49ers – onetruekev

Four Quarterbacks Is Never Enough

My review of the 49ers season

I still haven’t watched the game. I haven’t really had a chance to. I’ve only read bits and pieces about it. But I know the 49ers season came to an end in the NFC Championship game for the second season on the trot. I know how our starting quarterback on the night got an UCL elbow injury in the first quarter that effectively put him out of the game, and that our second string was knocked out of the game in the third quarter. We didn’t score after a Christian McCaffrey touchdown run in the first quarter to make it 7-7, and that the Eagles ran out easy winners. But none of that really tells the story of the 49ers season.

There were high hopes at the start of the season. We had kept the core of both a decent offense and a very good defence, and we were moving on at quarterback from Jimmy G to last year’s first round pick Trey Lance. It was a positive vibe.

And it was fine whilst it lasted. Right into game two when Trey Lance went down to a season ending injury. And so after all the pre-season kerfuffle, the quarterback leading the team was back to being Jimmy G, who hadn’t even practised with the rest of the squad.

Now we started to limp along, there were injuries to Kittle and Deebo, and by the end of October we were 3-4. Fortunately our division was a basket case and we only a game back from the surprising Seahawks, and with a victory over them already in the bag.

So, unusually for the 49ers, we went out and did a big trade midseason and brought in Christian McCaffrey from the Panthers. And with that we started winning. And we took over the lead in our division and were on a roll. Only for Jimmy G to go down to a season ending injury. We were now on to our third string quarterback for the season, this year’s draft’s Mr Irrelevant, the last man picked in the draft – Brock Purdy.

Doom and gloom were predicted. But it didn’t come. Purdy played well. Yes, there was the occasional misfire, and he got lucky with defensive penalties wiping out mistakes a few times in his first few games, but he linked up well with a seemingly fully fit and fully functioning Kittle, and we kept winning.

Only for him to get an oblique injury and for part of a game, fourth string quarterback, J Johnson, a long in the tooth replacement picked up off the waivers was in. And still we won. And Purdy remained the starter, even with the injury. And we kept winning. I did another of my rewritten lyrics songs in his praise, changing Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” to “We Love Brock Purdy” with “Throw another dime to George Kittle baby” in there. And not even that stopped the 49ers winning.

We won the last ten regular season games and finished with a 13-4 record and the NFC second seed. Up in the wildcard weekend were the Seahawks and we took our record to 3-0 against them for the season, despite the extra hard mastication on his gum by Pete Carroll. And in the divisional round it brought up the Cowboys. And it brought up another win, as it had the previous year, still a tight game but not so reliant on Cowboys mistakes. The defence doing a stellar job as they had all season.

Part of me wanted the Giants to beat the Eagles. A terrible thing for me to be wanting with my hatred of the Giants. But it would have been an easier game for us, and it would have given us the chance of knocking out the holy trinity of shit eating fuck face teams in the same playoffs (it could extend to four if the Raiders were to get to the Superbowl, but let’s be honest, that’s never going to happen). But it wasn’t to be.

And so nine months after flights had been booked I was flying from New York to Miami at the exact time the NFC Championship game was being played. The Delta flight couldn’t get their plane’s wi-fi system working, and so there was no Direct TV as had been promised, and so no way to watch the game.

I turned my phone back on once at Miami airport and the first inkling of how things had gone were a text message from a friend who had been a housemate back in my Manchester days. He lives in Philadelphia now, and the text was just a single emoji – an Eagle. A few minutes later data services kicked in and I found the full details.

It was disappointing, but how we were after week seven, if you had said NFC Championship game I would have snatched your arm (and probably a couple of other body parts as well) off you.

And so, we need to go again. Get our quarterback one and quarterback three fit and keep them that way for a whole season and make it third time lucky in next year’s NFC Championship game.

Postscript.

The above was written on the flight back to the UK ten days ago. I’ve only gotten around to typing it up today. And so, I watched the Superbowl last night. There were reasons to not want either side to win; the Eagles because their fans are morons who smashed their own city up on their only previous Superbowl win five years ago, and the Chiefs because of the racist connotations of their name (I’m sure they could change it and find a better name than the truly dreadful Commanders or Guardians).

It was a great game, the Eagles tactic of trying to cripple the opponent’s quarterback didn’t quite work this time, and the Chiefs (quite literally) limped to victory 38-35, overcoming a ten point deficit again as they had four years ago, though I’ve blocked out who that was against.

49 Problems, But The New Season Ain’t One

Another new NFL season is upon us, and to say I am not prepared is a massive understatement. I’m sure that July was only last week. But apparently no, it’s the second weekend in September and the first game of the new season is tonight, as reigning Superbowl Champions the Los Angeles Rams (it hurts to have to type that) take on most people’s favourites for a Superbowl win this year, the Buffalo Bills on the first Thursday Night Football of the season. And therefore, this has been thrown together and typed up in a bit of a rush without any research or actual fact gathering. (So much so it would be a much better preview of a team such as the Eagles, Falcons, Cardinals, Ravens, or Seahawks, as I’m totally winging this.)

The mass dismantling of the Rams that was foretold after their win back in February hasn’t really happened, and a large majority of their winning team is back this year. It could have been us, but the 49ers ran out of offensive ability in the final quarter of NFC Conference Final. Although to be fair it was more luck than judgement we got there. A last play of the match in the final regular season game saw us beat the Rams and squeeze into the playoffs. Aaron Rodgers had his usual missing in action game against the 49ers in the wild card game, and the Cowboys showed they were just that bit better at shooting themselves in the foot in the divisional round.

The offseason has been more of a soap opera than East Coronation Dale Oaks could ever be. Between Deebo Samuel and Jimmy G it’s been a drama roller coaster over the summer. Deebo has been persuaded to stay with top dollar, which we hope he plays up to. Meanwhile we haven’t been able to give Jimmy G away for a dollar. It looks as if we are going to start with Trey Lance at quarterback, and have the most expensive backup quarterback in the league.

After the travails of the end of last season now more than six months down the line, my nails and hair have all grown back just in time for the new season. Quarterback discussions aside, we look to be a more settled team this year, we’ve kept most of our high performing players.

Trent Williams became the first offensive lineman to earn a 99 rating in Madden since 2007, and was only the fourth 49er to get that accolade (Terrell Owens, Patrick Willis, and Ken Norton Jr were the others. Although Jerry Rice did get a now defunct 100 rating). He was the highest rated of the seven 49ers players to make the NFL top 100 list for the new season. (Deebo, Kittle, Bosa, Warner, Ward, and Juszczyk being the others)

The talent is there, but can they put it all together? Will Trey Lance make the offense more potent, so that we can convert more of our possessions into points (7’s not 3’s), instead of having to rely on our stellar defence to keep the opposition score down. If he can then I can’t see the season being anything else apart from good. Outside of the Rams, our division may be less testing than it has been over the last few years. Not sure what Cardinals will turn up this year, the ones that started the season like a train last year, or the ones that couldn’t get out of their own way at the end of the season. But playing the Seahawks should be easier. Eternal pain in the backside Russell Wilson has gone to the Broncos, and so there will be no pulling miracles out of his arse against us for the chewing gum obsessed Pete Carroll this year.

Outside of the division it’s hard to look past the Packers and Buccaneers again this year in the NFC. The Cowboys may pretend to look good, but it’s easy to do when their division is more like Brit Bowl standard (and seriously, which halfwit took nearly two years to come up with the new Washington nickname and after all that time thought Commanders was a good name. If they wanted an apt name for what goes on in Washington, they really should have gone with Dumpster Fires).

