The 49ers Were a Third Place Team -- Were They Also the Third Best Team?

0:00Every day, excessive delays and denials from big insurers keep patients from accessing the care they need. And when care is urgent, these delays can be disastrous. These practices cost billions in wasteful spending, driving up costs for American families. But while big insurers put up barriers, America's hospitals and health systems are in your corner, navigating endless reviews and appeals to get you the care you need when you need it most. It's time to curb these harmful practices and put the focus back on patients. Brought to you by the coalition to strengthen America's health care. Papa and silver now continues life from the KNBR casino matrix progressive jackpot studios casino matrix progressive jackpot are here. Where are you? Just drop in. Please play responsibly one eight hundred gambler. All right, Papa and silver great to have Matt Meyoko. Join us. Well, a little bit of a recent right here, 808 KNBR is the number. The warriors were stunning the Houston rockets last night in overtime spent the first chunk of the show on that. We've also got Logan Webb pitching in the WBC.

1:02We've got Walters way to in your face pole up on our social media go to KNBR on Twitter and you can vote for your favorite or the best international sport to watch because we've had a lot of great action there and we're coming up here, not just with the WBC, but the World Cup all over North America in the summer. As for the 49ers, it's getting a little bit spicier around the league Taylor Decker is going to be released by the lions. Then Rashon Gary put out a goodbye message and then he walked it back saying he ended up getting hacked. So also it's a weirdness going on over there. Rashon Gary JD, that's an interesting one because he certainly has been a productive player as a member of the Green Bay Packers this year, though, in the sense of once Micah Parsons went down, that defense as a whole suffering a lot. Rashon Gary was basically invisible, though, and that was the guy they needed to step up the most in the absence of a Micah Parsons.

2:03Look, when you lose a player of that caliber, not just because of the package you gave up and the money you're paying him, when you lose a player of that talent, that late in the season, it's going to harm your chances of doing something significant. But this is also a team that lost a lot of games that you feel like winning was very much on the table. They lost their playoff game. Yes, they were a seven. Yes, they were on the road. They were also up 21 to three over their rival and completely choked it away in a miserable fashion. And on the defense side of the ball, Rashon Gary was the guy they probably needed to step up the most. He didn't. So yeah, maybe if you could put him on a defensive line where Nick Bosa is joining the party, he could go back to the Rashon Gary that we've seen at various times. I don't like him as a primary option. And therefore, I wonder what kind of price you could get him at. Yeah, he's not a primary option. And he proved that the 49ers though are not looking for a primary option with Nick Bosa back in the mix in in 2026.

3:04So I do think Rashon Gary is an interesting name for the 49ers to kind of monitor here moving forward. And so I mean, it goes to show too. And I think with him and with with Decker on the other side of the ball with the lions, it just goes to show that teams are having to make those difficult decisions. And we saw the 49ers go through a lot of that last year and we'll see, I mean, obviously, they're going to have to figure out a way to keep up, you know, keep trying Williams. I mean, that has to get calm down here. But it just shows that cycle of and I think, you know, we've seen a little bit of it here in the last week or two. But we're going to start to see more, I think, today and tomorrow and Sunday and Monday and in the early part of next week as teams explore certain options that they have to add to their roster, to add often, you have to subtract. And so it's going to be fascinating to me to keep an eye this weekend in the lead up

4:07to the legal tampering and really the morning when we're going to be on together on Monday when things really start to break here. Because I think there's going to be a lot of other household names that are going to be on the move, not necessarily guys that are free agents that are going to get paid, although we are going to see that. But some of the, you know, some some premium type names and some mid-range type names of guys that teams are going to be moving on from that maybe they're trying to trade right now and then can't and then have to be a casualty in an attempt to have a team do its own own little reset. Well, and here's the other part of it and this is not new to anything this morning or last night, but we did talk about it a great deal because it does matter what your division is doing. The Rams may very well be the team in this off season and while free agency doesn't represent the entirety of an off season, it's certainly a big part of it, especially as we evaluate it because you can't really project what a second round pick or a fifth round pick or a sixth round pick is going to mean to a team until you start playing the

