In this third-part of the My Return series, I’ll focus on something that truly matters: the 49ers 2014 campaign, haha.  A lot of things have happened since I last wrote about the Niners and so I’ll try to touch on the big ones here and then give my thoughts, prediction, and also what I plan to do in order to put this team in the best possible position to win.

PRESEASON

A lot of fuss was made by the media, bloggers, and folks in the comment sections of articles about how bad we looked in the preseason, which is warranted….but not the full story.  Of course we looked bad — we never had our full offense together, or full defense together, at the same time.  And why should we have? That’s not what the preseason is about.  The preseason isn’t about winning games or scoring points, it’s about NOT SUSTAINING INJURIES and giving your back-ups (and guys fighting to make a team) the opportunity to show what they can do.  So, in that regard, I think that way more fuss and panic was put into our preseason than is warranted.  After all, when has a Jim Harbaugh preseason looked impressive?  The last couple of years we have rolled out a very bland, vanilla presentation in the preseason….but then we have charged into the NFC Championship Game.  I’m not worried.

Furthermore, the buzz from the players is not one of concern.  Kaepernick seems confident that they’re heading in the right direction, practicing well, and will be ready to roll come next weekend in Dallas; Frankie echoes a lot of that same sentiment; the coaching staff seem to be pleased with development and how things are going, so I have no reason to be concerned.  If we had Twitter or players coming out and complaining about things or voicing frustration, then maybe I would be concerned.  But everyone seems happy to be there, working hard, getting along, and so I trust that it’s just being treated like a normal preseason in the Harbaugh Era.

Certainly, though, if the offense doesn’t click during the regular season, we will be in trouble.  I don’t know if our defense will be able to win us games this year on their own.  Especially in the first 9 games of the season, with some recent developments regarding Aldon Smith.

ALDON SMITH

Losing Aldon Smith for the first 9 games of the season is a bit of a blow, but not one that necessarily cripples us (like some media folks are saying).  I think that it definitely costs us 2 games, for sure (@ Denver, @ New Orleans), and possibly a third (Chicago) – simply because those three games are against pass-heavy offenses and solid QBs with projected big stat years coming (Manning, Brees, and Cutler, respectively)…oh, and two of them are on the road.  Our secondary isn’t our defensive strength — and that’s no mystery — and so we really do need a good pass rush in those games if battling against pass-heavy offenses and good QBs.  If someone is open, those QBs will find them when given time in the pocket.  Not having Aldon Smith definitely weakens us in the pass-rush department, unless we get MAJOR production from Skuta, Wilhoite, Lemonier, etc.

The only other high-profile offense that we play in Smith’s absence, though, is the Cowboys to open the season.  And while the Cowboys offense has been secretly very good recently, their defense is projected to be historically bad — so our offense should be able to bail us out in that game. Should be.

Side Note:  I neglected to further criticize Goodell’s timing on the announcement of the suspension in Part II and so I’ll do it now.  I don’t know why he waited so long on this decision.  Aldon’s latest incident happened months ago, he met with Aldon 3 weeks ago, and waited until a week before the season starts to let us know that he’ll be suspended for the first 9 games?  I didn’t appreciate that.  Sure, Baalke and Harbaugh have said that they planned for this (and I do believe that they did) but I don’t appreciate the delay as he’s a key player and whether he is out for 2 games, 4 games, 9 games, or the full-season, I don’t see the need to sit on making a decision for 3 weeks for offenses that are months old and, the legal system piece, has already been resolved.  If the courts hadn’t made a verdict yet, then I can see the justification for waiting before ruling on the League level.  But we’ve known his sentence (on the legal end of things) for awhile now, so there was no point in waiting until this past week to make your decision.  Or at least not in my book.  End Side Note.

One of my dear friends had attempted to downplay the suspension by saying that Aldon isn’t the important “Smith” on our defense — referring to Justin Smith — and citing how Aldon’s productivity plummeted two years ago when Justin went down with the bicep injury against the Pats.

Aldon definitely benefits from Justin’s presence, for sure — once Justin went out, then O-lines could double up on Aldon; that makes perfect sense. However, at this stage of each player’s respective career, I don’t know if I’d say that Justin is more important. (PLUS they work really well together in tandem, which also helps both of them.)

