NFL – 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!

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!

Unexpected Pet In The Working Area

Two days in to working from home (again) and I’m already losing the will to live. As I’ve changed to a compressed week it means an earlier start for me; so, it is probably a good thing that I’m working from home until I acclimatise to having to be working at a time when I’m usually only just getting out of bed. No one needs me having to drive to Portslade whilst still trying to wake up – it’s bad enough when I’m wide awake.

And as we are in lockdown three, I had an idea about naming lockdown three in the style of paraphrasing film titles of films from a series, whether they be a trilogy or longer. It was something to do whilst on boring calls, and I came up with the following list.

The Lord of the Lockdowns – The Return of the Restrictions

Lockdown with a Vengeance

The Lockdown and Furious: Wuhan Drift

Indiana Jones & The Last Lockdown

Star Wars: The Return of the Lockdown

Harry Lockdown and the Prisoner of Covid

Batman: The R Rate Rises

Back to the Lockdown III

Pirates of the Covid: At Lockdown’s End

Mad Max Beyond Lockdown

Beverly Hills Lockdown III

Lockdown 3: Europe’s Most Infected

The Bourne Lockdown

There is a drip in the kitchen somewhere. I suspect it is from the plughole in the sink down into the waste pipe, but in the silence of the kitchen it didn’t take long to drive me insane. I usually have my iPod plugged into a Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen table with me, but it was too close to drown the sound of the drip out, so I’ve had to resort to having the radio on at a louder volume than usual, as it’s near the sink and wipes the dripping sound out.

Anyway, I packed my work IT equipment away Thursday evening and retired to the living room. Only to get up Friday morning to find that my usual working space on the kitchen table had a large wooden box with a snake in its place. Plus, all my IT lit had been unplugged so they could plug in light and heat for the effing snake. I can’t see the snake because the glass side of the tank has an apron and tea towel draped over it. It belongs to Nathan’s girlfriend, so hopefully it will only be today that it is in my way, and that when I get around to returning to work on Tuesday it will have f#@&ed off.

Is it a coincidence that I’ve not seen Sniffles since the snake turned up? At least the snake isn’t in a cardboard box, as that would have been certain of investigation by the idiot cat. As it turned out the snake went, even before I got to the end of the working day. Back off to Portsmouth before it had the chance to eat any household members.

Sitting at the kitchen table as a desk in yet another lockdown does mean the mind wanders. Especially to the hope of being able to go out and do something or go somewhere. This impulse isn’t helped every time I look up and see the side of the fridge and all the magnets stuck to the side of it from out travels. It is somewhat distracting. Especially with it making me think of how many nice days out we’ve had.

Despite a big clear out before Christmas I can’t stop buying books. Another big box arrived on Thursday. Granted, this consignment did contain some future birthday / Christmas presents (how far ahead of the game?), and a couple that would be used for new items for Flanagan’s Running Club this year, but there are space considerations not that there is reduced shelving space available. It means I’ll have to pull my finger out and get through reading more of them so there is another consignment for the charity shop soon.

Helen got me a new proper fatbit for Christmas, to replace my cheapo version. I still haven’t got my head around everything it does, but it does buzz on my arm at regular intervals to try and get me to move; its own version of ‘move you fat b@st@rd’. it had a vibration celebration when I was putting the Christmas decorations away at the first time I’d climbed ten flights of stairs in a day. On our walk on Saturday

Water Bored-ing

it went vibrating crazy. Going off and sending me e-mails as I broke ten thousand and fifteen thousand steps for the first time, and again as it reckoned I had done more than twenty-five flights of stairs. I’m not convinced my arm can survive this kind of thing for too long.

On the walk as we passed the Half Moon pub, I had a thought of how would you do a half moon? Would you pull your trousers down so only half of your backside would be showing; or would it require the use of stripper style velcro’d trousers, where you just ripped the one side open to show one ass cheek?

There was some looking at that you can do under lockdown on the government website, and apparently ‘for the purpose of picketing’ is a legal reason for leaving the house, as is ‘reasonably necessary to vote’. No woolly language there at all. But the best thing, is the fact that the government recognise we are a nation of alcoholics as they classify off licenses as being essential shops that need to be open.

