Tracy Sandler | San Francisco 49ers Insider, Founder & CEO of Fangirl Sports

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H-E-L-P dot com slash grow. We're pleased to welcome from San Francisco now, one of our favorites, Tracy Sandler, who's the founder and CEO of Fangirl Sports and a longtime 49ers insider. First, Tracy, I've seen from your Twitter you were in Houston for the national championship game that Michigan won. What was that like? It was incredible. Someone asked me where it fell on my sports fandom and I said it's number one.

It's just not even close. It was so amazing. And it's a really cool thing when your school wins the national championship because it doesn't happen every day. And there's something about it.

I went to school there. You're a part of it. You feel like a part of it, maybe in a different way. And it was just the most incredible experience. It was a great game.

I mean, certainly they ended up winning by it looked like a blowout at the end, but it wasn't really a blowout until, you know, basically through the fourth quarter. But it was just it was incredible. It was one of the most incredible experiences ever.

What did it sound like? Because that's my favorite thing about championships, Super Bowls, big events is the noise. It was epic. And I had been to the Ohio State game this year. I was able to go because the 49ers played Thursday night.

So I was able to go for the first time since college. I was there for the Rose Bowl and for this. And the sound at the end, when it really is all said, it's unbelievable.

And I actually I had video of Mikey Sanrisville's interception that basically sealed the game. And just the sound on that alone is absolutely incredible. One of the most amazing things. I can't believe it was less than two weeks ago.

It feels so long ago, but it was just it was incredible. So Tracy is with us getting ready to cover a divisional round of the playoffs. This is literally my favorite weekend of the entire NFL season because of the implications that generally the games are really good. What is the mood around the Niners as they get ready to start this playoff run? They're definitely in a good mood.

They're loose. I think the break was nice to them, but they were really smart in how they handled the break, because last week was not a bye week in the traditional sense like it would be in the regular season. They had practices. They had the weekend off, but they had practices.

They treated it like a normal week, which I just think was really smart to avoid any kind of rough situation. But they're excited, loose, ready to go. Certainly not underestimating the Packers. The Packers surprised a lot of people, though Kyle Shanahan said this week and Chris Burster said it yesterday that yes and no. Once you start watching the film, it's not surprising at all, especially the way they played over these last several weeks.

But they seem pretty business as usual, which I think is a good place to be. Seems like to a man, anybody who was asked in the Niners locker room or in the practice field this week is raving about Brock Purdy. Called it a Purdy party. I like it.

I like a Purdy party. Yes. And really interesting to think about where he was and where the Niners were this time last year. Where have you seen the greatest growth in him as now a full year starting under his belt and the undisputed leader of the offense? Well, I think you just said it really. I mean, he's really just over the last month, month and a half, had a full season under his belt.

So as good as he was last year and they had that wild card game against the Seahawks, as good as he was, that was probably at that time one of his toughest games. He's just looser might be the right word. I know I used it earlier about the team.

But I think that that's what it is. There's a confidence. He knows he can win football games. They know he can win football games.

And not that they didn't last year. He just has the experience now. He played in, well, I was going to say three playoff games. He did not obviously last very long in the NFC Championship game because of the injury, but he's had that experience.

And so that's just a totally different thing. Because last year with the wild card game against Seattle, he settled into it. He ended up playing well. They ended up winning.

But we did see him go through a little bit of adversity and we saw a little bit of what the playoffs can do because it's different. You know, it's March Madness is what I keep saying. It's one and done. And Kyle keeps talking about it. And Brock has said it too.

It's the team that plays best for three and a half hours. But the best way I can describe it is he's QB 1. And it's the way he carries himself and the confidence he has in himself. And it just feels ready. And I think any jitters or any hype he had, he got out of his system in the Baltimore Ravens game on Christmas.

And now he's just very ready to go. We're always excited to connect with Tracy Sandler, who covers the Niners for Fangirl Sports Network. And she's also the founder and CEO. And as we've heard, a Michigan alum, proud Michigan alum. Very proud. Couldn't be prouder.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. I'm interested to hear your answer to this because I've heard both names floated out there for NFL MVP McCaffrey as well as Purdy. Who would you say is more valuable? It's a very tough one. I think I think it's actually going to end up being Lamar Jackson.

So I don't know if it's going to even matter. But I think it's hard to say who's more valuable. I can kind of say what Kyle Shanahan had said. Pre the Baltimore game.

