It’s Week 2 of the season and that means the Niners are back at Levis for the 2018 Home Opener!!!!! Yours truly will be at EMPIRE ROW (Green Lot 1 Pole 20) for the BEST Tailgate in the League!!!!! The Home Opener is always a special time of the season filled with excitement, joy, and hope. The Niners are 41-29-2 all time in Home Openers (14-9-2 at Kezar, 25-18 at Candlestick, and 2-2 at Levis). The Niners first win in the NFL was against the lions (10-08-1950) and the Niners are 37-28-1 all-time vs. detroit including wining 9 out of the last 10 match ups. Before we get to my keys to victory this week I have a funny personal note. The day my Mama (who is from detroit and is a lions fan) was born the Niners played the lions in detroit won 49-0. I just thought that was interesting ok now here are this week’s keys to victory.
- Next Man Up
Last week’s game in minnesota not only took its toll mentally with the loss but also physically. The Niners loss backup Linebacker Brock Coyle for the season. Marquise Goodwin injured his quad in the first half last week and has been ruled out of this week’s game after not being able to practice all week. Mike Person and Joshua Garnett both hurt their feet last week causing rookie Mike McGlinchey to move over to Right Guard for most of the second half. Garnett has also been ruled out, along with will Erik Magnuson for at least another week. Mike Person has been ruled as a game time decision along with Adrian Colbert and Malcolm Smith. That is a lot on injuries to suffer in one football game and to add insult to injury most of the injuries are to starters. Football coaches and players always use the saying “Next man up” and that statement has never been truer than this week. Rookie Dante Pettis will start in place of ‘Quise and if Person can’t go the Niners called up undrafted rookie free agent Najee Toran from the practice squad this week to start in his place. If Malcolm Smith can’t go Elijah Lee will start in his place at Will Linebacker. It’s a lot to ask of Dante Pettis to start in just his second game in the NFL. But seeing playing time last week will help a lot. If the Niners want to even our record the “Next man up” mantra must be true.
- Fix mental mistakes
The most frustrating part of last week’s loss wasn’t the fact we lost it was the fact we beat ourselves. The Niners dropped 4 balls two of which were TDs and one looked like it would have been. Jimmy G Cool through 2 bad picks. Kendrick Bourne ran the wrong rote that lead to a pick 6 going the other way. And the worse one of all Solomon Thomas jumping offsides when it was clear to everyone on the planet minnesota wasn’t going to snap the ball and were trying to get the Niners to jump offsides. And even with all the mistakes that we made we still had a chance to win the game. I expect the lions to come out the gate swings after getting embarrassed last week at home if the Niners can’t afford to be sloppy this week and come away with a W.
- Shut Down D
The Niners Defense played well enough for the Niners to win last week. The D only game up 17 points all game long and forced 3 straight 3 and outs to give the ball to the offense to win the game. After a slow start to the game the defense came out the second half and played the best I’ve seen the Niners D play in a long time limiting dalvin cook and latavius murray to 82 combined rushing yards for the game and making kirk cousins to miss on his final 7 passing attempts. The Defense had things it needs to clean up this week there were a few blown assignments and far too many missed tackles. I’m very encouraged by what I saw last Sunday. If we can clean up our mistakes there is no reason we can’t be as dominate as we were in the second half last week the whole game this week.
- Bring the noise
Levis has been dumped on for 4 years. It not loud enough, it’s too hot, it’s too expensive and so on and so on. Enough is enough I’m tired of hearing all the bitching. The Niners ARE NOT going to move back to The City anytime soon so get over it. Either you’re a Niners fan or a San Francisco fan. If you’re a Niners fan show up tomorrow and make Levis a house of pain just like The Stick.
This is the closest you can get to a must win in Week 2. If we come together as one EMPIRE and unite as one Players, Coaches and The Faithful there is nothing that can stand in our way!!!!!
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GO NINERS!!!!!
sportselite1 