There really shouldn’t be any reason why we can’t make it to the playoffs. 12-5 is well within our reach, and a third NFC Conference final in four years is a distinct possibility, without most of the dramas of last season. And playing for an extra five minutes this year would se us to the Superbowl.

And when we get there, I don’t care who we play. Whoever survives out of the Bills, Chiefs, Chargers, and Bengals will have been worn down enough for us to take advantage.

Which means I’ve just predicted that we’ll go all the way and win the Superbowl. That probably shows just how much I’m out of it, as it is far too positive for me. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean the new four-leaf clover addition causes the horseshoe to fall off the wall and crush the rabbit’s foot.

Go Niners!

Third Time Is Not A Charm

Choosing a name for this blog post was a bit of a test. I had a lot of ideas, and usually when I start to write I already know what the title is going to be, but as some of this was written before the game started, some as it was played and some after it was all over, I didn’t want to jinx the game either way with a too confident or too negative title before I knew the final outcome. I really wanted it to be Silencing The Lambs, but it wasn’t to be.

So here it is, Conference final weekend, after winning it all two years ago, we finished bottom of our division last year, but we are back, and it’s against our (very) long-time rivals – the Los Angeles Rams. Ever since our first season in the NFL in 1950, we have been in the same division as the Rams, even when they tootled off to St Louis for a while, we have played them twice a season every year (even in the strike shortened 1982 season).

But did you know they weren’t even the first team based in Los Angeles the 49ers played? That honour went to the Los Angeles Dons, one of the teams in the fledgling AAFC that the 49ers were founder members of in 1946. In fact, the Dons were the first team to play in Los Angeles at all. They beat the Rams by two weeks, as even though the Rams had moved from Cleveland in 1943, they didn’t play a game until 1946.

The Rams can’t even claim to be our oldest rivals, as the Browns and Colts have also survived from the old AAFC when it was merged into the NFL in 1950. (NB, the Colts were then in Baltimore, and technically formed in 1947 after the AAFC had seized the Miami Seahawks and sold it on to Baltimore businessmen – so the 49ers played a team called the Seahawks in their first ever pro season.)

We have only played the Rams once in the playoffs before, that being 32 years ago in another Conference final, where we properly beat them up 30-3 and headed on to win the Superbowl against the Broncos racking up the biggest margin of victory in the Superbowl, and the most points scored in the Superbowl in our 55-10 win.

Overall, we lead the series 75 – 67 – 3. And we have won the last six games straight against them. Since their Rams return to Los Angeles, we lead 9-3, and 5-1 in Los Angeles, including a clean sweep at their new SoFi stadium. But it is always difficult for any team to manage a three-game sweep in the same season.

Which is where tonight’s game is being staged. After briefly having a “toys out of the pram” moment in conspiring with Ticketmaster to try and stop 49ers fans to get tickets, it looks like there will be a serious red invasion at SoFi as it was in the last game of the regular season, where out overtime win saw us squeeze into the playoff by the skin on the skin of our teeth.

Meanwhile the Rams are looking at following the precedent set by the Buccaneers last year by winning and getting to play the Superbowl at their home stadium.

On the whole I’ve been trying not to think about the game too much. Yes, I was thinking about titles for this piece, and I’d done a bit of research, oh, and there was the pick six stuff I’ve been doing, but I’ve not been reading all the posts on Facebook or trawling the NFL website. I’ve been trying to stay as calm as possible and be as uninvolved as possible.

The only exception was some talk around how we stop Cooper Kupp. I’m not going to say my idea was the most sensible or even sensical (seeing as I deliberately went phonetically). It went “Hold all his relatives to ransom to get him to drop everything. All of them – Paper, Tea, Coffee, Bra, Suction, Sippy, World, Stanley, FA, Calcutta, Gold and Chocolate.”

All this aside, there was also the serious business of what to wear. There are a load of jerseys in the wardrobe, but since having lost enough weight to drop a couple of sizes over the last year or so, I’m feeling the cold more and more, and with the heating going to be off come kick off time I went with something dragged out of the bottom of my drawers. Something I had forgotten all about (and that hadn’t fitted for years) – A 1995 Lee Sport baggy armed sweatshirt. No jinxing of individual players allowed. (Mainly because Fanatics failed to deliver the Kittle hoodie and Bosa long sleeved t-shirt on time.)

And now I’m watching the AFC conference game and stringing this together, and I can’t help thinking about what happens if we do win tonight. It will mean a repeat Superbowl regardless of the outcome of the AFC game. Those new to this will still know the Chiefs managed to beat us in the Superbowl two years ago. Those of us longer in the tooth will remember the two Superbowl victories against the Bengals in the eighties, including that first Superbowl win for the 49ers in the 1981 season. The game after “The Catch.” It would only be the 2^nd time two teams have played each other in the Superbowl three times (the other being the Steelers and the Cowboys).

And it will be the Bengals, another playoff game that goes to overtime and is won by a walk off field goal, after they equal the largest ever comeback deficit in a playoff game according to the announcers. (Though I’m not convinced that’s right, surely the Patriots over the Falcons.)

The game starts and, oh my god, there is a lot of red in that crowd. It shows up more, but it looks more like a home game for the 49ers than the Rams.

An exchange of punts to start the game, only for the Rams to put an ominous looking drive together. But hold up, what’s this, a Ward interception on third and goal in the end zone. Woo and hoo. A decent return as well, and then our first first down. But it fizzles out and it’s another punt. Which we down inside the five, the special teams carrying on where they left off last week. A side note is that we got away with a couple of calls that should have been penalties. A late hit on Stafford by Warner was missed, and a facemask on offence the following drive. We would be screaming if they were the other way, they need to cut it out and quickly as we will get called for them the longer the game goes on.

Yet from that the Rams drive 97 yards on eighteen plays over a load of time to score a touchdown, unsurprisingly to the aforementioned Kupp. A much shorter drive is finished by a long yards after catch touchdown trot from, who else, Deebo Samuel, and just a couple of minutes later it’s all level.

Another reasonable drive from the Rams, but the defence hold and force a field goal which was missed, and it stayed tied at seven apiece, with a chance at a two-minute drill for some points before half time, with the bonus of receiving the second half kick-off. A scary looking hit on Deebo didn’t seem good, but he was back in a couple of plays later and we got into field goal range and of course, Gould is as good as gold, and we go into half time with a 10-7 lead. Time to find something, anything, to do to avoid the half time natter.

A stuttering drive, extended by a couple of Rams penalties starts the second half, but it ends with a punt. And then we hold the Rams on a fourth and one for decent field position. Which we take full advantage of with a touchdown pass to Kittle and a 17-7 lead.

And on the next Rams drive, there it is. That dumbass penalty. Taunting. Not particularly obvious but called as the officials missed the two more obvious penalties in the first half. And a few plays later the Rams have a touchdown. To that damn man Kupp again and it’s back to 17-14.

We’re forced to punt, and on the first play on the next Rams drive it looks as if it’s an easy interception only for Tartt to drop it when it was easier to catch. Next snap, a long completion to Beckham Jnr was compounded by a dangerous hit by Ward for another 15 yards. But we hold them to a field goal to tie it up at 17 apiece with just over six minutes left. And that additional bundle of nerves kicks in.

