Krueger: 49ers Will Surprise People This Season

Larry, how are you, man? Hey, I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

Appreciate the time. Well, we finally got or at least heard about this deal getting done today. No surprise that George Kittle making just $100,000 more than Trey McBride. Not a surprise that they got this done when they did, no? You know, it really isn't a surprise. I mean, Kittle, you know, I think has stated many times he'd like to be a lifelong niner.

It's a very difficult thing to do, as you know. And I'm sure he was willing to play ball with them. I mean, this is a deal.

I think it was a deal that the 49ers felt they probably needed to get done for a lot of reasons. He's a really good player. He's really popular with the fans. He's pretty much the locker room leader. And he's, you know, he's a guy that they wanted to take care of.

And he wanted to be here. So now he's the highest paid tight end in pro football. He's coming off an all pro season.

So he probably is quite deserving. When you think about what's next, obviously, everybody's taking a look at Brock Purdy and what his contract might look like. Obviously, you have Dak Prescott, who's making 60.

You have the Burroughs of the world and the Lawrences, who are in that 55 range. Where do you think Brock Purdy will ultimately land? You know, it's the ultimate question. I think it's, I think the Jared Goff contract in neighborhood, I think is probably a good neighborhood for him. You know, Goff signed four years, 212 million, 170 million guaranteed, 53 million AAV. And if you, you know, if you go cost of living increases, maybe an AAV around 57.9, something like that. You know, the interesting thing to me is, will it be a three year deal in that 175 range? Or will it be more of like a four year deal, you know, north of 230? But I think Brock's probably looking at very similar structure to what Goff got.

You know, maybe took maybe a little bit of an account for, you know, prices going up over time. Larry Krueger is here with us on the JR support reshow covers all things 49ers on KNBR as well as the crew show on YouTube. We saw the San Francisco 49ers let go of a lot of notable names to clear out room ultimately for Brock Purdy's contract and in Kittle.

Are they still contenders? And they had to deal with a lot of injuries to Hifanga last year and McCaffrey. What are your thoughts on what's going on with the 49ers and what's going on with the 49ers? On how they move forward?

Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, they did move off of a number of players. And, and they didn't replace them that much in free agency. They just had a very deep draft class. But as you know, rookies are very speculative.

And sometimes it takes a year, sometimes it takes two years, sometimes it takes three years. So, you know, they're hoping like if you talk to John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan, if you talk to anybody around the organization, they they feel like with the schedule they're playing, that they're going to be able to do that. They're going to be able to win nine or 10 games get in the playoffs. And then, you know, they're going to be the, they'll be one of the teams that has a lot of experience. You know, Brock Purdy has played in the Super Bowl.

Kyle Shanahan has coached multiple Super Bowls. So I think they feel, you know, maybe the standards are not quite as high. Just, you know, because they turned it over a little bit. But, you know, I still think they're they think of themselves as a 10 win football team. When you look at some of the talent, Christian McCaffrey dealing with that, those Achilles and calf issues last year, we saw Brandon Ayuk go down with the leg. Deebo Samuel is now out. Is there going to be more of an adjustment from whatever is expected from Brock Purdy, given what we saw last year into this season? Well, you know, I mean, last season, he really didn't have Ayuk for very long. He didn't have Christian McCaffrey for very long. You know, Deebo wasn't quite the same guy. I mean, those guys, the trio of weapons, they're dropped in touchdown production by 40 touchdowns from the year prior. So, you know, you can make the argument that he really didn't have those guys last year. Now, at least he'll have a younger cast. But they're unproven guys.

It's really, you know, it's a tough game. Ricky Pearsall, a former number one pick, is Jacob Cowing. It's J'Juan Jennings.

It's George Kittle. It's going to be a few more new faces, though. And, you know, it will put more pressure on Brock. And we'll see how he, you know, adjusts to it. I thought last year at times, he tried to kind of take over the whole thing and run and make big plays. And in the second half of the year, the second half turnovers really caught up with him.

Well, Larry, when you talk about familiar faces, it looks like, well, no, it doesn't look like. Rob Salah is back with the San Francisco 49ers. You talk about the draft. We saw Mikel Williams from Georgia is now a member of the 49ers.

What can we expect from this defense now that Rob Salah is back in the second stint? Well, he's a great defensive coach, but as you know, it's a players league. So it's really, you know, they hope that they've improved their run defense significantly. Mikel Williams, they felt like was the best run defender among the defensive ends in the draft. Like Alford Collins, when Collins was on the field at Texas last year, I think they gave up like 2.9 a carry. You know, they really liked C.J. West quite a bit, who was great at Kent State, and then he was great last year for Indiana. So they've drafted five defensive players at the top of the draft, and they're hoping to stop the run to start off.

And then after that, you know, we'll see where it goes from there. But if you don't stop the run in the NFL, you know, it's a long day at the office. Well, Larry, when you think about some of the players that are gone or have moved on from the 49ers, is there one player that you think that they're really going to miss this upcoming season?

