• 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00I do wonder where everybody sits with regard to how much yesterday did to either make you
00:07believe that the 49ers did wake up, as George Kittle, I guess, is somewhat suggesting.
00:15Did they wake up, or did they just beat the Bears?
00:18I think they woke up.
00:19I mean, you'll see against the Rams.
00:21The Rams are good.
00:22The Rams are much better than they were the first time you played them, and the Rams beat
00:26you in that game.
00:27I mean, I just watched yesterday's game against the Bills and what the Rams were able to do,
00:31and I know Buffalo's defense is not world-beating, but the Rams matched them shot for shot, play
00:37for play, up and down the field, so this game's going to be much more difficult than the Bears'
00:42game was.
00:43Yeah, no doubt.
00:44This one will determine if the Niners truly are back or not.
00:47If you lose this game and you fall to 6-8, it's probably over, unless you pull off a
00:52miracle.
00:539-8, I don't think gets it done.
00:558-8, 9-5-7, 9-5-7 is the number.
00:58We should probably continue the conversation that's born here out of the crossover for
01:03sure, and again, all I'll do is kind of circle back to what I've already stated, which is
01:13that I get sort of confused why we need to come out of certain situations, pick one person,
01:21and go, it's on this person.
01:24That doesn't really exist in life.
01:26It certainly doesn't exist in sports.
01:28This is a collective thing, so nobody's excusing anybody.
01:32But it is my very firm belief, and we'll play for you the George Kittle again, where he
01:36suggests that it wasn't until yesterday that this team, that he felt an actual collective
01:42sense of urgency.
01:43Of course Kyle Shanahan is a part of that, but they all are, and I could tell you this,
01:49there have been very, very few times in my life where anybody, any other human being
01:56has looked me in the eye and said something with words, and I immediately just went, oh,
02:01oh, well now I feel completely differently about everything, and I feel a total new sense
02:09within my own body, and I am now going to act completely different than the way I might
02:14have been acting.
02:15I just don't believe that that exists with words.
02:18I believe it exists with actions.
02:20It's why every team has team leaders within the team that are not the coach.
02:24It's why the Draymond Greens of the world exist.
02:27It's why the Fred Warners of the world exist.
02:29It's why the Buster Posies of the world exist, because these types of things have to trickle
02:35down and they have to end up living inside the players, and until you actually feel real
02:43fear or real sense of consequence by not doing well, you may or may not actually perform
02:52at your best, and so of course it starts with the coach.
02:57There's a piece of that puzzle, but I almost look at that like imagine a 20-foot putt.
03:04You get it started with your putter, and then it's got to hit all the undulations.
03:08It's got to hopefully not hit a pebble.
03:09It's got to do all of these other things, and that's where everybody else in the organization
03:15takes over, and the truth is I just don't think they thought that the rest of their
03:20division was a threat.
03:21Well, and again, if that is the reason, then where do you lay the blame for that?
03:27It's on all of them, and for me, I look at the top and it's the head coach, because as
03:31the head coach, your job is to put your players in position to go out there and win games,
03:37and I don't think that the large majority of the season has been a motivation problem.
03:42I think you've gotten deep into games, and I won't say you've choked, but you've made
03:48mistakes.
03:49You've failed to make plays in spots where you could win games, and there are three games
03:54that you basically gave away in the fourth quarter, two games you were up by 10 or more,
03:59and you couldn't cover a punt.
04:01You committed a PI.
04:03You gave up a 50-yard bomb.
04:05You fumbled in the red zone.
04:07All these little things you did, for me, it has nothing to do with whether or not you
04:11were motivated.
04:12You got deep in games, and you made mistakes.
04:14So you don't even buy what George is saying, then?
04:16I buy it to the extent that yesterday, they showed up and played with more enthusiasm
04:21and effort than I remember them seeing in about three weeks.
04:24OK, but, like, again, that's what it just sounded like to me, you said, that you actually
04:29think the Niners have played all year with a sense of urgency.
04:32They've played well enough to win more games than they have.
04:35But have they played with a sense of urgency?
04:37I can't tell that from watching at home.
04:40I can tell you this.
04:41Watching yesterday, it looked like they were playing with more urgency than any game that
04:45I can remember.
04:46Maybe going back to the opener against the Jets.
04:48Yeah, I mean, look.
04:49Yesterday looked different.
04:50Yeah, they looked like last year.
04:52Right.
04:53They looked like last year.
04:54And if he says that they haven't played with urgency, I take him at his word because he's
04:59in the locker room.
05:00Yeah, here's what George said.
05:01I think the message was, we need to play with more of a sense of urgency and play desperate
05:08because you just haven't really sensed that.
05:10And I've been on teams where it felt like, was it two years ago, we won an eight, nine
05:15game win streak, whatever that was.
05:17And it literally felt like every play, people were just scratching, clawing and fighting
05:20for everything.
05:21And I'm not going to call anybody out.
05:23We've all not taken a play off, but just not fought our hardest on every given play.
05:28And that was kind of the message.
05:29Guys, just put put it all out there because we have the players, we have the playmakers,
05:33we have the play call and we have everything to win games.
05:36But like we have to do it out of desperation when you're playing desperate and you're playing
05:39like, hey, if we don't win this game, our season potentially is over.
05:42That desperation fuels guys in different ways.
05:46And it's just how you take that and how you channel that energy.
05:48And I thought our guys did a great job of that today.
