Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On his way to San Francisco. Gonna be calling the
game as he always does and he's been doing for
the last thirty five years, and be calling the game
tomorrow night. Our cover starts at three o'clock here on
KOWA and to help us preview that game, we're gonna
head out to the KOI Comma Spirit Health high Line
and bring on. Matt Barrows does a fantastic job covering
the forty nine ers for the Athletic at Matt Barrows
on Twitter, Matt, thank you so much for the time. Man.
(00:22):
How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm doing well.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
How are you guys?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
We're doing great. We're looking forward to some football light
football lights. I guess he's the best. Well you get
diet football. That's a good way because it's it's preseason.
We get amped up for it and then you get
into it and by the third quarter you're like, okay, yeah, yeah,
I remember what preseason football is. But specifically, let's let's
start with the forty nine ers. Boy, a lot of
departures this offseason for that team, and certainly a down
(00:49):
year for them. What's where's the fan base at? Where's
the expectation at for this upcoming year?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I say it's measured, and a lot of the departers
were to Denver, So the Broncos gain was the forty
nine Ers loss. And we saw that a little bit
yesterday in the joint practice. No Drake green law, but
Tellanoa Hufanga looked good wearing a new number number nine.
It was in the twenties when he was here. But yeah,
(01:17):
I mean it was actually, you know, the vix win
season last year, So that's that's automatically gonna reset expectations.
And as you guys know, the off season is all
about pumping up the expectations. It's just you know, six
months of hype really for a lot of.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Teams, and the forty nine Ers have had that.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know they I think the top thing is that
some of their stars that were hurt last year, namely
Christian McCaffrey, looked like they're back. And you know, when
you've got McCaffery, when you've got George Kittle on offense,
that's a pretty good combination right there. And then on
defense you've got Nick Bosa and you've got Fred Warner.
(01:58):
So it's still a team that's got a lot of
high end talent. I think the question with the forty
nine ers is whether they're able to build that second tier,
that second class of players. And I think last year's
draft helped. This year's draft is still wait and see.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
But they need they need the rank and file.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Of this team to rise up and you know, not
get to the level of a Christian Dicafprio or George Kittle,
but be a good supporting cast for them. And that's
really the unknown right now.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
What is the temperature like with a return of Robert
Salah and what is a de facto trade I guess
of defensive coordinator Sala for Steve Wilks who heads to
New York as their defensive coordinator.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, I mean it's all been good. You know, Salah's
got his work cut out for him. He's not inheriting
a ready made defense. I mentioned Boson Warner.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
That's really it as far as a you know what
the nation at large would recognize from from the forty
nine ers. The rest of the defensive line is then
rebuilt with Greenlaw and Denver that Warner is going to
have a new sort of Robin to his batman this year.
(03:16):
And then the secondary is either young or it's relatively unknown.
So a lot of the pieces of that defense are new.
I think one of the reasons why the forty.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Nine ers were so intent on Sala was not only
the familiarity factor, but the fact that he's been in
this situation before. He came in in twenty seventeen with
Kyle Shanahan and it was a bad defense at that point.
So he's done the rebuild, the revamp and did that here.
He did that with the Jets. This one isn't going
(03:49):
to be quite the project those other ones were, but
that part of it and Shalla knew that coming in,
and you know, this is part of the forty nine
ers were so eager to get him because he has
rebuilt defenses.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
In the past.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Check with Matt Barrels from the athletic From the fans perspective,
the departures of Drake green Law and Teleno Hufonga, how
were they received well.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I think the green Law one was the bigger disappointment
because the people thought, well, first of all, everyone saw
what this defense is like without Drake Lee Law. Last year,
as you know, he only played in one half of football.
It was a sensational half of football, but that was it,
and they really struggled at that position in the other games,
(04:39):
so you know, taking him away was just such a
histark signal about how important he was, and the forty
nine ers tried to resign him, and he decided that
he wanted to go to Denver money with a factor.
But I also think that being you know, the guy.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
In charge, if he had stayed here, he always.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Would have been playing second fiddle to Fred Warner. In Vendver,
he gets to be the guy, and I think that
was important to him.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So that was probably the bigger of the two losses.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You know, whether that remains the case in the regular
season remains to be seen. Like I said, I thought
the Hufanga stood out at the practice yesterday. And the
forty hundreds don't really have a lot of ready replacements
at safety, certainly not right now. That they've got a
rookie that they drafted last year, Malac Mustafa, who's who
(05:37):
fung alike, but he's coming off an ACL so he's
not gonna be ready to begin the season.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
They're going to have two probably two little known starters,
Jason Tinnock and Richie Grant perhaps, so we don't really
know how those guys are going to function. But it
could be that that that whufun the loss is more
sorely missed this year.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Are we going to get back to seeing a Kyle
Shanahan level offense? It felt like last year, you know,
it was because of injury and a lot of things.
