MasterAwesome

Yeah that's where I was pulling my data, hence the snippet I included directly from that site. So the 49ers were 1st in Offense DVOA and 4th in Defense DVOA, which would suggest their offense was overperforming at a higher rate than the defense.

Are you talking about Total DVOA? Cause unless I'm looking at the wrong site...then if you wanna go by DVOA, the 49ers were 1st in Offense DVOA and 4th in Defense DVOA. So that would suggest their offense was overperforming more, relative to their defense on the year...no? I don't even particularly care about that stat, but you keep bringing it up so I looked into it.

So what about the Ravens game then? They put up 17 points in 11 drives. Not only that, but they scored 14 points on the first two drives and then put up 3 points in the last 9. So that doesn't really seem to jive with your last point. You kinda seem to be making murky unsubstantiated claims. Like what's your evidence that Playoff Mahomes is on a whole different level? To me, he's consistently elite in the regular season and in the playoffs. It's not like a Joe Flacco situation during his Super Bowl run with the Ravens. If anything stands out in the playoffs, it's Mahomes' Clutch factor. And "clutchness" doesn't typically mean you just dominate the entire game, but rather your ability to come through when it matters the most, i.e. what happened in the Super Bowl in OT.

Why? I'm just saying that holding Mahomes to 19 points in regulation is not exactly the monumental feat it used to be. That was basically their season average

That offense led by Mahomes and Andy Reid was pretty middle-of-the-road this year. They were 15th in points scored on the season, at 21.8 PPG. So the 49ers, with all their talent, allowed less than a FG below the Chiefs' average. I get that Mahomes is the GOAT and all, but this year the Chiefs thrived on the back of their #2 ranked defense. So saying a team held Mahomes to 19 points sounds much more impressive on paper than it is in reality. They scored 19 or less points in just about half of their games in the regular season (8 out of 17).

Nah I agree with both of those characterizations, although I'd probably clarify that Purdy is a very good game manager since there's generally an inherent negative stigma associated with game managers and I feel like Purdy deserves at least a little asterisk amongst that class of QBs. My disagreement is more with the conclusion you're drawing from this Super Bowl. After watching that game, my takeaway wouldn't be "see, this game perfectly exemplifies why a game manager QB like Purdy could never win against an elite HoF QB like Mahomes unless everything falls perfectly in place for him". I'm saying you could easily make the case that Mahomes caught more breaks and that he was better supported by his team (strictly in this one game) and yet his team barely won in overtime. That doesn't really mesh with your conclusion. I just think this was simply a damn close game between two strong teams that could've easily gone either way. I still think an elite QB obviously gives you the best chance at success, broadly speaking, but I don't think this Super Bowl was a slam dunk showcase of that. Yes the talent gap between Mahomes and Purdy is huge, but I would argue this particular win came down more to the clutch/experience factor than simply a product of sheer talent. This was Mahomes' 4th Super Bowl to Purdy's 1st, and I don't think the significance and impact of that can be understated. Just like if Purdy and the 49ers pulled off the win in OT, I also wouldn't argue "see, this game proves that the recipe for success is to get a game manager QB and then focus on building a strong supporting cast around him".

I really don't think it was that bad if you objectively evaluate all of the details at the time. As someone else pointed out, it was reported that Butker struggled in camp to separate himself from Gano. I think it makes sense why we were reluctant to just hand him the starting job right off the bat. We signed him to our Practice Squad (didn't just outright cut him like some people claim) and the Chiefs only claimed him because their starting kicker got injured. It's not like everyone in the league were drooling at the uber talented Harrison Butker and immediately pounced as soon as we foolishly stashed him on the Practice Squad. So I don't even know how much credit I'm willing to give to the Chiefs' talent evaluation when they ostensibly would've kept rolling with Cairo Santos all season long if he hadn't gotten injured. Seems much more likely that they just happened to luck into a really good kicker with Butker. Where I do think we screwed up with Butker, was not giving him enough opportunities in the actual preseason. We alternated Gano and Butker all preseason instead of just giving Butker all the kicks in order to give him the opportunity to win the starting job, as I believe we should've done since Gano was more-or-less a known commodity.

But based on everything you've outlined above, I could also accurately frame it as the HoF QB needing his team to have near perfect play to barely defeat a game managing QB. 49ers lost 2 fumbles and missed an XP, and yet they took that HoF QB to overtime. It feels like people are trying to paint this image of a JAG QB with an all-time great team around him while Mahomes carried a bunch of bums to a Super Bowl victory through his sheer greatness. Purdy does have a great team around him no doubt, but the Chiefs' defense was damn elite - 2nd in yards and TDs on the season, and allowing less than 14 points a game in the postseason leading up to the Super Bowl...they had just held the league MVP to 10 points in the AFC Championship. Reid + Spagnuolo is virtually indisputably the best offensive/defensive coaching duo. 49ers for sure have the much better offensive skill players. But all things considered (offense, defense, coaching) - I don't think the gap between the 49ers and Chiefs outside of QB is all that significant, and yet it was a damn close game. I'm sorry, but if you give me two relatively evenly matched teams and you tell me one has a JAG at QB and the other has a HoF QB in his prime, I'm not expecting an OT nail-biter. It ain't adding up.

