49ers News: One more sleep until Jordan Mason plays football again

Your 49ers-Vikings scouting report: Watch the trenches

“Another game, another time to look right up the gut. For each team, there are glaring weaknesses at center. Jake Brendel had a terrible game. Last time in Minnesota, he had a hard time with Harrison Phillips (just signed a three-year, $19.5 million deal), including one play on the second drive that turned into a missed Jake Moody field goal.

What bodes well for the 49ers is that Dominick Puni will be at right guard instead of Spencer Burford. Burford missed a block badly in the fourth quarter that forced the 49ers to QB sneak the ball with Brock Purdy, on the play he got concussed. That’s not blaming Burford for that, but there are always unknown consequences to missed blocks in key situations.

San Francisco was able to run the ball how it wanted last week, but they failed miserably in that regard last year. McCaffrey was held to 3 yards per carry last time, and it was largely Phillips and Jonathan Bullard leading a physical front. Veteran Jerry Tillery only adds to that.

The 49ers’ defensive line plugged gaps against the Jets in a way it struggled to last year. Breece Hall went nowhere until the meaningless final drive.

Something to look for on Minnesota’s offense? Their center, Garrett Bradbury, also had a dreadful game, and he was worse than Brendel in the run game. Their right guard, Ed Ingram, was woeful in pass protection. The tape shows it, and Pro Football Focus (not the arbiter of O-line play, but decent in delineating great and terrible) gave Ingram a 9.3 grade (an insanely low figure) in pass blocking, the worst in the league amongst 64 qualified guards.

Granted, this was against the only Giants player who wanted to win, in Dexter Lawrence. He’s incredible. But Maliek Collins looked very good Monday night, and he and Javon Hargrave should have some very good looks against those two guys.

Brendel, by the way, got a 28.1 pass blocking grade and a putrid 6.5 grade in true pass sets. He doesn’t look right. I asked Chris Foerster about Brendel’s performance. He said this, which was not exactly a glowing answer:

“Jake is with the rest of them,” Foerster said. “I think we were all a step below where I think any of them would want to play. There were some good things in the game, obviously, but it just wasn’t as sharp as we needed it to be. And there’s a lot to work on, which is good. I said, ‘This is good.’ The good thing is, we won. And the great thing is, we’ve got 16 more weeks to see if we can get better and we do have something to, we have a reason to come to practice this week. So it was good.”

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“Everything but practice, essentially. He’s taking part in team meetings, hanging out in the locker room as usual. Yesterday I spotted him shooting hoops in the far corner of the locker room. He then had a long sit-down session with Samuel at Samuel’s locker. All of which is to say, everything seems normal with Pearsall. If anything, he seems bored……..

I thought the 49ers’ use of Samuel on Monday revealed their go-for-broke mentality. There’s no way they would put Samuel in the backfield 10 times if they were leery about going too hard at the beginning of the season.

“I’m about to pass out,” Samuel told a mic’ed up Kyle Juszczyk at the end of the game.

“I know,” an admiring Juszczyk said. “I don’t know how you do it.”

Five 49ers to watch in illuminating Week 2 matchup vs. Vikings

“Brock Purdy might have more on his plate Sunday than against any opponent he faces all season.

That’s because the Vikings push the boundaries as far as trying to confuse the opposition with their post-snap rotations.

“With Minnesota, it’s sort of an illusion-fest,” Purdy said. “They want to make it seem like they’re doing this and then post snap they’re dropping eight into every which way.”

Purdy got off to a hot start last season against the Vikings, as the 49ers played without Trent Williams and Deebo Samuel. But he threw two interceptions in the final five minutes of the 49ers’ 22-17 loss.

Purdy had just converted a fourth-down quarterback sneak and was later diagnosed with a concussion from the play. His two interceptions came following that hit to the head.”

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“That is a monumental shift. McCaffrey was expected to go in the season opener, then sat. It surprised many. Now, he’s clearly suffered a setback and is in enough pain, with a precarious enough injury (Achilles tendinitis) to potentially go on IR. That’s a wild shift.”

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“Ed Ingram’s blocking. Fifty NFL guards played 50 snaps or more in Week 1. None allowed more pressures per snap than Ingram, according to Pro Football Focus, and it was not remotely close. Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II poses a unique test, but Ingram’s inability to pass protect has not been an anomaly. Ingram has allowed 102 pressures since 2022, the most among all active players. Last year, the Vikings coaching staff constructed an impressive plan to limit the 49ers pass rush. Week 7 was the only game last season in which San Francisco did not record a sack. The 49ers no longer have Arik Armstead, but Maliek Collins replaced him. Paired with Javon Hargrave, they’ll pose a test for the Vikings interior and, specifically, Ingram.”

Why 49ers’ Spencer Burford calls the SB LVIII block he missed in OT ‘a blessing and a curse’ (paywall)

“For days, Spencer Burford didn’t have an appetite. And for months, he didn’t feel joy.

The San Francisco 49ers guard’s worst moment on the field, his missed blocking assignment in overtime of Super Bowl LVIII in February, led to his worst moments off it. The San Antonio native didn’t eat for two to three days after the game, shut himself off from friends and family and returned to Texas shortly after his final exit interview, hoping distance could dull the pain.

He was away from football, 1,700 miles removed from the 49ers’ facility, but stuck in the same place: He couldn’t create separation from 3rd-and-4 from the Chiefs’ 9-yard line with All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones lined up between him and right tackle Colton McKivitz……“You could tell it was, how is everyone going to receive me back in the room when we’ve been gone for three months and when he thought he cost us the game,” Foerster said. “It wasn’t all his fault. He had a bad play in a game with a lot of bad plays. So I think there was a sense of, ‘Do they still look at me this way?’”

For his part, Purdy, a fellow member of the 2022 rookie class, said the mistake hasn’t changed their relationship: “We talk all the time. I love him. He’s awesome. And he’s my guy.”

Left tackle Trent Williams said Burford wasn’t alone in dealing with a postgame malaise filled with personal regret that extended deep into the offseason.

“I’m happy that he’s handling it like a professional and trying to take the silver lining,” Williams said. “I think we all dealt with that. We all dealt with that depression after the game. I think if you played in the game, there were going to be plays you wanted back.”