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00:00But we want to put it out to you right away.
00:02888-957-9570 is the number.
00:07What a perfect day to have this conversation.
00:10I've been waiting.
00:11I've been waiting all week for this.
00:13Maybe not all week, because Niners didn't play till Monday.
00:15But I've been waiting since Tuesday morning
00:17to put this out there.
00:20Because indeed, the 49ers did play
00:22without Christian McCaffrey.
00:24You and I have already gone 12 rounds through the years
00:29on who is the most important 49er.
00:33In other words, if you could bubble wrap someone
00:37and promise that they'd be healthy all year
00:41for the 49ers, who would it be?
00:46And I think what a great day to ask it,
00:49now that the guy who was, for many of you,
00:54the answer to this question, didn't play,
00:58might not play again, and the Niners' point total
01:02was the exact damn same thing that it was
01:04in all the games last year as well.
01:06In fact, I think, what'd they end up averaging?
01:08What, about 29 and a half?
01:09Yep, just shy.
01:10All right, 32 points without the guy
01:14who supposedly is the straw that stirs the drink.
01:17So I'm gonna put an all-caps word in the question.
01:21Now who's the most important 49er?
01:24Now.
01:25Now.
01:26As in, going into week two, right now.
01:29Like, you could say it's the same person I thought before.
01:31It's still Christian McCaffrey.
01:33But a great time to ask this, because now,
01:37for the first time, we watched it without Christian.
01:40So, now who's the most important 49er?
01:43It's the same answer that I gave last year,
01:45and we did 12 rounds on it, and I actually had Brock Purdy
01:49early on last year, maybe this time last year,
01:51I had him as like five or six.
01:53Seventh, I believe, came out of your mouth.
01:53I didn't even know if I went to seventh.
01:56I think you were being sarcastic.
01:57I don't think I went interior O-line.
01:59I might have put Kittle ahead of him,
02:00and McCaffrey, and Debo, and Iuke,
02:02and certainly the guy who I still think
02:04is the most important guy on this offense,
02:07and it's Trent Williams.
02:08And it's not only because of what I saw Monday night,
02:12but I went back and I was just digesting tape, Mark,
02:15over the time since I left you at six o'clock yesterday.
02:19I re-watched the game last year against Minnesota,
02:21and you know what?
02:22Trent didn't play.
02:23And the offensive line, they had problems.
02:26They had 99 problems, and Trent's injury was one.
02:29And Minnesota's defense, they totally snuffed out the run.
02:33They made things uncomfortable for Brock,
02:35and I think that this year, yes, you're gonna have Debo.
02:38You didn't last year.
02:39McCaffrey, yay or nay, we don't know yet at this point,
02:42but Trent Williams and what he does for this offensive line,
02:45he still, for me, is the most important player.
02:48888-957-9570, what if I put out a multiple choice of sorts?
02:54If you will, just because someone's gonna call up
02:57and say Diamondore Lenoir,
02:58and so let's whittle this down a little bit.
03:02And you tell me if this is covering the bases.
03:05Am I leaving anyone out?
03:06I think these are the answers that you can get away with
03:10and have an intelligent response.
03:13And that is, now who's the most important 49er?
03:17Is it Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, Trent Williams,
03:23which is the point you just made,
03:24Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, or other?
03:29Okay, or other.
03:30Or other, because someone might want-
03:33Isaac Yadam.
03:34Or someone might say Debo.
03:36Someone could say Debo and-
03:37Dominic Pooney.
03:39He's pretty good.
03:40He's damn good.
03:41He's pretty good, right?
03:42I think that that covers the bases
03:48because now we have something that we never had before.
03:52Brock Purdy went out there on Monday
03:55without Christian McCaffrey,
03:57and let's be real, about 58% of Brandon Ayoub,
04:02or whatever.
04:04And the offense still moved,
04:07and completions still happened,
04:10and poof, Jawan Jennings suddenly had five catches
04:14for 64 yards.
04:16When I thought he was only allowed to get four yards
04:19for a catch on third and three.
04:20All of a sudden, he can get downfield and do some things.
04:24I don't even need to say my answer.
04:25You all know if you've been to the show
04:27for more than two seconds,
04:28you know what my answer is to this.
04:30It's not even really a fair question.
04:32If you've got a good quarterback,
04:34that's always the answer.
04:35It's always the answer.
04:36Vegas will tell you that the biggest point spread mover
04:40on the team, even though it's lesser
04:42than some other teams, is the quarterback.
04:45Christian McCaffrey was announced out,
04:47the spread went from four and a half to three and a half.
04:49If Brock Purdy had been announced out,
04:51I'm not sure the Niners would have still been favored.
04:53In fact, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have been
04:55if he had gotten announced out an hour before kickoff.
04:58So, ask it this way.
05:01I'd ask you it this way, since you said Trent Williams.
05:04What do you think is a better football team?
