Hello, and welcome to the forty nine Ers First and ten Podcast, presented by Cisco. Ten minutes of the most up to date forty nine Ers news First Thing in the morning. I'm your host Brion McDonald and joining me today is forty nine Ers team reporter Lindsay Palaraz and special guest Tracy Sandler from Fangirl Sports Network. Thanks for joining the pod.
Tracy, thank you for having me. Guys.
Yes, it's always a pleasure talking game day with you. Now, let's take a look at Sunday's matchup at Levice Stadium. The forty nine Ers are hosting the four and eight Chicago Bears this weekend in San Francisco's looking to bounce back after three straight losses, so both teams are coming in hungry for a win. Tracy, what are some of your initial thoughts on this matchup?
Well, the forty nine Ers have a tough task against them, and I think the Bears record doesn't necessarily do them justice. And maybe that's a strong way to put it, but they've been playing pretty good football over the last few weeks. They just keep finding ways to lose in the fourth quarter. Eventually, in theory, that's going to change, but we're seeing Caleb
Williams play a little bit better. We're seeing things come together, and they have the unquantifiable interim coach bump this week, which seems to really help teams when when a team's coach gets fired in the middle of a season for reasons unexplained, the following week under the interim head coach, the.
Team seems to win and do well.
So I know that that's not an x's and o's thing. It's very unquantifiable, but it is kind of a thing, and it's something to look out for.
Yeah, Definitely, another thing to look out for in this game day is that there's unfortunately been quite a few injuries to track from the Niner side, especially after that Bills game. Lindsay, after almost a full week of practice, they got another day worked today. But what are some of your latest practice updates and what are some things you're looking out for and head coach Kas Shanahan's final injury report today.
Yeah, you know, some of the injury updates are actually positive. Dimitris Flanagan fouls and linebacker who's actually been out the last two games is a limited participant for the first time. Thursday, we also saw cornerback Diamador Lenor, who actually missed that Week thirteen matchup against the Bills. He's a limited participant
on Wednesday and was upgraded to full on Thursday. So that's going to provide a really big boost to the forty nine ers secondary, assuming that he gets the green light today, which I imagine he will, so not all bad things. We also saw safety Talanoa Hufanga get his practice window
open on Wednesday. He's gonna be a limited participant and did so on Wednesday and Thursday is actually playing with a club on his hand, So I think again, just in this similar way to Drake Greenlaw, just to have a seasoned player, a veteran player back always just provides a really good morale boost. We're going to get more insight as to when he would actually be activated. We don't have that information yet. A couple guys to be
on the lookout for that. We're actually added to the injury list, which is not what we want to see. But what actually happened safety George Odom who's also a special Teams ace. He did not participate on Thursday due to a knee injury, and then defensive lineman e tour. Grossmatos also added to that injury list a limited participant, also with a knee injury. And then I also forgot to mention Jordan Elliott, defensive tackle, a starter.
He was in the concussion protocol last week.
He's been full of the last two days, so again a good boost for the forty nine ers d line.
All right, thanks, Lindi. We'll keep an eye out for Kyle Shanahan and his final injury report later today. That'll be on forty nine ers dot com. But now, aside from the matchup, there is an extra special element to game day this Sunday at Levice Stadium. The forty nine Ers are celebrating my Cosmike Cleets this Sunday, also honoring their Walter Payton Man of the Year, who was announced just yesterday. Lindsey, would you like to give us more information on both sides there.
Yes, congratulations are in order for linebacker Curtis Robinson. He is the forty nine Ers nominee for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award.
For those that.
Aren't as familiar with this award, thirty two players are nominated across the league, one from each team. Just for their above excellent contribution to the community and outreach. And Curtis Robinson is someone that has an interesting story. He was a practice squad member he signed in twenty twenty one, earned a spot on the fifty three man roster in twenty twenty four, and unfortunately suffered a season ending ACL
tear very early in the season. I think one of the coolest things about him, he's very passionate about education, access outreach and helping educators in the communities they serve. He has been a regular at so many of the forty nine ers community Tuesdays over the years, and even after suffering that season ending injury, he really has not missed a Community Tuesday unless it was involving, you know,
a surgery for that injury. So I think it's been pretty remarkable, really really dedicated to the Bay Area community. And yeah, the My CAUSEMKE Cleats, thirty four players from the forty nine Ers are going to be taking part in that this weekend. They'll be wearing customized cleats that show tribute and help raise awareness for all their individual causes. It's a really cool league wide initiative. It's been happening
over the last couple weeks. So this week is the forty nine Ers week, just because they have a home game and they can wear all their really cool cleats, and we're gonna have a ton of articles on forty nine ers dot Com breaking down the individual causes and then doing a deep dive on guys like Diamador Lenor and Tabor Pepper.
So be on the lookout for those. You know Curtis Robinson.