It felt like it didn't feel like a normal Kyle
Shanahan offense. Here you look at the roster this year
and three of the top five guys for receptions last
year either hurt and contract disputes are gone. I know,
you guys are expecting a big step up from from
(06:21):
Ricky Pearsall and he's got all the talent in the world.
But and getting McCaffrey back. But where what is the
optimism surrounding the productivity of the offense.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, I think it's gonna be something where the offense
gets better as the year goes on. You know, Brandon,
I you because a big piece of this offense, he's
not going to be available. He's offered an ACL an
ACL plus. Really it was ACL and other damage in
the dye on October twenty, so he's probably not going
to be back for the month of September. I would
(06:51):
say that that's my guess. So he comes back into
practice and then you know we're going to go through
the whole storyline. Well, he's back, but he's not really
fully back. So I'm predicting that you know, by the
end of the season he's going to be back in
full Ricky Pearsall presumably would have a lot more starts
(07:12):
under his belt, and I think at that point you
would see the real Kyle Shanahan offense. Until that point,
I think that you know, the team that's going to
rely on the run, perhaps more than it has in
the past, maybe more twelve personnel, two tight end personnel.
That was sort of their big and I put that
(07:33):
in quotations big free agent signing Luke Ferrell. He's a
block and tight end. So I think that you're going
to see a lot of Ferrell and George Kittle out there,
and that should make Christian McCaffery happy. I mean, being
able to handle those edges to do that that zone
running that they do that Broncos fans are so familiar
(07:54):
with from the late nineties. You know that that could
be what kind of gets the forty nine ers going
the season and going well into mid season and late
season when they get some boddies back the last.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
One I have for you, Matt and really appreciates time
as always. Can you maybe clear up or explain what
you saw at practiced yesterday for everybody, because it's been
fascinating out here of course Broncos fans following along on
Twitter and the different perceptions and that's what it is, right,
I mean, different beat people have different views on what
(08:29):
it is. But you tend to be pretty level headed
in your analysis. I'd just love to know what you
saw really from the Broncos side of things, their defense,
their offense, that type of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I was able to follow both fairly closely. And we're
talking about team situations. Yes, So once they went into
the eleven on eleven stuff, I thought that the Broncos
defense just really throddled the forty nine ers first team offense,
and it was like that for most of the practice.
You know, Christan mccaffery's first run was stuffed, the second
(09:04):
run was stuff. I think the first four or five
we were stopped at the line, and then then the
forty nine ers broke a fairly decent size game, but
they did a good job with him. Ricky Pearsall was
shut down early in the practice.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
When they went to the move the ball period, and
this is late practice.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I thought that's when the forty nine ers started to
show up a little bit better. And you know, Party
was able to score a touchdown. It was a it
was a throw to Pierce All the second team offense
also scored. So I think that the forty nine ers
offense started to win the practice quote unquote, you know,
(09:44):
towards the end.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So I'd say Denver won two thirds of it and
maybe the forty nine ers who won a third. And
then on the other side of things, and I think
that Nick Bosha and that defensive line, Nick Bosa and
Bryce rice Huff, the two defensive ends really reatavoc on
the Broncos offensive line. I thought that the left side
(10:08):
of the Broncos offensive line kept letting them down. And
so there were a lot of you know, sacks in
either training camp, sacks of course, where Bosha will run
by blow Knicks and sort of tap him on the
shoulder or the shoulder pad or something like that to
indicate that he had gotten there on a lot of
plays though, and this is what sort of impressed me,
(10:30):
and I was behind bow Knicks.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
This whole practice he would escape and he would either
pick up a big game with his legs or I
was impressed by what a good thrower he was on
the run. He was really good at improvising, and that
seemed to be where, at least when we're talking about
the Broncos first team offense, that seemed to be where
(10:54):
their big plays were on broken plays where Nis was
able to ad lib and then put together a nice, nice,
nice pass down the field. So I mean, it's something
to take away for both of those teams. But I
don't think when it came to two minutes drill, I
don't think that the Broncos offense did quite as well
(11:16):
against the forty nine ers defense as vice versa.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yep, that sounds pretty consistent with the people I was
checking in with today. Was just fascinating, And I'm sure
it's the same with you guys out there. When you
know there's certain reports and people will slant it a
certain way, and then all of a sudden, people out
here are like, oh, maybe the Broncos defense isn't very good,
because all I'm hearing is the forty nine ers or
score all these touchdowns, and it's like people need to
sort of slow down a little bit, and I appreciate
(11:42):
your level headed approach as always, Matt, thank you so
much for the time that.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
I'm in all right, anytime, guys, talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
All right.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Sounds good, Matt Burrows from the Athletic. Well, that's pretty
consistent there with what you were saying too, Ben
On his way to San Francisco. Gonna be calling the
game as he always does and he's been doing for
the last thirty five years, and be calling the game
tomorrow night. Our cover starts at three o'clock here on
KOWA and to help us preview that game, we're gonna
head out to the KOI Comma Spirit Health high Line
and bring on. Matt Barrows does a fantastic job covering
the forty nine ers for the Athletic at Matt Barrows
on Twitter, Matt, thank you so much for the time. Man.
