Electromagnetic Field goals? Don't blame injuries for Niners power outage

Which players will suit up or sit out in Seahawks-49ers?

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Chip Mac: Injury update for both teams and who will be affected the most by injuries?

The Seahawks hope to get back Elijah Arroyo this week.

Quiet first season by Arroyo but he obviously changes the math for Klint Kubiak when he’s available. Arroyo was out-snapping Eric Saubert before he got injured. What does Robert Saleh do if he has to account for a receiver who brings a much different set of skills than Eric Saubert?

Charles Cross expected to return, his first game after signing the extension. Coby Bryant—no extension yet—also expected to return after missing two games.

49ers lost George Kittle for the rest of the playoffs and probably some of next season, at least. I know people are having fun with the “EMF theory” causing San Francisco’s rash of ligament injuries:

Well, I don’t know…maybe. I want fans to consider something: The Niners injuries are high-profile, but they aren’t the most injured team. Actually, San Francisco put 20 players on reserve lists this season, which is only the 12th-most in the league in 2025.

The interesting thing about the 49ers injuries isn’t the number of them, but the amount of cap space that those injured players account for: 25% of San Francisco’s 2025 cap, per OvertheCap. That is the most in the league.

But look just below them: The Cardinals put 32 players on reserve lists!

Is Glendale under power lines too?

Before Kittle’s injury, the reasons Kyle Shanahan was called a genius for getting the Niners to the playoffs were Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, and a short-term IR stint for Brock Purdy. Also Brandon Aiyuk, but he hasn’t really been in the plan for over a year.

Sure, kudos to the 49ers for winning 12 games without Bosa and Warner but it’s not as though San Francisco has been just as good on defense without them. They’ve been much worse on defense without them!

How much heavy lifting did A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley and the Eagles OC/OL do on Sunday to make the Niners defense look acceptable?

Losing Kittle to a gruesome leg injury in the wild card game exacerbates the perception that the 49ers must be cursed by radio waves (I’m sure Shanahan and the Niners strength and conditioning staff will only fan the flames there as to get the smoke off of themselves) but it doesn’t change the fact that…

Actually a lot of the players you will see on Saturday were the ones that the 49ers wanted to have when the season started. It’s just not a good defense and it never was…it just wasn’t going to be as bad with Bosa and Warner.

Or did we forget that Shanahan fired his defensive coordinator from 2024? Or that the Niners were 30th in points per drive allowed last season? With Bosa and Warner.

This answer to your question about injuries really went off the rails, but I found it important to highlight for everybody that in between the literal static that is “if the 49ers lose, it’s because of electricity-related injuries” actually let’s remember that they won six games last year and the last place schedule (giving them Giants, Browns, and Bears) is partially the reason for them even winning 12 games and making it this far.

So yeah….Kittle is out.

I’m pretty sure that everyone else important to the 49ers offense is healthy, including Trent Williams and Purdy. Well maybe Ricky Pearsall will miss another game but I’m not sure if he’s actually important. The reason that the Niners top two receivers are Jauan Jennings and Demarcus Robinson is merely the fact that GM John Lynch didn’t get anyone better in the offseason.

Fred Warner isn’t expected to return this week. Dee Winters, who is also a LB and led the Niners with 101 tackles, is probably going to be questionable. But some people think that veteran Eric Kendricks, called up from the practice squad last weekend, is an upgrade over Winters anyway.

Essentially the Niners division round injury situation boils down to:

• Maybe Pearsall will return, but probably not and he’s not a game-changer

• Maybe Winters will return, but he’s not a game-changer

• Kittle is out and that changes a lot

Backup tight end Jake Tonges came from nowhere to score his first career touchdown to beat the Seahawks in Week 1 when he replaced an injured Kittle. But as soon as Kittle was healthy, Tonges went back to barely ranking above a healthy scratch on gamedays. After Kittle’s injury on Sunday, Tonges had three targets and caught one pass for 14 yards.

Veteran Luke Ferrell would be TE2 and San Francisco has someone named Brayden Willis on the practice squad.

So yeah, nothing much to monitor this week other than Arroyo (who seems likely to return) and Pearsall (who doesn’t) and Winters (who might) but none of them are necessarily changing the formula of the outcome that much. Prior to his injury, Arroyo had only caught 2 passes for 10 yards over his last five games.

In unrelated news, the Seahawks launched a satellite pointed directly at Santa Clara, California for no reason at all:

Bret: You’re stringing together some PUNishing article titles lately. I’m curious how much you believe this game is about McDonald versus Shanahan from an Xs and Os standpoint. I understand players need to make plays and execute game plans, but I wonder how much you believe that this may boil down to a chess match between two masterful play callers on opposite sides of the ball.

