San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Schedule offers path to stability for 49ers
The season starts now. The San Francisco 49ers have taken us on a swerving, unnerving ride since last January — a “roller coaster,” in Jimmy Garoppolo’s words — as a quarterback-transition-gone-awry stoked emotions inside and outside of team headquarters.
Since their heartbreaking defeat in the NFC Championship Game, the Niners have anointed Trey Lance; tried to get rid of Garoppolo, only to bring him back as a hedge; and turned to Jimmy G. out of necessity after Lance’s seasonending injury.
They’ve suffered two ugly road defeats, each at least partly traceable to one QB or the other, but steamrolled a pair of division opponents at home — most recently, the defending Super Bowl champions.
There has been blame-flinging and hand-wringing. There have been mood swings and lip readings. And after all of that, a month into the season, the Niners are nevertheless 2-2 — along with the rest of the NFC West.
What’s more, they’ve finally been displaced atop the Bay Area sports world’s dramameter, thanks to a certain brouhaha that took place at a certain basketball team’s practice Wednesday. Look at it this way, Niner Faithful: I know you’ve been concerned about intraorganizational tension as of late, but at least Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy G. haven’t thrown hands — at least, as far as we know.
“We’ll take it,” safety Tashaun Gipson says, laughing. “Really, we can’t complain. In this division, absolutely, it’s great to be tied for the lead. I think it’s the best division in football, no matter what people say. So yeah, no complaints.”
If anything, the Niners should be grateful. Fresh off Monday night’s 24-9 victory over the Rams, they have a chance to stabilize their situation and compete for a Super Bowl ring, step by step. They have a potentially dominant defense and an offense with much room for improvement as Garoppolo and friends attempt to settle back into a rhythm.
And, best of all, they have an opportunity to start anew with a two-game stretch in the Eastern time zone that looks like a gift from the scheduling gods.
On Sunday, the Niners will face the 1-3 Carolina Panthers, owners of the league’s worst statistical offense, coached by a man (Matt Rhule, now 11-26 overall) answering repeated questions about his job security. Then, after a week in West Virginia (practicing at the Greenbrier Resort, not lobbying Sen. Joe Manchin to pass voting rights legislation), they’ll travel
to Atlanta to face the how-thehell-are-they-2-2? Falcons, whose coach, Arthur Smith, recently whined that media members had “ranked us 45th.”
Dude.
Could the Niners lose one or both of these games? Sure, they could. Remember, the Bears were among the league’s most lightly regarded teams heading into the season (though, to my knowledge, they were never ranked as low as 45th), and the Broncos were a hot mess when they hosted the 49ers — and both of those outcomes turned out badly for the visitors.
That said, if the Niners are the serious team they purport to be, they absolutely should
return home riding a threegame winning streak. As one player told me after Monday night’s victory over the Rams: “If we don’t come back from the road at 4-2, we might be in trouble.”
You know who might be in trouble come Sunday in Charlotte? Baker Mayfield, the embattled quarterback acquired by the Panthers via a trade with the Cleveland Browns last July.
So far, it hasn’t gone well: Mayfield owns the league’s 30th-best passer rating and leads the NFL in balls batted down by opposing defenders (10, three more than anyone else), among other statistical atrocities. And yes, you can bet that the 49ers’ pass rushers will raise their hands Sunday more aggressively than Arnold Horshack in a “Welcome Back, Kotter” episode.
Speaking of disruptions: Fans at half-filled Bank of America Stadium were booing the Panthers’ offense toward the end of last Sunday’s 26-16 defeat to the Cardinals, prompting Mayfield to say afterward, “I don’t really care about the fact that our fans are booing or what’s going on. We’re going to figure it out and when we win, it’ll still be just us in the locker room and that’s really all I care about.”
Mayfield may also soon be forced to care about a person in the backfield: Nick Bosa. The Niners’ star edge rusher, who leads the NFL with six sacks and is having a monster season overall, has some history with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 draft, and there may be more torment to come.
In Week 5 of the 2019 season, as the Niners’ defense was rounding into a force that fueled a Super Bowl run, Mayfield showed up for a Monday Night Football clash and managed to offend Richard Sherman and other S.F. defenders during the pregame handshake ceremony.
