that’s something that we might start to get a little bit of a handle on today. I think Seagull has actually made a lot of really really good plays against the run. What we saw him in on officially on the tackle of Kyron Williams on on the fourth down. So, you have to give him a lot of credit. But, but I do think that that’s a matchup that opposing pass games have have been going after. He’s actually given up the most yardage into his coverage out of any safety in the NFL. So, I I think he’s just been thrown to the wolves, right, as a rookie. I think Maris Seagull has all the makings of of a good player. I just think that the 49ers with Malik Mustafa coming back are going to have the luxury of of you know easing the the workload off of somebody like Maris Seagull so that it’s more of a natural progression into the NFL swing of things. So, you know, Malik gave up the fewest yards per cover snap of any safety in the NFL last year, which goes to tell you that he was in good position. He didn’t blow assignments and we all saw the highlight plays what he was able to do against the run. So, this is going to become another missile for Robert Solid to use in the back end. He’s been blitzing more this year. He’s used Upton Stout as a blitzing weapon. He’s used Jason Pinnick, the other safety, as a blitzing weapon. Uh, I would see him using Malik Mustafa as as one of those pieces as well. Ultimately, the defensive success of this team though is going to come down to whether or not they can start to generate a little bit more of a pass rush for the front four. That’s why everybody’s going to be talking about the trade market this month. Yeah. One thing to look for with the injury to Luke Geti, our guy Charlie Hec is their right tackle, uh, their numbers offensively. Tristan Worfs, uh, a couple of years ago when they came in to Levis’s, the way he handled Nick Bosa, I was amazed. He’s coming back off an injury, but they are so much better the last two games with Worfs. The strength of their offensive line is the left side. Not as much minus Getty. Heck’s a good player, but I think the Niners can overload on that side a little bit. So, we had Cynthia Freedelland on um the brainiac with the computer like yourself, David. And uh she went Tampa Bay in a tight one. What you have 2625 26 24 you’ve already picked against the Niners twice this year. Do you want to divulge this now or wait for Kawakami later in the week? What What are you thinking going uh going to Tampa Bay on Sunday? I I I’m honestly undecided right now. I think that on paper this favors the Buccaneers, but the the thing is the 49ers have defied the paper prediction twice and they divided big time against the Rams and they’re going to be a little bit healthier than they were against the Rams and they’re going to have the rest advantage because Tampa played a tough game against Seattle on Sunday on turf and you know it’s it’s almost the furthest flight in the NFL, right? I think Miami to Seattle is probably the longest trip and then you know Tampa is probably a close second. Maybe Jacksonville too is is far and and they’re going to have the home field advantage. It’s going to be 85 degrees and humid. Although I should say that Mac Jones is is from Jacksonville. Um so so a lot of indicators pointing in in Tampa’s favor, but a few pointing in in in the 49ers favor as well. And you know what that if if they could pull this off, let’s put it this way. I’m not going to make my formal prediction yet. I still got to think about it and see who’s healthy and who isn’t. But um if if they can pull this off, I’m I’m getting real 2010 Giants, like San Francisco Giants vibes from the 49ers because they’ve been winning games that they shouldn’t be winning and they’ve been finding a way to scrap and claw and get it together. Now, I don’t think they could win a world the Super Bowl like the Giants won that World Series. I don’t think it’s baseball. I think you have to have a little bit more power, but they have that scheduled to come back at some point, right? which it so so what they’re doing now they’re sucking money into the bank winning games that you know I thought they’re going to start three and three and and here they are at four and one I think the back half of the season should be much kinder to the 49ers but as long as they can keep on winning now nobody cares how how healthy you are as long as those guys do come back later in the year so uh they’re playing with house money this week and that’s the way I look at it David we appreciate you coming by and giving us a little sneak peek into the turning of the page into looking ahead to the Bucks. And I know Shanahan’s going to speak here in about a half an hour. But the only thing I’ll say is I don’t know if it’s homefield advantage because both these teams seem to be playing some pretty awesome football on the road and finding ways to pull it out. So maybe if the 49ers can get it done, we won’t just be talking about 2010 Giants. We’ll be talking about the road Warriors that are the San Francisco 49ers. But a lot still to unfold. We’ll see about the health and love reading you in the standard. Appreciate you coming by as always and I’m glad that we were able to get you on the video feed this time around. Yeah, thanks guys.

49ers BREAKING: DT good news | Brock Purdy, Mac Jones, Ricky Pearsall update | Baker Mayfield vs Fred Warner

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David Lombardi covers the 49ers for The SF Standard.

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