Because this came up a lot towards the end of December. And he said, you know, if it's a quarterback award, Brock Purdy is the MVP. And there's no doubt in my mind he's the MVP. If it's not a quarterback award. He didn't flat out say this, but he intimated if it's not a quarterback award, Christian McCaffrey is the MVP. And I go back and forth on it because I think about the NFC Championship game. And once Brock was out of that game, that game was over.

That was it. And Christian was still in the game. And that's no disrespect to Christian. Christian's incredible. One of the greatest athletes I've ever seen.

One of the greatest talents I've ever seen. But I don't know if Christian leaves the game. Can the 49ers still win it?

Yes, I think they can. If Brock Purdy goes out of the game, as we saw, well, this year might be different. Because I think Sam Darnold could potentially hold his own, especially with Christian McCaffrey there.

So I go back and forth on this all the time. But I will say the talent that Christian McCaffrey has. Kyle Shanahan has said he's the best athlete he's ever seen without the football in his hands. And what he brings to the offense, to the field, what he makes defenses have to do is pretty much unmatched. So I would make them co-MVPs. And that's the argument I make for both.

And I make the argument that I don't actually have a conclusion. And I would say this, the 49ers are really lucky that they're both on their football team in their offense. No doubt. While we're talking about Christian McCaffrey, I know that he's back to full participant in practice. Any other injuries the Niners are navigating right now? The only other people on the injury report were Cleland Farrell, who's out this week, as they expected. He has a knee injury that happened a couple weeks ago. So he's battling through that and remains to be seen how much time he would miss if they were to win this weekend. And Dre Greenlaw is questionable with an Achilles injury. He's been dealing with Achilles tendinitis. So they've listed him as questionable.

So those are the two. Obviously, Cleland Farrell, they'll very much miss on run defense. And Dre Greenlaw, of course, if he is not able to go, they will miss him very much generally on defense. But for the most part, they're pretty healthy.

George Odom is going to come off IR. This is a pretty healthy football team at the moment. Talking about coaches, there's obviously a relationship here between Kyle and Matt Leflore. Yes. Where do you believe that they're similar and how do you think they're different? For lack of a better term, they grew up together, at least in coaching.

Do we think they are? They do have a similarity in their ability to scheme and their ability to play to their players strengths and scheme to their players strengths and game plan to their players strengths. They're both very creative. I was going to say that maybe Kyle's slightly more creative, but I actually don't know that that's true. I don't know if that's a fair thing to say, but Kyle still feels to me a little bit like Matt Leflore's older brother that's maybe less than a year older than him.

Does that make sense? It kind of feels like a little bit of that just in terms of he taught Matt Leflore. Matt learned under Kyle. Matt learned under the Shanahan system. So I kind of look at it that way, but I think what makes this game kind of interesting is that Matt Leflore has yet to beat Kyle Shanahan in the playoffs. And although from a talent perspective, the 49ers are certainly the more talented team, this Packers team is playing really well. And part of the reason they're playing really well is they are very well coached and he is putting them in a position to succeed. And when you see the game plan they had against the Cowboys the other day, it worked perfectly. I mean, they were extremely prepared, whereas the Cowboys really did not seem like they were, but they were extremely prepared in every single thing that they did work. And that is really good coaching. At some point, Matt Leflore is going to beat Kyle Shanahan in the playoffs. I'm not saying it's going to be this week, but at some point it's going to happen. And this Packers team does look very good right now.

Definitely does. In fact, we're able to establish the run against the Cowboys, which really gave Jordan an advantage. They weren't able to get to him.

They got close, but they weren't able to drag him down. So how do you think the Niners' defense matches up with the Packers and approaches this game? Well, I think for the Niners' defense it's going to be about the run. On both sides of the ball it's going to be about the run, especially if there's rain. But I think for both teams it's going to be stopping the run and on offense getting the run going, but that's going to be a huge thing. I think the 49ers match up well, but it's something to keep an eye on because they did struggle the last several weeks of the season against the run. Now, they did not have Eric Armstead, which made a big difference. He will be back this week because he's not on the injury report.

Good to go. So that will make a huge difference for them because we did see them struggle kind of once he went out. But that is going to be a challenge for the San Francisco team.

Now, I do think the difference is I think this line will be able to get to Jordan Love. I think they're just a little bit better at bringing pressure to the quarterback. And I just think they'll be more prepared for that.

So I think that's really going to be where the big difference is. But stopping the run is going to be a key for both teams. Tracy Sandler is with us talking about this divisional game between Packers and Niners. Man, I can only imagine what the viewership numbers will be when we think about 40 million for Packers and Cowboys.

