Audibles Podcast on the NFC West

[yossarian]

NFC West offseason podcast: San Francisco 49ers in decline, more - NFL - SI.com

Doug Farrar is always on the radio here in Seattle, and I've heard him on the radio here, he doesn't like the 49ers and doesn't like Harbaugh.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I haven't listened to the podcast, but this jumped out at me:

"If the Niners drop to .500 this year it wouldn't surprise me," Farrar says, "because in a lot of those key positions you're relying on guys over 30 to stay healthy all year, like a Justin Smith."

Of the Niners' projected starters, three are over thirty - Smith, Boldin, and Gore. All three have proven durable, and each is backed up either by an established vet or promising younger players (or both).

 

[Pattersonca65]

NFC West offseason podcast: San Francisco 49ers in decline, more - NFL - SI.com

Doug Farrar is always on the radio here in Seattle, and I've heard him on the radio here, he doesn't like the 49ers and doesn't like Harbaugh.

I Wouldn't even bother listening to him. What does he know. You ought to podcast 49er segments on KNBR.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I haven't listened to the podcast, but this jumped out at me:

"If the Niners drop to .500 this year it wouldn't surprise me," Farrar says, "because in a lot of those key positions you're relying on guys over 30 to stay healthy all year, like a Justin Smith."

Of the Niners' projected starters, three are over thirty - Smith, Boldin, and Gore. All three have proven durable, and each is backed up either by an established vet or promising younger players (or both).

I wanted to take a closer look at the respective ages of the Niners and Hawks. The Hawks are a young team, with very few players over 30. That said, I'm curious to see if the difference is really so great as Farrar makes it out to be.

I'm using ProFootballFocus' projected depth chart for these, and am using the ages listed on the official team sites.

QB
SF: 26
SEA: 25

RB
SF: 31, 25
SEA: 28, 23

WR
SF: 33, 27, 26
SEA: 26, 25, 24

TE
SF: 30, 24
SEA: 28, 24

OT
SF: 29, 24
SEA: 25, 22

OG
SF: 27, 27
SEA: 25, 25

C
SF: 26
SEA: 28

DE
SF: 34, 29
SEA: 28, 28

DT
SF: 28
SEA: 29, 29

OLB
SF: 30, 24
SEA: 26, 24

ILB
SF: 29, 26
SEA: 24

CB
SF: 25, 24, 22
SEA: 26, 26, 23

S
SF: 29, 22
SEA: 26, 25

A few things jump out. The first is that the Hawks really are a very young team. The Niners have an average age of 27.24 (note: I did not round to nearest month above) compared to 25.68 for the Hawks.

However, the Hawks' front-four really stands out compared to the rest of the team, with every starter coming in at or above 28 (Niners are in the same boat, even worse with a 34-year-old Smith, but I wasn't as surprised by that for some reason). I'm interested to see how the young DL players for both teams pan out. Should be interesting to watch. Outside of that front-four, though, the Hawks' defense is remarkably young.

Outside of Bethea, the Niners are a bunch of babies on the back end. That may change slightly if Cook and say Morris win the "starting" spots (or more significantly if Cox wins at NB), but still a really young group.

In terms of saying that the Niners are going to collapse, though, I think that overlooks the talent they have added recently. You're looking at potentially significant contributions this next year and going forward from Carradine, Mcdonald, Lemonier, Patton, and Lattimore, not to mention the twelve picks (seven in the first four rounds) this year. The Niners will be trotting out nine picks from the top-three rounds of '13-'14 compared to the Hawks' four (no first rounders). The Hawks will also see some young players stepping in, but they haven't made nearly as many high picks over the past two years, though they have hit nicely - particularly on defense and at WR - with later picks.

Anyway, not sure what conclusions can be drawn by this exercise, but thought it was interesting to take a look. And I'm bored.

 

[supreme_clientele81]

I wanted to take a closer look at the respective ages of the Niners and Hawks. The Hawks are a young team, with very few players over 30. That said, I'm curious to see if the difference is really so great as Farrar makes it out to be.

A few things jump out. The first is that the Hawks really are a very young team. The Niners have an average age of 27.24 (note: I did not round to nearest month above) compared to 25.68 for the Hawks.

Is the average age only for starters?