A delay of game penalty, a near pick, and a drop and it’s time to punt to that well known sinking feeling. Although why the hell a helmet-to-helmet hit isn’t called will be as big a mystery as those non calls in the first half against us. Why is it such a wringer watching this season? And why the hell are the Rams not getting delay of game penalties called, that’s at least three in the fourth quarter that should have been called. Hello? A time out perhaps. Why let that second and eleven run down over thirty seconds to the two-minute warning? But the stop comes to force a field goal, and with less than two minutes we’re 17-20 down with only one timeout.

Batted. Short pass for a loss. Trying to escape a sack a ball thrown from god alone knows what angle and it’s intercepted. And that’s it. Barring a miracle, it is all over. And there is no miracle coming here.

In our record-breaking 17^th Conference championship game, it’s a record-breaking 10^th Conference championship game loss. And to the fucking Rams. To come so far and really give it away is such a wrench. The luck, the guts, the effort, and the sheer ridiculousness of this season has come to an end for us. There may be some anger (pointed in various directions). There will be some tough questions to be answered, and it will seem a long, long, long off-season, full of “what could have been”.

Yet despite all the rawness right now, I can look back to before the first Rams game this season when it felt like a loss there would have killed the season at the half way point, and we can point out we had the best second half of the season of any side (no other team had a better record over the second half than us), and to drag ourselves into the playoffs with that overtime win in the regular season finale against the Rams meant the season was better than I could have expected or hoped for back when we were 3 and 5.

The defence has been awesome over that period, let’s try and keep that group together and see what we can do to breath a bit more life into the offence, and let’s come again. Extend that Conference game record next season, but only with a win this time.

And most importantly in a couple of weeks’ time, root for the Bengals. (And if possible after the game kidnap Burrow and brainwash him to come and play for us.)

Postscript

A few questions the day after the game having slept (badly) on it.

5 issues that I can see.

1. Special Teams (not including the kickers). We don’t seem to improve, yes a good play won us the playoff game against the Packers, but our return average is dire, and general defence against special teams has been in the toilet. It’s been like this for a few seasons. Why can’t we seem to improve.

2. Secondary. So many long plays given up, especially on third and long, and if the opponents don’t get the catch then you can be pretty sure the defensive pass interference flag will be flying. It’s criminal when the front four and linebackers are doing such a great job week in week out. Again this isn’t a “this season” problem, it’s been an issue for a few years.

3. Dumb Penalties. Seriously. At terrible times. Besides the PI mentioned above. How many delay of game, false start or holding penalties come on crucial third downs? Taunting, late hits, facemask penalties, on both sides of the ball. We might have improved a bit on this, but there are far too many brainless penalties given away. We’re not the Raiders (or the Cowboys for that matter), surely this should be being coached out.

4. Play calling. It’s baffling. So many sideways or draw plays are called. We have a couple of speedsters, but we so rarely go for the deep ball. We get away with this a lot because we have players that are outstanding at yards after catch, or yards after first contact (or both). It’s covering up cracks in the play calling, as if those players are out then we’d struggle to get to double figures (think about the games Kittle has missed over the last two seasons).

5. Is it time for a new coach? This may seem harsh on a coach who has got us to two Conference championships in five years (the words luck over judgement spring to mind). Yet, all four of the issues raised above (although the secondary might be laid at the door of the GM) fall on him. We hired him as an offensive mastermind, and yet this season we only broke 40 points in game one against (what we didn’t know then) what was a very poor Lions side. And on his scripted first 24 plays each game, we failed to score in the first quarter in over a third of them. Another four games we failed to score in the last quarter. The quality of the players at his disposal have dug him out of holes of his own making too many times for my liking. And don’t get me started on wasted time outs.

Pack It Up, Pack It In

Another weekend, another playoff game. This time a Divisional weekend matchup away against the Green Bay Packers in the frozen tundra of the Lake Michigan shores of Wisconsin.

Two years ago, on the same weekend we played the same opponents if not in the same stadium; only in the Conference Final, and we came out as Conference champions and booked out trip to the Superbowl. There stakes aren’t quite as high this time around, but a similar result would see another conference final in much warmer climes.

We had played the Packers this season, way back in heady September days. It was a close affair and when we scored to take the lead with 36 seconds left to play it was looking good. But it was too much time to give to Aaron Rodgers to get within field goal range, and Mason Crosby kicked the winning field goal as time expired. There was a certain irony in him kicking that winning field goal, as if he hadn’t already had more misses than Bill Wyman in the eighties then they would already have been out of sight.

That game span our seasons in opposite directions. We seemed to lose confidence and control and went on a poor run to leave us with a losing record and only an outside chance of making the playoffs. Meanwhile the Packers, who had been looking decidedly dodgy, especially after a week one shellacking against the Saints, went on a winning run that ended up with them finishing as the NFC number one seed. But they finished with a couple of losses in their last few games, whereas we had managed to dig our an improbably come from behind victory at the Rams to make the playoffs, and then somehow managed to survive to win the “Shoot Yourselves In The Feet” Bowl against the Cowboys last weekend. We’re coming into the game somewhat battle hardened, whereas the Packers have had a bye week and a half game against the Lions as preparation.

Including the aforementioned conference final two years ago, we’ve played the Packers eight times in the playoffs and the series is equal at four apiece, although they hold a 2-1 record over us in Divisional weekend games, something that would be nice to even up. Plus, we have won the last three playoff games against them, all with them being under Rodgers as quarterback.

For me, the main question was whether I was going to stay up and watch it live in the early hours of Sunday morning and zombie it through Sunday; or would I record the game and watch it when I got up Sunday morning. I went for the latter as it meant I could fast forward through Neil Reynolds and his cast of sycophant morons, and the adverts, which is always a bonus. I just had to stay off social media Sunday morning until I’d finished watching.

Oh dear, that first drive looked ominous. Nowhere near Rodgers at any point and yards at will. A decent kick-off return, but the run is stuffed up for us, and it didn’t take long for the first brain dead penalty of the day, or for the first sack. This has the hallmarks of a very long day.

It has to be said I am used to watching games by myself, it’s why I’m rarely on the game group chat on the NEGB, apart from to make flippant comments. I like to concentrate without distractions, as those who went to the meetup for the Superbowl in Liverpool two years ago will have noticed.

Drive two started ominously again, but Warner forced a fumble. Only for us to look like we’d fumbled twice, once blown dead for forward progress and the other reversed as an incomplete pass, but it still led to a punt. And signs of life from our defence force a punt from the Packers. Only for our receivers to be afflicted by dropsy, and another punt. It took a quarter to warm up, but the defence has arrived, getting a sack of Rodgers, and forcing a punt. Only for Jimmy G to get sacked for the third time and another punt back to the Packers. Starting the game with four three and outs is a terrible start. But another sack of Rodgers leads to a punt again.

And finally, on our fifth possession we have a first down, two of them. No, make that three. Four. Five, and a first and goal. About fucking time. Only for a penalty to knock us back, and the Jimmy G Brain Fart ™ ends up with an interception and no points. And to pour salt on to the wound a seventy-five-yard completion sets up a field goal attempt as the first half expires which we managed to block and to limp into half time 7-0 down.

A decent kick off return starts the second half, which arrived with the snow in Green Bay. A first and goal run is wiped out by a facemask penalty, and then an illegal formation knocks us back. We can’t make the yards, and then Deebo looks to be injured. Could this get any worse? At least we get a field goal and finally some points on the board.