It was a late night Sunday as it’s NFL playoff season and the last of six games over the weekend finished not long before some people would be getting up for work Monday morning. Not me anymore, Mondays are now a day off. I had a little trip out, nowhere exciting mind you, just a trip to the vet with Sniffles as he had a lot of bumps on his lower back. He had been snoozing on a bed all day, but it’s amazing how quickly he turned into a star shaped cat when faced with being put in the cat carrier. He escaped on the second attempt, only to get distracted by food in his bowl, and at the third attempt he was squeezed into the carrier. There’s nothing seriously wrong with him, just an allergy to flea bites, though where he’s getting fleas from in this weather without any other pets in the house is anyone’s guess.

This new working pattern is going well, it’s amazing how quickly the working week seems to go now. Wednesday night is here already, only two days to go before a three day weekend.

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!

Why Roger Craig Not Being In The Pro Football Hall Of Fame Is A Disgrace

I’m not going to lie, I am a massive fan of Roger Craig, and therefore my viewpoint might be slightly skewed, but I’ve tried to be as objective and fact based as I can.

I was a fledgling San Francisco 49ers in the early to mid-1980s at the time when there was the first big push for the NFL to get in to the UK market. Channel 4 started showing coverage, weekly and monthly magazines started to be published and there was a weekly magazine collection than built up knowledge of the game, with a binder to collect them in. All the (then) twenty eight teams were covered, the history, the big players, the rules of the game and more. The NFL Record and Fact Yearbook appeared in WH Smiths and Dillons.

There were a lot of fans of the Bears, Dolphins and Raiders, the 49ers were probably next. When we played our own version of American Football in the school playground using a tennis ball, the other kids all wanted to be the Quarterback, whether that was Dan Marino, Joe Montana or Jim McMahon, or they all wanted to be The Fridge. Not me, I wanted to be Roger Craig. I wanted to be the running back who would just blast my way through the opposition, or catch the little yellow ball thrown in my general vicinity.

As it was, when I went to University and put pads and helmets on for the first time, I was only the right build and speed to play a lineman, left guard on offence and nose tackle on defence. My heart was never really in it after that and I gave it up after a year.

But Craig was the player I admired more than any other. How he would high step his way over, around or through tackles was amazing to me, and when he wasn’t handed the ball off, he would pop up open in the middle of the field five or ten yards past the line of scrimmage to be able to catch the ball for another first down. On a lot of teams he would have been the superstar, but playing on the same team as Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott it was going to be difficult to be the main star. And there was a stellar supporting cast as well around him on offence, Tom Rathman, John Taylor, Brent Jones and the outstanding offensive line — Sapolu, Cross, Harris, Paris, and McIntyre. The whole package is what made the 49ers so great at the time.

And yet it seems that Craig has been overlooked amongst the players from that great team insomuch of just what an integral part of it he was. What having a player that was a threat as a runner and a receiver. The first really great dual threat back of the west coast offence. The player that defined the role that so many other running backs have come to emulate since. Without him playing in that role, it wouldn’t have been so easy to open up all the other offensive threats the 49ers had. It was difficult for opposing defences to double team Jerry Rice or John Taylor with a safety or line-backer, because they had to keep an eye on Craig either rushing or catching from out of the backfield.

Part of the issue to why he is continually overlooked is the low-key way the 49ers organisation seems to value his contribution. He eventually made it into their hall of fame, but somewhat shockingly they haven’t retired his number. Number 33 should be hanging with the other all-time greats from the 49ers.

Some have said that this is because of his fumble in the NFC Championship game when the 49ers were going for the three-peat, and his departure to the Raiders for the following season can point to that if you want to read it that way (bearing in mind nothing much is said of Jerry Rice’s drop in open field at 3–3 in the Divisional Playoff game shellacking against the Giants in 1986). Others will say his stats don’t add up in the same way. More would argue that he didn’t have the longevity, or the achievements. All of which could be considered if given a cursory glance, but none of which bear up to deeper scrutiny.