Well, I mean, there's no question. I know he just got hurt this week in Denver, but Trey Greenlaw is a lion. I mean, he is just ferocious. He plays, you know, he plays for keeps, you know, and he's just an amazing, amazing player.

He's a tone setter. He's a violent player who's a smart player as well. So, you know, his body is starting to betray him now, and unfortunately he just pulled a quad, so he may be derailed a little bit in Denver. But yeah, they're going to miss him quite a bit.

I mean, there aren't a lot of Trey Greenlaws in this league. I mean, guys that can diagnose properly, correctly, down after down, who can break down in space against an athlete and bring that guy to the ground nine out of ten times. He's a leader, and he's a tone setter. They're going to miss him.

Larry Krueger here with us on the JR Sportbreeze show Coast to Coast. You think about someone moving into his second year, Ricky Pearsall, just with a tragedy to open up his NFL career last year out in Union Square, comes back from being shot, gets back out onto the football field. With no Debo and IU coming off of an injury, is he not going to be leaned upon heavily to produce right out of the gate?

Well, there's no question, and he knows it. He's working really hard this offseason. He's been working out with Brock Purdy.

He's been working out with Jacob Cowing. Yeah, he was a first-round pick, and he really had a fantastic last couple of games. I think he's going to be a very prolific receiver just because he's such a great route runner. He has such a great short area of quickness and hands and ball skills, and him and Purdy, when they get on the same page, I think it's going to be a pretty tough combo to stop. I'm not sure if it's going to be a downfield combo, but I think in that five- to twelve-yard range, I think it could be very prolific.

We talked about Brock Purdy and where his contract may lie. How long do you think it will be before we get this done? Will this get pushed to the wire of training camp? Is it something sooner than that?

What are your thoughts? Well, I just read a couple articles this afternoon saying that they expect that it will get done by camp, but I really just don't believe that Brock Purdy is not going to be there in May when the team hits the field for the first full-roster OTAs. He's such a competitive guy, and I know that about him. I just don't see him allowing Mac Jones to step into his spot and run his team.

They're friendly, but it's competitive. I just think if you're going to put a deadline down, knowing Brock, I would say the deadline is the day this team hits the field because he has to be signed to be on the field, but in his mind, he's got to be on the field, so I expect him to be signed by then. When you think about the NFC West, we've had some Rams here on the show. There's a full expectation that they're going to go for it and shock people and compete for a Super Bowl.

We see Seattle with their new quarterback and Sam Donald also having Jalen Murrow in the background. Arizona, a full year of Kyler Murray, they're expecting some things. Where do you think the 49ers will fit in in this NFC West?

Is it, hey, let's get into a wild card at minimum and compete with our experience as you mentioned? Or do you think they can still go out there and maybe, I don't know, just say, hey, look, we know you're the Eagles, but we can get you too? Yeah, I mean, last year was a rough year for the 49ers.

They had a lot that went wrong, the Super Bowl hangover, the schedule. I think you're going to see a rejuvenated 49er team and I would be very surprised if the 49ers did not win the NFC West. Now that being said, it's a division that's on the rise and it's on the rise because of continuity. You've got really good continuity in the general manager spot, Mani Austin, Ford, John Schneider, Les Kneade, John Lynch. You've got some really, really good continuity there and some excellent coaches in this division as well.

I think the division overall is everybody's pointing in the up direction, but I would expect the young 49ers to kind of surprise some people this year because if you really look at a lot of the key spots, they're pretty veteran in those spots and still a lot of top tier players. Okay. Hey, you made a lot of 49er fans happy because people are looking at the talent that's out the door and they're just like, how are we going to compete? So Larry, thank you for coming, Brian, you know, providing some optimism.

Hey, anytime, anytime. And please fill everybody again where we can follow you and listen to you in the Bay Area, online, across the country. Tell us. Yeah, you know, I'm on KNBR. You can catch me. I host Niners nightly on KNBR from 6 to 7 p.m. West Coast throughout the season, throughout the full calendar year. I'm on the pre and postgame show on KNBR and then you can find me on YouTube, The Krug Show on YouTube, and we talk Niners really 24-7 all year long and, you know, put out millions and millions of views throughout the month. Hey, hey, when Brock gets the deal done, tell him, you know, I wouldn't mind.

What do you give away? Toyotas to all the linemen, right? That's right. What is he going to do with the big money coming in? Everybody gets a Bentley? What is he going to do next?

Seriously, I mean, you know, he's going to have to, he's going to have to really, maybe, maybe Toyota is going to have to do him, do another solid, maybe, maybe Toyotas for the entire roster. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Well, Larry, just make sure one ends up in Atlanta for me, okay? Deal.

I'll check it out. Hey, thank you so much, Larry. We'll catch you on down the line, okay? Sounds good. Thanks for having me.