And these are two, of course, iconic franchises in the NFL. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Okay, a couple of questions I wanted to ask in terms of personnel. So first, what does Adam Peters give to the commanders as their new GM? First of all, I just want to say that Adam Peters is the best. And he will be so missed in San Francisco. He's so fantastic, a fantastic human, fantastic at his job.

So happy for him and his family and wishing him so much luck. But he brings to the commanders a tremendous amount of experience. And he's been in San Francisco since 2017. He's going to a place that needs to do what the 49ers needed to do when John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan came to them and with Adam Peters.

And he was John's right-hand man. So he saw, not only did he see, he was integral to the building of San Francisco's football team and integral to getting them where they are today. And so the commanders have somebody with that breadth of knowledge and experience and ability to do that and to help the commanders get to potentially the place the 49ers get to.

It'll probably take a little time, just as it did in San Francisco. But you're not going to get anybody better than Adam Peters to help you build a franchise and a football team and a culture. I was talking about Kyle and John Lynch recently on the show with all this talk about how much control some of these more experienced championship head coaches will want if they take a new job. And the system in San Francisco is that Kyle has final say, though the two of them work very closely together. And knowing what you know about their partnership, their relationship, why does it work so well? Because I think they've always been on the same page. They came in together, they have a good relationship, and they are very much on the same page. They are very like-minded. And I think the roles were established very early. And there's something about coming in together in that way.

I don't think we've seen that a lot. And you may get a GM who gets to come in and pick his coach in a coaching search, and they pick him, but these two came in together as a team from the get-go. And they were always in lockstep, and I think that is why it works so well. And I think they're both very good at knowing what they know and knowing what they don't and listening to the people who can tell them about what they don't know. And that's such a huge thing about success in any business, and I think it's worked really well for the two of them.

And I think it's a great point. They came in together, and the roles were predetermined, though it is a little rare that the head coach would have the final say over the GM. And yet, as much as I know, maybe you know differently, it doesn't seem like they've ever had any conflicts and that, as you point out, they're always in lockstep.

As far as we know, things have worked very smoothly and worked well. And I don't know how many times heads have been butted to a point that Kyle had to have a say over John. Talking about butting heads, when Jim Harbaugh was there in the Bay Area, he and Trent Balke butted heads, of course, and that's how he ended up at Michigan. Once the Niners let him go, what do you want for Jim Harbaugh moving forward in terms of his next gig? I want Jim Harbaugh to be happy, but I would really love for him to be happy in Ann Arbor.

That's what I want more than anything. Now, Jim Harbaugh wants to go to the NFL, and he wants to win a Super Bowl. He gave us a national championship. The whole tenure has been great. The last three years have been absolutely incredible, and you couldn't ask for more. But I would really love Jim Harbaugh to just be happy in Ann Arbor and continue there.

That would be my ultimate hope, but I just want Jim to be happy. I love him. I love him so much. Remember a few years ago when there was all this talk because Michigan couldn't beat Ohio State? And what a difference a couple years makes.

Yes, what a difference it makes for sure. And he's put together a really good team at Michigan. A lot of those guys are going to be in the draft. So many of the guys that everybody watched in the national championship are going to be playing in the NFL next year. But he put together a terrific team and terrific coaching staff. I don't think we could say enough about the job Sharone Moore did in Jim Harbaugh's absence. But, yeah, what a difference a few years makes, and now Michigan's on top of that and riding that ride. And that's the fun thing about rivalry. That's the fun thing about sports and college football. It is cyclical, but I just love Jim Harbaugh, and I really would love him to stay in Ann Arbor. All right, so you can find Tracy on Twitter at TracyFGSN, the founder and CEO of Fangirl Sports, and specifically covering the Niners.

We'll be excited to catch up with her in Vegas with or without the Niners, but they certainly have a great track to finish this business of theirs that they started last year. Thank you so much. Good to talk to you, of course, and we'll see you soon. All right, thanks Amy.

Have a great rest of your night. Around New Year's, we get a little obsessed with changing ourselves and forgetting the things we're already doing right. Like taking our supplements every morning or scheduling me time into our day. Therapy helps you recognize those victories and keep up the good work in the New Year without changing everything. BetterHelp offers affordable online therapy so you can try New Year's, same you with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash grow today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelpHELP.com slash grow. Call 562-314-4603 for complete details. When something happens to your car, you might say, No!

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