5:10real games and a season starts to unfold where the role might change anyway. So as far as free agency as a major chip of how we evaluate the off season, the Rams may very well be that team that is more all in than anyone. And I know we talked about it with the other silver yesterday. We kind of get why because Matthew Stafford just won MVP is one of those players where when healthy still plays at an incredibly high level and the Rams can very well make the case that if they cleaned up their special teams a little bit, well, all of a sudden they would be in the ones who were by the way, not just the special teams, but also the backwards pass on the Thursday night game point being of all the teams that didn't win the Super Bowl. The Rams had the best case to make that they were right there on the doorstep of the ones who didn't get it done. Yeah, no doubt and you do have to keep tabs not not in the sense that it's an arms race in terms of you have to be reactive, but you also have to make sure that you're improving

6:10and it goes back to the theme of the week and I think it'll be the weekend and the early part of next week, which is let's not see the 49ers or any team you're a fan of. Create more holes before you start to fill in some of these holes to add. You want to be able to add to get better, not have to create new holes or a greater disparity. Let's say from some of the teams that you're competing with to where you feel like you have to do that much more to be able to keep up with the Joneses. I got a quote that Papa would like to bring up and I wrote this one down for my notes today as it pertains to our discussion with the Rams, keeping an eye on the free agents of the Seahawks and I want to revisit that when we come on back because I think it brings up a good point of how the 49ers need to attack these next few days and we want to take all your thoughts on it as well. 808 K and the R 415 888627. It's pop in silver with JD only here on the sports leader.

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8:12Papa and silver now continues life from the K and B. Arcas, Cino Matrix progressive jackpot studios. Casino Matrix. Progressive jackpotter here. Where are you? Just drop in. Please play responsibly one eight hundred gambler. All right. Another hour and a half or so in the week and then we'll get it over to dirty work watching a little WBC a great Britain Tristan Beck just gave up a homer to Mexico. And I got to say I do like watching Mexico hit bombs because they had to round the bases and then put on the sombrero. I love the international spirit man like it's going back to Walters way to in your phase pull. Go ahead and vote right now on our socials at K and B are and we are all about the national monster that is the national football league. Great to talk to Matt Mayo go today as we do to end every week and I told you there was a Papa quote that I wanted to revisit as our guy is getting well and going through the tough battle that he is inevitably going to win and Papa would always talk about in relation

9:17to the Seahawks and the Rams yes, they were two teams that finished ahead of you. Yes, they were probably the two best teams when all is said and done, but in the larger scale of it all rather than just keeping tabs and to use your words JD, it's not necessarily an arms race, but what Papa would always say in an off season is you construct your roster to win your division and the reality is the 49ers were a third place team that doesn't mean that they're bad. In fact, you can maybe even make the case when all was said and done. They were the third best team in the entire league and certainly with the reinforcements that they're going to get on the roster, they are right there in that mix, but it also is a reminder that for as much as you can be proud of your season, for as much as you can feel like you have a foundation, a culture and the important cornerstones of a head coach at quarterback in place and a running back who was right up there for offensive player of the year, you still got to think about two teams and how you can beat them.

10:17And two of the toughest losses that the 49ers had this year, well, in fact, I'd say probably the three above all, yeah, the Houston one was really frustrating, but when the Rams came into Levi's and Stafford completely picked you apart in that defense that was injured, that was rough. And then the two at the end against Seattle, when you just had no capability of moving the ball, those were the toughest ones to swallow from a 49er standpoint this season, as well as they played over the course of the larger picture. I think the way that you have to look at it though is and there are reasons why, but there was a greater gap between the 49ers and the Rams at the end of the season than there was at the beginning of the season. And I think the same is obviously true as far as Seattle goes. You go back to week one and the 49ers able to go in there and nobody knew what Seattle would become at that point, but they go in there and they do what they had done a lot, which is when up at Lumen Field and when late up at Lumen Field with the heroics of

