Consider former NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson among those blown away by the 49ers.
San Francisco’s effort in all facets of the game during its big Thanksgiving win over the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday at Lumen Field left Johnson awestruck, and reminded him of another Bay Area team from the past that also seemed too talented to be true.
“Forget stats, forget what the 49ers did today as a whole as far as the game’s concerned,” Johnson told Shannon Sharpe on Thursday during the latest “Nightcap with Unc & Ocho” episode. “The 49ers team collectively is almost unfair when everybody is healthy. Deebo [Samuel], [Brandon] Aiyuk, Trent Williams, then on defense, that secondary? [Charvarius] Ward — they had everybody in goddamn clamps.
“And in comparison for me, I’m not even a basketball fan, but I remember hearing all the gripes … Let’s say in comparison to the Golden State Warriors when they had Kevin Durant, where it was almost unfair, obviously, now from an offensive standpoint, but also the defense is just as good.”
After the Warriors lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the seven-game 2016 NBA Finals series, falling just short of back-to-back championships, Golden State enlisted the help of the former MVP Durant to pair with superstar Steph Curry and dominated en route to the team’s second title in three years the next season.
The 2017 NBA champion Warriors seemed unstoppable, earning the ire of non-Warriors fans, and the “Super Team” won another Larry O’Brien Trophy with Durant in 2018 as well.
It’s clear Johnson sees much of the same in the 2023 49ers, minus the rings. The franchise’s sixth Super Bowl victory has eluded coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch multiple times since they took over in 2017, and the duo has spared no expense in building a team stacked with stars around talented young quarterback Brock Purdy.
So far, it has yet to pay off. But Johnson believes this has to be San Francisco’s year.
“When I think about the 49ers, every team in the NFL has an identity, i.e., the offense is great or your defense is great,” Johnson continued. “It’s never both. But when it comes to the goddamn 49ers on both sides of the ball, they’re equally as yoked, and it’s almost unfair.
“If they don’t win the Super Bowl this year, then something is wrong.”
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