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Not everything about former San Francisco 49ers tight end Vance McDonald was bad. He was a decent blocker and when he got moving, things got out of his way or they got leveled. He also made some pretty impressive catches during his short career with the 49ers.
But he also had some of the most frustrating and agonizing drops of any player I’ve seen. McDonald would pull down an impressive catch and then he’d rumble for 20 yards, running over a linebacker in the process. And other times his hands would turn to stone and seemingly actively repel the football.
McDonald’s drops were some of the most frustrating things about the 49ers over the past couple seasons. And thinking about that and how divisive McDonald was here on Niners Nation, I thought about some other recent issues.
Ahmad Brooks’ maddening capacity to go offsides at the worst possible moment came to mind, as did 49ers quarterbacks’ propensity to have balls batted down at the line of scrimmage. Dashon Goldson used to drive us mad when he’d launch himself missile-like into his own teammates while going for an interception.
Well, the 49ers now don’t have McDonald, don’t have Brooks and have moved on from the two quarterbacks who had those issues in the past. Goldson hasn’t been around in some time. There are surely more frustrating things to come, and frustrating players on top of that, but how many are there now? Naturally, as a community, we’ll pick on a player or two for one glaring flaw, but McDonald was that player for so long.
So who is it next?
We’re looking for things that are frustrating as opposed to players who are just terrible. Chilo Rachal wouldn’t qualify for actually putting quarterbacks’ lives at risk because, you know, that’s a very serious problem. Who is the next Vance McDonald of Niners Nation? Weigh in on it in the comments.