NFL 2016: Week 1

Wow. The Rams got blanked?

And here the entire preseason everyone expected the 49ers to be the ass of the league. Even the Browns managed to score points.

22/35 170 yards. A very Gabbert statline.

I'm beginning to think maybe the rams defense isn't going to be so good? That, or what I guess is traditional "Hey, it's opening Monday night, let's not suck" 49ers?

Punt, Punt, Punt, Interception, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, Punt, Interception, Punt, Turnover on Downs

That's some beautiful sh*t right there. Good job, LA!

Different venue. Same team.

Who is more delusional.. Niner fans that think they will go 16-0 or Eagles fans that think Wentz is the next Tom Brady?

garion333 wrote:

Wow. The Rams got blanked?

And here the entire preseason everyone expected the 49ers to be the ass of the league. Even the Browns managed to score points.

Remember when the 49ers had some up and down years but still always managed to beat the Rams? 17 in a row there at one point.

Yeah good times.

TheGameguru wrote:

Who is more delusional.. Niner fans that think they will go 16-0 or Eagles fans that think Wentz is the next Tom Brady?

Most delusional?

The people who still think Jeff Fisher is a good coach.

I just saw Austin's stat line over on FO. 4 catches on 12 targets for 13 yards. That is impressive.

He's gonna break out this year!

Admittedly, I'd be curious how Tavon Austin would do in NE.

garion333 wrote:

He's gonna break out this year!

Admittedly, I'd be curious how Tavon Austin would do in NE.

Obligatory GWJ Start of Year "You know, I think this is the year Roy Williams finally puts it all together" comment required.

I'd be curious to know how Austin would do almost anywhere else. He's got a weird skillet that a lot of creative coaches would have fun with. And he's playing for Jeff Fisher.

Good news, porky! Football Outsiders has your back (for now, adjustments for opponents don't happen just yet):

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/5UiVkFs.jpg)

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
garion333 wrote:

He's gonna break out this year!

Admittedly, I'd be curious how Tavon Austin would do in NE.

Obligatory GWJ Start of Year "You know, I think this is the year Roy Williams finally puts it all together" comment required.

I'd be curious to know how Austin would do almost anywhere else. He's got a weird skillet that a lot of creative coaches would have fun with. And he's playing for Jeff Fisher.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/OYkr4vV.jpg)

Rat Boy wrote:

Now Los Angeles did in fact get a professional football team from St. Louis, right?

Edit: Kevin Harlan is a national treasure.

The best run of the night by far.

Man, what a miserable game. I stuck around mostly for Berman, and he didn't disappoint.

I'll give Berman this: His "Do you understand what's going on here?" comment might have been the most meta thing anyone said about Week 1.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
garion333 wrote:

He's gonna break out this year!

Admittedly, I'd be curious how Tavon Austin would do in NE.

Obligatory GWJ Start of Year "You know, I think this is the year Roy Williams finally puts it all together" comment required.

I'd be curious to know how Austin would do almost anywhere else. He's got a weird skillet that a lot of creative coaches would have fun with. And he's playing for Jeff Fisher.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/TOUWOlm.png)

St. Louis feels like we won the Super Bowl last night. So much joy everywhere.

I must admit that I supped too greedily and too deep from the hateful cup and lo, tho it was tasty and set my soul aflame in indignant glee, I now suffer a proportional hate-hangover...

cube wrote:

Still better than Simms. There's silence sometimes.

Speaking of GWJ's favorite announcer ... not the Onion.

Benticore wrote:

I must admit that I supped too greedily and too deep from the hateful cup and lo, tho it was tasty and set my soul aflame in indignant glee, I now suffer a proportional hate-hangover...

Nah. You get to enjoy it for a day.

This is how I felt last night watching the game.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsNfcfwW8AIG_na.jpg:large)

Shea Serrano ranked Antonio Brown's twerk pumps.
https://theringer.com/nfl-antonio-br...

He seems to love writing articles like that.

It’s the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi of the five pumps.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

22/35 170 yards. A very Gabbert statline.

I mean yeah, this is who Blaine Gabbert 2.0 is. It's not altogether unlike having Alex Smith back, though Alex Smith is far better at being Alex Smith than Gabs is. But when things are going good, he's going to dink and dunk and make a couple of "hey, that was actually kinda good" throws and also tuck it down and run some.

When things aren't going good, he's still dinking and dunking, but defenses are squatting on it and he has no answer.

The 49ers still don't have the offensive weapons to be good in the NFL. But last night was at least some good early returns from their strategy of rebuilding in the trenches. The two massive Oregon DEs were the disruption that kept Gurley bottled up all game. And the offensive line, which is pretty much Joe Staley plus four new guys (well Daniel Kilgore is not new but was injured almost all of last year) has gone from dumpster fire to potentially one of the league's better units. Zero sacks yielded, some decent run blocking... still a lot of room for growth but it's a promising young squad + 1 All-Pro instead of four dumpster fires + 1 All-Pro.

My hope for the Niners this year is just to build themselves into one of those solid rosters that doesn't have a QB, and then going and grabbing their QB in the next draft. And some receivers.

Your Niners get a real test on Sunday, Legion. Not only does SF have to travel to Charlotte, the Niners play at 10 a.m. your time. Plus it's a short week.

I'd say that heavily favors the Panthers, but, hey, Gano pushes it wide left and your NFC South leader is Tampa. Anything can happen in this dumb league.

