Frank Gore

Do you like Frank Gore? I love Frank Gore, probably my favourite running back of all time. Not for electricity, but for reliability. You know he's gonna show up and deliver. He was the ultimate unstoppable machine. Frank the Tank. Ricky Watters was electric, but Frank Gore was the Truth.

(Jim Harbaugh, as great of a job as he did with the Niners, made one single glaring but undeniable mistake in his time there. Superbowl 47, down a tonne, he brought them all the way back after the power outage - only to not give Frank Gore two, or three, chances to score from the five yard line. Slightly less unforgivable than the Seahawks / Marshawn Lynch mistake two years later, but a monstrously painful mistake nonetheless.)

(And while we're at it, as much as I loved Kaep and what he did to get the team to that point, at the time and still to this day I believe Alex Smith could have completed at least one of those end zone passes to seal the win. Or, someone - either of them - could have just handed off to Frank Gore damnit...)

Anyway, here is a great article by Tom Junod of ESPN on Frank Gore. Good read, even if you don't love Gore - but do love an underdog story.

Brock Purdy, MVP?

Listen, man: I love Brock. I think he is a really, really good quarterback. He is doing things that not Jimmy G, not Trey Lance (still love you Trey!), no one since Matt Ryan has been able to do in this system.

Take Jimmy G. Love the guy for his heart but not necessarily for his overall game. Jimmy had a phenomenal year in 2019, statistically as well as team-performance-wise. They went to the Super Bowl and almost won! (Please let's not talk about the Sanders overthrow, though obviously there is relevance in doing so.) But man alive I would get nervous as hell with every Jimmy drop back. That is the truth. You just never knew when that underneath linebacker interception was coming. Jimmy was a leader, but he was also the beneficiary of the system - plus the YAC bros.

Brock, however, has vision and anticipation and ability to hit the 2nd and 3rd level windows. That is what is driving this same offense with these same weapons so much farther than what Jimmy was able to accomplish. He knows the routes precisely, he can throw a dot, and he has a timer in his head. Not a time bomb, just a timer. Like the bar on the bottom of the videos streaming in his head. In this one: at 3.2 seconds, WR2 will be at the left sideline 30 yard line and it takes 0.9 seconds for the ball to get there so I'll release ... now. Chunk play!

And yes, those weapons. BA (Aiyuk) just has phenomenal chemistry with Brock, whatever read he is. Deebo and Kittle are still who they are - when you need them for a 15 air yard seam or crosser, there they are, right on time. McCaffrey obviously can literally be anywhere on the field on any given play. And that's not even pointing out Trent Williams, who may actually be the MVP despite never touching the ball. The sum of the parts of this machine is even more than what you think; it's hard, maybe impossible to take it apart and reconstruct it with any one cog different.

(And I haven't even said one word about the defense yet. And after a rocky start, which let's recall Saleh also had a rocky start as the 9ers DC, Steve Wilks is turning it up. He put together a masterful game plan against Philly last week.)

Anyway. So I don't know, is Brock the MVP? If the Niners end up where they want to end up, then I say he's as good a choice as anyone on this team. He is most definitely NOT just sitting back throwing screens and watching guys pick up 20 yards. Brock is slinging it! (The game sealing Aiyuk TD vs Seattle on Thanksgiving is just one example of proof.)

(If you want to be talked at more and better about MVP Brock, read this really well constructed piece by Brian Renick on 49erswebzone.)

(Also, there is a video cut-up of Brock going into that Miami game last year, the Levi's announcer making the announcement, and one of the Niners coaches deep in conversation with a player suddenly looking up confused / concerned and saying, "Brock in at quarterback?" It pops up every once in awhile on my insta, and now actively searching for it, I can't find it damnit. But that's the image I wanted to put at the top of this post. Every time I see it, it cracks me up. "Brock in at quarterback?" LOL)