It occurred to me to also mention the match-up between Klint Kubiak, a future first-time head coach, and Robert Saleh, a retread DC after a predictably disastrous stint as head coach of the Jets. Is this at all relevant or intriguing to you?

Thanks, but I can hardly take any credit for it because punny newsletter titles are just an e-seaside gig.

I’m just a fan like any of you, not an expert, but my two cents is that a lot of this work to give Seattle a defensive advantage was done in the past three years by John Schneider:

• Leonard Williams (trade/re-sign)

• Byron Murphy (draft)

• Ernest Jones (trade/extend)

• Nick Emmanwori (draft/trade up)

• DeMarcus Lawrence (sign)

• Devon Witherspoon (draft)

• Julian Love (sign/extend)

Drafting players, signing players, trading for players, extending players, trading up for players to draft, trading for players who they extend, and trading away players who they signed. How about trading DK Metcalf and drafting Emmanwori? Not bad.

Of course, scouting players who aren’t draft picks like Drake Thomas and Ty Okada, maybe the most impressive work of all. And then how do you marry that to a particular coaching staff?

The scheme only works if you have the players. What Mike Macdonald wants to do on defense simply looks idiotic if Seattle isn’t able to stop the run without a numbers advantage. They can get that done because of guys like Murphy and Jones and Lawrence and Emmanwori, etc. So that’s what I am most impressed with and what I think works the most.

On top of a schematics conversation, we can’t overlook that first and foremost Seattle’s coaches are teachers and their greatest asset is being able to get players to understand the playbook and then executive it … in harmony … as the offensive play is being unveiled in real time … and react fast.

And what about continuity and experience? The Seahawks brought back almost their entire defense from 2025 with the only totally new players (who got over 15% of the snaps this year) were Emmanwori and Lawrence. That’s something Macdonald stressed would be important in meetings he had last year:

“This is a Jim Harbaughism,” he said. “’You get good at football by playing football.’ So we’re going to get reps, we’re going to maximize the time and be efficient.”

Later, Macdonald added, “This is a John Harbaughism: ‘Guys are allowed to get better.’ You do that by getting direct reps and coaching them up the right way and positive reinforcement, and if guys don’t love football, then you’re not going to be out there. I believe in our ability to develop players, and it’s fun to work with the guys who love it.”

The Seahawks were a good defense in 2024, but not great. Did they change the scheme? Only up to the level that the players maybe weren’t totally ready for the tasks until they got the experience going into 2025.

So yeah, I believe in the players, the scouting, and the teaching more than I believe in the scheme.

As far as the “chess match” aspect, well I have to imagine that on Shanahan’s end when you lose to a team and score 3 points with 9 first downs and then you play them again two weeks later that you don’t repeat what you did. Shanahan has to try some new moves, right? Well, if I know that then certainly Macdonald knows that. So how do the Seahawks counter-act what they expect the Niners to do to counter-act everything that they sucked at in Week 18?

That’s the big question.

As far as Saleh vs. Kubiak…

I don’t necessarily believe yet that either of them have a huge advantage as play callers because they’re both dealing with deficiencies in the trenches this season. It’s an improved Seattle o-line against arguably the worst d-line in the entire league.

We saw how the Seahawks were able to run all over Saleh’s defense in Week 18 and I don’t have any good reasons yet why we should expect it to be any different on Saturday. I think Seattle will be able to run against the Niners again.

But when it’s time to dial up some passes to Jaxon Smith-Njigba — which you’d think you definitely have to do sometimes when you have the NFL’s leading receiver — can you trust Sam Darnold to be smart with the football if the heat’s coming around the corner or his first read is covered?

My thing with Saleh is that I don’t have much reason yet to believe he’s a good head coach. Sure I wouldn’t want to coach the Jets either but a head coach has to be responsible for how his team performs IN ALL ASPECTS not just on “his side of the ball” and the Jets were terrible on offense all four seasons under Saleh. TERRIBLE. That is HIS responsibility.

Macdonald’s offense was mediocre for only one season before the Seahawks found a fix. And I mean, the Ryan Grubb/Geno Smith offense was significantly better than anything the Jets ever did under Saleh. You have to be responsible for the whole team and you can’t blame…”the Jets”.

Maybe Saleh will be great at his next stop, I don’t know. I can only go off of the evidence that we have so far and Saleh’s tenure in New York looked more like a good coordinator, not a good head coach. Kubiak’s offense ain’t bad, but he’ll face the same litmus test wherever he goes.

Seaside Joe 2507