(kidding)

Yeah that was crazy to me. I think one of the commentators said the 49ers chose to receive in order to give their defense a rest because they were gassed on that last drive to end the half; I'm not sure if they were speculating or what. So I guess I could at least understand the reasoning if that was the case, but man it still seems like you're giving up way too much of a potential advantage by deferring. All that rest and they still gave up the TD anyways.

He was 5 for 7 from 50+ last year. I'm pretty sure those were in regular season games, but maybe I'm misremembering and we were actually a playoff team and those were all from the postseason.

A. Purdy = JAG, Mahomes = future GOAT if not already considered so B. QB is by far the most important position in the NFL and you can't win without an elite one C. The Super Bowl was a damn close game that was ultimately decided in OT I just don't see how you can propose Premise A and Premise B, while acknowledging that C ultimately happened. If there's that enormous of a chasm between Purdy and Mahomes, then that game should've been a blowout. Unless you want to argue that outside of QB, the 49ers were overwhelmingly more stacked than the Chiefs. Not just better, but like night and day better. I would give the 49ers the edge, but I don't think it's that significant. I'd give the Chiefs the edge on coaching + defense (they were the #2 defense in yards and TDs on the year), and I'd give the 49ers a significant edge on offensive talent outside of QB. I think what's more likely is that Purdy is better than people give him credit for. He's obviously nowhere near Mahomes, but I think he's probably more "good" than he is "JAG". And this is coming from someone who has never said a single positive thing about Purdy on these boards or otherwise.

I mean, Kicker might genuinely be one of our 2 or 3 strongest positions over the last few seasons as sad as that is. We've lucked into some pretty good ones with Gonzalez/Pineiro. I dunno how much a marginal upgrade at Kicker would've moved the needle for us.

Instead of attempting to subjectively interpret what he said, why don't we just read it as it is written? "A strong passing game and solid rushing attack are not mutually exclusive" does not mean "abandon the pass game and focus exclusively on the run game" as you interpreted. "We can utilize a power running game out of the gate without hardly any personnel changes" does not mean "let's pump all of our resources into the run game and completely overhaul our offensive line to get players who are good at run blocking and suck at pass blocking" as you interpreted. In fact, the only resource he mentions using is a Day 3 pick on a running back...which is exactly what you said smart teams do. Otherwise, sounds like he just wants to adjust the scheme which is not a resource investment.

All the guy literally said was "Young can benefit from a dominant run game" which is a pretty unobjectionable fact. Every QB can benefit from a dominant run game. It just seems like you're confused about the distinction between "Young can benefit from a dominant run game" and "let's completely ditch the pass and focus on being exclusively a run team". The latter is what you're arguing against, which is something no one is proposing. You do recognize that you can have a dominant run game without being one-dimensional, right? Those same top teams I mentioned earlier are proof of that. The takeaway being that a strong run game complements the pass, and vice versa. They're synergistic elements to the type of high-functioning versatile elite offense we should be striving towards. You don't want to be one-dimensional in either direction.

You can act like a strong run game is antiquated, but 3 of the top 4 teams in the NFL this year (Ravens, Lions, 49ers) are top 5 in rush yards & rush TDs.

Is publishing a book where you publicize your lowest points in life for people like you to freely judge and scrutinize, “selfish behavior”? It seems like he’d have more to lose than to gain from that, and going directly against your self-interests seems quite contrary to “selfish behavior”.

I get what you're saying as well, but I would suggest the head coach pretty much solely dictates the culture. Why can't Evero buy into and enforce Canales' culture, just like a Frankie Luvu or Derrick Brown or Bryce Young can buy into a new HC's culture? I don't think there's anything unique about a DC that would preclude him from buying into a new culture like any individual player. If they do decide to keep Evero, then I'm assuming that's confirmation that he does in fact buy into Canales' culture, otherwise I think they'd for sure drop him.

