Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00On the line, Odyssey NFL insider Ross Tucker. Insider calls are brought to you by Hellman's Real Mayonnaise Mayo Game Day.
00:08Be delicious. Ross, welcome. How you doing, my man?
00:12I'm doing pretty good. Where are those islands you're talking about?
00:16On Lathrop, about an hour from the Bay. It's a new community that's being built, and it's a wonderful opportunity for young families to get into the Bay
00:27at perhaps a more reasonable housing rate.
00:31Oh, that sounds good. That sounds amazing. I'm all in. I love it.
00:37Let me throw this at you, because we're having a little fun with it.
00:41My understanding is that the NFL, you know what uniforms you're going to wear every week before the season.
00:49And the 49ers saw it was going to be 100 degrees in San Francisco, and they petitioned the league to go from their red jersey to their white,
00:57which would have meant the Cardinals had to go from white to red.
01:00And I just said, that's not a great look for a championship-type team. I don't know. That's just where I'm coming from. Any thoughts?
01:10You don't like that the Niners wanted to switch their uniforms?
01:14Nope. I don't.
01:17I feel like teams will do whatever they think gives them any type of minimal, minuscule edge.
01:31And I can see how they thought wearing all white at home when it's that hot would have helped, because there is some truth to say.
01:42I mean, I can remember playing in Miami, and they would make us wear our home jerseys, our home dark Buffalo jerseys.
01:51The same thing the next year, maybe the same year, same year we played in Jacksonville.
01:58It was hot. They made us wear our dark jerseys. So this is like a thing. This is like science.
02:04I know you don't understand science, but you get warmer when you have a darker jersey on. It absorbs the sun or whatever.
02:15So the Niners were just trying to do everything they could to try to give themselves a little advantage.
02:23Hold on. My sources tell me that it's very rare for a team to ask for a jersey switch a week before the game.
02:34In Tampa Bay, they probably wear their whites in September at home, because they know.
02:41No, no, no, no, no. You're a thousand percent right. It's incredibly rare, which is why the NFL said no.
02:49Right. You don't do it. But the Niners didn't know that in October in San Francisco, it was going to be 100 degrees.
02:58They're not going to ask for it. They're not going to ask to wear white at home in October in San Francisco.
03:06But then all of a sudden it's 100 degrees. And they thought, you know what? We're the home team.
03:11We should have the choice as to what we want to wear. Right. And the NFL said, sorry, no, you don't have the choice.
03:18You had the choice back whenever you had to submit what you wanted to wear.
03:22Good stuff, Ross. I got to tell you, I don't need to tell you because you played in the league.
03:27What a difference a couple of weeks make. Last time we had John, I was brought parties, a story staring stardom in the face.
03:33And I still believe that, Ross. But some things have changed.
03:36They had a couple of clunkers, but he's holding on to the ball a little longer.
03:40Stiney made the point yesterday in a couple of callers. Maybe he's trying to do too much.
03:44I don't think that way, but I am concerned about the batted balls for interceptions.
03:49Ross, share with us what you saw last week from Brock Purdy and where he's headed.
03:54Yeah, you know, it's interesting because on the one hand, I've been somewhat impressed by his mobility.
04:04Right. And his ability to buy time and make guys miss.
04:09But on the flip side, to your point, Stiney, why is he having to do that all the time?
04:15You know what I mean? Like what? Like what's up with the Fran Parkinson impersonation back there?
04:21You know, the whole point of Purdy was supposed to be that he's so smart and so comfortable in Shanahan's offense.
04:31Remember, in Shanahan's offense, there's always supposed to be the answer. Right.
04:37There's always supposed to be an answer no matter what the defense is and what they love about Purdy.
04:44Is that he knows what I want him to do and he delivers the ball.
04:50So I think the question we need to ask ourselves right now is the Shanahan's offense not have the answer.
05:00For some of the things these defenses are doing, or is Purdy not doing a good job of doing what Shanahan wants against some of these looks?
05:11Because that's the whole point. The whole point is no matter what the defense does, you have an answer in a Shanahan offense,
05:19which is why they love Kirk Cousins and Matt Schaub and Matt Ryan and all these smart quarterbacks that operate the offense.
05:28And that's why they love Brock Purdy. It's awesome timing. I actually had Mike Silver on my podcast today,
05:36Ross Tucker Football Podcast, and he's talking about Mike Shanahan and the whole tree and the whole deal.
05:43And so here we are. When Purdy's holding it this long, then we need some answers.
05:49I think that'd be a very fair question for someone to ask Kyle.
05:53Hey, Ross, the thing about football I always find interesting is the Niners are 2-3 right now.
