49ers are Feeling the Loss of Jimmie Ward This Season
The drop off from Jimmie Ward to Isaiah Oliver as the nickel cornerback is massive and the 49ers are paying for it.
Transcript
00:00 Four years ago, the Niners went to the Super Bowl.
00:03 On that team, they had Kyle Shanahan, Mike McDaniel,
00:07 Robert Sala, and D'Amico Ryans, four head coaches.
00:11 Right now, Robert Sala might be the coach of the year.
00:14 What he's doing with the Jets is remarkable.
00:16 He's a terrific head coach.
00:18 Mike McDaniel seems to be a terrific head coach
00:21 with the Dolphins.
00:22 He's clearly a brilliant offensive mind.
00:24 And then D'Amico Ryans in his first year,
00:26 he's coached a few games.
00:27 So far, so good.
00:29 He looks promising.
00:30 Now you got Kyle on his own.
00:32 It's Kyle and Steve Wilkes.
00:35 And it's fair to wonder if this team has
00:38 lost a whole lot of leadership.
00:41 Because one loss to PJ Walker turned into three.
00:44 And at the bye week, you got--
00:46 it seems like you got Kyle and Steve Wilkes pointing
00:48 the finger at each other.
00:49 Like, this guy doesn't know the defense.
00:51 And Steve Wilkes is like, well, what did you expect from me?
00:54 And now they're like, well, maybe we
00:54 should bring him out of the booth
00:55 and put him on the field.
00:56 Like, that's where they're at.
00:57 I don't know, dad.
00:58 Kyle Shanahan on his own.
01:01 Is he a leader?
01:02 Was he benefiting from other people's leadership
01:04 in the past?
01:04 And is this a leadership issue on this team?
01:06 I think there's a leadership issue on the team.
01:09 And I don't think he's a leader.
01:10 I want to make very clear what I think he is.
01:13 I think he's a doodler.
01:15 And what I mean is, he's a doodler.
01:17 He likes to sit in a room by himself
01:20 and doodle and make plays.
01:21 He's very-- it's a game.
01:22 It's like playing video games.
01:25 He's a video game guy.
01:26 And I don't know how he makes his plays on a screen,
01:29 on a pad.
01:29 Bill Walsh made it on a pad, but they didn't
01:31 have screens in those days.
01:33 Bill Walsh was more than a mere doodler.
01:35 This guy is a dweeb.
01:37 He's a doodler.
01:38 And he's very comfortable doing that.
01:40 When he had Salah on the team, Salah was on the sideline
01:43 as a post-itist remote guy they have now up in the booth.
01:47 And Salah would get excited, and he'd curse,
01:50 and he'd run up to the players when the play was over,
01:52 and they were coming off the field.
01:54 And he gave all of the emotion.
01:56 It's an emotional game.
01:58 It's not just doodling.
02:01 It's not just doodling.
02:03 And Kyle doesn't seem to have emotions,
02:06 except to be kind of sour sometimes.
02:10 Salah gave-- and then Ryans was the same way.
02:13 And Ryans has such a lovely smile, and he was so positive.
02:18 And he was an arm around the back guy.
02:20 Kyle isn't an arm around the back guy.
02:22 Kyle's the kind of guy you wouldn't
02:24 want to touch him on the shoulder,
02:25 because maybe he doesn't like to get touched.
02:27 And maybe he doesn't like to touch you.
02:29 He wants to be in a dim room doodling.
02:31 So he got saved.
02:34 This is all speculation.
02:35 He doesn't want to cheer you on either.
02:37 He wants to knock you down a peg and tell you how you messed up.
02:40 Yeah, it's probably how his dad did with him.
02:42 Correct.
02:43 My guess-- again, these are all my theories.
02:45 I don't know these people.
02:47 But I think he was saved from himself in the past
02:52 by having these ebullient, bubbly, brilliant, outgoing
02:58 guys at defensive coordinator.
03:00 Now he has a guy like himself.
03:02 He has a guy who doesn't want to be with the players.
03:05 He wants to sit on Mount Olympus.
