Can Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers FINALLY win the SUPER BOWL? | NFL on FOX Pod

I'm not sure there should be a fan base with more angst right now than San Francisco 40 niner fans. Because it's not just that you have to get to the super bowl, you have to win it. And it's not just that you have to win it. It's that like I can see it's like Indiana Jones where the doors closing and you're reaching back for the hat. Like I can see the door closing on your hand right now as you're reaching back. Like as we're recording this, Brandon aiyuk is still not at practice. Trent Williams is probably waiting for Brandon aiyuk situation to get sorted out. The vibes don't feel great in the bay, and that's for a season where you already know what it's going to take to meet the expectations. So I do think that's a really interesting place. I don't think there is a single team in the league where losing the super bowl would be seen as a failure. Even the chiefs like, of course, you want to win the super bowl, but even the chiefs have several trophies to keep them warm at night if that's what happens. The niners, it really it really feels like now or never with this group of players to me. Or am I being too dramatic? No, I mean it would be Buffalo bills esque, right? In terms of like going to all of them and losing all of them and the sting that that leaves on a franchise. And listen, we know the 49 ers, right. Plenty of history there, plenty of trophies in their cupboard as well. But you would be looking at ultimately one of the most talented rosters over a run of years we've seen in quite some time. That would have fallen short. It would have been it would be a failure. And I understand, like we've heard plenty of guys, you know, think of the giannis quote all the time where he talks about a season being a failure and that binary presented. But man, I bet if you got an honest answer from a lot of the people in that organization, they would say the same thing. Like, yeah, the friends we made along the way, the relationships, all that stuff matters in sports a lot more than we want to give it credit for. But in terms of potential and what you should have been able to do, yeah, losing the super bowl would be an abject disaster for this team because we know everything changes next year. And it's not to say it changes for the worse necessarily, but it changes a lot in a way. You've got to show us you're going to be able to weather. Yeah, the bills are such a great parallel because yeah, I mean, we still view them as a team that you have to take seriously. But we just talked about how it's going to be harder for them. You lose pieces, veterans leave. Financial decisions have to be made. It felt like it was never going to come. But we're looking at it right now where the 49 ers are having to start making these choices. We don't know for sure right now that Brandon aiyuk is going to play for this team in 2024, which is insane. By the way. I would have bet my life that we would have the answer to this Brandon aiyuk thing by roster cut down day and it just hasn't materialized. On top of that, like we know purdy is going to be in line for a huge contract next year. We know that some of these players are very veteran players. I just this, you know, hitting on so many cheap quarterbacks has allowed them to build this avengers team. And I just feel like you're going to start losing infinity stones here starting in 2025. And that's why that's why this just feels so urgent to me and why I wanted to talk about it. Think about Brandon aiyuk too, man. The guy, like, started off in shani's doghouse, worked his way out and became like the highest level Shanahan receiver that we had seen in San Francisco does all the things he likes. Active blocker exists outside of the system only to now work his way. Even if he comes back, I'd imagine firmly in the I mean, we all turned into dap analysts when he was at practice that one day walking around going up to John lynch and Shanahan and doing all that. Was that a good bye handshake or a like congratulations handshake? Well, see, honestly, it was warmer reception from Kyle than it was from John. The John handshake, the dap there was. Yeah don't really want to talk to you right now. The Kyle dap was the very least. Man Like, it'd be nice to see you back out here, but, yeah, anything is on the table for all of them. It's just amazing how that arc has kind of gotten back to the beginning where all of a sudden the guy that became everything they wanted him to that struggled out of the gate now is the one that can't get paid, which I was writing about this earlier this week, too, is up until I would say as recently as may, I was like, people aren't talking about Brandon aiyuk enough. Like, why don't we respect Brandon aiyuk? Why don't people recognize him as a huge piece of this? And here we are getting close to September and I'm just like, I don't know how much more I can talk about Brandon aiyuk I know it's and it's kind of obscured, though. You talked about the clock ticking, like we talk about this in terms of the Brock purdy contract all the time. Christian McCaffrey is getting towards 30 and starting the season off with a bit of a calf tweak right now. George kittle is 30 years old and plays an incredibly physical brand of football. Trent Williams is 36. Like forget the contract situation. That's a guy also like all of the these guys have been so good for so long. You know Fred Warner on the other side. Nick bosa, these players deserve is a loaded word. It's a made up fairy tale word. But man, it'd be awesome to see a group that's this incredible and has this many uniquely gifted players be able to get this before all of a sudden they start to get into the back half of their careers? The crazy thing is they could get aiyuk into camp, they could get Trent's deal done, and they could start six and zero and it wouldn't lessen. I mean, it's totally plausible. It wouldn't lessen my anxiety, though, because, again, that's how high the stakes are, where if you're not holding the trophy, I don't see how this was a successful season. It's a testament to what a team they have built. But man, it gives me anxiety thinking about navigating all of that. Best of luck to the 49 ers.