Every year I cover a lot of these events, and he's at every single one, and he's at every single one, hurt or not, and he's so engaged with everybody they're working with, and he is just fantastic. In Lindsay's right, he has such a great story and the injury is so unfortunate, but he really is somebody who embodies how the organization works in the community, how important the Bay
Area community is to the organization. So big congratulations to Curtis Robinson on that nominee and with my Causemike Cleats, I just I think it's the most fun part of the year because when you talk to the guys about their causes and they show you their cleats, there's a level of pride and excitement in the causes that they're talking about and having design their cleats, and I think it really gives the players an opportunity to show fans the other side of things that are important to them,
because sometimes fans can forget players are human and there are things that are important to them other than football, and we get to see what those causes are, how they spend their time, how they spend their resources building those causes up and again with the designing of the cleats. It's just a really fun weekend and it's a really fun day throughout the NFL. Obviously, I've really just covered the forty nine ers doing it over the last several years, but it's just a really cool thing to see.
All Right, Well, thank you so much, Chasey. Now let's talk about Sunday's matchup against the Bears again. They're coming in zero to five in the road in twenty twenty four. A lot of those struggles have come from close losses, so really tough games, emotional games for them. What's your perspective on how the forty nine ers could possibly capitalize and take advantage of these struggles and come out with a win on Sunday.
Well, the Furtniters are coming off three losses, two really really tough ones on the road. So I think for them, if the Bears are getting an interim coach bump, I think the Fortininers are getting a coming home bump to an actual not snowing gold Day bump.
So I think it'll be nice for them to be home.
And I think at this point for the last five games, so the forty Niners are not out of it entirely. So they're playing for that, and they're also playing for pride, and they would like to show that these are the forty nine ers that fans are used to and that people are used to seeing. Yes, they have suffered a multitude of injuries, but I think if they can somehow figure out to be a little how to be a little bit more efficient in the red zone, if they can stop the run game or at least put some
sort of leakage on the run game. Right now, the run game is literally, for lack of a better turn, running all over them. If they can figure out a way to not miss those tackles, to stop running backs, to not let Cayleb Williams run around on them, because he does have that ability, and the Forteos defense does struggle with those type of quarterbacks. I think they could really come out and win this game. They're going to need Deebo Samuel to step up. They're going to need
Juwan Jennings to continue to do what he's doing. George Kittle was not targeted that much in the game against the Bills, and I think that's something they're going to have to look at because he's so reliable. He and Brock Purty have such chemistry between them. So I think those are the ways in which they can win this matchup. It is a winnable game for them, but they too have fourth quarter losses, and they too have found ways to lose in the fourth quarter. And they're going to
have to play a complete football game. That's really been one of the big issues for the forty nine ers all season long. They need to play a complete football game. I do think some of the people coming back will give them a boost. Of course, there were a lot of people lost in addition this week, and that's been tough.
But they can win this game, but they have to do the things right that they do right, and that is of course executing red zone efficiency, not making special teams bunders and somehow figure out a way to stop the run.
The run game, yeah, well, looking at the forty nine ers run game, there obviously are concerns about the impact of Christian McCaffrey's season ending injury, especially given the loss of Jordan Mason as well. Lindsay, how do you see the offense adapting without those two?
You know, I think it is something the forty nine ers have had to do a lot this season, just given with how how long the injury list is now and how it has been in previous weeks. It's all about the next man up for the forty nine Ers. In Week fourteen, that is going to be rookie running back Isaac Garndo.
He's a fourth round pick.
He's definitely become more involved in the forty nine ers offense as the season has gone on. He played the most in Week eight against the Dallas Cowboys. We were talking to him in locker room where he said that, you know, each week he's been preparing as if he was the starter. You never want to see veterans and more experienced players go down in front of you, but
that is the nature of football. Guys get hurt, and it really is about stepping up and filling that role as soon as possible, and head coach Kyle Shanahan has given him a vote of confidence. You know, he feels like he's ready for this moment and he's going to have to be other changes to the forty nine ers running back room. They've elevated Patrick Taylor Junior from the practice squad and then also added claimed running back Israel
Aba Cananda off waivers from the New York Jets. So the running back room looks a lot different than it did a week ago. But the forty nine ers are going to do their very best to adjust and you know, do everything in their power in order to get that run game going. They had a really successful showing out in Buffalo. They actually had one hundred and fifty plus yards on the ground. Obviously different personnel out there, but
they still are a talented team. So now it's just about utilizing different players in this week.
Okay, Well, a lot to look out for on Sunday, So thank you so much Tracy for joining us today. Faithful, don't forget to tune into the Bears versus nine Ers game on Fox at one twenty five pm Pacific time. Subscribe to First and ten presented by Cisco for all of your forty nine ers updates, and turn on the notifications for any breaking news.
Thanks for tuning in.
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