 

[Pattersonca65]

I wanted to take a closer look at the respective ages of the Niners and Hawks. The Hawks are a young team, with very few players over 30. That said, I'm curious to see if the difference is really so great as Farrar makes it out to be.

I'm using ProFootballFocus' projected depth chart for these, and am using the ages listed on the official team sites.

QB
SF: 26
SEA: 25

RB
SF: 31, 25
SEA: 28, 23

WR
SF: 33, 27, 26
SEA: 26, 25, 24

TE
SF: 30, 24
SEA: 28, 24

OT
SF: 29, 24
SEA: 25, 22

OG
SF: 27, 27
SEA: 25, 25

C
SF: 26
SEA: 28

DE
SF: 34, 29
SEA: 28, 28

DT
SF: 28
SEA: 29, 29

OLB
SF: 30, 24
SEA: 26, 24

ILB
SF: 29, 26
SEA: 24

CB
SF: 25, 24, 22
SEA: 26, 26, 23

S
SF: 29, 22
SEA: 26, 25

A few things jump out. The first is that the Hawks really are a very young team. The Niners have an average age of 27.24 (note: I did not round to nearest month above) compared to 25.68 for the Hawks.

However, the Hawks' front-four really stands out compared to the rest of the team, with every starter coming in at or above 28 (Niners are in the same boat, even worse with a 34-year-old Smith, but I wasn't as surprised by that for some reason). I'm interested to see how the young DL players for both teams pan out. Should be interesting to watch. Outside of that front-four, though, the Hawks' defense is remarkably young.

Outside of Bethea, the Niners are a bunch of babies on the back end. That may change slightly if Cook and say Morris win the "starting" spots (or more significantly if Cox wins at NB), but still a really young group.

In terms of saying that the Niners are going to collapse, though, I think that overlooks the talent they have added recently. You're looking at potentially significant contributions this next year and going forward from Carradine, Mcdonald, Lemonier, Patton, and Lattimore, not to mention the twelve picks (seven in the first four rounds) this year. The Niners will be trotting out nine picks from the top-three rounds of '13-'14 compared to the Hawks' four (no first rounders). The Hawks will also see some young players stepping in, but they haven't made nearly as many high picks over the past two years, though they have hit nicely - particularly on defense and at WR - with later picks.

Anyway, not sure what conclusions can be drawn by this exercise, but thought it was interesting to take a look. And I'm bored.

Boring time a year. This guy obviously knows the 49ers little. In my opinion, the 49ers future is going to hinge on how these draft picks from the past couple of years pan out. If the picks don't work out, then team is going to be in trouble in the near future. If these players pan out, team will be in good shape for awhile. I would also question looking at all of these player's ages. In the modern NFL there is going to be constant turnover anyway so it comes down to drafting well to fill weaknesses.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Listened to some of the podcast this morning. A few additional thoughts.

I'm reluctant to assume that the Niners will just continue to be very good, but I see no reason to expect them to suffer a serious decline at this point. It's entirely possible, particularly if they're without Aldon Smith and Bowman for an extended period of time. That said, the team was 5-0 last year without Smith, and 2-0 with both Smith and Willis out (they allowed 14 points combined in those two games). But I don't see a drop to .500.

These guys aren't very consistent in their view of the Niners as compared to the Hawks, IMO. Farrar claims the Niners are in trouble because they haven't drafted well lately, pointing out that the only player to make an impact for them last year was Eric Reid. A few problems with this. First, it's factually inaccurate. Vance McDonald and Corey Lemonier played quite a bit and should only be improving. And Quinton Patton, when healthy, looked promising. Perhaps more significantly, Reid looked good enough that he alone would make this draft a solid one. Most teams would take a pro bowl safety and a couple role players out of any given draft.

It's also pretty ironic that he criticizes the Niners for only landing Reid last year, then states that the Hawks are in good shape going forward because of their strong drafts. If we're already prepared to say the Niners had a bad draft last year, the Hawks' draft was terrible. 5th rounder Luke Willson and 7th rounder Michael Bowie were the only players to contribute at all, and neither could be considered an impact player.

Along the same lines, these guys criticize the Niners' depth, questioning what will happen if there are a few key injuries (at least one of them has the decency to point out that any team would be in trouble upon losing its starting QB...) while claiming the Hawks have great depth. I don't see it. Like the Niners, the Hawks have some intriguing prospects who simply haven't shown much of anything. They've got Tarvaris Jackson, who is a solid enough backup. They also have Malcolm Smith and Kevin Williams, who should be good backups. Beyond that, what do they really have backing up their starters?