That so many 49ers fans would say that he shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame is shocking, and quite frankly, petty. That so many fans of the game disregard him is sad. He is the archetypal rushing and catching running back that teams so desire today. Some of those of a similar ilk that came after him have already made it to the Hall of Fame. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have, but I am saying that Craig should be in there with them, and should have been in there first.

The first big reason why Craig should be in the Hall of Fame is the 1985 season. He became the first player to gain a thousand rushing yards and a thousand receiving yards in the same season. Something that has only been emulated twice since. The first by Marshall Faulk who is already in the Hall of Fame, and the second of those this year by Christian McCaffrey, who commentators are already talking about being a future hall of famer in only his third season. As the first player to do it, Craig should be in the Hall of Fame as well. Especially when you add to this the fact that in that year’s Superbowl he became the first player to score three touchdowns in a single Superbowl. A record that hasn’t been beaten, and he now shares with four other players (twice with Jerry Rice). He also recorded a rushing and receiving touchdown in the same game, something only five other players have managed in a Superbowl. The season also saw him finish as the NFL leader in receptions, the third and last time this had been achieved by a running back. His 92 receptions was a record for a running back at the time. It has been broken since, but none of those who have gained more receptions have averaged more than ten yards per catch as Craig did that season.

It isn’t as if that season was the be all and end all of his career either. Three years later he had another season where he broke two thousand yards from scrimmage. In the 1988 season he led the league in scrimmage yards, and the NFC in rushing average, and was voted as the NFL MVP, the NFL offensive player of the year, and the NFC offensive player of the year. He was the first running back to have a hundred yard receiving game in the Superbowl, a feat only matched by two other players. He became only the fourth player in NFL history to record multiple two thousand yards from scrimmage seasons. Thirty years later only thirteen others have managed this feat.

There is a view that he wasn’t consistent enough and didn’t have the stats required to make the hall of fame, yet this just isn’t true. In his first seven seasons with the 49ers he broke a thousand yards from scrimmage every year, leading the team in scrimmage yards in four of those seasons, including in his rookie year. There was only his final, injury shortened season where he failed to break a thousand yards.

With the 49ers he won three Superbowls, played in five NFC Conference finals, and played in the playoffs in all eight years. In his single season with the Raiders, and two years with the Vikings, he played in the playoffs every year as well. There aren’t many people who play in the playoffs eleven years on the trot, and less that have done so when that was every season of their career. In addition to this he picked up four NFL offensive player of the week awards, was elected to the Pro Bowl four times, and is the only running back elected to the Pro Bowl as both a full back and a half back. He was in the All Pro teams twice, and was selected to the NFL 80’s all decade team. With the 49ers he was awarded the Len Eshmont award twice.

From a 49ers perspective he is in the top five in so many of their all-time stats categories:- rushing attempts, yards, touchdowns, hundred yard rushing games all-time, hundred yard rushing games in a season, thousand yard rushing seasons, receptions (he’s also tenth on receiving yards), scrimmage yards, touches, yards per touch, total touchdowns (and eleventh on total scoring), rookie rushing attempts, yards and touchdowns, rookie receiving touchdowns, rookie total touchdowns, rookie total points. He led the team in rushing five times, receptions four times and scrimmage yards four times. No other player in 49ers history is in the top five of so many statistical categories. To put in to context his two two-thousand scrimmage yard seasons for the 49ers, in the team’s history he has half of all the times it has happened. Only Garrison Hearst and Frank Gore have managed this, and then only once each.

From an NFL career perspective, he is in the top fifty in rushing attempts and yards, fifty seventh in rushing touchdowns, top fifty in total scrimmage yards, top forty in total touches, top hundred in receptions and top ninety in total touchdowns. There are only forty eight running backs in the NFL Hall of Fame, of those forty eight; Craig has more rushing yards than twenty one of them. Not only that, but he has more receiving yards than eleven running backs in the Hall of Fame have rushing yards.

When you then look at his playoff stats, everything bumps up a few levels. He is top ten in scrimmage yards and total touches, and top twenty in rushing yards, attempts and touchdowns, and receptions, and twenty-second in total touchdowns. There isn’t a player who is eligible for the Hall of Fame above him in scrimmage or rushing yards that isn’t already in the Hall of Fame.

