Month: April 2018

Rise of the Empire: 8 Notes from the 2018 Schedule

By Niner Faithful

 

After months of anticipation and “leaks”, the Niners 2018 schedule came out Thursday night. The Niners will have 5 primetime games. 2 Monday night games Week 6 @ Green Bay and Week 10 against the New York Giants. 2 Sunday night games Week 13 @ Seattle and Week 7 against the Yams. And the last one the home game I’m looking forward to the most week 9 Thursday night against the Raiders. This week I thought I’d go over something’s that is interesting about our schedule.

 

  1. Each of our 4 Biggest Free Agents play their former team.

 

Jerick McKinnon, Weston Richburgh, Richard Shermen, Jermah Attaochu and Korey Toomer all play their former teams this year. The first to do it is Jerick McKinnon in week 1 against the Vikings. Then Jermah Attaochu and Korey Toomer play the Chargers in week 4.Weston Richburg plays the Giants at Levis in week 10. And the last to do it is Richard Shermen when we play the Seacocks in weeks 13 and 15. Kyle Shanahan likes to make players who have connections to a city a team captain for that week. So look for these players to be captains for those games.

 

  1. The Niners leave the west coast only once after week 6

One of the benefits of having a road-heavy schedule the first 6 games of the season (4 of our first 6 games are on the road). After our Monday Night Football game at Lambeau Field, the only time the Niners leave the west coast is to play the Bucs in Tampa Bay in week 12. 6 of our last 10 games are at home and 2 of the 4 remaining road games are in LA. The Niners only leave California twice after week 8 (Tampa Bay and Seattle). And we don’t leave Pacific Time zone after Tampa Bay. The last time the Niners didn’t leave the Pacific time zone in the month of December was 2014. Since we play a lot of home games in December this would be the perfect year to start winning at Levis.

 

  1. The Niners open the season on the road for the first time since 2014

 

The Niners open the 2018 season at US Bank Stadium in Minnesota. It’s the first time the Niners have opened on the road since 2014 when we beat the Cry Girls 28-17 (it was P Wills last game 😦 )The Niners play 3 of our first 4 games on the road for the first time since 2012.

 

  1. The Niners have 2 bye weeks…..Sort of

 

For the second year in a row, the Niners will have their bye week in week 11. We play the Raiders Thursday, November 1st at Levis and don’t play again till we play the Giants Monday Night November 12th at Levis.  Add that to our week 11 bye and we got 11 days between the Raiders and Giants game and 13 days between the Giants game and the Bucs game. The schedule makers didn’t do the Niners any favors in the early part of the season but, it does make the latter part of the year less of a grind.

 

  1. Niners are the only team with 5 prime time games with a losing record

 

For the first time since 2014, the Niners will have 5 prime time games on the schedule and 3 prime time games at Levis. Monday night at Green Bay week 6, Sunday Night vs. the Yams week 7, Thursday Night vs. the Raiders week 9, Monday Night vs. the Giants week 10, and the last one of the year is Sunday Night at Seattle week 13. The Niners have an 8 game winning streak on Monday Night Football a franchise record.

 

  1. The Niners are the only team with 5 prime time games with a losing record

 

The Niners and 9 other teams (Cowboys, Packers, Chiefs, Rams, Patriots, Saints, Eagles, Steelers, Seahawks) were given the 5 game maximum allowed at the time of the schedule release (this is because the NFL can flex games into prime time and some teams may have more than 5). Out of all ten teams, the Niners are the only ones that had a losing record in 2017. Think that has to do with Jimmy G Cool much?

 

  1. Detroit and Oakland will be making their first trips to Levis

 

Denver will play its first regular-season game at Levis this year but they played the first-ever preseason game at Levis ever in 2014. The Lions and Raiders come to Levis for the first (and for the Raiders only) time this year. After this season the only teams left that have not played a regular season game at Levis are all from the AFC Miami, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Houston (although they have been to Levis for a preseason game) and Indianapolis. Unless we play these teams in the preseason we’ll play Pittsburgh and Cleveland in 2019. Miami and Buffalo in 2020 and Houston and Indianapolis in 2021.

 

  1. The Niners only play 3 playoff teams

 

Another break that the Niners will benefit from is the way the NFL schedule is set up. You play a Non-Conference Division, a Division in your conference and 2 teams that finish in the same place as you in your Division. Besides the normal 6 games within your division. Because of this the Niners only have 4 games against playoff teams this year. Week 1 in Minnesota, Week 3 in Kansas City, and Week 7 vs. the Yams and Week 17 in LA. Also, the Niners play 6 games against teams with sub .500 records last year (Denver, Oakland, New York, Green Bay, Chicago, and Tampa Bay). Little things like this can sometimes be the difference between finishing 6-10 and 12-4. 

 

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Jed York Deserves credit where credit is due

Jed York has received his fair share if criticism since the decision to fire Jim Harbaugh hire Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly but for mostly for the his loyalty to Trent Baalke after it was clear that he was not getting the job done. We all know about the planes that flew over Levis, the websites that were stared to get him fired and all of that. Now let me be clear I was just as hard on Jed as anyone but I knew Denise York wasn’t going to fire her baby boy. I said he needed to put his ego aside and hire someone to make football diction’s and then get the hell out of the way and do what he does best sign the checks. Then last off-season Jed did two things no one thought he could do. He kept the Niners interviewing John Lynch a secret and most importantly made the right decisions in hiring the Niners new GM and Head Coach. Not everything was perfect in year one of the Lynchahan era (yes I really just said Lynchahan). The Niners started off 0-9 the worst start in 71 years of football, but as we all know everything changed Oct 30th 2017 when Bill Belichick texted Kyle Shanahan to see if the Niners were interested in trading our 2nd round pick for Jimmy G Cool. As I have said many times Trent Balkke doesn’t make that trade. There is no 5 game winning streak and who knows who our QB would be. Now John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan will get all the credit for turning around this proud franchise and rightfully so. Now I am not saying Jed is perfect. I’m not saying he’s no longer a spoiled brat. I know he’ll still make mistakes as all but Jesus have. But the faithful need to stand up and give a round of applause to Jed for finally doing what needed to be done not just in hiring Lynchahan but in firing (albeit 3 seasons too late) Balkke and basically saying I messed up but I’m going to fix this.