And when you think about it, as fans we've been truly lucky to basically go from Patrick Willis –> Bowman — > Warner for nearly 2 decades now.

22 comments

  5. The fact that we’ve historically been good at drafting and developing linebackers doesn’t mean you can’t question why a 3rd round pick at linebacker wasn’t switched to SAM when it became clear in OTAs and training camp that the position he was drafted to compete at (WILL) was no longer a real competition. Now, they’ve finally started giving him run at SAM and he looked pretty good against Arizona.

  6. Well if the fans and several members of the media are imploring it, Kyle has to do it.

    Kyle’s mantra has always been, ‘the fans know more about football than me’.

  7. Man. I thought Foster was gunna be a fuckin star for us after his rookie year. Too bad he ended up being a fuckin dickhead

  8. I think people see a guy with a really high motor and get excited. But right now we are getting shredded to pieces by the passing game and it’s super hard for wide 9 type linebackers to learn to play in space in zone. Take a look every Sunday at guys pointing to pass guys off from their zone, and then guys just being wide open. The communication and cohesive trust is off. Its hard to lock up a zone when the pass rush isn’t winning of course. And unfortunately all dialed up blitzes have been only punished from my viewership. Simple passes into the flat vs blitzes have allowed very easy successful plays. You know Saleh wishes he could win up front with just 4 but can’t right now, so I respect keeping them honest with blitzes. Saleh is great, good young talent on defense, I believe they’ll learn and get better. People will play when ready like OP says

  9. Some of the discourse around him starting gets frustrating when people clamoring for him to play don’t understand the difference in linebacker positions. Throwing him at Mike would be like throwing in a backup tackle at center because they’re both “offensive linemen”. He was already raw coming in, and they only trained him at Will. Asking him to start at Mike and even Sam isn’t too realistic at this point

  10. I listen to all the press conferences and I’ve never really understood why they keep asking about Nick Martin. Like they don’t ask about other third string guys. He barely made the team. Leave the evaluations to the people who actually work with the kid. As is the point of this post it’s clear they know what they are doing particularly with this position.

  11. I’m sure that if Nick Martin played the Mike instead of the Will, he’d probably get more playing time.

  12. If there’s one thing this team has done is give people opportunities. I can’t think of any instances where they’re holding someone back intentionally other than Aiyuk, but that was a team mentality thing, once he bought in, he became a starter.

  14. I understand why they’re hesitant to play Martin. His eyes are slow as all hell. You saw it when you watched him at OSU. It says it in every scouting report you’ll see about him. He’s an absolute bullet when he finally does know what he’s seeing but it’s hard to want to put a guy on the field who is so susceptible to misreading plays.

  15. Greenlaw was a rookie 3rd Round Pick LB in 2019 and he became a starter right away in our 2019 13-3 record Super Bowl loss season. He was the one who made the game winning tackle against the Seahawks at their stadium for us to win the Number 1 seed that playoff year. Shanny and Saleh need to give that same level of trust to Nick Martin (also 3rd Round Pick) to play more now moving forward just as they did it with a young rookie Dre Greenlaw in 2019. Nick Martin is a young Dre Greenlaw.

  16. I dont care who plays more at this point. Its not gonna make much different. We just gave up like 500 passing yards. We dont have a lot of hope on that side of the ball. Purdy and the o is the only chance to win games.

  17. Player development isn’t the issue. It’s health.

    As long as the injury bug doesn’t ravage the roster, this team has unlimited potential.

  18. QB, LB and Dline are pretty much the only places where we can consistently identify studs and also wherr weve shown we can develop and elevate players beyond their talent.

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