We make the Packers punt; they make us punt. They wander down the field casually eating up yards and eating up the clock and it’s depressing as hell as they get to a first and goal, but a penalty and a sack forces a field goal attempt which unfortunately isn’t blocked this time, and it’s now 10-3.

We convert a couple of third downs and get to field goal range and a fourth and one, which we go for only to come up three yards short and hand the ball back to the Packers. The new prayer is now “hold, hold, hold, hold, hold.” And we do with another third down sack of Rodgers and they have to punt. Which we fucking well block, find the ball eventually and Hufanga picks it up and rumbles into the end zone for a touchdown and we are miraculously level.

A three and out. Another punt forced. No block this time, but we have the ball with a little over three minutes to go. A first down pass to Kittle. A five-yard run by Mitchell and it’s down to the two-minute warning. Another first down from Deebo. A three-yard run from Deebo. No yards from Deebo. And another first down from Deebo but hops off injured. A yard from Mitchell. A yard from Juszczyk. Four seconds left and out comes Robbie Gould for a 45-yard field goal attempt.

AND IT’S GOOD.

The 49ers win, the 49ers win, oh my fucking god, the 49ers win.

On we go. We win, with special teams, can you seriously believe this fucking shit.

WOW.

There is no doing things the easy way for us, but a win is a win is a win, and for the third week on the trot we beat a division winner and progress. Whether it’s the Rams or Buccaneers it gives us the chance to make it four on the trot to make the Superbowl.

Go Niners.

No Nails Left

When the walk off interception confirmed the 49ers sweep over the Rams, it also meant that it was time for our fiercest rivalry to be renewed in the playoffs. We were going to be playing the Cowboys. It was going to be the eighth time we had met in the playoffs, and the first time since 1995, twenty-seven years and one day after we had beat them in the NFC conference file to make it to Superbowl XXIX.

We had sneaked into the playoffs by the skin on the skin of our teeth, and despite playing away from home against the league’s leading offence there was confidence that the 49ers could do it.

And so, the week of hype began. That last conference final matchup against them being a topic of discussion, as was The Catch in the 1981 season (well, that is brought up every season – multiple times) as it was the fortieth anniversary of that game on the Monday after we’d beaten the Rams.

Prior to kick-off all three play off games had gone the way of the home side. Could we buck that trend? (Fortunately, we weren’t going to Joe Buck that trend as he and Aikman had been stuck on the Bucs game.)

It started well. A seventy-yard touchdown drive on the first possession of the game. Quickly followed by a three and out forced on the Cowboys by the 49ers defence. Another scoring drive followed, with just a field goal to show this time. Another punt was forced, and we scored for the third time into the second quarter with another field goal. Scoring on the first three drives was good, but it left a feeling that it could have been a lot better.

And it seemed more so when the Cowboys scored a touchdown on their next drive. Then there was another field goal drive by us, and it seemed as if all these field goals would bite us on the ass as the Cowboys started driving again towards the end of the half with the spectre of them also receiving the kick off to start the second half. But the defence made another stop and we went in with a 16-7 lead at half time.

I resisted the temptation to throw heavy objects at the TV during half time as Neil Reynolds and his gruesome collection of “experts” (an ex is a has been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure, which makes experts has been drips under pressure) talked something that looked and smelt suspiciously like male cattle’s excrement.

After an exchange of punts to start the second half, sacks and pressure on Dak (which somewhat serendipitously rhymes with cack) led to him throwing an interception. Which was capitalised on the first play with Deebo Samuel showing what a threat he is as a receiver being a rusher with a weaving run for a touchdown and a 23-7 lead.

Dipak has suggested that Deebo could be the revolution for the receiving position and their increased use in the running game in the same way that Roger Craig was the revolution for the receiving running back thirty-five years ago. I can’t say I disagree. All I would say is, if it does turn out to be true, I hope he is treated with a lot more respect than Roger was (and is).

With a two-score lead with still more than a quarter to go, there was still plenty of scope to be nervous. An exchange of punts took some time up, and it looked as if we’d forced another punt just into the fourth quarter, only for the Cowboys to pull a pretty obvious looking fake punt and keep their drive alive. But only long enough to get a field goal and reduce the deficit to 23-10.

Then it was onto the standard Jimmy G brain fart time. I understand why he is a polarising player. For large portions he can cruise through looking every inch the franchise quarterback he is supposed to be. But it never seems to be for the whole game. There always seems to be that mad five minutes. Some throws that pre-NHS specs Ricky Vaughn would recognise, high, wide and not very handsome. And there is the pick.

This time it was the Cowboys’ turn to capitalise on the turnover with a quick touchdown and the lead was reduced to 23-17. It really was fingernail biting time.

It was also the point where the game turned into a classic slugfest. Not in terms of scoring. No, a completely different slugfest. One in which each team tried to outdo the other in terms of shooting themselves in the foot.

A five-minute drive (prolonged by dumb penalties from both sides) ended up with us punting back to the Cowboys with less than three minutes left. One big play came, but then the defence stood up and were counted, even after losing Nick Bosa and Fred Warner to game ending injuries (but hopefully not season ending ones). The Cowboys turned over on downs.

We had the ball with less than two minutes to play, but the Cowboys had all three timeouts, so we needed a first down to seal victory. And it is at this point where I suddenly aged twenty years in five minutes.

What wasn’t helping was the biased commentary from the game, featuring Homer Romo, plus all the panning of the crowd and the distraught looking Cowboys fans, crying and the game wasn’t even over.

On a third and long, they gave the ball to Deebo and he ran around the edge and got the first down. We had won. The chains came out and it was measured, and we had the first down. Only for the spot to be reviewed, the knee was down earlier than given credit for. The ball was re-spotted, the chains came out and we were an inch short.

Cue lots of swearing.

So, we lined up for fourth and inches, and went for the quarterback sneak. Which was made with ease. And there I was celebrating the victory for the second time.

Then came the flag. False start, five-yard penalty. (As a side note, surely it was an illegal shift and not a false start, but either way a penalty.) The punt team came out, and the punt soared into the end zone.

With 32 seconds and no time outs the Cowboys started on their own twenty-yard line. And for three successive plays we happily allowed them to gain chunk yards with quick throws to the side-line. THREE TIMES. Before we decided to defence the edges. For crying out loud, what the hell are we doing. They have no time outs, they can only stop the clock by getting out of bounds, and we have the fucking welcome mats out.

Then Dak runs up the middle on a play with fourteen seconds left and slides. Then the rush to get to the line of scrimmage to spike it. Only for them to get in the way of the umpire who must touch the ball before they can snap it. And they snap it.

And the clock says 0.00. We’ve won, surely this time, third time lucky. It’s muted. We wait for the inevitable magic extra second to be put back on the clock and give the damn Cowboys a shot at a hail Mary.

I hold my breath, and hold. And hold. And then release with a third and final winning cheer. There is no more time. We have held on and won and are off to play the Packers in the frozen wastes of Wisconsin.

Speaking of the Packers, it was their long-time coach Mike McCarthy (also a former 49ers offensive co-ordinator under Mike Nolan), who was coaching the Cowboys. With the massive number of penalties they racked up, the camera panned to him several times looking angry, perplexed, resigned, or just plain dumb. I’m not sure why the Cowboys thought he would help them back to the Superbowl. After all, in eleven seasons with Aaron Rodgers at QB, and pretty much ten-win seasons, he only managed a single Superbowl. Even an Eli Manning led Giants managed more than that in a similar timescale, as did the Steelers under Roethlisberger who has the turning circle of an aircraft carrier. Hopefully he can stay with the Cowboys for another decade and keep the same record going.

