Originally posted by bzborow1:
Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
The team is just a complete mess.
* Complete rebuild of the offensive line. TW is getting older and not as good. Likely to lose Banks (I think we should keep him). It will get you Burford and you will be sorry. Puni is awesome. The only young stud we have. C and RT are sub par.
* Defensive line is a mess. Other than Bosa what do we have? Floyd had a good game but has been sub par for the year. We have never replaced Buckner and Armstead. That's when we were powerful up the middle. It's not an argument of whether they are older now or what they are doing now. We never replaced that style of player. We tried with Kinlaw (complete bust) and Hargrave (aging vet who doesn't fit our system). But it never worked out. Our defensive line is a mess up the middle.
* LB injuries. We can't cover well. We signed an older vet who is slow in coverage. Greenlaw is missed in tackling and especially coverage. But you have to understand he may never be the same. So be realistic. You can't even count on him. Other than Warner who is a stud we are in trouble there.
* Safety has some issues. Mustapha looks awesome. Brown is overly criticized IMO and has some ups and downs. But had bright moments in his career too. He's a little slow in coverage. That's the struggle. Hufanga was always slow in coverage and is coming back from terrible injuries. He was instinctive with catching tipped balls. Which is a great skill. But he would get beat deep on the backend too that people often didn't see. He would make the big splash play and you forget he got burned. You can't count on him with the injuries. So we got Mustapha.
* Special teams is a catastrophe. Punter and kicker both injured at various times. It seems like we never know who our punt and kick returners are. None of them are that great. Our kick and punt return coverage units are a catastrophe. It's a TD waiting to happen at any moment.
This is a complete rebuild. Multi years. It can't be fixed overnight. This is what happens when you over pay a lot of aging vets who are declining and miss so often in the draft. This team is declining. You can't re tool this. This is a rebuild.
I agree with everything you say here I just don't think the team needs to completely tear everything down. While Brock Purdy may not be an elite quarterback he is a very good one and that keeps the 9ers competitive. Bosa, Warner, Puni, Mustapha, Hufunga, Lenor, Mason, and Pearsall are all good young players. Even Rennardo Green has looked good this season despite his awful outing in GB. It's looking like the guys we knew from the Super Bowl window will have to start getting phased out but it's not all doom and gloom here. Is the team going to suffer if Deebo gets released? Based on my armchair QB view of things, the 49ers desperately need some help on the defensive line, pass rushers and run stuffers. They could also use some help on the offensive line as teams seem to be able to push them around.
I agree with a lot of what you mentioned there. The team kind of reversed. For years and years it was the dominant defensive line. Now we lost Buckner and Armstead. It's not a matter of what they are doing now. That's not the argument. We haven't replaced that caliber of player on the inside. Where we used to be strong up the middle. We dropped off on the defensive line outside of Bosa. We got better in the secondary. Which used to be a weakness and is now more of a strength. Lenoir, Mustapha and Green look good of the young guys. Warner is still a huge stud. Puni looks awesome. Purdy looks pretty good. There are good parts. Just some important stuff that dropped off.
If you had to really break it down we need to rebuild the trenches. The offensive and defensive lines are not dominant anymore. Under the Shany era the defensive line was dominant at times. Under Harbaugh the offensive line could be dominant and the defensive line had studs too. We dropped off in the trenches. There are always other areas to fix. But we need young studs there on both sides. To build this back up IMO.