We have the talent and youth on the D-line that, I believe, we could now cover if Justin went down with injury (though, obviously, for his talent and experience, I’d prefer that not to happen). Whereas we are going to be attempting to cover Aldon’s absence with 2-3 guys on rotation. Losing either of them affects our pass rush but I think, at this point, Aldon’s absence will be more noticeable. Especially when he comes back in November with something to prove.

FORECAST FOR THE SEASON

*IF* we can stay afloat while Aldon is suspended (above .500), I think that we will be in a very good position to make a late-season push.  Getting him and Bowman back, fresh and healthy, in November will bring an added energy and talent to our defensive front, PLUS then our rotation and depth becomes better due to the fact that they would have had 9 games of added experience added to their belt.

As it stands right now, I think that we have a shot at replicating last year’s 11-5 campaign.  We’re still a very good team (even without Aldon and Bowman for most of the year).

Cowboys (Wk 1) have an explosive offense, but I think that our offense is good enough to exploit their porous defense.  The Bears (Wk 2) could be tough due to their passing game against our secondary, but 1) we have them at home and 2) their defense is not a lock-down defense – perhaps Kaepernick can replicate his performance against them a year and a half ago.  The Cardinals (Wk 3) are a wild card – I’m not sure what to expect from them this season.  Not having our pass rush at full strength does give Palmer more time to throw (and he does have some good receiving targets) but he’s also 34yrs old and there seems to be buzz that he won’t finish the season as their starting QB – so maybe we can edge them on the road?

The Eagles (Wk 4) is another potent offense that we’ll be up against but we have them at home and I think that our offense can move the ball against their defense.  Anytime where I think that both offenses can move the ball and score points, I will tend to side with the better defense – and I think that would be us, in this match up.  Hosting the Chiefs (Wk 5) is a game that could also be pretty interesting: Alex Smith doesn’t make a lot of mistakes and so he may find success against us moving the ball, but we should still be very good at run defense, and so I like us in this game, as well; especially since a lot of people tend to hold the opinion that the Chiefs are prime for a regression this year (but we’ll see).

Going on the road to play the Rams (Wk 6) is anyone’s guess.  With Bradford out for the season, and Shaun Hill at the helm, I don’t know if we know what that offense is going to look like.  Their defense is great, quietly underrated, in my opinion, and so the questions are solely surrounding their offense.  I don’t know if Shaun Hill will have success against us, and they may have to rely more on running the ball — where our defensive strength resides.

The Broncos (Wk 7) is a game that I don’t think that we can win, especially on the road.  The only way that we can beat the Broncos on the road is through pressuring Manning (who doesn’t perform well after getting hit a few times), and knocking him out of his game and comfort zone.  I don’t know if we can do that without Aldon and Bowman. If we can’t generate pressure on Manning and a pass rush, then he’ll be able to pick our secondary apart, I’m sure.  You can’t give top-shelf QBs all day in the pocket to throw the ball; they’ll find someone open. So, unless our replacements come in hot and create MAJOR production, I don’t think that we will win this game.

Then we have the Bye Week, and if we can be 5-2 (or 4-3) heading into the Bye Week, then I think that we’ll be in good shape; or, at least, as good a shape as I could ask for.

We then have the Rams (Wk 9) at home, and, again, the Shaun Hill wrinkle is one that I’m not sure about, but I think that is a winnable game, or at least one where we have a good chance at winning, before going to play the Saints (Wk 10) in New Orleans.  For the same reasons that I don’t think that we can beat the Broncos’ offense without our pass-rush at full-strength, I also don’t think that we can beat the Saints in New Orleans without our pass-rush.

Once out of that clearing, though, we get a fully-rested and motivated Aldon Smith back and possibly even Bowman (his rehabilitation has been said to be coming along nicely) and the rest of our season consists of a lot of winnable games, in my opinion, including (essentially) 5 of the final 7 games at home.