Intuitively I get what people mean about culture as a concept. It just seems like something that's virtually impossible to evaluate before establishing the prerequisite foundation of a talented roster that's able to compete in the NFL. You could pair the absolute best most elite coaching staff with an NFL roster full of Huddlers, and it'd still IMO be possible to have an 0-16 worst NFL team in history but with a strong ideal culture that everyone is looking for. We could hold each other accountable, fight to the whistle, call out laziness in practice, compete everywhere, but just suck cause we're simply not good enough. Then people on the internet would be complaining that we're wholly lacking in culture, when behind the scenes that couldn't be further from the truth. I just think it's quite nebulous and murky to try and separate culture issues from talent issues. Maybe you guys have seen articles or have access to information that I have not seen, but I haven't seen anything to confirm to me that our locker room was not holding each other accountable or calling out laziness in practice. I have however seen enough confirmation that our roster just was not talented to compete. It just feels like a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" situation where the end product sucked, therefore everything down to the individual component level must have sucked. I get that perspective as a fan, but I'd hope the actual people in charge would take a more rational and nuanced approach (since they are well-informed on every detail behind the scenes that we are not privy to) in sifting through the trash last year and picking out some positive assets to retain. If they do so and deem Evero to be one of those positive assets that they would like to keep, then I'm okay with that.

I don't think any amount of "culture" is going to overcome the sheer talent deficit on this team, which is far and away the most pressing issue. We need an influx of talent both from a player standpoint and a coaching standpoint, i.e. creative playcalling, scheming, etc., then maybe we can have a discussion on culture. Harping on culture I think is reserved more for teams like the Eagles who have a stacked roster but are underachieving on the field. How do you define "culture" anyways? That seems like more of a nebulous buzzword I would expect during coachspeak or something. Is it just like a locker room that holds each other accountable?

Yeah this pretty much exactly sums it up and why I think it's frankly incredibly silly to try and extrapolate optimism for your favorite sports team into some broader diagnosis of delusion, weakness, etc. lol like bro, it's entertainment. You can walk away at any point. I would argue "weakness" is being beholden to a stupid trivial sports franchise that causes you distress at every waking moment, and then complaining about them online day after day. I've never gotten to that level, but I'll damn sure immediately walk away from it all if I do. Lowest I've gotten is apathetic this past season, at which point I'll either just have it on in the background while I'm doing something else or skip watching altogether. Cause, ya know, I'm a big boy in control of my life and choose to prioritize things that make me happy instead of dwelling on things that cause me misery.

I know you weren't the one who actually posted the article, but it has virtually zero relevance to the outlook of a sports fan. The article draws a distinction between cautious optimists and cockeyed optimists: the primary difference between the two, being the amount of effort each puts into achieving their desired positive outcome. Whether the Panthers will be good or bad is entirely outside the control of us fans and our outlook. You or I as an individual choosing to have a positive vs. negative mindset about the team each offseason has no correlation to how well the team will actually perform. I don't know if the study dove into this, but I think the above concept plays into the excerpt that you quoted, highlighting the association between pessimistic outlooks and higher exam grades. I would imagine intuitively that a pessimist is generally more likely to overprepare for an exam than an optimist, particularly a cockeyed optimist who assumes everything will work out and therefore will opt not to put the work in to study. But then again this study investigates such a niche application of pessimism vs. optimism, i.e. with regards to exam performance of one psychology class at one university, comprising of a sample size of 67 participants.

You're conveniently leaving out the fact that Rhule was in his 3rd season and Campbell was in his 2nd. It's a lot easier to sell the fanbase on "patience" and "staying the course" halfway into the second season rather than the third, while there had been a clear downward trajectory. "There is a plan in place"..."preaching patience"...I mean, come on that's just a very minor repackaging of the same exact pitch we were fed on Rhule's whole "7-year process" lol. It's ironic because even your attempt at drawing distinctions between Tepper and Sheila, only further blurs the line between them IMO. You can bring Reich's tenure into question, but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison since he came after the whole Rhule fiasco so Tepper appears to clearly be adjusting his approach and willing to cut ties early on rather than letting things play out in the spirit of "patience". If Campbell didn't turn things around in Season 2 and the Lions looked dysfunctional throughout, I'd have a hard time believing Campbell would have been given a third season or at the very least, he would've been on a very tight leash in Season 3 (similar to Rhule). Their approach seems almost identical...but again, the difference (and the only thing that ultimately matters) is that Sheila got the hire(s) right the first time. Even her approach of hiring her close family business advisor Rod Wood as Team President very much echoes complaints people have explicitly levied against Tepper (unqualified nepotism hires...running the team like one of his businesses...etc.).

Owners have the luxury of stepping aside and letting the people they hired do their job, if they hire the right people. It's that simple...that's all that matters, and you're lucky if you get it right the first time. The worse your team is performing, the more likely an owner is going to intervene/"meddle". Which is obviously what anyone should want as a fan, unless you're saying you wish we were heading into Year 5 of Rhule's 7-year plan because Tepper is a good little owner who is entirely hands-off. I seriously doubt Tepper would be asking Reich to introduce certain plays for Bryce half-way into the season if we were 8-0 and Bryce was on pace to shatter every rookie record.

Imagine thirsting over a coach who is looking for the easiest/cushiest job. You all talk about wanting players who “have that dog in them”, well give me a coach with that dog in him who looks at our team and thinks “I’m the man who is gonna come in and fix that mess”.