Brock makes more than Laporta… And has for the last 3 years, let that sink in. I’d rather draft a TE every year in the 5th round than pay a mediocre blocking TE better than a star on a rookie contract
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Dan is such a great mentor and person…
Game balls to Gibbs, Laporta and ABNEYYYY
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And one to Dan Miller. That was a really touching moment. You could see and hear the emotion on Campbell and Goff’s faces.
My good and bad.
Good
Most importantly, made a struggling team look like a struggling team. This is the classic “took them to the deep end of the pool and drowned them” game that Dan preaches.
Offense
We played the game we know they are capable of playing. I know a lot of people are pointing out the slow start. They are not wrong to do so, however I would point to 2 wiffed blocks that each stalled a drive. First was another A gap blitz that’s been a big problem for us and this one got through for an easy sack on Goff. Second one was on Miller. Both of those misses put us well behind the sticks and were drive killers. However, these are fixable issues and Gibbs had a hell of day on pass pro, covering for a wiff from Scruggs. Now we get Mays back and the real line can continue to develop.
Defense
We will know more with the game breakdown but it certainly looked like we played a lot more man, and that the team made it’s biggest plays while playing man. Very impressed with Abney. he looks a little too small to play safety full time, but he was a willing tackler and a desperately needed ball hawk on that last hail mary at the end of the half. Just having a guy who can potentially steal picks is enough to give QB’s pause.
Bad
I still am not sold on Sheppard, at all. At least watching in real time, it looks the two biggest adjustments that Sheppard made were going back to more man defense (good), and putting Devin White in at MLB and moving Campbell over to WLB in a 4-3 look. I think that was a terrible decision, and White getting hurt forced Sheppard to put Campbell back in the middle where he belongs. I am sure we keep Sheppard for the rest of the season now, but I expect a lot more bad defensive games if that was his gameplan going in.
While I am glad that McCreary had the game he had, it looks like Arizona’s game plan was to throw his way pretty much every time. We will see if teams continue to mark him as the go to for when a play is needed.
Chuck Clark needs to be benched. I get he is a vet, and not the fleetest of foot these days, but the idea with being a vet is you can win with your saavy and positioning. These seem to be missing for Clark and he is constantly in the wrong place covering the wrong guy. He had a good pick in week 1, and the forced fumble in week 3, but way too many breakdowns to offset those plays. Branch coming back should end the Chuck Clark experience.
I am glad we got a big road win and showed what we can potentially be, but I have real reservations. Green Bay will be bringing the same bombs away game plan in against our secondary they used against Chicago, so we will see pretty quickly if the secondary has its shit together or not.
Late add: For the adjustments, I do give credit for playing Abney at safety. I think it’s a temporary deal, Abney is probably best suited to be a long term corner, but the staff had him ready to do a solid job making his debut at safety. It’s been sorely needed. I also think it’s a bit interesting they got Abney making his debut before Bishop Fitzgerald. I don’t really care who the deep free safety will be, but they need someone who can track and catch bombs.
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Jack looked much better.
Ennis Rakestraw is seriously looking good.
Reed may not be a top cover guy but his tackling is great.
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I saw one or two bad reps, but overall I thought he looked really good in coverage.
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It doesn’t really matter much at this point. He’s a free agent in the offseason. Wasn’t a great contract, but 4 mill a year isn’t anything crazy and he played a lot of snaps. Gotta sign LaPorta though cause almost the entire tight end room is a free agent next March.
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Yeah, I’m kind of looking forward to seeing how that matches up against a team blitzing 70+% of the time.
Not an easy task to go up against a Flores-coached defense, but there could be opportunities for Jah and Jamo in space. Just typing that gave me a semi.
Am I correct that we scored three touchdowns on fourth towns? If that’s true, that’s exciting but not sustainable.
We are a beat the bad teams, but lose to the good teams type of team. We’re mediocre. This game does not change my opinion of that.
I guess I just don’t see it as hate, per se. Or maybe it is in some corners, I suppose, but mostly I just see it as a counter to the lazy “blocking TE” tag he often gets. Basically a “no, he’s not” response. I guess sometimes that can boil over into frustration. Either way, I’m generally with you, he’s fine, but there are plenty of plays that leave you wanting more. I think matching SF probably puts him under the microscope a little more than he deserves as well.
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It’s LaPorta’s rookie contract. Why are we just ignoring the collective bargaining agreement and the cap and contract ramifications that result from it? LaPorta will make 15m per year more than Brock when he is on his second contract. Second contract vs. second contract is the correct and fair comparison.
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Interesting. See I view their pursuit as a validation of him being a decent NFL TE2.
I call this being a bad good team. Bad good teams only win the games they are supposed to win, but don’t do a good job of showing up for the tough matchups. High floor, but low ceiling.
Conversely, good bad teams will play poorly most of the time, but then every once in a while everything clicks and they look amazing. Low floor, but the occasional glass-ceiling breaking performance.
Bad bad teams and good good teams… well, that’s obvious. We transitioned from a good bad team to a bad good team in 2022 or so, but we still haven’t gotten to good-good. I’m not sure we aren’t currently a good bad team, for that matter, given our defense. We’ll see how well we sustain success.
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Thought the same thing on the McBride catch!
Brock is fine for now until we draft Josh Ford to take his spot at TE2
I think many shared that opinion, which is why they expected more.
And it’s not like that SF FO doesn’t have a plethora of swings and misses.
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Durham Smythe is making 3M per. We are getting out of Brock about what we are supposed to be getting out of Brock. I am absolutely open to a rookie TE2 next year given that Brock is a FA. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend I have the wherewithal to look at the college TEs that are used as TEs heavily and project them into Brock’s role. If others want to spend that time and share that info I will be grateful. But the draft process is a form of entertainment to me. I’m not gonna to get bogged down in pass and run blocking of primarily receiving TEs in college.
Yeah most draft-eligible TEs come into the league as very bad blockers. Even the ones who go onto become good ones, that usually happens after they get in the league. So in that respect ‘want to’, etc… is probably more important from an evaluation standpoint.
Brissett is 2 - 15 as a starter since taking over for Kyler Murray. I would say the Cards are intentionally tanking but it looks more like they’re just clueless. I think the 2027 draft QBs are really overrated too. Maybe Carr will be alright. Poor Arizona fans, I feel for them.
Mestemaker is awesome, don’t know if he’ll come out though.
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They have actually had some competitive games before we crushed them. For example down 2 points to the 49ers late in the 4th quarter.
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