(00:22):
How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm doing well.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
How are you guys?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
We're doing great. We're looking forward to some football light
football lights. I guess he's the best. Well you get
diet football. That's a good way because it's it's preseason.
We get amped up for it and then you get
into it and by the third quarter you're like, okay, yeah, yeah,
I remember what preseason football is. But specifically, let's let's
start with the forty nine ers. Boy, a lot of
departures this offseason for that team, and certainly a down
(00:49):
year for them. What's where's the fan base at? Where's
the expectation at for this upcoming year?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I say it's measured, and a lot of the departers
were to Denver, So the Broncos gain was the forty
nine Ers loss. And we saw that a little bit
yesterday in the joint practice. No Drake green law, but
Tellanoa Hufanga looked good wearing a new number number nine.
It was in the twenties when he was here. But yeah,
(01:17):
I mean it was actually, you know, the vix win
season last year, So that's that's automatically gonna reset expectations.
And as you guys know, the off season is all
about pumping up the expectations. It's just you know, six
months of hype really for a lot of.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Teams, and the forty nine Ers have had that.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know they I think the top thing is that
some of their stars that were hurt last year, namely
Christian McCaffrey, looked like they're back. And you know, when
you've got McCaffery, when you've got George Kittle on offense,
that's a pretty good combination right there. And then on
defense you've got Nick Bosa and you've got Fred Warner.
(01:58):
So it's still a team that's got a lot of
high end talent. I think the question with the forty
nine ers is whether they're able to build that second tier,
that second class of players. And I think last year's
draft helped. This year's draft is still wait and see.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
But they need they need the rank and file.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Of this team to rise up and you know, not
get to the level of a Christian Dicafprio or George Kittle,
but be a good supporting cast for them. And that's
really the unknown right now.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
What is the temperature like with a return of Robert
Salah and what is a de facto trade I guess
of defensive coordinator Sala for Steve Wilks who heads to
New York as their defensive coordinator.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, I mean it's all been good. You know, Salah's
got his work cut out for him. He's not inheriting
a ready made defense. I mentioned Boson Warner.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
That's really it as far as a you know what
the nation at large would recognize from from the forty
nine ers. The rest of the defensive line is then
rebuilt with Greenlaw and Denver that Warner is going to
have a new sort of Robin to his batman this year.
(03:16):
And then the secondary is either young or it's relatively unknown.
So a lot of the pieces of that defense are new.
I think one of the reasons why the forty.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Nine ers were so intent on Sala was not only
the familiarity factor, but the fact that he's been in
this situation before. He came in in twenty seventeen with
Kyle Shanahan and it was a bad defense at that point.
So he's done the rebuild, the revamp and did that here.
He did that with the Jets. This one isn't going
(03:49):
to be quite the project those other ones were, but
that part of it and Shalla knew that coming in,
and you know, this is part of the forty nine
ers were so eager to get him because he has
rebuilt defenses.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
In the past.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Check with Matt Barrels from the athletic From the fans perspective,
the departures of Drake green Law and Teleno Hufonga, how
were they received well.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I think the green Law one was the bigger disappointment
because the people thought, well, first of all, everyone saw
what this defense is like without Drake Lee Law. Last year,
as you know, he only played in one half of football.
It was a sensational half of football, but that was it,
and they really struggled at that position in the other games,
(04:39):
so you know, taking him away was just such a
histark signal about how important he was, and the forty
nine ers tried to resign him, and he decided that
he wanted to go to Denver money with a factor.
But I also think that being you know, the guy.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
In charge, if he had stayed here, he always.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Would have been playing second fiddle to Fred Warner. In Vendver,
he gets to be the guy, and I think that
was important to him.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So that was probably the bigger of the two losses.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
You know, whether that remains the case in the regular
season remains to be seen. Like I said, I thought
the Hufanga stood out at the practice yesterday. And the
forty hundreds don't really have a lot of ready replacements
at safety, certainly not right now. That they've got a
rookie that they drafted last year, Malac Mustafa, who's who
(05:37):
fung alike, but he's coming off an ACL so he's
not gonna be ready to begin the season.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
They're going to have two probably two little known starters,
Jason Tinnock and Richie Grant perhaps, so we don't really
know how those guys are going to function. But it
could be that that that whufun the loss is more
sorely missed this year.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Are we going to get back to seeing a Kyle
Shanahan level offense? It felt like last year, you know,
it was because of injury and a lot of things.
