An obnoxiously negative prognosis of the 49ers after Chase Young trade

I bet you Niners fans are feeling quite chesty right now, aren’t you? Yesterday, your team acquired Commanders edge rusher and former No. 2 overall pick Chase Young for essentially nothing. All you had to give up for the man was a compensatory third round pick, one that could replenish itself if Young leaves town when his contract expires at the end of this season. 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’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.

That’s certainly what the Commanders believed, because they were more than happy to cut Young loose for less than what his fellow pass rusher, Montez Sweat, got in return from Chicago. Chase Young failed Washington, just as he’ll fail you.

And yet, you’re unmoved. Well we have Brock! you tell me as you drink a flat, warmed-over Modelo. Well guess what? Your sweet, precious, little Brock Purdy is, at last, turning back into Mr. Irrelevant. He’s thrown five picks in his last three games. Two of those picks came on back-to-back drives in the fourth quarter against the Vikings, dooming any chance that San Francisco had to come back against a team that cannot run the ball and has a longstanding affinity for letting opponents hang around for as long as they please.

But Drew, Brock didn’t have Deebo or Trent for most of those losses! Aw, poor baby! All he had to work with was CMC, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle, and Kyle Juszczyk! What is he, Superman? No QB could possibly cobble together a decent offensive performance with those players, except for 20 current starters league-wide. Purdy proved a while ago that he’s more than glorified waiver wire bait, but he no longer gets to be graded on a curve relative to his status as the final pick in the 2022 draft. Tony Romo went undrafted and was eventually judged not as an underdog, but as the professional starter he’d become. And you know what that judgment turned out to be? Choker. Tony Romo was a sorry-ass choker, and he’s BETTER than Purdy has ever been. Tony Romo elevated the play of his offensive teammates. The last three weeks have proved that, with Purdy, the inverse holds true. Also he might still be concussed.

That’s not encouraging when three of your next four games are on the road against division leaders.

But Drew, we have Kyle! Oh, you mean the Tony Romo of head coaches? He’s a choker too, and he hasn’t gotten you a sixth ring since barging through the door in 2017. For all of Kyle Shanahan’s wizardry, his Niners have only ever gone as far as their QB has been able to take them. That’s as true now as it was when Jimmy Garoppolo was under center, and it’s why the stench of the Trey Lance pick still hovers over the greater Bay Area. Kyle hand-picked Lance, blew it, and has used Purdy as fraying duct tape on an open wound ever since.

Only to losers sniffing around for an excuse, it is. Because of that trade, and because of their current roster makeup, this is no longer a team that’s well-equipped to win games while short-handed. And given the Niners’ penchant for rushing players back from injury a hair too soon, they’ll be short-handed again sometime in November and December. When that happens, they won’t be able to zero blitz their way out of it. Not against Philly. Not against Dallas. Not against anyone.

So get all your cockiness out now, Niners fans. You think that you’re still a juggernaut. You think that this October has been a mere bump in the road. You think that Chase Young will make the rest of the NFL fear you once again. It won’t, and I can count the number of championship rings on Kyle’s fingers to prove it.