03:07 He doesn't want to talk to anybody.
03:09 You see him.
03:09 He's looking at his screen all the time.
03:11 See, he got two doodlers.
03:13 And on a football team, you need someone
03:16 to make up for the doodlers.
03:18 You can't have doodling doodlers.
03:19 You can't have doodling doodlers.
03:21 You can't have doodling doodlers.
03:22 So one of the problems they have is, where's the leadership?
03:27 Yeah.
03:28 Where?
03:29 It ain't from Kyle.
03:30 It never was Kyle.
03:32 It was Robert Sala's team.
03:34 He was leading from the backseat.
03:35 Then it was D'Amico Ryan's team.
03:37 He was leading from the backseat.
03:38 Now, whose team is this?
03:41 And Iggy, may I say something else?
03:43 On really good teams, if you have a head coach who's weak,
03:49 if-- sometimes it's the quarterback.
03:52 It could be Aaron Rodgers.
03:54 It could be-- what's his name?
03:57 The kid from San Mateo.
03:58 Why am I blanking on his name?
04:00 Goff.
04:01 No, I don't mean him.
04:02 I mean the famous one who was with--
04:04 Sorry, that's Marin.
04:05 That's Marin.
04:05 Brady.
04:07 No, Goff is Marin.
04:09 That's what I'm saying.
04:10 Brady is Mateo.
04:11 Sorry.
04:12 So you could have the quarterback--
04:14 I'm sorry, guys.
04:15 I'm old and I'm getting over COVID.
04:17 I know Tom Brady.
04:19 But on this team, the quarterback
04:21 can't be the leader because he's under scrutiny himself.
04:25 He's last of the list.
04:27 Under my thumb.
04:29 You know the song about the rolling stones?
04:31 I do.
04:32 Yeah.
04:32 Yeah.
04:33 He's under his thumb.
04:34 And so he can't be the leader because he's--
04:37 people write-- I like to try to make an excuse.
04:39 He's a virtual rookie.
04:41 Well, he's not a virtual rookie, but he's a virtual rookie.
04:43 So he can't take the leadership role.
04:45 So it's not the coaches and it's not the quarterback.
04:48 You've got a problem.
04:50 Who is it?
04:51 Kyle Juszczak?
04:52 He's going to get up and he's going to tell--
04:54 he's going to enforce the standard.
04:55 And people will say to him, what do you do?
04:57 Who are you?
04:59 Fred Warner.
04:59 You're a passenger.
05:00 This must be Fred Warner, right?
05:01 Fred Warner went up after the game, after the Bengals lost.
05:04 And the first question he got was,
05:07 do you still have confidence in Brock Purdy?
05:10 And he stood there as the leader of the team and said,
05:13 what do you expect me to say to that?
05:16 That's the best he could do.
05:18 So yeah, this team--
05:19 that's why I mean, they never should have lost three in a row.
05:22 That, to me, is the mark of a team that has no leadership.
05:25 Wouldn't have happened with Demiko Ryans on the team.
05:26 Wouldn't have happened with Robert Soto on the team.
05:29 This has been a team whose head coach was a defensive
05:32 coordinator for six years.
05:33 And now it's a team with no head coach.
05:35 We've been saying for years, look,
05:37 say what you want about Kyle Shannon.
05:38 He's not a head coach.
05:40 It's manifesting in front of our eyes right now.
05:42 And if they're going to turn this season around,
05:44 Kyle's going to have to become the head coach he never has been.
05:47 Right.
05:48 I don't know if he's got it in him.
05:49 And stop being a mere doodler.
05:52 Got to stop doodling, man.
05:54 You got to stop doodling.
05:56 He's doodling.
05:57 Listen, wait, I want to finish.
05:58 I want to-- but someone pointed out,
06:01 he's always looking at his play sheet.
06:02 He's never looking at players.
06:04 He's behind the play--
06:06 he lives behind the play sheet.
06:08 Even on the field, he's doodling.
06:11 Even on the field, he's doodling.
06:13 That's a problem.
06:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:17 (upbeat music)