05:59And boy, it feels like they've given away two games late. They needed to make one play out of six or seven,
06:06and they probably would have beaten the Cardinals and they probably would have beaten the Rams.
06:12But that doesn't happen. So how do you differentiate between a little bit of maybe bad luck and not being able to close
06:20with, no, no, no, this is bigger. We've got some problems here across the board.
06:26How do you know what's little and what's a lot?
06:30Another really good question. You guys are on fire today. You're having a good day.
06:35You guys are having a better day than the Niners have been having.
06:38And Robert Sala, too.
06:41Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, here's what I would say.
06:47Yes, they very easily could have won either one of those games, right?
06:53And we can look at it that way and say, oh, man, they could have won those games.
06:58But I don't know. I guess I look at it and say, those games really shouldn't have been that close, first of all.
07:09You know, they're doing things that really good teams don't do.
07:14They had multiple two-score leads against the Rams team that had, like, no luck.
07:22Now, in fairness, the Niners didn't have a lot of their guys either, but they had most of their guys on defense.
07:29I mean, they didn't have some of their skilled guys, but how is their defense giving up multiple two-score leads
07:36to a Rams team without Luke Nakua and Cooper Cupps?
07:40And I think that probably the most disturbing thing that we've seen is Sunday,
07:46it's not like they were clearly the better team than the Cardinals.
07:50Man.
07:51I mean, not at all, right?
07:53So, like, I almost feel better if they were clearly the better team,
07:58but there were some fluke plays that went against them.
08:02I didn't feel that way. I mean, they even got the block field goal return for a touchdown.
08:08On some level, they had a fluke play go their way, and they still lost the game.
08:15So that would be the part that would really be concerning to me.
08:19It's always one of those things where it's like, what would you rather have?
08:25In other words, it's funny, I did the game last night, the Saints and the Chiefs, right?
08:30Yep.
08:31And I was talking with Mickey Loomis, the GM for the Saints, before the game,
08:37and in the first two weeks, the Saints were the best team in the NFL.
08:42And then in week three, the Eagles kind of dominated them,
08:46but the Saints were still up late in the game with less than a minute left.
08:52And then Goddard had a big play and the Eagles won.
08:55And in the next week, the Saints absolutely dominated the Falcons,
08:59but Shaheed muffed the punt, and they had a pick six that got tipped by three guys.
09:05It's almost like which one is worse, when you dominate and still lose,
09:11or when you kind of got dominated, but still had a chance to kind of steal one late.
09:17You know what I mean? Like, I'm not sure which one's worse.
09:20I guess if I'm a big Niners fan, the fact that Arizona,
09:25who had just gotten worked two weeks in a row at home,
09:29that they came into our place, and we have everybody other than McCaffrey,
09:35and they're able to take us down like that,
09:38and in the second half, James Connors running people over,
09:41Tyler Murray's making play, I think that's the part.
09:44I think the Cardinals' loss is more concerning than the Rams' loss,
09:50is I guess what I'm saying.
09:51No, I hear you, Ross, and we're searching for answers out here,
09:54and you brought up Connor, who averaged one point yards per carry in the first half,
09:59and then 6.5 as Arizona got that fumble from Mason
10:04and just ran it down their throat to get in field goal range and win the game.
10:09And Bosa, after the game, Ross, I don't know if you heard it,
10:12he said they made a second-half adjustment with their running game that we didn't.
10:17And I'm asking you again, a guy that played, do the average fans say,
10:23is it the coordinator, is it the scheme, or is it just the players?
10:27Because the Niners had 14 missed tackles Sunday.
10:30I know it was hot, but when you hear those stats,
10:33what are you thinking about this D?
10:35I told Stiney it's not a playoff defense right now.
10:40No, it's definitely not the defense that they had last year or the last couple years.
10:46It's definitely not a Super Bowl-caliber defense right now.
10:51You know, watching it on TV, I didn't see what Nick is talking about
10:56in terms of if there was a schematic thing.
10:59I mean, I certainly, you may sound like it's a schematic thing.
11:03All I saw, to be honest with you, Stiney, was James Connor running over Dutch,
11:09running right through Dutch faces.
11:11And it looked to me like that's the whole value, I think,
11:14of having a running back like James Connor.
11:18People don't want to attack.
11:20I mean, he's an absolute beast.
11:22And so you keep giving him the ball, and what you notice is in the second half,
11:28he just wears people down.
11:30Number one, he runs through some tired guys.
11:34Number two, there's some guys that they don't want that.
11:37They don't want any more of hitting number six
11:41because it's like hitting a sledgehammer.
11:43Boy, he's one of my favorite players in the NFL.