Now, the Hawks have shown an uncanny ability to rotate through CB talent, but where's the proven track record at other positions? They have struggled mightily to find OL depth. At WR they have found some late-round or undrafted gems, but have missed on their earlier picks lately. Along the DL, they're relying upon rookies and completely untested young vets to back up crucial positions (outside of Kevin Williams, whose addition frankly raises questions about 2013 picks Jesse Williams and Jordan Hill IMO). And I don't know what would happen to their defense if Earl Thomas goes down. He's the only FS listed on their official roster, and a completely unique player. And the Christine Michael hype is perhaps the biggest head-scratcher I've seen. Sure, the guy has physical tools. But he didn't have a single meaningful carry last year, and people talk about him like he can seamlessly take over for Lynch.

The Niners have similar questions, but have seen depth players contribute along the DL, at the LB spots, at CB, on the OL, and at RB. They have struggled at WR, but have added a number of players - two of whom are proven outside this team. As I noted above, the Niners' depth is at least coming in the form of high fairly draft picks. The Hawks have been pretty successful at finding talent later in drafts, but like every team, they have seen more misses than hits from the later rounds.

Anyway, it should be an interesting season. I'm clearly expecting more of a dog fight in the division than these guys are, but I suppose time will tell.

 

[yossarian]

I thought they were pretty one sided too, although Farrar and others did say that championship teams based solely on defense usually regress back to the mean, and particularly in this case where the Seattle defense plays with the underdog chip on their shoulder mentality more than most and they won the super bowl and Sherman and Thomas got nice contracts. Farrar also mentioned that Harbaugh hasn't ever had to deal with real adversity or losing (i.e an 9-7 season) and that may be true for that circumstance, but last year at the beginning of the season they had lost a couple of games and lost Aldon and Crabtree was out and he had to get them to play well to where they were one game behind the Seahawks at the end in the standings.

 

[Pattersonca65]

I thought they were pretty one sided too, although Farrar and others did say that championship teams based solely on defense usually regress back to the mean, and particularly in this case where the Seattle defense plays with the underdog chip on their shoulder mentality more than most and they won the super bowl and Sherman and Thomas got nice contracts. Farrar also mentioned that Harbaugh hasn't ever had to deal with real adversity or losing (i.e an 9-7 season) and that may be true for that circumstance, but last year at the beginning of the season they had lost a couple of games and lost Aldon and Crabtree was out and he had to get them to play well to where they were one game behind the Seahawks at the end in the standings.

LOL, what the heck does this guy know and who cares. I find it funny on the General Message board a couple of Seahawk fans that get bent out of shape from some of the same questions their team receives from the media.

 

[Jikkle]

Never understood the logic of us not drafting well last year.

It's way too early to come to that conclusion if it was good or bad.

The team has been in the NFC championship the past 3 seasons so the roster is clearly good and there isn't a lot of room for rookies to have a big impact.

Both the 9ers and Hawks understand this which is why they draft with a couple of years ahead in mind when they need to start replacing guys due to age or money.

The 2013 or 2014 drafts could be epic busts or they could be epic successes that will load the team up for years to come.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

I thought they were pretty one sided too, although Farrar and others did say that championship teams based solely on defense usually regress back to the mean, and particularly in this case where the Seattle defense plays with the underdog chip on their shoulder mentality more than most and they won the super bowl and Sherman and Thomas got nice contracts. Farrar also mentioned that Harbaugh hasn't ever had to deal with real adversity or losing (i.e an 9-7 season) and that may be true for that circumstance, but last year at the beginning of the season they had lost a couple of games and lost Aldon and Crabtree was out and he had to get them to play well to where they were one game behind the Seahawks at the end in the standings.

Farrar was just all Seattle all the time. Best late-round pick? Kevin Norwood. Best receiving corps? Seahawks. No hesitation, no balancing. Hawks are the best, period.

Particularly in the case of the receivers, I think that's a hard sell. Even with a healthy Harvin, which is a dicey proposition, you're really relying on Richardson and Norwood making a fairly dramatic impact this year to justify that claim. Sidney Rice is the only guy on the Hawks' roster who has ever gone above 1,000 yards and six TDs, and that was in 2009. The Niners currently have four players who have matched or topped those numbers more recently than 2009, three of them within the past two years (and Lloyd was pretty darn close in 2012).