Then there is his Superbowl stats, he is still equal first in touchdowns in a single game; second in most points in a single game; third in single game receiving touchdowns, total touchdowns and yards from scrimmage, sixth in rushing attempts and career points, seventh in rushing touchdowns, career receiving touchdowns and single game yards from scrimmage; and eighth in rushing yards and receptions.

There isn’t a single eligible player with a catalogue of achievements and statistics to match Roger Craig who isn’t already in the Hall of Fame. The fact that Roger Craig hasn’t already been elected into the Hall of Fame is a disgrace. The fact that he is only just scraping into the semi-final stage of the voting each year is a scandal.

So next year when the voting season comes round, make Roger Craig the first name on your ballot paper. Vote early and vote often, and get him his deserved place in the Hall of Fame.

Now For Longer

The NFL team owners have tabled a proposal to change the regular season from its current sixteen game schedule to an eighteen game one. As part of this, and with a nod to the issues the NFL has been having with concussion protocols and long term neurological damage, they have said that the players will still be capped at playing a maximum of sixteen regular season games. The obvious reaction comes in two parts; first it is a blatant revenue grab and secondly, who wants to see two games with replacement players?

On the surface it does seem it is a money making exercise, two more games per season, with one of those a guaranteed home game, and extra television money. However, it is more likely to be a way for them to try and claw back some of their falling revenues. Viewing figures have been falling, and with that then advertising revenue will fall, which will lead to lower payments to the NFL. Having extra games will more than offset that. The extra TV rights and ticket sales will obviously generate more revenue, but it will also mean that there are additional payments out to be made. To cover a full foster across eighteen games when players can only play a maximum of sixteen will mean that there will need to be additionally players that need to be paid.

The 16 game limit per player could be interested depending on how it is administered. Do they drop 6 players per game to rotate the full squad for the season, or go for the play two games with replacement squads’ option? If the former then it would require some good management of the squad to offset a star quarterback with making sure all the other offensive weapons are playing that week. If the latter then do they replace bye weeks with replacement weeks? Or is it a GM decision, go all out for the playoffs early in the season, book a spot and send the b team out for the last couple of games, or do you play the b team when you have a couple of weaker looking opponents on the schedule? How long before the start of a game would they have to declare which players were active?

From the paying players perspective there would be more players to pay, but the main contracts wouldn’t change as there wouldn’t be extra games for those players to pay. The additionally players would likely be on the league minimum.

From a season records perspective, the team records will be going out the window in the first few seasons. However, limiting the players to a maximum of sixteen games would mean that the old records wouldn’t get ripped up as the games played to reach those records would be the same as when the current records have been set.

The other main issue to look at is how they would do the schedule for an eighteen game season. The current way the division structure and schedule is set up perfectly for a sixteen game season. Six games within their own division, four games against each team in a division in their own conference and another four against a division in the other conference, and then two against the remaining two teams who finish in the same place in their division in the same conference that they aren’t already playing that year. The last two games can’t really be done against the other conference as there would be one team out each year so it wouldn’t quite match. So do you play two more conference games against the two teams that finished in the nearest position to you? So if you finished third, you would play the fourth placed team in the other two conference divisions, fourth plays third, first plays second, second plays first. Would that tilt the conference / inter-conference balance too far one way?

Of course the fans are the ones that are likely to end up the losers. They would want to see the best team possible playing each week. For them to turn up and there be a handful or dozens of replacement players playing isn’t going to set the pulse racing. Especially for those going to games from overseas, perhaps to see the only live in the flesh game in their lives. To pay out thousands to end up at a game where the star players are missing will leave a bitter taste in their mouths (and wallets).

Perhaps if owners looked at ways of reducing game time, then the falling viewing figures might bounce back. There are too many for TV breaks in the game. Having less adverts, but with higher viewing figures would even out what advertisers would pay.

There may be lots of fans who think the season goes too quickly, and it’s far too long before the next season rolls around. But adding games to the schedule isn’t necessarily the right way to go about servicing that need. Making the current content better would be far more beneficial.