11:46Ross Tucker joining us on 95.7 The Game.
11:49Insider calls are brought to you by Hellman's Real Mayonnaise.
11:52You can purchase Hellman's at your local Walmart, Kroger, or grocery store
11:57to add extra deliciousness and creamy flavor to your game day dishes this football season.
12:02Let me ask you this, and obviously the Niners have been to the last,
12:06you know, we're in the Super Bowl last year, went deep the year before.
12:09I mean, is there any way to measure kind of the physical
12:13and mental toll of being early in a season in year three
12:18when you know how many games there are in a regular season
12:22and how long a road it is to get back there?
12:25How do you put that facet, kind of explain it to people?
12:31No, there's not a way to measure it, Tiny.
12:34But it's absolutely a big thing.
12:38To me, it's a real, real thing that people need to talk about.
12:44I mean, they have collectively, you know, think about how we always talk
12:51about like a running back that gets 400 touches, right?
12:55And like the last however many running backs that got 400 touches,
12:58the next year it's like they fell off a cliff.
13:02Well, the Niners and the Chiefs in particular,
13:06those guys have gotten a lot more touches, if you will,
13:10you know, than all the other teams in the NFL.
13:14And I think number one, it wears on you physically.
13:18Number two, it wears on you mentally.
13:20And then there's also this component of that, which is like, you know what, man?
13:26Let's just get to January.
13:28You know what I mean?
13:30Let's just get to the playoffs and the games that really matter.
13:33It didn't used to be like that in the NFL,
13:36but I feel like it's almost becoming a little bit more NBA-esque, you know,
13:43and that it's such a long season now that it's hard for certain guys,
13:47I would imagine, to not be thinking about, you know,
13:51December and January football.
13:53But you got to get there first.
13:55And in fairness, I mean, the Chiefs are 5-0.
13:58And last night was probably their best performance of the season.
14:02So any excuse you would put into that regard, you know,
14:07the Chiefs would have too, although it is weird why over time
14:11the Super Bowl winner always seems to fare better the following year
14:17than the Super Bowl loser, right?
14:19I mean, it's just uncanny.
14:21You look at over the years, Super Bowl winner, like the Chiefs last year,
14:25you know, they had won it two years ago,
14:27and they slugged through for a while last year.
14:30Then they win it.
14:32The Super Bowl loser, the Eagles, they off to a fast start,
14:35and then they faded.
14:36For whatever reason, the Super Bowl loser,
14:39that Super Bowl hangover seems like a real thing.
14:42Yeah.
14:43And, Raj, you were talking about carries,
14:45and, you know, that's the one thing I questioned about Kyle Shanahan
14:48in a couple of these losses.
14:50He's gone away from his 25-year-old running back, Jordan Mason.
14:54I know he leads the league in carries.
14:56But just Sunday, Ross, they were 1 of 6 in the red zone.
14:59They're 9 of 22 on the year, good for 30th.
15:02But Mason had 14 touches for 89 yards, 6.4 yards a pop.
15:07But yet I didn't feel like the Niners did what the Cardinals did with Connor.
15:13Am I wrong to question Kyle?
15:15Like, I know McCaffrey's not here, but you've got a 25-year-old Marion Barber.
15:20He reminds me of Steven Jackson, you know, that elk.
15:23Why would Kyle not go to him more when he's this young and effective?
15:30Yeah, that's a good question.
15:32And I would say, you know, on the one hand,
15:35they were having a lot of success with IUC,
15:38and it was seeming like it was going to be a big IUC game,
15:41and maybe they just really liked their matchup, you know,
15:44the Cardinals against the Cardinals' corners.
15:46I can't really answer that.
15:49You know, the Cardinals don't really have any pass rushers.
15:53So I think on some level the thought is,
15:56they don't really have very many good pass rushers,
15:58so we should be able to sit back and just light them up.
16:02And I think that's part of it.
16:04But, you know, only Kyle would really be able to answer that.
16:08But it's interesting because it feels like the Cardinals,
16:13over the course of the game, kind of out-physicaled the 49ers.
16:18And you don't see that very often.
16:20I mean, the Niners, you know, they haven't always had that reputation.
16:25Even when, like, Montana and those guys were there,
16:27people would call them finesse.
16:29But over the last few years, they've been a very, very physical team.
16:34You know, the way they run the ball,
16:36and Greenlaw and Fred Warner lighten people up.
16:39But I thought Arizona was the more physical team on Sunday.
16:42Yeah.
16:43Hey, Ross, thanks as always.
16:44Appreciate it, man.
16:45We'll catch up with you in a couple weeks.
16:47All right, see you guys.