Khyber53

We're beating the teams we have no right beating and losing to the teams we should beat. For a team on the mend, that is a much better situation than it looks like. We have the potential, where we're failing is on the basics. Another offseason working on that and a summer camp reinforcing it will help a lot. Filling in some holes in free agency and the draft will be massive, too. It's something different around here. We aren't in free fall anymore. We're building something.

I'm not looking at any of those as a good choice. Willis is a pass and Jones will probably get a contract offer in Indy (and should). Now, work out a trade for Mac Jones and I might be intrigued. The two best QB factories right now are SF and LARams. Grab someone from their benches and you get a quality guy from a prior high draft that might be reaching their potential. Everything else is a crap shoot at best.

A team should always be putting at least one or two draft picks in at tackle and guard each season. Those guys just don't last nearly long enough and those that do get very, very expensive. In our situation, we need a little more time to see what the Icky injury works itself out to. Njiman performed really well out there and if this injury lingers into the next season, then he might do well enough there to hold the line for the team. Or we could draft early if there is a stud LOT in the draft when our spot comes along. Honestly, we may be looking at replacing both LT and RT this season at this point. Moton is getting long in the tooth and while he deserves a shot to go for a playoff run with this team, I don't know whether we will really see him come back next season yet. It's still so darned early in all of this to say.

Actually, that depth on the line... I was impressed how they showed up after Icky went down AND Hunt had to come out of the game for a while. We may have a pretty decent line for next season, whether Moton decides to play another year or not. Cade Mays at Center helps a lot.

If in June you said we'd have hosted a home playoff game and had four lead changes in the final quarter of that game vs the mighty Rams, but just lost by 3 in the end... I'd have thought you were smoking crack. The guys did better than any of us expected this season. They've set the bar high for themselves next season. I ain't mad. And Bryce played like he deserved to be there. Still not sure why we didn't keep pushing those slant routes at the end there with the success we'd been having with them and three timeouts in our pocket. Oh well, coach and company have grown a lot this year, and they've got some more to grow on.

Bad weather, big rain. Brings it down to luck and the running games. Slugfest in the trenches. That gives us our best chance.

Not gonna lie, I'd be all for it. MM was leading the pack in new coaching ideas and I think it was injuries that derailed everything for him, not his coaching. That and there had developed a few bad lockerroom guys.

2003 was just magical. The Cardiac Cats were something else and it was the ultimate underdog story again and again and again throughout that season. There was no give up in those guys. I still can't stand Belichick and Brady and you can't convince me that they hadn't been cheating and stealing our signals before that game. 2015 was just a steamroller year, but as it wore on and our celebrations each game got more raucous and unsportsmanlike, I just knew Karma was hovering around, waiting to strike. We came into that game like we had already been crowned as champs, acting like fools, wearing masks in interviews and sadly, got just embarrassed by a decent, not great, team headed by Peyton Manning on his last legs. Karma is a b!tch.

100 percent the key to the game, just like last time. Edit to add: Oh yeah, and playing outdoors on a wet field, possibly in heavy rain conditions. Sometimes your only chance is to drag the other guy down into the mud and grapple him.

Can't argue with you there.

Maybe getting a big receiver out there that can be seen over the o-line might change that a bit...

I really, really agree with this. Why do you have a big, athletic guy with reach competing with the sidelines when he could do a better job in the center of the field or running the opposite seam to the TE?

Harbaugh will end up in Miami. While they have a decent foundation for the team, they are in a newly resetting division that will feature pushover Jets twice a season. And then the biggest unspoken factor... tax benefits from living in Florida. There's no state income tax there. Tennessee is the same, but they've got a massive amount of work for a rebuild.

Good to see merit winning out here. Maybe XL roars back or finds him a place in the third WR spot. He's got some serious competition for it though with Horn, Jr. and Tremayne. And you can't tell me that David Moore doesn't know how to fight and compete for a roster spot. Work, man. Woulda been easier for him out of the gate rather than here at the end of the season.

Yep.