A healthy Harvin is probably better than any receiver we have, but not by much - particularly as he's never been much of a red zone threat. And I'd rank our second and third guys above Baldwin at this point. I'm not sure I'd even take Kearse, their hypothetical #3 right now, over Patton. Not to mention that the Cards almost certainly have the best tandem in the division with Fitz and Floyd, a pretty nice complementary deep threat in Ginn, and a fairly high pick in John Brown. And hell, while I don't think we can say it now, the Rams could have the best group from top to bottom when all is said and done.

 

[Pattersonca65]

Farrar was just all Seattle all the time. Best late-round pick? Kevin Norwood. Best receiving corps? Seahawks. No hesitation, no balancing. Hawks are the best, period.

Particularly in the case of the receivers, I think that's a hard sell. Even with a healthy Harvin, which is a dicey proposition, you're really relying on Richardson and Norwood making a fairly dramatic impact this year to justify that claim. Sidney Rice is the only guy on the Hawks' roster who has ever gone above 1,000 yards and six TDs, and that was in 2009. The Niners currently have four players who have matched or topped those numbers more recently than 2009, three of them within the past two years (and Lloyd was pretty darn close in 2012).

A healthy Harvin is probably better than any receiver we have, but not by much - particularly as he's never been much of a red zone threat. And I'd rank our second and third guys above Baldwin at this point. I'm not sure I'd even take Kearse, their hypothetical #3 right now, over Patton. Not to mention that the Cards almost certainly have the best tandem in the division with Fitz and Floyd, a pretty nice complementary deep threat in Ginn, and a fairly high pick in John Brown. And hell, while I don't think we can say it now, the Rams could have the best group from top to bottom when all is said and done.

In other words, Farrar is a homer.

 

[Pattersonca65]

Never understood the logic of us not drafting well last year.

It's way too early to come to that conclusion if it was good or bad.

The team has been in the NFC championship the past 3 seasons so the roster is clearly good and there isn't a lot of room for rookies to have a big impact.

Both the 9ers and Hawks understand this which is why they draft with a couple of years ahead in mind when they need to start replacing guys due to age or money.

The 2013 or 2014 drafts could be epic busts or they could be epic successes that will load the team up for years to come.

Who claimed the 49ers did not draft well last year?

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Never understood the logic of us not drafting well last year.

It's way too early to come to that conclusion if it was good or bad.

The team has been in the NFC championship the past 3 seasons so the roster is clearly good and there isn't a lot of room for rookies to have a big impact.

Both the 9ers and Hawks understand this which is why they draft with a couple of years ahead in mind when they need to start replacing guys due to age or money.

The 2013 or 2014 drafts could be epic busts or they could be epic successes that will load the team up for years to come.

Yeah, as said, at worst I think we're looking at a solid draft if Reid continues to play the way he did last year/improve. That's certainly more than you can say about the Hawks' 2013 draft at this point. If Carradine, McDonald, Lemonier, Lattimore, and/or Patton come through, it could be somewhere between good and excellent.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Who claimed the 49ers did not draft well last year?

One of them, I think it was Farrar. Said the Niners had questions going forward because of recent struggles in the draft. Cited 2012 and only landing Reid in 2013. Somewhat ironically, the other one later said that he believed McDonald was going to be a solid player at TE and Farrar appeared to agree.

 

[Pattersonca65]

One of them, I think it was Farrar. Said the Niners had questions going forward because of recent struggles in the draft. Cited 2012 and only landing Reid in 2013. Somewhat ironically, the other one later said that he believed McDonald was going to be a solid player at TE and Farrar appeared to agree.

If that is what he is said about 2013 and only landing Reid, than he clearly does not know about the 49ers and more sprecifically about that draft since players like Carradine and Lattimore were about the future.

 

[Jikkle]

San Francisco 49ers' Jimmie Ward face of a changing defensive reality - NFL - SI.com

What makes his opinion about our drafts more surprising is that he seems high on our pick of Jimmie Ward as well.

So it just makes it seem like he's one of those guys that has a good general knowledge of all the teams but doesn't know any of them intimately.