49ers Insider Matt Maiocco: Niners Embrace the Challenge of Rams & Seahawks

The best story about how the 49ers are approaching this NFC West arms race did not come from a player. It came from a John Wooden book and a very human reaction to breaking news.

Matt Maiocco laid it out on the show. Every offseason, John Lynch reads John Wooden. One line has stuck with him: do not spend any time losing sleep over the opposition, make the opposition lose sleep thinking about you.

Lynch decided to share that with Kyle Shanahan. Timing is everything.

"As he was doing it, on the TV it popped on that the Rams had just pulled off that trade for Myles Garrett," Maiocco said.

Shanahan's response, delivered to the Wizard of Westwood by way of his general manager, was two words long and unprintable in full. The first was an F. The second was John Wooden.

Rich could barely get through it. The comic timing of a motivational quote landing at the exact moment a division rival adds Garrett is the kind of thing you cannot script.

But underneath the joke is the actual question, which is what San Francisco thinks it is walking into. The Rams have Garrett. The Rams may soon have more than that.

Asked whether the 49ers players and front office believe Aaron Donald is coming back, Maiocco did not hedge.

"Yeah, I think so. I think everybody kind of feels that, right?"

And the vibe inside the building, as Maiocco reads it, is not dread.

"I think that they feel like just, you know, bring it on."

Which fits, because the roster Maiocco described is not one that flinches. Fred Warner is back. So is Dre Greenlaw. Maiocco said you can feel it in practice, where the intensity has ramped up to another level.

Then he ran the list, and the list is the argument. Brock Purdy. Christian McCaffrey. George Kittle. Trent Williams. Nick Bosa. Fred Warner. Dre Greenlaw.

Rich threw Mike Evans onto the pile for good measure.

The one asterisk Maiocco acknowledged was McCaffrey's age. He is 30. Maiocco also knows exactly how McCaffrey is going to handle that conversation, which is by treating it as a slight and daring people to keep bringing it up. Watch me do what I've always done.

Rich pressed on the expectation level, because that is the real story here. The division was won by the defending Super Bowl champions, and it was not the Rams. Now Los Angeles is stacking pass rushers anyway.

Maiocco's answer was the only honest one available.

"I don't think you can go into a season with all those players I mentioned and not have the highest possible expectations," he said. "You don't have all those guys thinking, ah, let's just have a good year. No, you're going to win it all."

That is not bravado. That is just what a roster like that obligates you to say out loud. The Rams can make all the noise they want. San Francisco's answer is a healthy Warner, a healthy Greenlaw, and a coach who told John Wooden where to go.