05:07Brandon Allen and Trent Williams,
05:09or Brock Purdy and Jalen Moore?
05:12Brandon Allen and Trent Williams.
05:13Yeah, you and I disagree on that.
05:15Yeah, and it's not any disrespect to Brock Purdy,
05:17but it just speaks to what I think
05:19is the number one strength of this team,
05:21and it's Kyle Shanahan and the scheme.
05:23And you saw it on Monday night,
05:24where you went to a guy who had never started
05:27a football game before, and you gave him 28 totes,
05:30and he was dominant.
05:31It's not to say that Jordan Mason's not a good player.
05:34He is obviously a good player.
05:36He's your backup running back,
05:37but what Kyle Shanahan did,
05:39and what Trent Williams did in that O-line,
05:42is they created massive holes,
05:43and he was able to run through them,
05:45because he's a running back,
05:46and that's what you do when you're a running back.
05:48You see the hole, and when the hole's five yards wide,
05:51you run to the hole.
05:52It's not to say that Mason wasn't good,
05:54and Brock was, he was fine.
05:56He was probably better than fine,
05:57although I'm being told some experts also gave him a B,
06:01alongside Mark Grandy, who gave him a B.
06:03So, there are some people out there who thought that.
06:05B-plus.
06:06A B-plus, I apologize.
06:07One of the experts is subjective, but anyway, go ahead.
06:10The person who gave him a B
06:12is considered one of the elite people on the beat,
06:15but I look at what this team did
06:18last year against Minnesota.
06:20You had Brock, you had kind of McCaffrey.
06:22He was probably 75% with the oblique.
06:25You didn't have Debo, and you had a hard time.
06:28You didn't have Trent, and that, to me, is the big issue.
06:30Yeah, although when I see Kirk Cousins
06:32throw for almost 400 yards,
06:34my mind doesn't go to all of these offensive players.
06:37That game, and here's where you and I agree,
06:39that game is when Steve Wilkes lost his job.
06:42I don't know exactly what was going on.
06:44I can honestly say I'm kind of fired.
06:46Exactly.
06:47Kyle Shanahan, week six, right after the game,
06:49comes out and goes, Steve knows he messed up,
06:52and that was the moment.
06:53I was like, and we've talked about it so much.
06:55Like, he said that into a microphone?
06:57Right.
06:58Holy hell, what are they saying behind the closed doors?
07:01Like, there's ferocity here between these two,
07:04and then they did the rest of the season,
07:06and they did their best,
07:07and four seconds after it was over,
07:09they relieved Steve Wilkes of his duties,
07:11and you can be mad about that or whatever,
07:12but those two were not eye to eye.
07:14That was very, very clear to me
07:16after the game against Minnesota last year.
07:20Before we go to the calls,
07:21I just want to say this for 20 seconds.
07:23Do it.
07:24The answer can be any of these,
07:26because obviously the 49ers are immediately worse
07:29when any of them leave the field.
07:31Agreed.
07:32So I don't think anything's crazy
07:34if you or I or disagree or whatever.
07:37Obviously, they're lesser without Trent.
07:40Obviously, they're lesser without Adebo or a Fred or a Nick.
07:45Obviously, a Brock and a Christian McCaffrey,
07:48but if you ask me, can you function for,
07:52you know, X, Y, Z without said person?
07:55I mean, I'll go to my grave with,
07:57dude, Moody hit a kick, and then you win in Cleveland,
07:59and now how we do?
08:00You're out.
08:01Moody hit a kick, maybe you win in Minnesota.
08:03Exactly.
08:04I was watching it back today,
08:04they finally had gotten something going on offense,
08:07and he had, I think it was a 40-yarder,
08:10and he just gacked it.
08:11And that was the moment where it was like,
08:13oh, God, we've been up against it this whole time.
08:15McCaffrey fumbled at like the 18-yard line.
08:18You get the ball back, you drive down,
08:20okay, we're gonna get points, we're back in this game,
08:22and he missed it, and it wasn't that close,
08:24and that's where you thought, oh, God,
08:26we got real problems here today.
08:27I mean, the funny thing is, is I think-
08:28Monday Night Football.
08:29I think a lot of us as sports fans
08:31have a hard time with this idea of team.
08:35We love to do this, it's our NBA brain, right?
08:37Who's the individual that can go out there
08:39and do it by himself?
08:40Well, the answer's none of them, none of them.
08:42But we have a hard time with this like,
08:44no, they're married, and it's a good marriage.
08:46And then we go, oh, well, it's all because of Kyle.
08:49Brady Belichick, well, it's all because of Brady,
08:52or it's all because of Bill, or whatever.
08:54It's never all because of anyone.
08:59But the answer is Brock Purdy.
09:00I mean, the answer's Brock Purdy.
09:02No, I disagree.
09:03I know you do.
09:04That's a little bit of a buzzer beater for you,
09:06so I'll hold my retort for the other side.
09:08Okay.