After a couple of days, I am breathing again normally, and I’ve passed all the fingernail fragments.

More of the same Saturday night will be fine. If we keep winning then I can live with being seventy years old.

Oh, and to celebrate I did some rewritten song lyrics poking fun at the Cowboys.

Dogshit Cowboys (Glen Campbell – Rhinestone Cowboy)

They’ve been playoff deadbeats so long

Playing the same old game

We know every failure of these dirty cowboys of Dallas

Where losing’s the name of the game

And Superbowl hopes get washed away by whoever they play first

There’s been a load of ugly losses

On the road to the big game

And they’re gonna be at home when lights are shinin’ bright

Like the dogshit cowboys

Riding out of the playoffs like a shit-stained rodeo

Like the dogshit cowboys

Getting boos and catcalls from people they don’t even know

People making memes on their phones

Well, they must really like the pain

As again their hopes go down the drain

And a loss again to a team lower ranked that they are expected to beat

And dreams of winning a playoff game

Are shattered again by the 49ers making you look so very lame

There’s been a load of ugly losses

On the road to the big game

And they’re gonna be at home when lights are shinin’ bright

Like the dogshit cowboys

Riding out of the playoffs like a shit-stained rodeo

Dogshit cowboys

Getting boos and catcalls from people they don’t even know

People making memes on their phones

Like the dogshit cowboys

Riding out of the playoffs like a shit-stained rodeo

Like the dogshit cowboys

Getting boos and catcalls from people they don’t even know

Just the dogshit cowboys

And Breathe

Well that was more exciting than it should have been. There were several things about the game that shouldn’t have been. Has a win ever felt so flat? If it was week 10 or something like that then it wouldn’t be as bad, but this kind of roller coaster performance and plain lunacy in not going to inspire confidence when it is week 1 (it could only be worse if it was week 18 and a wild card game was forthcoming).

Our first play from scrimmage of the season was a nightmare, to fumble the first snap and turn the ball over after a decent defensive stand is criminal. Fortunately, we got the ball back nearly straight away, and that initial snap snafu didn’t seem to affect Jimmy G for the rest of the game. All in all, he played a good game, the stats line and general play was good, especially in the first half when it was the Lions trying to shoot themselves in the foot with every opportunity.

The second drive marched down the field, and Trey was introduced when we were in the red zone. With his first pass attempt in the NFL he connected with Trent Sherfield (for his first 49ers catch) for a touchdown. The first player to pass for a TD on their first attempt since 2010, when of all people Tim Tebow did it. I hope that’s not some kind of omen.

We exchanged scores to get to a 14-10 lead before really taking off (the downside being an injury picked up by Mostert which meant he didn’t return). Halfway into the third quarter we’d managed to stretch out to a 38-10 lead, and three minutes into the fourth quarter it was 41-17. Absolutely nothing to worry about. At all. We got this covered.

Well, apart from the injuries. Hardly a play seemed to go by without another player being helped off. The most serious of which was to Verrett, who it was later confirmed suffered an ACL. Not ideal when our cornerback position is the one with the least strength in depth (as the targeting of Donate Johnson showed). Yes, we have Josh Norman in the 53-man squad, but the jury is out on whether he is still the player he used to be. He talks a good game. Well he talks, pretty much non-stop, but unless he’s going to be catching balls with his motor mouth, I’m not convinced.

The two-minute warning has gone when the Lions scored a touchdown and get the two-point conversion they needed. But that’s fine, it’s not like they are going to recover an onside kick. Erm, OK, yes, they are, the ball pops up unexpectedly and hits Kittle in the facemask and the Lions recover. 46 seconds later they’ve another TD and 2-point conversion, and it’s getting twitchy.

A second onside kick is recovered by Warner and there is a massive sigh of relief. When Deebo caught a catch to get first down yardage three plays later there was a big shout of yes, only for a split second later it to change to a strangled cry of NO! as he fumbled, and it was recovered by the Lions. Nearly as many fumbles going on as at a High School Prom.

The last time I witnessed this kind of fuckwittery and complete collapse, Shanahan was on the side line too. I’m not referring to the Superbowl where we lost to the Chiefs eighteen months or so ago. No, it was a Superbowl, but the one where the Falcons managed to blow the biggest lead in history to let the damn Patriots win another fucking Superbowl.

Fortunately, this time around the defence just about managed to hold on and prevent the Lions scoring, and we could take a knee with 12 seconds left to see out a victory that should have been a damn sight easier than it was. It felt more like a Kelly or Tomsula performance, which is never a good sign.

There are many questions. A lot more than there should be after an opening day win in which we score 40+ points. Are we forever injury jinxed? Has Bosa fully recovered? How the hell are our current cornerbacks going to deal with Deandre Hopkins, or DJ Metcalfe (and others) twice a season? Can Shanahan call a complete game without any bonehead decisions?

There were times when it felt like (pretty average back) D’Andre Swift was Moses with the way the defence opened up like the Red Sea. Late in the fourth quarter the camera panned to Shanahan and it looked like he’d aged and gone grey during that quarter. He wasn’t the only one. I think it was Dipak that said the Lions showed more heart and courage than the 49ers did. With the Lion and Tin Man covered, I think we played like the Scarecrow in that last quarter, and to paraphrase Dorothy, “Thank God we’re not playing Kansas anymore.”

I’m not sure my heart can take this kind of crap for another 16 games. I was thinking the second game of the season at the Eagles would be another easy game to take us to 2-0 before returning to play at home, but with a performance like this, and the Eagles showing surprising signs of life in their own week 1 victory, I’m left thinking there is no such thing as an easy game playing like this and I’m going to need to get some beta blockers to survive the season.

And while I’m at it, a quick top 10 inspired by the game

The Smiths – Panic
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax (Don’t Do It!)
Queen – Another One Bites The Dust
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Give It Away
Raphael Saadiq – Heart Attack
Trey Songz – Fumble
Weird Al Yankovic – Dare To Be Stupid
Charlie Peacock – Almost Threw It All Away
Bastille – Good Grief (Watching Through My Fingers)
Toni Braxton – Breathe Again

Season 102

Another NFL season is upon us, the 102nd, and hopefully it can be a damn sight better than last year. Last year was a strange Covid related season, the 49ers ended up having to play home games in Arizona, there was the hangover from losing the previous year’s Superbowl, and it was another injury plagued season. What many supporters were expecting to be a winning season, with another playoff run turned out to be a bitter disappointment and we limped to an uninspired losing season.

It’s been another long offseason, but at least there has been some kind of pre season this year. And that’s thrown up some interesting looks for the team for the season. With Trey Lance taken as the first pick by the 49ers in the draft (and trading up to do so) it brings about the possibility of a quarterback controversy as the season possesses. Although having both him and Jimmy G lining up in the backfield at the same time could lead to some very interesting play calls.

The first game of the season is tomorrow, and we are away at the Detroit Lions, a team that were an even bigger car crash than us last season, and one that have lost Matt Stafford (why to the Rams of all places), who has carried them for the last half dozen years or so, and look to be in a bigger mess than they were last year. But starting the season against the Lions has previously been a good omen for us, the twice we have played them in the first game of the season we have gone on to win the Superbowl, it would be a happy hat trick.