05:50OK, so like, first of all, I mean, two thoughts.
05:53One of them being sort of what we were just talking about.
05:56Do you do you want it surfaced by that?
05:59The other thing is, if that's what's needed to win football games, I mean, that's a lot
06:06to summon over a month and a half period of play, play with your hair on fire.
06:12Play like this is absolutely the last play.
06:15I mean, I don't know, man, like in the in the NFL, I feel like that's required all the
06:21time.
06:22And you're right.
06:23I can't speak to each individual out there.
06:26And have they been max effort?
06:28Have they felt this way or that way going into the game?
06:31Are they distracted by all the stuff the organization has gone through?
06:34I can't speak to any of that.
06:37But I feel like I can speak to this.
06:40If George says it, then it feels like it's got some credibility.
06:45And then the question becomes, why?
06:48Why did they not play that way the whole year?
06:53And I don't think the answer is because of the ignorance of the head coach that to me,
06:59that's not the answer.
07:00I don't think it's his ignorance.
07:01I just think that it's either a disconnect or a lack of motivation where the team is
07:06not playing that hard and they're not playing that hard in the fourth quarter.
07:10And I think about Kansas City and we look at every Kansas City game and all of us watching
07:15the Chiefs every single game, you ask yourself at the end, how in God's name did they win
07:20that game?
07:21And they win every game virtually and they don't play very well and their quarterback
07:26rating wise and stats wise is not very good.
07:29Their running back is mediocre.
07:31They don't do anything well.
07:32They play good defense.
07:33They play very good defense.
07:34They've got a kicker who was a niner cast off now and yet they win games.
07:38So I take George at his word on what he's saying because he's there and I'm not.
07:44But I also look at it and say, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do that
07:49to win football games.
07:50You can win football games a number of different ways.
07:54I know what you mean, but I mean the NFL is not a place where you can half step.
08:00You can't just like, you can't just ease your way in and come out like you said this right
08:04before we started.
08:05Like winning games in the NFL is hard, no matter who the hell you're playing.
08:09And we see it every single week, right?
08:12We watch the Chiefs have to scratch and claw to beat the Panthers.
08:17You know, the New York Giants almost won a football game yesterday.
08:20I know the team they were playing was bad, but like any one of these things can happen
08:25any week.
08:27If Xavier Leguette would just hold on to the ball, the Eagles lost at home to the Panthers
08:31yesterday.
08:32They lost, but he dropped the ball.
08:35And so they didn't lose.
08:37I mean, it's razor thin all the time.
08:41And so I don't believe that anybody is good enough to go out there and not sort of feel
08:48that urgency, but I do understand how it can be hard to access.
08:53I get that.
08:54You see, that I don't, I don't understand how it can be hard to access.
08:58Oh my God, because it's hard to access in life, right?
09:01But you're, you have a hard time accessing it.
09:03So do I.
09:04So does everybody getting out there?
09:05I mean, on an NFL field where your life could literally end and you're out there doing battle
09:10with a little dramatic, we had a player actually die in the field and then he was brought back
09:14to life.
09:15You've got people get paralyzed and you know, you can completely have your life altered
09:21on the field.
09:22And so I can't imagine being in that setting and not being highly motivated every time.
09:26But I mean that, but that's their reality.
09:28That's their every week.
09:29They, they, like you get used to it.
09:31There are a lot of people who have dangerous jobs and you get used to it and you don't
09:34throw up before you have to go to work every day and freak out.
09:38Like it's right.
09:39But to your point, you don't go out there and half step.
09:41No.
09:42It's hard to play what you sort of believe is your hardest.
09:46But like I said, I don't like that can be hard to access.
09:50Do you think you start running faster if you're being chased?
09:53I do like you have, you can't, you can't always just snap your fingers and do that.
09:59And that's why I reject the idea that this is as simple as Kyle Shanahan should have
10:04motivated them.
10:05I don't, I don't believe that's how humans are motivated.
10:08Well, you can motivate in a number of different ways.
10:10And Bill Belichick, starting with yourself, Bill Belichick would motivate by cutting guys.
10:15And you know, if somebody wasn't playing well, or if the team wasn't playing well, somebody
10:20would be scapegoated and that would send, I think that would be a motivating, uh, every
10:25NFL team does that, right?
10:26Every NFL team cuts people.
10:28I don't think Kyle does that.
10:30And it took him five weeks to cut Ronnie Bell people every year.
10:34Yeah.
10:35But it's not the same as when, you know, somebody makes a mistake or plays badly and then you
10:39cut them on the spot or you cut them the next day.
10:41That can be motivated.
10:42That's just movie stuff.
10:44I mean, when's the example in the NFL, someone dropped the ball and they were caught at the
10:48end of the day.
10:49I'd have to look it up.
10:50I mean, come on.
10:51Ray McLeod today.
10:53Was he caught?
10:54Should be.
10:55But he's not.
10:56So what's your example?
10:57I'll find one.
10:58I'll look one up.
10:59No, that's movie stuff.
11:00It's not.
11:01No NFL teams don't operate that way.
11:03They don't hang their people out to dry because you dropped a pass or else you'd be hard pressed
11:08the next time you're really good player drops the pass.
11:10But if you want everybody drops a pass in Devonery, Campbell's out there and he plays
11:13badly for eight weeks and you just keep trotting them out there and have another option.
11:17Yeah.