11:21perty and pier saw and Jake Conjes and all of that. But I think part of it obviously due to injuries on the 49ers side of thing is where that gap started to grow. The other part of it is, and you look at the Niners ability to win in October, even short-handed against the Rams and then the second matchup when the 49ers were even more depleted than they were in the first matchup, the Rams are able to kind of handle them. The Rams got better as the season went on. It's certainly offensively, maybe defensively they were more leaky as the season went on, but in comparison to where the 49ers were, and Seattle clearly got better and the gap grew between the two as the 49ers became more depleted and just more physically exhausted, I think, from the run that they're on. The question I would have is, how much can be made up by the 49ers just in terms of them

12:23being a more healthy version of themselves, and you're never going to be fully healthy and look, the Niners could get Fred Warner back and they could get Nick Bosa back and they could hell even get George Kittle back, and that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be other key players that wind up dealing with injuries in 2026, it will happen. But I think the starting point has to be how much ground do you think you can make up just by being a healthier version of yourself, and then you start to look around at some of the specifics in terms of matchups and talent disparity and all of those things to build that roster to compete and contend with Seattle and NLA? Well, I think to that point Carlos, when he was in doing shows with me said, what do you think the three biggest holes are for the 49ers? And I, you know, pushed the health part of it aside, I would still say defensive line would make that top three, even with expecting to get Nick Bosa and Michael Williams back. That's one where if you want to take an edge rusher or an interior defensive lineman at 27 overall, knock yourself out offensive line again, yeah, you couldn't really get

13:28healthy at the left guard position. Ben Barge is a free agent. I did read something that maybe there's interest in him coming back, but the reality is he's a player that just couldn't ever stay healthy. So they're going to need an answer there. Uh, offensive line certainly needs reinforcements and then wide receiver, regardless of any kind of injuries, you're absolutely going to need reinforcements because you did at the end of the season with Jawan Jennings and he may not be coming back in that. So those are the clear ones. Lines of scrimmage were glaring in the losses I just mentioned with how comfortable Matthew Stafford was and how much time he had to throw and then the offensive line going against that Seattle front just got manhandled both in week 18 and then with a hurt Trent Williams there going up to Lumen field in the playoff blowout by the way, a little bit of breaking news as we did just spend a lot of time talking about the running back pool with Matt Meyoko. The Texans did release Joe Mixon who missed all season with an injury, but add another name to the pot Joe Mixon who has had really productive seasons with Cincinnati and Houston

14:28haven't seen the best of him in a while though. So who knows what his bounce back could look like. I thought you were going to say, uh, I thought you were going to say Lavy on Bells agreed to fight Logan Paul. Oh, I did not see that one go with your, with your breaking news. That's, I think that news actually broke since the Joe Mixon news. So I, but no, I, I did see the Joe Mixon news also the, the Geno Smith news, uh, not to, you know, from earlier with something that I had kind of marked down in terms of that's another quarterback that's going to be on the market that is that sort of fringe starter, but could absolutely be a capable backup for a team in need here. And how does that impact the 49ers in their quest to maybe look to, to move on from, from Mac Jones and try to get some kind of draft compensation form going back to the Niners and the relationship to the Rams and Seattle who won the Super Bowl. I believe, I think it's close, but I believe the 49ers would have still been the third

15:35best team in the NFC West, even if they had been a little bit healthier, but I do think they would have had legitimate head to head chances to win had they matched up with Seattle when they eventually did in the, in the divisional round or the Rams had it shaken out that way they were they would have played them and, and you know, more specifically to the point on Seattle, maybe if you beat them head to head in a game before the Seahawks became what they ultimately did, you could have taken the division, even if maybe you weren't the best team. And then that changes the path. We go back to the, the wild game on the Thursday night between the Rams and Seahawks and how that ended up flipping things in, in Seattle's favor. And if the Rams win that game, maybe the Rams win the Super Bowl in hindsight. But, but where are you on that as it relates to the, the 49ers with Fred Warner, you know, with Bose, like, do you think they would have won the, the division when, when it's all