I was upbeat in my season preview last year, which as anyone who knows me will attest to, is most unlike me, I am definitely a glass half empty person. And yet I’m still optimistic for this year. Nearly as optimistic as last year. We have kept the core of a great defence, and we have players back from injury which should make us better than our very patchy season last year.

But, how optimistic? It’s difficult, there is little doubt that we are in the strongest division – certainly in the NFC. NFL power rankings have us in the top ten, but behind both the Rams and Seahawks. Lindy’s had us finishing second in the division, making the playoffs, and somehow from that second place in the division to getting through to the conference final. I’d be happy with any of that to be fair.

There aren’t going to be as many unknowns this season. Crowds are back for a start. There aren’t likely (touching wood and crossing fingers) to be any enforced changes of stadium for games. And (touching wood, crossing fingers, chanting warding spells and anything else that could help) we really, really, really can’t have another season with such a horrendous raft of injuries.

The regular season is going to be different though. From a nice even, well appointed schedule of 16 games; in what can only be seen as a money making idea, that schedule is thrown out by adding another random game into the mix and making it a 17 game season. (I’m still not sure which orifice they have dragged who the extra team to be played has been dragged out of, and I doubt I’ll have it sorted in my head before they change it again and go to an 18 games schedule.) It does mean than no team can now have a .500 season (OK, yes they could if they have a tie, which we all know, despite my pick six picks, is rarer than rocking horse shit, and even if they do they then have to go .500 for their other sixteen games. In summary, it’s not very likely.)

And speaking of pick six. I have taken a step back from active involvement in supporting the 49ers. I stopped running the pick six game for the NEGB, and de-admined (yes, I’m making words up at this point) myself in the group, didn’t join the fantasy league, and barely even got around to making my six picks every week. But, I’m back running the pick six this year, I’ve found a couple of scoring wrinkles to put into the mix and joined the fantasy league. Unfortunately I wasn’t around for the live draft, and although happy in most places, I have the (as Homer so elegantly put it), “the worst bunch of sucks that ever sucked” as running backs. I’ll need some free agency and waiver action going to even get enough active running backs to start a week’s action.

As for watching games, Sky have the NFL channel again, and I will imagine there will be a number of times the 49ers are shown live. Not that it matters, as I don’t have Sky Sports and as previously stated, I won’t be getting it, as it ties you in for years, screwing up your existing contract. If they stop putting RedZone on Sky Sports Mix though, there might be murders. And with the likelihood of numerous games on Sky then it probably means Game pass isn’t value for money either. Dodgy streams seem the most likely (again).

So, here goes, here’s the moment no one has been waiting for, the prediction. I think we will go into the season finale against the Rams needing a win to win the division, which we do and finish 12-5. Superbowl? Not quite, I see heartbreak in the NFC championship game. (Disclaimer, if the QB situation blows up, this could all go wrong. Rapidly.)

Which only leaves me with one thing to say before the season gets underway.

Go Niners!

Season 101

Another NFL season is upon us, the 101^st, and what could be the strangest one of the lot. In a lot of ways, the off season has flown by. Covid-19 has made everything, including time, screwy. The fact that most people haven’t really been able to do anything or go anywhere makes it a surprise the new season is here already, but it has been a continuous turgid blur since the beginning of March. The draft wasn’t the same, and we’ve had no pre-season this year. Additionally, the football (as in association football) season hasn’t really started yet, we usually have a month of that before the football (American football) starts in earnest.

Of course, in other ways it has been the longest off season possible. When your team is leading in the Superbowl and there is six minutes of madness and they end up losing, it’s a terrible feeling to drag into a long off-season (there aren’t many sports where the off season is longer than the actual season). Being so close and yet so far away. It still feels like a crushing blow.

The first game of the season is tonight, and that makes it even worse; the 49ers aren’t playing until Sunday night. If they could have held out and won, then it would be us playing tonight and kicking the season off.

Granted, when I wrote about my hopes for the 49ers’ season at this time last year, there was an expectation that we could have an improved season, that we could break even, or even, with a following wind get a winning season. The reality of that was far better than the expectation. If I had predicted that we would finish with the best record in the conference and homefield advantage, and use it to get to the Superbowl, you would probably have told me to lay off the drugs.

So, how do I follow that and look at the forthcoming season? It would be easy to say we can do the same again, but win that final game and fulfil the quest for six. And I would love that to be the case. The team has managed to keep the core of the squad that got us to the Superbowl last year. Yes, some players have moved on, but we have made some good additions. A lot of the players are going to be another year into Lynch and Shanahan’s scheme of things.

Yet, there are going to be so many unknowns this season; along with other things to consider. The main one being, is everyone will see us coming this year. Nobody expected the 49ers to be so good last year, no one would have bet on them being the team at 8-0 at the mid-point of the season. There were signs in the second half of the season that teams were getting a handle on us. There were a lot of close games. Only for us to approach the playoffs differently and confuse the opponents, smothering their game plans at birth. Until that last quarter. I expect teams to play differently against us this season, and there will be those raising their game because they are playing us, something that hasn’t happened in nearly a decade.

The atmosphere at games is going to be vastly different. Without crowds (or certainly not capacity ones), homefield advantage won’t mean a great deal (unless it’s in Green Bay at minus twenty degrees). This may well suit us, as we were one of four teams to post a 7-1 away record last season. Some teams will feel the difference; how will the Seahawks cope with only having twelve men in the stands and not the twelfth man? It will be a similar story for the defending champions as well, as the Chiefs have the loudest fans in the NFL. It’s not as if they are allowed to pump in crowd noise either, the Falcons got heavy fines for that a few seasons back.

There is, of course, the danger that Covid may hamper the season, and not just from a crowd perspective. If the expected surge in cases happens as autumn and winter come on, then full lockdowns could reappear, and seasons suspended or cancelled.

On top of this there is the political spectre standing as a threat in the shadows. There are likely to be player protests during the season. The NFL have been making some of the right noises recently, but they are still ultra-conservative and may not live up to those words if pressure comes from the Idiot-in-Chief, something that he likes to do, and has done in the past. There is an election during the season, and it would be no surprise to see widespread disturbances and martial law regardless of who wins. It’s another danger to the population of the US – most importantly – and it will be a possible additional cause of sporting events getting shut down.

Now that I’ve sounded doom and gloom all around, onto the season. We start against the Cardinals at home (as if that matters at the moment). We did do the double over our divisional rivals last year, but we made hard work of both games. This is likely to be another close encounter, one which I think we will win, but whatever the outcome, it will likely indicate how we are going to do for the season. I expect it to be the first of many encounters which end up being a lot closer than they should be and one that will be no good for any followers with heart conditions or high blood pressure.

The away game against the Rams will be in their new “most expensive in the world” stadium. With or without fans, a new stadium is difficult to play in, and it should be a case of another stadium the 49ers have won in, at the end of that game.

We end the season against the Seahawks again, this time at home. This is likely to be a division decider yet again, as both sides go into the game with 10-5 records and we come out with an 11-5 one. We won’t have home field advantage, but we will have enough to make it through to the conference final. After that I’m not prepared to say.

As for watching games, Sky now have an NFL channel, and I will imagine there will be a number of times the 49ers are shown live. Not that it matters, as I don’t have Sky Sports and I won’t be getting it, as it ties you in for years, screwing up your existing contract. If they stop putting RedZone on Sky Sports Mix though, there might be murders. And with the likelihood of numerous games on Sky then it probably means Game pass isn’t value for money either. Dodgy streams seem the most likely.

