Kyle Shanahan is a brilliant play caller and play designer, but he like everyone else isn’t perfect as a head coach. His game management skills are weak, and his personnel decisions are open to debate as well.

That’s where Trey Lance comes in. Shanahan and the 49ers gave up the farm to trade up to draft him with three first round picks. Lance is a physical specimen, but he’s from a small college program and didn’t have a ton of reps in college.

Now we’ll see how this experiment works out. In the season opener against the Bears, Lance made some nice throws, but he was very inconsistent. Also, if you watch all of Lance’s snaps from the game, several troubling trends emerge.

First, the 49ers are basically running a college-style offense for Lance with a heavy dose of designed runs. Also, when Lance drops back and has to move off his first read, he quickly panics and tries to run the ball. This isn’t too bad for fantasy football, but in real football this leads to big problems.

Which leads to the other concern. Lance is a big guy, but he’s taking a beating. His risk of injury is very high with this playing style, and the 49ers don’t seem to care. That tells you they’ve already downgraded Lance’s value within the organization.

With Jimmy Garappolo on the roster as the backup QB, Shanahan has had to lobby team veterans to give Lance a chance to succeed. Let’s see how much patience those veterans have before we hear calls for Jimmy G.

Despite being one of the most talented quarterbacks to ever play the game, the legacy of Aaron Rodgers keeps taking more hit with each playoff loss. How many times can he and the Packers come up short in critical playoff games?

The conditions yesterday were atrocious, and both offensive lines had a lot of trouble in pass protection. Still, Rodgers and the Packer offense couldn’t muster much production after their opening touchdown drive. And of course, the Packer special teams unit lived up to its horrible reputation and basically handed the game to the 49ers, but there’s not excuse for Rodgers and this high-octane offense to lay an egg in this game. The Packers entered the game as solid favorites over the Niners and were the clear favorite to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Jimmy Garopollo was also battling injuries to his throwing hand and shoulder. The Packer defense held up strong, but the offense behind Rodgers didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

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The Dallas Cowboy find ways to lose. It’s been a staple of this organization for a while, and Mike McCarthy has kept this tradition going. His clock management has been a disaster all year long, and now his incompetence has helped to lose a playoff game. The quarterback draw with Dak Prescott at the end of the game was inexcusable.

Meanwhile, Kyle Shanahan did his best to keep the Cowboys in the game, dialing up some strange play calls when all he had to do was run out the clock with a lead. Jimmy Garappolo contributed with a brutal interception that gave the Cowboys life. Then Shanahan was afraid to go for it on fourth and inches, giving Dallas another shot.

This game was very entertaining and featured two good teams, but the fourth quarter was a complete mess. Dak Prescott didn’t live up to his enormous contract, and Jimmy G threw one of his signature interceptions to stain what otherwise was a solid performance.

Jerry Jones has put together a decent roster in Dallas, and some of their coaching moves have panned out like the Dan Quinn hire. But Jones needs to take a hard look at his team and probably move on from Mike McCarthy.

The NFL playoffs kick off today with the Las Vegas Raiders visiting Cincinnati in the opening game. Playoff weekend extends through Monday night as the NFL pushes to continue its dominance on television and maximize ratings.

As we start the payoffs, NFL futures have the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs as the favorites to meet in the Super Bowl as you can see above. Both teams are playing great football and a matchup of these two squads would probably give us a great Super Bowl, though we all know the NFL playoffs rarely work out that way. This is what makes the NFL great.

Here’s a quick look at the NFL lines for the playoff games:

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It’s been a rough year for the San Francisco 49ers, and there’s not much light at the of the tunnel. Chip Kelly has been fired along with the GM, but fans are still stuck with Jed York, who is staking his claim as the worst owner in the NFL.

But – they have beautiful cheerleaders as you can see below!

Now that the season is over, let's take a look at JORDAN throughout this season ❤️💛

A video posted by 49ers Goldrush Fan (@goldrush_49ers_) on Jan 4, 2017 at 5:48pm PST