16:38said down, I mean, they would have had a hell of a shot, but I still feel like, I still feel like they would have come up a little bit short. Okay. So I actually have a question about this to throw back at you, which is I don't necessarily disagree. I just wanted to know what about the 49ers makes you hold that belief that they ultimately would have been third because I think that I ultimately probably do by that that they would have been the third best team. Although it's close and you can go back to the fact that we saw them beat Seattle when they were healthier, we saw them beat the Rams when they were actually really depleted and a great upset of the season. So I don't know how it would have been also what building they would have played in it, you know, what would a home field advantage been in the playoffs. But are you ultimately going that direction because Seattle and the Rams have done better at drafting guys that can come in and be day one starters? Is it the fact that they had better weapons on the outside with the 49ers not having anyone close to Jackson Smith and Jigba Pukanakua or Devote Adams as a weapon this year?

17:41Yeah, I think Seattle just got better as the year went on. And again, maybe there would have been a shot to steal the game in week 18. But you know, again, I just don't look at it. I know some do. I just don't look at it as if, man, if they had been healthy, they would have bit, you know, they would have beaten Seattle because it was, you know, we do the whole thing where it's like because it was a close game, relatively speaking, even though Seattle really dominated the first game at Levi's, you know, to a similar extent to the game that they played in the playoffs in the middle of January at Lumen. And I still think like the Rams, you know, the Rams came in and destroyed the 49ers in that in that second game. What that game had been closer? Sure. I know there was that pathway to maybe have a comeback before the Rams really kind of ran it up on them as the second half went on. So I just think maybe the Rams, I'm not saying they wouldn't have had a chance to win head to head matchups. But I still think those teams both had better

18:47rosters when it was all said and done by a little bit by a very small margin compared to the, to the Niners, if they had been again, you know, maybe playing with a banged up Fred Warner to banged up Nick Bosa, because again, it's not going to be fully healthy, but it's also wouldn't have been, you know, guys out for the season. Yeah, I think we're stand because you bring up the fair point that Seattle got a lot better over the course of the season. And I do believe that the best team ultimately won the Super Bowl. So Seattle winning, I don't look at that as saying, well, if the 49ers were healthy. And by the way, damn, Donald was the most important player in the post season. And if he did not do the thing that he was terrible at, even when they went 14 and three, he turned it over 20 times. He didn't turn it over once the team as a whole did not turn it over a single time in the post season with all that in mind. And the way that defense played, it is hard to envision a different team hoisting Lombardi. Donald in the Super Bowl showed that honestly,

19:47was he that impressive in the Super Bowl? No. And he was a little risky in the first half with some throws, but he didn't do anything disastrous. So the point where it never felt like the Seahawks were losing control of that game. It was 12, nothing, but it felt like they were in full domination, kind of like we saw in that very same stadium in week 18. The Rams though, that's one why I'm not going to say they would have beaten, but they certainly could have. And the reason is that I think that the 49ers offense was running very well. And if George Kittle is out there, if Ricky Pierce saw looked like a healthier version of himself, which he didn't really get after the first month of the season. And he got Christian McCaffrey and Brock party was playing at the level that we saw down the stretch run. I can envision a world in which the 49ers could have come away with a shootout. And I think it would have been about a couple little plays here and there certainly turnovers. And Stafford, I think would have been able to put up points on that defense no matter what, but a very different reality if Fred Warner or Nick Bosa is out there, even to a limited capacity.

20:51I just think that was a better matchup for the 49ers this year roster wise. I'm with you Rams probably give the edge to. I think Seattle was the best team and deserved to win the Super Bowl. But a healthier 49ers team, that's one of why I think it is a bit more of a coin flip with the team like the Rams. Yeah, again, I'm not saying they couldn't have beaten them in an individual game. I think we know that that is is true. I guess I'm the point that I'm trying to make more is just don't be overly reliant on the fact that you believe, hey, we would have won this game. If you're if you're speaking of it from the 49ers perspective and we would have been the best team. And so therefore you don't have to maybe look to go out and improve this roster to keep up to the greatest extent. It kind of goes back to that conversation. We were having about the the giants and and the thought that, you know, go try and win 90. And then if you come up short, you win 85 or 86. You're still going to have a great chance if it's a mediocre, you know,