Which only leaves me with one thing to say before the season gets underway.

Go Niners!

One Quarter Too Many

It’s a Sunday morning and that’s the alarm going off. Normally I would say there’s no need. But this Sunday is different. For a start the date is a palindrome, it’s 02/02/2020, something we haven’t had in over nine hundred years. It’s even a palindrome if we use the silly date formatting the damn yanks do. Then it is also Groundhog Day, the American version of St Swithun’s Day over here for randomly foretelling the weather. More famous as a film than the actual day now.

But neither of those are the reason I’m up at the same time I would be to go to work. No, today is the Superbowl. Another American import that a lot of Brits don’t like, or don’t understand. For me it has been a regular part of life for thirty-odd years (not thirty odd years). The late-night Sunday (UK time) game is followed by the traditional day off afterwards. It’s the first day I book off with a new year’s worth of annual leave entitlement. And as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, my team – the San Francisco 49ers – are in the Superbowl this year. (Woo and Hoo!)

For the first time though, I’m not going to be sat at home watching it by myself after everyone else has gone to bed. The last time the 49ers were in it seven years ago, I watched us lose and the only comment from my other half at the time the next day was “why didn’t you record the half time show?” No, this year I’m off to Liverpool to meet up with a group of other 49ers fans to watch it in Shooters Sports Bar in the Bierkeller.

Of course, with it being a weekend and being south of London, there are engineering works and it is a choice of a rail replacement service for part of the journey into London, or a circular route on a slow train. (Did I mention it was Groundhog Day?) Being lazy, plus the fact I am taking a two-foot-high stack of magazines up to Liverpool for one of the other fans, meant that I took the circular route without a change. It was odd to go from Three Bridges to London, but to go through Crawley (where it didn’t stop) and then Horsham, Dorking and Epsom up to Clapham Junction instead of through Gatwick.

Victoria now has step (and escalator) free access to all underground platforms, but what it doesn’t tell you is to use them down to the north bound Victoria line it involves three different lifts and a walk halfway to Pimlico. Coming off at Euston was a lot more straightforward.

The train from Euston to Liverpool Lime Street was run by Tinpot Railways (sorry, what? LNWR, if you say so) and despite the fact the train was stopping at anywhere that had a station (and some places that didn’t), it was only made up of four coaches. I’d booked a first-class ticket as it was pretty much the same price and I’d be guaranteed a seat. Well as long as I could find first class that was. It was hidden randomly in the middle of the second coach. It didn’t have any proper luggage racks, just overhead space, which just wasn’t big enough for a beast of a bag filled with magazines. So, it spent the journey sat in the aisle. When asked if I could move it, I refused to put it outside of first class next to the entrance doors where someone could just whip it away. I did say I could put it on a spare seat, but as there weren’t many of them that wasn’t going to be a goer either. It stayed in the aisle.

After one station, as I’m sat there in jeans and t-shirt, writing in my notepad in my cheap first-class seat, a snooty woman stops by my seat to speak to me.

“I assume anyone can sit here, it’s not just for those with first class tickets today is it?”

“Don’t know, but I’ve got a first-class ticket, so get off your snobby high horse and don’t make assumptions.”

She’s left first class. I can only think it was to go and find the guard to moan to him about the riff raff they sell first class tickets to. I didn’t see her again.

At Lime Street I met Marc and handed over all the magazines and headed to the hotel on Albert Docks. The hotel is good, but my room was quite a distance from reception, thankfully above ground, as if it had been on a lower level, I might have thought I’d walked to Birkenhead.

I watched the Tottenham game as I did some more writing. I didn’t want to get out too early, mainly because there is always the danger when a load of blokes meets up to watch sports that it will descend into a very messy night. With the game not kicking off until 11:30 and due to go on until after three am, there is pacing needed if I am going to remember the score the next morning.

I head to Shooters only to find no one else has got there yet, and find out they are at The Grapes, but about to be going to food. Google maps has The Grapes as only a couple of hundred yards away, so I head off, but as is usual with Google maps they aren’t accurate, and it takes ten minutes to find the place. To top it off, on the way some random scally sidles up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a very suspicious looking wrap of cocaine. After refusing, he told me he didn’t normally do this whole dealer thing, but he needed another three quid so he could get his bus home. I’d lay good odds that those wraps he had were full of flour.

A number of hungry looking 49ers fans were waiting for me outside The Grapes – Graeme, James, Dipak, Mike, Jimmy, Marc and Simon – and we headed off to get food. On the journey to Pizza Hut, another dodgy scally sidled up to Dipak to ask if he wanted some coke. There must be something about middle aged blokes wandering around in 49ers shirts that screams “they must want to buy drugs”. Weirdos.

Paul joined us in Pizza Hut, and then we headed en masse to Shooters. Others joined the party there, Martyn and his mate, Andy, plus a number of others I didn’t recognise or know, and there were other 49ers fans who weren’t there as part of the Empire GB group. It didn’t take long for the bravado of doing silly drinks started, Dipak insisted on a round of Irish car bombs, which seven others joined in with, but this potentially messy start to the evening gave way to a bout of photo taking with Empire flags, and the drinks calmed down.

Sat there before the game started, I felt I was slowly descending into a sense of dread, nothing to do with the game itself. More to do with there being lots of people there. I feel like I want to run away. Head back to the hotel and watch the game by myself. I suddenly feel out of place and just want to hide. And the game and the proper madness hasn’t started yet. I’m really not used to watching games with other people, and as the game would evolve so would my realisation that I hate watching games with other people.

Game time.

The 49ers win the toss and defer and kick off. The defence has come to play and hold the Chiefs to a three and out on the first drive of the game. Our first drive saw us get into field goal range and then stall, taking the three points and an early lead. 3-0

The Chiefs second drive is more successful, and they get all the way down to the endzone and take the lead. 3-7. Our next drive doesn’t go well, Jimmy G throws an interception, where it might have been so much better to just take the sack. We manage to stop the Chiefs fully capitalising, holding them to a field goal. 3-10.

It was at this point that the commentary team on Sky were piercing my consciousness. They had Josh Norman as part of their team. The more I saw and heard him, then the more I came to the conclusion that he dressed like, looked like and was channelling the spirit of Wu-Tang’s sadly departed ODB. All that was going through my head for the rest of the game every time he spoke was “Hey, Dirtee, baby I got your money.”

Back to the game and our next drive saw the 49ers score their first touchdown of the game, as Kyle Juszczyk caught a pass and did a diving superman impression into the end zone. 10-10. We forced the Chiefs to punt on their next drive, but there was some odd clock management from the 49ers, and they ran out of time to be able to score at the end of the half. It had looked like we were in scoring range as Kittle caught a bomb, only for it to be called for offensive pass interference. Probably the correct call, but if it hadn’t been called, it would have been unlikely to have been challenged or overturned.

Having a look around the assembled 49ers fans at the half, I was making a note of the Jerseys worn. There were a couple of Garoppolo and Bosa jerseys from the current team; a throwback to our last Superbowl appearance with a Kaepernick jersey, but there was more of an eighties throwback theme going on. Montana, Rice, Rathman and me wearing Craig – about who it is a disgrace that he isn’t in the hall of fame. Something for me to have a diatribe about in a future blog post.

