An obnoxiously negative prognosis of the 49ers after Chase Young trade
SFGATE columnist Drew Magary isn’t buying the 49ers as contenders, even after their blockbuster move
I bet you Niners fans are feeling quite chesty right now, aren’t you? Your team recently acquired former No. 1 overall pick and Commanders edge rusher.
2 overall pick Chase Young for essentially nothing. A compensatory third-round pick, which could be replenished if Young leaves town when his contract expires at the end of this season, was all you had to give up for the man.
So, you just got a free one-year rental on a guy who was as promising a draft prospect as his new teammate, Nick Bosa, was.
And you’re adding him to a stacked defensive line that also includes Javon Kinlaw, Javon Hargrave, and Arik Armstead. You are mightier than Galactus now.
Not only that, but you’re getting vital cogs in wide receiver Deebo Samuel and left tackle Trent Williams back after the bye.
Sure, your Niners have lost three in a row. But the NFC is crap, and you guys were 3-3 last season before swinging a trade for running back Christian McCaffrey that let you run the table right after McCaffrey had played his first game in red and gold.
So I bet you’re all feeling yourselves right now:
painting your faces and waving your fan chains and tattooing IN KYLE WE TRUST on your privates. Because who says you can’t run the table again? Who says that the rest of the NFL isn’t about to kneel before you in the back half of this season? Who says you’re not gonna ruin everyone’s shit?
I do.
I’m a sportswriter, and it’s my job to write up contrarian takes that are so preening and so obnoxious that you want to shoot me dead.
So let me do that right now. Yesterday’s trade was not a case of the rich getting richer, as other yakkers have pointed out. It was a shot in the dark by a team that’s as vulnerable as it’s ever been in this decade.
I know this because I know the facts. The Niners didn’t lose three in a row and drop to second in the NFC West in a vacuum.
Two of those losses came against a .500 Minnesota team and a Cleveland team forced to start PJ Walker at quarterback.
The third loss was a rinsing at home courtesy of a rejuvenated Bengals outfit that crushed the Niners without breaking a sweat.
Bosa, freshly paid, only has three sacks on the year, and his teammates haven’t necessarily picked up the slack:
this defense has given up 661 passing yards in the past two weeks alone and has allowed the eighth-most passing yards on the season.
But you’re ready to wave all of that off.
You’re ready to tell me, Yeah all right, but Chase Young will help fix all that. I am laughing at your naiveté: ha ha ha! You rube.
You mark. You slovenly butthead.
You’re so gullible that you should be a Raiders fan.
While Young may appear to be a stud, he’s already missed 24 games in less than four years of service time.
And while he’s posting a 24% pass rush win rate this season, he never reached half that number in any of his prior seasons.
If you go by the analytics — which I do when it serves my rhetorical purposes — you can point to Chase Young’s full body of work and confidently say that he won’t remain this healthy, or this effective, for very long.