21:53third wild card spot and you'll get in. But you're going to get in because you targeted 90. If you target 84 and you come up a little bit short, then you're going to perpetually do what the giants have done here since 2021 when they won 107. And that's, you know, come up short when it's 86 to get in. Come up short when it's 83 to get in. Come up short when it's 85. Like, whereas if any of those teams had been built with the notion of winning, you know, in the in the low 90s and they had come up short from that standpoint, you might have had enough talent to get over the hump. I guess that to sort of bring it back to the 49ers, it's don't understand that you would have been a better version of yourself had you been healthier. But don't believe that you're necessarily closer to being a contender against those other two teams without making moves that truly go out there to solidify. No, I'm wholeheartedly in agreement with that. And I think that's really well said. That's why I brought up the third place team element, not because it's an insult to the 49ers. It's just that being a third place

22:58team in your division, it might get you in the postseason, but also in a world in which the NFC's got a lot of contenders and maybe Minnesota gets their quarterback right. Maybe Detroit can have a bounce back like there's going to be other teams that are right there in that bubble to where a third place team is something that theoretically could get you into the playoffs. It's not something you should count on. And to that point, that's exactly how I've been viewing the giants. We're sure if they have a good season, they could be a third place NL West team and get a wild card spot but I don't think that's something they should count on when you look at the other teams in the NL that could get right back in the mix. The Mets, the Braves, just to name a couple. And obviously this point has been made, but you look at the 49ers and they were I think you could debate, you know, Seattle obviously wins the Super Bowl. I think it's it's conventional wisdom at this point that the Rams were the second best team in the NFL, right? Because of the battles that they had with Seattle and the NFC championship game, I think we could have the debate and the 49ers

24:01would be in the conversation. Yes, third in their division, but maybe third in the NFC. And that's the one thing I will say if they had been relatively healthier. I do think that would be, you know, we could debate it with Chicago because Chicago obviously played a highly competitive game against the the 49ers of the regular season that the 49ers had won the Bears, you know, went to toe to toe with with the Rams as well. It had to come back wins against the Packers. So we could debate, you know, three, four in the NFC, but we can also debate, I think maybe three, four in the NFL in that in that same conversation. So yeah, third best in your division might also be third or fourth best, probably no worse than fifth when it was all said and done in the entire NFL. Well, this is what I said the night of the Super Bowl, which is with the way the season ended. And I'm talking about specifically to where everything stood in February after the Super Bowl. Seahawks were the best team, the Rams were the second best team. And whoever you want to argue for three, there was definitely a legitimate gap. You could say Broncos, you could say Patriots, you could say 49ers, you could say bills, but I

25:05think at that point, it was pretty clear that there was a gap. Now health is something that could certainly close that gap for the 49ers, but going back to your larger point of all of this, you can't just rely on, oh, well, health puts us right there back in that mix and over the top. No, and that's the part where you have to really look to improve and understand that the gaps that are in play here between the two teams to get where you ultimately want to be. 808KNBR will keep it right here on our football talk mix in a little baseball in the WBC on the back end of our show. Revis it waltzers way to in your face, Paul and catch up on some of those votes. It's all coming up on the sports leader. KNB are the sports leader. Papa and silver now continues life from the KNB arc as you know, matrix progressive jackpot studios casino matrix progressive jackpotter here. Where are you? Just drop in. Please play responsibly. 1 800 gambler. All right, going into the last hour here on a Friday, we are getting ready for the weekend.

