The 49ers went one week before Leedsing all their plans

I’m not planning on covering these San Francisco 49ers game by game. Last week’s report on their season opening defeat to Chicago’s Bearboys was meant to catch up on the off-season and set the storylines for the months ahead. Then we could leave them to iron their grids in peace until something interesting happens.

Here we are just one week later, because their season has taken such a Leedsy twist I can’t help but go back to Santa Clara to bring you the 411. Also there’s no Association Football being played, so we might as well take a look at ye olde bastard son of rugby.

To recap what you need to know from last week, to make this week make sense: once upon a time the 49ers traded for a quarterback named Jimmy Garappolo. Quarterback is the most important person in an American Football team, because they shout the numbers at the other guys that tell them where to run, then dictate the five seconds of play until the ball either goes in the ending zone for some points or on the floor. Then they stride about looking important for five minutes until the two squads are ready to wrestle again. Since 2017 Jimmy has been great at the latter part, because he has a face so achingly beautiful that making him put a helmet on would be a crime against Aphrodite if it wasn’t the only way to ensure he ends each game as crystal jawed and gorgeous as he starts it. The actual throwing the ball and winning Super Bowl parts hasn’t gone so well, which is one reason why, before the 2021 season, the 49ers gave away the right to sign about a million good players just to make sure they got Trey Lance, a cool new quarterback nearly a decade younger than handsome Jim.

Since then the Niners have been glared at for having two good quarterbacks, partly through envy, partly through pity. And head coach Kyle Shanahan has tried to tiptoe diplomatically betwixt and between his two choices, while neither amounted to much. After a few tryouts last season, Lance was benched to watch and learn as Garappolo set about screwing the season up, while spectators demanded to know a) why the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara is so far from San Francisco and points all its seats directly into the sun, and b) why exciting new Trey wasn’t getting more ball, in place of doddering old Jim whose looks were no good to the fans while the Californian sun was cooking their eyeballs.

Then, improbably, Garappolo found his mojo, led the 49ers to their divisional championship, and would have got them to the Super Bowl if he hadn’t, to summarise, screwed that up. It was a remarkable last stand, followed by Shanahan announcing “We have moved on to Trey” as the starting quarterback, giving him (in teammate Trent Williams’ words) “the keys to the organisation”, leaving Garappolo free to find somewhere else to throw ball.

Then the twist that set this season up. Garappolo never went further than an adjacent practice field, and despite being left out of the pre-season in-crowd, he was handed a new 49ers contract just as the campaign was about to start. While every Niner tried to portray this as a sensible decision that is kind to everyone — Lance backed Garappolo last year, so this year they switch — everyone without a vested interest swore down this was a bizarre undermining of the new kid’s authority, not helped when he made a bunch of mistakes in the Chicago rain, giving the rubbishy old Bears the win and setting gossip a go-go about Garappolo coming back already. The rest of the 49ers roster is a cool, experienced, ready-to-win bunch, and insiders spoke of grumbling that their best chance of winning the galactic title was going to hell thanks to their new child boss.

All of which meant the season was bound to be a day by day tale of microscopic drama, beginning with The Athletic doing a deep dive to analyse the truth of social media chatter that Lance’s fellow Niners kept walking away from him on the ground, whereas they would have helped beautiful Garappolo to his feet every time.

Lance gets sacked, McGlinchey and Trent stand there like doofuses and don't even try to help him up, then MM just sprints off the field. pic.twitter.com/RwRlkdheXF

— Rich (@richjmadrid) September 12, 2022

Whatever happened in gameweek two, against Seattle Seahawks, was sure to feed the Trey and Jimmy love/hate content machine, and indeed it did, in the Leedsiest way possible. Let’s go straight to The Athletic’s post-game headline:

49ers QB Trey Lance breaks ankle, will have season-ending surgery

Problem solved, then! Lance didn’t even make it out of the first quarter of his second game before a heavy hit that nobody could pick him up from, even if they could be bothered. Ironically, this was one play when a teammate did help him to his feet, before everyone including Trey realised his right foot is supposed to point over there, not over there.

49ers QB Trey Lance has been ruled out after suffering an ankle injury on this play. He had to be carted off. #FTTB #FPC #NFL #NFLTwitter

pic.twitter.com/JsZJwDsI4A

— Full Press NFL (@FullPressNFL) September 18, 2022

Jimmy Garappolo came straight back in — coach Shanahan observed, “he’s still handsome” — and won the game 27-7. Garappolo said, “I feel terrible for Trey … But he’s our brother, we’ll pick him up.” But he also claimed some weird Mother Shipton style foresight that he’d be playing in the game:

“Not my call, man [to be back playing so soon]. I just run the plays. I mean, it worked out. I kind of had a feeling it was coming.”

Everyone, in fact, had a feeling this was coming — in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, Eric Branch pointed out Lance was doing an unprecedented amount of running for a quarterback, and posed a question: ‘Trey Lance is making history, but can he make it to Week 3?’ Due to injuries as well as Garappolo’s form, Lance has only started five games since 2019. He seems pretty fragile, yet Shanahan keeps telling him to run with the ball into all the big padded guys on the other team. The feeling is he hasn’t trusted Lance’s throwing arm so he makes him run the ball more, relying on a Lance strength. But then why put him in the team under so much pressure if he’s not ready to throw, without the experience to protect himself from big hits when he runs? And now look. “It’s a pretty normal play,” Shanahan argued after the game, when reporters asked why he’d put young Trey in so much jeopardy. “It’s part of football, and it’s unfortunate he hurt his ankle on it. But it’s a very normal play. You guys should watch some other [teams].”

If Shanahan’s handling of Lance looks like a mistake, keeping Garappolo as insurance now looks like a masterstroke. “Normally when your quarterback goes down,” said fullback Kyle Juszczyk, “it’s someone who you’re not used to in the huddle,” backquartering the rest of the match, and in this case the season. For the Niners, not so. If Trey Lance’s lack of naivety was throwing a big question mark under the 49ers’ Super Bowl chances, a season of Jimmy Garappolo ahead at least means everyone knows what they’re getting. And in a video that is definitely not being compared to the 49ers’ walking away from prone Trey last week, no way so sir, the roster looks pretty stoked about having their guy back!

Offered without comment. pic.twitter.com/k0ZwcU3WaH

— Mike Giardi (@MikeGiardi) September 19, 2022

The 49ers are next throwing the old hamhock around with Denver Bronchitis on Monday, and hopefully they’ll avoid coughing up any more Leeds-style self-owns so I won’t have to bother you with any more writing about them again for a while. ⬢