It felt like it didn't feel like a normal Kyle
Shanahan offense. Here you look at the roster this year
and three of the top five guys for receptions last
year either hurt and contract disputes are gone. I know,
you guys are expecting a big step up from from
(06:21):
Ricky Pearsall and he's got all the talent in the world.
But and getting McCaffrey back. But where what is the
optimism surrounding the productivity of the offense.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, I think it's gonna be something where the offense
gets better as the year goes on. You know, Brandon,
I you because a big piece of this offense, he's
not going to be available. He's offered an ACL an
ACL plus. Really it was ACL and other damage in
the dye on October twenty, so he's probably not going
to be back for the month of September. I would
(06:51):
say that that's my guess. So he comes back into
practice and then you know we're going to go through
the whole storyline. Well, he's back, but he's not really
fully back. So I'm predicting that you know, by the
end of the season he's going to be back in
full Ricky Pearsall presumably would have a lot more starts
(07:12):
under his belt, and I think at that point you
would see the real Kyle Shanahan offense. Until that point,
I think that you know, the team that's going to
rely on the run, perhaps more than it has in
the past, maybe more twelve personnel, two tight end personnel.
That was sort of their big and I put that
(07:33):
in quotations big free agent signing Luke Ferrell. He's a
block and tight end. So I think that you're going
to see a lot of Ferrell and George Kittle out there,
and that should make Christian McCaffery happy. I mean, being
able to handle those edges to do that that zone
running that they do that Broncos fans are so familiar
(07:54):
with from the late nineties. You know that that could
be what kind of gets the forty nine ers going
the season and going well into mid season and late
season when they get some boddies back the last.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
One I have for you, Matt and really appreciates time
as always. Can you maybe clear up or explain what
you saw at practiced yesterday for everybody, because it's been
fascinating out here of course Broncos fans following along on
Twitter and the different perceptions and that's what it is, right,
I mean, different beat people have different views on what
(08:29):
it is. But you tend to be pretty level headed
in your analysis. I'd just love to know what you
saw really from the Broncos side of things, their defense,
their offense, that type of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I was able to follow both fairly closely. And we're
talking about team situations. Yes, So once they went into
the eleven on eleven stuff, I thought that the Broncos
defense just really throddled the forty nine ers first team offense,
and it was like that for most of the practice.
You know, Christan mccaffery's first run was stuffed, the second
(09:04):
run was stuff. I think the first four or five
we were stopped at the line, and then then the
forty nine ers broke a fairly decent size game, but
they did a good job with him. Ricky Pearsall was
shut down early in the practice.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
When they went to the move the ball period, and
this is late practice.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I thought that's when the forty nine ers started to
show up a little bit better. And you know, Party
was able to score a touchdown. It was a it
was a throw to Pierce All the second team offense
also scored. So I think that the forty nine ers
offense started to win the practice quote unquote, you know,
(09:44):
towards the end.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So I'd say Denver won two thirds of it and
maybe the forty nine ers who won a third. And
then on the other side of things, and I think
that Nick Bosha and that defensive line, Nick Bosa and
Bryce rice Huff, the two defensive ends really reatavoc on
the Broncos offensive line. I thought that the left side
(10:08):
of the Broncos offensive line kept letting them down. And
so there were a lot of you know, sacks in
either training camp, sacks of course, where Bosha will run
by blow Knicks and sort of tap him on the
shoulder or the shoulder pad or something like that to
indicate that he had gotten there on a lot of
plays though, and this is what sort of impressed me,
(10:30):
and I was behind bow Knicks.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
This whole practice he would escape and he would either
pick up a big game with his legs or I
was impressed by what a good thrower he was on
the run. He was really good at improvising, and that
seemed to be where, at least when we're talking about
the Broncos first team offense, that seemed to be where
(10:54):
their big plays were on broken plays where Nis was
able to ad lib and then put together a nice, nice,
nice pass down the field. So I mean, it's something
to take away for both of those teams. But I
don't think when it came to two minutes drill, I
don't think that the Broncos offense did quite as well
(11:16):
against the forty nine ers defense as vice versa.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yep, that sounds pretty consistent with the people I was
checking in with today. Was just fascinating, And I'm sure
it's the same with you guys out there. When you
know there's certain reports and people will slant it a
certain way, and then all of a sudden, people out
here are like, oh, maybe the Broncos defense isn't very good,
because all I'm hearing is the forty nine ers or
score all these touchdowns, and it's like people need to
sort of slow down a little bit, and I appreciate
(11:42):
your level headed approach as always, Matt, thank you so
much for the time that.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
I'm in all right, anytime, guys, talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
All right.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Sounds good, Matt Burrows from the Athletic. Well, that's pretty
consistent there with what you were saying too, Ben
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