26:06We are getting ready for the WBC legal tampering. It's all happening right now. If you're like our guy, Matt Mayoko, you're getting ready for some good college basketball upsets. Potentially. Yeah, Belmont Drake. Walter, you got to, we got to wait for chips McCarthy to come in at some point. I didn't see him yesterday. You could just make a college basketball riff and he'll all the sudden go down the rabbit hole and being like, yeah, well, James Madison has the best perimeter defense in the entire country and they have in conference play. Dude is a machine. Anyway, on the 49ers and all of that, we played some of the cuts from the pivot podcast in which Trent Williams took part of a little bit earlier in the week. And of course, Trent is going to be a major pivot point for the 49ers and this off season. I think we're all cautiously counting on the fact that he and the 49ers are going to work something out. And I want to play this one about Kyle Shanahan making the team believe that they could win a Super Bowl without key players. And ultimately, they didn't. But if you told me

27:07before the season without the injuries that the 49ers were going to get into a wild card game, knock off the defending champs on the road and losing the divisional round, I probably would have said, that's a pretty good season. If you told me that it was going to be that with Fred Warner going down in week six, Nick Bosa going down in week three, Brock Pretty missing half the season, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I would have said that's pretty damn crazy. And Trent, the clock is ticking for him. So while it's not unforeseeable that something could go wrong, because we've seen nightmare negotiations and situations play out. Trent is also playing at this point to try to win a Super Bowl. I don't know if going somewhere else gives him that much better of a chances if he can't get the right kind of market with the Niners. Here's what he had to say about the belief Shanahan instilled in this season. If you would say that we would go win a Super Bowl or even win a playoff game against the defending champions, you know, down those names, you just mentioned, what would San Francisco even be? Winning it winning, you know, or even like

28:08winning a Super Bowl without those guys, like, what does that even do? Like, you know, I can't, my brain can't even process that, like, I don't even know what that looks like. So the fact that he made us competitive, the fact that we believed that we could go win a Super Bowl like we, we literally, he made us believe and it's not because of what we had in the locker room, but it was because what we had in the coach, because of how he broke down the game and how he, you know, just understood his team and when to give, when to give days off and when to push us through the times we want days off and, you know, he just, he got a keen understanding for like, how to treat a locker room and like, not sweating the small shit, but like, making sure everybody is accountable and making sure that we all play with that same intensity. And if you don't, you're going to get caught out, you know, and he ain't going to MFU in front of everybody. He's going doing it in his own way, but it makes you feel like, damn, I'm letting them down.

29:10So it does matter to me that the 49ers had this kind of season as opposed to the one of 2024 or 2020, because this was really the first time in the Kyle Shanahan era where you could say, everyone got injured and your team didn't just completely crater. And I know they've had other injury problems and other successful seasons. And obviously the year when you were down to no quarterback, you got all the way to the NFC championship. That was a remarkable story in and of the quarterback position itself. But a lot of times we've been like, okay, there's six and 11 and they're going to be drafting high because everyone got injured. They came off the long haul of a Super Bowl. And if you had another repeat of 2025 this year, we're talking about everything in a wildly different tone. It's not only all the 49ers need to stay healthy. It would be how far away are they to the Seahawks and the Rams and the fact that the Seahawks won a Super Bowl in your stadium. And because it wasn't, there wasn't new kind of belief in still to where again, going back to

30:10the earlier discussion, you can't just count on health to solve all those problems. But you know that you got guys in the locker room where you might not have to feel like you're so far away. Belief goes a long way over the course of an NFL season. If the 49ers had a similar season to 2025 that they that they did in 2024, Kyle Shanahan would be on the hot seat right now. Yes, John Lynch would be on the hot seat right now. It would be, I mean, you say completely different conversation and that's true. But I mean, if this thing goes, if they go seven and 10 and yes, the injuries would be a major part of the reason, but we would be much more closely looking at some of the draft misses, the good draft from 24 that that didn't look quite as good coming out of of 2025. And again, we're not having that conversation because the 49ers did overachieve considering all of the adversity in the injuries. And Kyle Shanahan's an excellent coach and deserves the credit. But that goes to show just how fragile

31:14this whole thing truly is because I maintain it. And I'll just say it again for for those that that didn't hear me the first time. If the 49ers had had a similar season in 25 to 24, Shanahan and Lynch would both be on the hot seat right now in a big time way, needing a winning season and maybe a playoff winner to in 26 to be able to survive it. Well, we were having a lot of shows together leading up to the season around the time of the preseason. And I remember we had a caller that was saying, I think Shanahan could be on the hot seat. And I think your response to it when we hashed everything out was this was the season that could theoretically put Shanahan on the hot seat. Instead, we were talking about him as a coach of the year candidate and maybe deserving of some votes when all was said and done. He didn't get it. And that wasn't the point for him to win an award. But it is entirely different. And I think that health because we had a text or also bring up like this year's Packers, they had stars go down to, right? Christian Watson