Bosa, then a rookie, was already offended. Two years earlier, after Mayfield had led Oklahoma to an upset victory at Ohio State, he’d celebrated by waving a Sooners flag and planting it at midfield on the ‘O’ logo. Bosa, like most Buckeyes, did not appreciate the gesture.
“I’ve been mad for two years,” Bosa told me after the Niners’ 31-3 victory. “And I was gonna get him back tonight.”
He did, with two sacks, five quarterback hurries, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Late in the first half, after pressuring the QB into an intentional grounding penalty, Bosa taunted Mayfield by miming the flag wave and plant. At game’s end, he waved and planted a literal 49ers flag in the end zone.
If nothing else, the 49ers’ most dangerous defender should be highly motivated to wreak havoc against a struggling Panthers team. And Bosa should have plenty of backup. The Niners’ defense is giving up just 3.81 yards per play; were that figure to hold up for an entire season, it would be the NFL’s stingiest since 1977.
If Bosa and his teammates seem a bit defensive — well, they are, on multiple levels. The last month has been wild, and unsettling, and vexing.
Midway through the third quarter of their opening game in Chicago, the Niners were shutting out the Bears and appeared headed for an easy victory. Then came a bizarre meltdown amid a monsoon, and then Lance’s injury, and then Garoppolo’s debacle in Denver, and the lip-reading experts, and the impressive humbling of the Rams, and the Draymond-Poole skirmish … and here we are.
“We played with a chip last week, from start to finish,” Gipson says. “Now it’s just about doing it week in and week out, and not letting our foot off the gas — no matter the opponent.”
It’s a new season, with a couple of perceived pushovers to kick it off. From this point forward, the Niners can make their ride a lot smoother by winning the games they’re supposed to win and keeping the drama to a minimum.
ACROSS
1 Guinness of “Star Wars”
5 Try to get, at an
auction
10 Wealthy
11 Oberon orbits it
13 Land in the sea
14 New York tribe
15 Doesn’t go out
17 Maximum amount
18 Parsons of film
19 Corp. head
20 Opposing vote
21 Pack tight
22 — garde
25 Question of place
26 Royal address
27 Suit accessory
28 — favor (Spanish
“please”)
29 Wear down
33 Quarterback
Manning
34 Reply to a knock
35 New Mexico tribe
37 Bitter nut
38 Trample
39 Rocker Clapton
40 Utopian spots
41 Coup d’—
DOWN
1 Stand
2 Shopping aids
3 Showy display
4 Great Plains tribe
5 In an industrious
manner
6 Singer Cara
7 Quarterback Marino
8 43,560 square feet
9 Kind of power or family
12 Bible dancer 16 Thin board
21 Southeastern tribe
22 Poplar trees
23 Break, as a rule
24 Showed up
25 Costume store offerings
27 Wyoming range
29 Mustard city of France
30 Left, on a liner
31 Writer Ephron
32 Make law
36 Gorilla or gibbon
ACROSS
1 Miles off
5 Matt of movies
10 Begets
12 In the know
13 All of a company’s
goods 15 Outback bird 16 “The Raven”
writer
17 Wee bit
18 Finland
neighbor
20 Airport area
21 Lowly workers
22 Told tales
23 Stylishly quaint
25 Exceptional
28 Burton of
“Roots”
31 Some primates
32 Pole feature
34 Note above fa
35 Low number
36 Even score
37 Spot for
laundry
40 Burglar’s bane
41 Thrifty person
42 Mine finds
43 Nap sacks
DOWN
1 According to
2 Make definite, as plans
3 Incite
4 Spectrum color
5 Calendar reading
6 Piercing tool
7 Rum cocktail
8 Decorative
9 Not optional
11 Flat on one’s back
14 Country’s edge,
sometimes 19 Tender spots
20 Fielder’s aid
24 School break
25 Scamp
26 God of light
27 Put in more
ammo
29 On the go
30 Came down
33 Jury makeup
35 Resistance units
38 Uno plus due
39 Chemist’s place