*Legion* wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

22/35 170 yards. A very Gabbert statline.

I mean yeah, this is who Blaine Gabbert 2.0 is. It's not altogether unlike having Alex Smith back, though Alex Smith is far better at being Alex Smith than Gabs is. But when things are going good, he's going to dink and dunk and make a couple of "hey, that was actually kinda good" throws and also tuck it down and run some.

When things aren't going good, he's still dinking and dunking, but defenses are squatting on it and he has no answer.

The 49ers still don't have the offensive weapons to be good in the NFL. But last night was at least some good early returns from their strategy of rebuilding in the trenches. The two massive Oregon DEs were the disruption that kept Gurley bottled up all game. And the offensive line, which is pretty much Joe Staley plus four new guys (well Daniel Kilgore is not new but was injured almost all of last year) has gone from dumpster fire to potentially one of the league's better units. Zero sacks yielded, some decent run blocking... still a lot of room for growth but it's a promising young squad + 1 All-Pro instead of four dumpster fires + 1 All-Pro.

My hope for the Niners this year is just to build themselves into one of those solid rosters that doesn't have a QB, and then going and grabbing their QB in the next draft. And some receivers.

Filing that away for future referral.

Enix wrote:

Your Niners get a real test on Sunday, Legion. Not only does SF have to travel to Charlotte, the Niners play at 10 a.m. your time. Plus it's a short week.

I'd say that heavily favors the Panthers, but, hey, Gano pushes it wide left and your NFC South leader is Tampa. Anything can happen in this dumb league.

The Niners schedule gets brutal starting this week. I don't expect the next four weeks to look very good from a W-L perspective. I'm just hoping the team can be competitive in games, something to build on, and not revert to dumpster fire status.

They have the 2nd hardest schedule in the NFL (based on last year's records) and a lot of that is in these next few weeks.

garion333 wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

And the offensive line, which is pretty much Joe Staley plus four new guys (well Daniel Kilgore is not new but was injured almost all of last year) has gone from dumpster fire to potentially one of the league's better units. Zero sacks yielded, some decent run blocking... still a lot of room for growth but it's a promising young squad + 1 All-Pro instead of four dumpster fires + 1 All-Pro.

Filing that away for future referral.

To be fair to Legion, with the way offensive lines have been lately, a team's line is either one of the better units, or they're worthless and probably a sign of the front office actively trying to get the QB killed.

With the way defensive schemes have been going, pretty much everyone's one or two injuries away from a dumpster fire.

"Average offensive line", at this point, really means "top third in the league".

garion333 wrote:
potentially one of the league's better units.

Filing that away for future referral.

Trent Brown is becoming one of the next stud RTs in the league, I think. Von Miller knows it, Brown is the one player he named when asked what tackles give him problems. Brown is the reason Anthony Davis doesn't have a starting job even after coming back and having a good camp. I would bet money on Brown getting a fat contract in a couple years. He slid in the draft because his conditioning was bad until the very end of his college career (was a JUCO transfer, didn't spend his full college career in a top program's weight room) and didn't play much for Florida until the end there, but he's a massive body with the longest arms in his entire draft class. Seriously a player to watch.

Andrew Tiller was one of the small highlights of last year, when Tomsula finally played him. LeCharles Bentley (who runs an O-line training program now) was calling out Tiller's play on Twitter last night. He's settling in to being a very solid starter.

The worst lineman in the Niners starting lineup is Zane Beadles, and he's just a placeholder until the team's 1st round rookie Josh Garnett is ready to play. We haven't actually seen Garnett play a real game, so there's some projection there, but if Garnett can live up to his draft scouting report, then there's 3 promising young linemen along with a solid vet (Kilgore) and the old All-Pro Staley. And that would demote Beadles from mediocre starter to excellent depth backup.

This is the Niners group I am most looking forward to watching this year. With luck, they'll have good enough health to actually play out the season and develop. Watching Tiller and Brown at the end of last year was about the only good thing to see on the field in those final games.

cube wrote:

With the way defensive schemes have been going, pretty much everyone's one or two injuries away from a dumpster fire.

This is very true. There's precious little offensive line depth across the league. Teams like New England are often getting away with lesser offensive lines thanks to how good their QB is at getting the ball out of his hands (or like GB with Aaron Rodgers, just having such insane pocket skills that he can dodge two defenders and still reset and get the ball out).

San Francisco doesn't have one of those QBs, so having the offensive line be really strong is something they desperately need to happen.

Did the Chiefs get it right? Eric Fisher highest graded LT in Week 1

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro...

Left tackle: Eric Fisher, Kansas City Chiefs, 82.0

Don’t look now, but Fisher is quietly becoming a pretty good left tackle. He allowed just three total pressures in his 71 snaps versus the Chargers, and graded well against the run and on screens into the bargain.

*Legion* wrote:

"The guy is drunk! But there he goes!"

He claims he was sober because apparently he's sixteen.

As it turns out, the Idiot in question was a 16-year-old named William, who told me he had always dreamed of running onto a field. Of course he did. And William was easy to track down because he had his phone number scrawled across his torso. Of course he did. Since then, he says “hella” people have called him.

Get better dreams.

He started coming on over the course of last season. Better late than never. He's doing better than Luke Joeckel, who is now a guard.

Another Texan player going somewhere else to be good. I don't know whether to praise Rick Smith for having an eye for talent or damn him for letting so much of it go somewhere else. Also, quarterbacks something something.