32:14got banged up at the end of the year after coming off an ACL, you lost Tucker craft, you lost Michael Parsons and you lost a playoff game. And there's probably a lot of belief around that organization that if those guys stayed healthy, they had a real shot to go and take down Seattle and be a team that was representing the NFC and Detroit the year before their defense was completely decimated. So even though they were the number one seed with 15 wins, how did Jaden Daniels look against the defense full of a lot of second stringers in the playoffs? They put up 45 points as a rookie quarterback leading the way with Washington in a surprise season. So what's the conversation around those teams right now? Well Detroit. Is it as the window closed? Jared Goffs getting a little bit older. You were last place in your division. The NFC North is tough. You had to get a new offense, a coordinator. Green Bay. It's yeah, you're going to get healthy too. But if Matt LaFour mismanages another close game that the Packers have a lead or a real shot to win in the first month of the season, how loud is that noise going to get again? I know he just got a contract extension. I'm surprised Matt LaFour kept his job to be honest. I'm not saying

33:19this isn't about to bring up whether it was the right decision or not to bring him back. But my point is there's going to be a crazy amount of noise. And I know that a lot of listeners out there are going to point to John Lynch. And if he does not hit on this draft, that is going to be a problem. But as far as the conversation around Shanahan, I don't think that if the nine or start the next season one and two and they have a couple of really bad losses, it's just going to be clamoring hours on hours on hours on end at the station that somehow they need to get a different coach because this is the wrong guy in the building. No doubt. And look, the proof is in the results. And the 49ers had a very positive season, especially when you factor in the circumstances that played out in front of them. And look, I mean, it's natural for a team that couldn't get over the hump a couple of times as the 49ers couldn't. And then you start to have multiple losing seasons consecutively, which didn't happen. And everything start to get re-evaluated differently. The one thing we do know, though, in the NFL,

34:21is that things can flip back and forth year to year in a major way. And I think that's where the onus for the 49ers this year is to use that term that I've used a ton and probably will say a million more times between now and July and August and eventually September because we're still six months away from anything that truly means anything as far as this team playing a game. But the 49ers have to use this as a springboard. They have to use the 12 and 5 regardless of whether you think it was a, you know, they were true 12 and 5 talent with the team that they actually had out there and use it to bolster themselves to get to a point where they're back closer to where they were in 2023, come 2026, then just trying to hang on and repeat maybe what they did last year. The goal is to get back to Super Bowl or bust. That is the battle cry in my opinion for the 49ers.

35:23And again, the fan base has it. The fan base believes Super Bowl or bust. This year, the 49ers have to prove themselves to be either by the way this season goes or by the way this season ends to make sure that they're absolutely if they can't get over the hump and finally win it, that they are moving in a direction where they are closer to being able to win it in 2027, then they were at the end of 25 and would be at the end of 26. It's about progress. It's about building a formidable team that looks like it's moving upward and not just kind of hanging on after a season where they had a lot of success in some pretty challenging circumstances. We're going to have to coin it springboard summer because I do think it's the perfect word to describe what the 49ers offseason needs to be getting back to Super Bowl or bust is a great way of putting it Greg Silver, John Dickinson, Walter, Ica Balcetta hanging out with you. When we come

36:25on back, let's revisit Walters way too in your face. Pull best sport to watch internationally. You can access that on our Twitter account at KNBR. Is it hockey? Is it baseball? Is it basketball or is it soccer? We'll talk about that and then we'll use it as a springboard to preview a little Logan Webb on the mountain night. Why I think it's important that Logan Webb is pitching for the WBC. Why I don't hate the timing of the WBC and how the Giants biggest question mark coming into the spring has also now become their biggest concern. It's Papa and Silver only here on the sports leader.