Fast forward to last night, with say six minutes left, and when the wheels came off the ol' niner express, and with the kid oscillating from jubilantly yelling "Go Niners!" to going fetal on the floor, I knew the jig was up. I knew we were going to lose. How could I not? There was a slow train-wreck unfolding before my eyes. I think Matt Mani has hit it pretty square on the head with his article for the zone: https://www.49erswebzone.com/commentary/2292-super-bowl-liv-what-happened/ Therefore, I want to stay focused on what I saw and what I think today.
1. Trading field goals for touchdowns, while great and all, ain't going to get it when you are trying to win a championship against a high-powered offense like the Chiefs.
2. Jimmy G (Part 1of 1). Remember the NFL 100 commercial during the game where Joe and Steve are there and Joe turns back and tells the guy holding the bags, who was in fact Jimmy G, "to take the bags to the car". Then Steve says, "give him a tip, Joe.". And Joe says, "I'll give him a tip, alright."
Well here is the tip for Jimmy G, one we have all danced around this season with him, BALL SECURITY, my man. Ball security. Don't get it twisted, nobody on the planet, is now grappling with this more than he is right now. And no, while in the moment of emotion it is tempting to give into the stupidity that he isn't the guy, I, we, are not going to do that. He is the guy. He just wasn't the guy last night. Sometimes, whether you like or not. Whether I like it or not. Whether any of us like it or not. The man, ain't always ready, to become the man. Jimmy G is more Steve Young than Joe Montana. And that ain't a bad thing at all. It just means, he needs a little more seasoning.
I'll tell you who Jimmy needs to be huddling with right now and that is Steve Young--maybe not right away but give it a week or two and go play a game of catch with the man and talk through this thing. Name another Niner that has had that much pressure on his shoulders, failed several times against the Cowboys, spent time with a sports psychologist, and came back and slaughtered the league 25 years ago and helped us win our fifth title? Eh? Who? You can't. That is where Jimmy needs to go right now. He needs to go to the well. I can't go for him. Nor would I want to. Failure belongs to all of us, I have no right nor do you to take it away from him. He is now in the well. The man who comes out of it will be different. If not, then, we in fact do have the wrong guy. But, I just think he is going to come away from this different. And I think he can be the guy. It is up to him to do it.
3. Kyle Shanahan is a big part of the reason we are here but like Jimmy he will have to do his own climbing to get out of his own well, which may even be deeper because this is the second time he has lost a Super Bowl--one as OC for the Falcons and now as the head ball coach of our, your, and his beloved San Francisco 49ers. I want to focus on that latter party. He grew up loving the Niners. Sure, it was because his dad, who has faced his own trials and tribulations over the years, was here. But so much of who we become is imprinted on us as children. Kyle was born for the task he faces, which is going back to work, wrestling with the Demons of Super Bowls past, and contending with the larger shadow that is not only cast by Bill Walsh but also his own father.
4.
(----This is pretty much how I felt from the fourth quarter on. We had them! WE HAD THEM! And, we let it go. Again, read Matt's thoughts on this but there was something going on with the way our strategy was unfolding. Was it Kyle's past creeping up on him? Was it trying to protect Jimmy? Were we trying too hard to milk the time away, which only works, BTW, when you know, you make first downs. In the end, there is only one acceptable answer, we lost this game, while the Chiefs came back and won it.5. The Chiefs hung around long enough to catch fire and we got burned. Plain and simple. I think if you nit-pick this thing to death, we end up blaming everyone. And to an extent, we saw the team collapse a bit. Sherman had moments of struggle--but he also played pretty solid and did his job. Bosa was a second away, a couple of times, from making huge plays. AND YET, he made huge plays. Guys, we had them for three quarters and then we lost it and they took it. And I am just sick about it.
The future:
1. George Kittle is right. It ain't going to be easy to get back. But, if that is our destiny, we will. Part of me is cynical because it is just very difficult to do it. Thank god, though, that I am not always right--I had us going 6-10 or 10-6 this season! Beside the redemption story of Kyle and Jimmy, and for that matter, the Defense, that deserves to be written but there is another reason to believe in the future of this team.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Richard Sherman:
"If you don't believe you're going to win it, why play?" Sherman asks. "What the f--k is the point of playing if you don't think you're going to win it? Like, there's no point. Why go out there if, 'How do you think you guys will do?' 'Oh, I think we'll be middle of the road.' Like, what the f--k are you going to play for in the middle of the road?"
It's not that teams are afraid to talk like this, he explains. "Humans" are afraid to "think" like this. Especially in the NFL, where speaking out of line often sends you to the principal's office privately and gets you reprimanded, not celebrated, publicly.
"That's why they always say, 'Be humble. Show humility. Never guarantee wins.' Well, goddamnit..." Sherman says, banging the table, "I think I'm going to win. I don't think I'm going to lose. Some people see things differently. Some people are like, 'Man, just let it happen.' Some people are like, 'Well, I called the shot. I plan on making it.'"
"Every day, you play with a chip on your shoulder," Sherman says. "You don't concern yourself with, Oh, man. They're maybe going to flag this or do this.' ... You play hard, you play intense, you play physical, you let the chips fall where they may.
"If you have to make them call a thousand flags, make them call a thousand flags."
"There's always two ways to look at adversity. Why me? or Yeah, I'm glad it happened to me because it gave me another challenge, and I needed another opportunity, I needed another mountain to climb ..." Sherman says. "Any time you go through something you have no control over, it really brings you back down to the screws and the base foundation of why you do it, why you play the game."
--Richard Sherman as told to Tyler Dunne; see it here: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2845840-can-the-49ers-handle-the-pressure?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=referral
Richard is right. After this year, where it all seemed to align, we needed something else to achieve. We needed a new mountain to climb. We had to lose so that we may finally win. Hey, it worked for Michael Jordan, Steve Young, and countless others, maybe, just maybe, it will work for us.
Before I go, and I plan on taking a long time off from the zone, I wanted to say something to my friends here that are not as young as we once were. Look, I know it hurts. I looked forward to ordering that shirt and hat. Getting one for my wife and kid. After 25 years, I was ready. We all were. Our time will come. Until then, look around you, be thankful for what you got. Today, I went and got some allergy shots--where I live in AZ, my allergies play hell on me--and the person who gave me the shots had lost their spouse, who was a niner fan. For the first time, that person did not watch the Super Bowl. That I got to do so with my family, even if it was another agonizing loss, matters the world to me. That I got to do so with my little girl, means more than my own breath.
On the way home from being shot up of the very things I am allergic to, I pulled in to get gas and I saw the inevitable, a Chief's fan, who was flying his flags on his truck. Friends, he was a good twenty to twenty-five years older than me. I bet he waited all fifty years for this moment. I bet he shared it with his family. At least, I hope he could. You never know who has anybody left after all those years. Yesterday, we lost. But, we still have our families and our friends. My hope is that I, that we, only have to wait a year to share the moment with them when we finally shed that damn monkey off our backs and win number six.
Until then, I remain Fropwns.
[ Edited by fropwns on Feb 4, 2020 at 6:08 PM ]
