Niners Nation
We’re back with a second 49ers mailbag. We still don’t know what we are going to call this segment that is replacing Punterville articles in importance, but we have a few suggestions. I’m leaning on “Ask Pato” as my contribution for naming conventions. Here are some others:
If we’re really going to do this regularly, and do something on fool’s gold. Or just something about the fool writing this, I’d also recommend considering a title containing “Iron Pyrite,” another name for fool’s gold.
I’ll give it a couple more weeks before I iron out a true name.
If you want your questions to be answered, make sure to keep an eye on the feed when I open the mailbag. I‘ll search that post, and may take it one step beyond to find some comments in other posts that could be good questions for the fool in This 49ers Q&A Remains Unnamed.
Ok, now onto your questions:
A lot of fans/pundits have been saying “we would’ve lost this game in 2024.” How much of that is just things breaking our way this season, and how much is genuine progress from last year’s team? Do you expect the team to keep improving as the season goes on and depth develops?
—JFAR49er
Yes, there are a lot of people saying that. I was/am one of them.
I don’t think this is so much about things breaking the 49ers’ way. Unless you count the Rams taking the ball out of Matthew Stafford’s hands on fourth and 1. No doubt the Rams would have gotten the first down on the ground, possibly scored. And they might not even have gotten that far because the goalline haymaker wouldn’t have happened either. Last year, the 49ers couldn’t finish getting out of a wet paper bag. This year, they are closing games.
Another example is Week 1 against the Seattle Seahawks; the final minutes were reminiscent of the same scenario as last year against the same team. Except this time, the 49ers had Nick Bosa in the lineup, and they didn’t just let Sam Darnold strut into the end zone like Geno Smith.
Another point on the luck factor is the officiating, which has been terrible. if you look at officiating, they are winning despite things going the other direction. Officiating has been horrible for the NFL this year, and the 49ers (surprise, surprise) have been on the losing end of many backbreaking calls and no-calls.
I don’t think this is so much an issue of balls bouncing their way or getting lucky; I think it’s a matter of a lot of adjustments and overall mentality from last year. There wouldn’t have been urgency on the Nick Bosa sacks in Weeks 1 and 2, there wouldn’t have been a field goal going through the uprights to win the game against Arizona, and...