The half time show started with Shakira and a troop of dancers in red body suits, all with the left leg missing. Now, I’m all for making sports / leisurewear for the less able, but really, is every single leg amputee missing their left leg? I wasn’t really following what was going on, but I glanced up and tin foil man was on the screen, doing a bit of mumble rap before popping himself back in the oven. Then a miniature Empire State Building appeared with King Kong hanging off it. Whoops, no, that’s J-Lo. King Kong might have been better. To be fair so would Donkey Kong as well.

As this was going on, Mike had a sudden panic as his phone which he thought had been on the table in front of us had disappeared. It didn’t last long before he remember he’d plugged it in on the stage. Meanwhile on stage in Miami there were a load of kids, one of whom seemed to be being forced to sing whilst in a large bird cage. As for WTF happened after that was anyone’s guess. It did seem as if it had turned into a really shit episode of Strictly Come Dancing.

What a relief, it’s game time again.

We had the ball first in the second half, and as our first drive of the first half had it stalled near the red zone and we settled for the field goal and a three-point lead. 13-10. On the next drive Fred Warner intercepted a Mahomes pass, his first post season interception, and we had the ball back in great field position. We drove down the field steadily and Mostert crashed over for a touchdown. 20-10. The spirits of the 49ers fans kept on rising through the third quarter, and when Moore intercepted Mahomes again at the beginning of the fourth quarter it felt like BOOM!! And as the Chiefs had been looking dangerous on that drive it settled the nerves that had been coming to the surface.

Our next drive never really got going and we ended up punting, but there was an undercurrent of frustration with the officials over some perceived missed calls. There did look like there was a blatant offside ignored on third and fourteen. On the next play there was a debateable helmet to helmet hit on Garoppolo. On the next drive the touchdown was called for the Chiefs. The replay was inconclusive, so they said there wasn’t enough to overturn the call on the field of a touchdown. But if the call had been called short, it wouldn’t have been overturned either. 20-17.

The next drive didn’t start at all and a quick three and out gave the ball back to the Chiefs. There appeared to be another call missed on a hold on Bosa on a Chiefs third and fifteen, and the play was completed, and the Chiefs drove all the way down for another touchdown. 20-24.

Heads were dropping all around me, and it got worse as we ended up going four and out on our next drive. The Chiefs marched down the field again for another touchdown. 20-31. The bar was a sea of despondency, heads in hands, heads on the table, and suddenly there was a great deal of noise from around the outside of us of Chiefs fans who had been anonymously quiet prior to the last eight minutes of the game. The Chiefs had overcome a ten-point deficit to end up winning by ten points or more in a playoff game for the third time on the trot in these playoffs. (Did I mention it was Groundhog Day?)

The fat lady was warming up to sing, and when Garoppolo threw his second interception of the night the game was up. The Chiefs did three kneel downs and a hail Mary out of bounds to bring the clock down to all zeroes.

The season appears to have been one quarter too long for us, well eight minutes really. They are a young team, and there is a lot of promise that we can come back stronger next year, but there is a recent history of losing teams in the Superbowl suffering a hangover the following season. I just hope that isn’t the case, but it might be difficult to surprise teams the way we have this season.

It was a disappointing night, but in retrospect we did a hell of a lot better than we would have expected at the start of the season.

When I woke up the following morning, I hoped it was all a bad dream, but opening the curtains showed I was in a hotel room overlooking the Albert Dock and the 49ers had indeed lost. The season was an overall success, and if there had been one quarter less of football in the season, we would have won the lot.

Don’t Pinch Me

NFC Champions.

Not something I, or many other 49ers fans (if they are honest) would have thought possible before the season started. Breaking even at 8-8 would have constituted a success after the car wreck of the last six seasons of dross. But the team managed to go out and win the first eight games of the season, and expectations across the fan base have been raised, and I’ve been destroying my fingernails ever since.

We ended up losing three regular season games, and all of them were on the last play of the game, and they were all games we could have won. By the same token we won three of our remaining eight games on the last play of the game as well. Our record could have easily been 16-0 or 10-6, but it ended up at 13-3 and made us the number one seed in the NFC for the playoffs.

We made the number one seed by four inches. Four inches further and the hated Seahawks would have been in the end zone for a touchdown and the win. And instead of being the number one seed, with home field advantage and a rest week in the playoffs, we would have been playing away from home six days later on the wild card weekend as the number five seed. The margins have been that fine this season.

The more the season has gone on, the more nervous and withdrawn I have become. Apart from the pick six I’ve withdrawn from the GB Empire Facebook group more and more. I haven’t been involved in the game day threads. The group has seen such a surge in positivity, something that hasn’t really been seen since that group was set up over five years ago as the Frequency 49ers group.

I’ve retreated in to a shell to try and not tempt fate. To try and not raise my hopes too high for fear that if I come out and cheer “we’re going to win”, then it will have the opposite effect and jinx the team instead. I’ve done it enough times in the past with all sports teams I support.

So when we kicked off last weekend in the divisional round of the playoffs against the Vikings, I was pretty much watching through my fingers. Yet last week’s game was a masterclass of smash-em football. After an early touchdown drive for the Vikings we just steam-rollered them. Rush, rush and rush some more, eating up the clock and grinding them down, and on the other side of the wall having a brick wall defence, just repelling all attacks.

There has been a clamour since that performance around the team, about us being able to easily beat the Packers. I’ve heard them called the worst 13-3 team in history, the poorest number two seed ever; I’ve seen the fact that we gave them a good thrashing in the regular season raised as a pointer to us doing the same this time around.

But I was still worried, the Packers had managed to find a way to win thirteen regular season games, and they hadn’t lost since we had given them that beating. They had held off the Seahawks in the divisional round, a team we had struggled with twice in splitting the season’s series this year. Being somewhat downbeat I was worried that the season would come to an unremarkable end, I couldn’t bring myself to say we would win for the fear that I would cause us to lose.

So I was overjoyed that the season hasn’t ended yet, apart from a few minutes in the fourth quarter, it was another dominant performance, another rush heavy and solid defence outing, the second in successive weeks as far removed from the famed West Coast offence that the 49ers brought to the fore in the eighties as it was possible to be.

The 49ers have made the Superbowl for the first time since 2013, our only loss in the big game. And we are playing the Chiefs, who have looked pretty damn good in their two playoff games, coming from double digit deficits in both to win by double digits in both. Patrick Mahomes has been making some pretty unbelievable plays, and the early markets have the Chiefs as Superbowl favourites.

Something that suits my nature, keep it low key as I spend the next two weeks not daring to say out loud that we could win and worrying myself about what might happen.

The GB Empire group had already been making arrangements to meet up in Liverpool to watch the Superbowl, even before the NFC Championship game, and only now that we have made the Superbowl have I booked to join them. I had delayed thinking that it would be inevitable that the 49ers would lose if I had pre booked tickets before we had got there. That and the fact that I didn’t want to shell out a load of money on travel and accommodation to sit there in 49ers gear watching the damn Packers’ fans cheering on their team in the Superbowl.

Talking about 49ers gear, that is another worry to me. Unlike previous seasons where I’ve been festooned in jerseys, caps, coats, trainers, jewellery etc., I haven’t been wearing any gear at all during games this season. Should I therefore keep this incognito support up, or change the routine and go in full regalia for the Superbowl, and potentially put the mockers on. Not that I’m in the slightest bit superstitious of course.

That’s the lack of faith I’ve had, that the wheels would fall off at some point, especially at the “semi-final” stage. I suppose that’s what you get for years of being a Spurs fan.