Starting off the final 7 games of the season, we’ll be on the road against the Giants (Wk 11).  I don’t think that Eli will have the year that he had last year but, at the same time, I think that there are a lot of questions with the Giants this year, like the rest of the NFC East.  Then we have the Redskins at home (Wk 12), and, again, a lot of questions right now with them, before hosting the Seahawks (Wk 13) on Thanksgiving.  The Seahawks game should be a good, tough game, as advertised, but it being a home game for us (following a home game), and a short week, travel week for them, PLUS, since their Bye Week is really early this season, we could be catching them at a time that they are getting fatigued while we are hitting our stride.

Then we go “on the road” to play Oakland (Wk 14) and I think that we can beat them, before heading up to Seattle (Wk 15) where, despite all of the 12th Man nonsense, we played them incredibly tough in the championship game last year, and so I think that we can win that game.  I don’t know if we will, but it’s not a slam-dunk victory for the Seahawks anymore, in my opinion.

Then we come home for the Chargers (Wk 16) – which could be a tough game, depending on how their season is going; there’s a lot of buzz that I’m hearing and reading around the Chargers making a push this season, and Rivers looking good in the preseason; so this could be a tough game for us.  We then close out the season, like last year, with the Cardinals (Wk 17) but this year, we are hosting the season finale — which is good because I think that this game could be very important.

I don’t think that we have any shot at winning home-field advantage this season (I think that the Saints will clinch home-field), and without Aldon and Bowman for most of the season, I don’t know if we will have enough wins to clinch the division, either (unless the Seahawks unexpectedly collapse somehow), so we are playing and battling for one of two Wild Card spots.  With how competitive the NFC is, I don’t think 10-wins gets you in – just like how the Cardinals missed the playoffs last year at 10-6.   I think that the Saints win the South and get home-field; the Packers win the North and get the #2 seed; then the Seahawks win the West and the #3 seed; and the Eagles win the East and get the #4 seed — leaving the 2 Wild Card spots for: us, the Falcons (who I think will bounce back this year), the Bears, the Lions (who may not have the tendency to implode in December as they did under Schwartz), the Buccs, maybe the Cardinals/Rams, and, who knows?, maybe the Vikings make a splash this season?  The Panthers, I think, will regress this year, but that’s another team to look out for.

Much like last year, though, I don’t think that we need to be the top-seed or a division champ in order to win in the post-season: we just need to get into the playoffs and I think that we’ll be okay.  When we are at full-strength (as I reckon we would be in December and January) we are not only tough to beat, BUT I think that we can win anywhere.

So, that would be my prediction right now:  11-5 and a Wild Card team.  Hopefully I am correct.  #GoNiners

WHAT I WILL DO

I will do my part to help the team out.  Two years ago, I had a very specific pregame ritual that, I believe, helped get us to the Super Bowl.  However, I got TRASHED before the Super Bowl at the Niners-Fan Only Super Bowl party that I attended, and THAT is where I went wrong.  It remains the only football game that I’ve ever drank during, and it is no coincidence (in my mind) that after I stopped drinking and started sobering up (when we were down big in the 3rd quarter), that we started playing better.  Had I remained sober that game, we probably cruise to a victory.  It’s a guilt that I must carry on my shoulders forever, now.

Last year, I wasn’t as religious with the pregame ritual and we came just short of going to the Super Bowl again — where I am confident that we would have easily won it, just as the Seahawks did.

So, this year, I am going back to my full-tradition of two years ago and, hopefully, this return to my superstitious tradition will please the Football Gods above and bring us their good fortune and favor.

Oh, and I will stand by my prior-made promise that if we win the Super Bowl this year, I will convert my wardrobe — where applicable — to being fully Dockers products.  I say “where applicable” because their website doesn’t show the full-breadth of their ability (which is really weird to me) and so I am limited to what I find at stores.  Pants, shoes, belts, those items are always available; but they also make dress shirts that I haven’t been able to find online BUT do occasionally find at Ross Dress for Less (which is bizarre).  I also once saw a Dockers driving cap at Ross, which is another item that I had never seen of theirs.  So, if we win it all this year, I’m going shopping.  Dockers: The Official Clothier of Ryan Henley.

Thanks for reading,

-Ryan.