The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Tracy Sandler of Fangirl Sports Network

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

Tracy Sandler of Fangirl Sports Network

Those cheese. Exclusive coverage, interviews, and a ton of hype. The Super Bowl. This is Sports Talk 790, live from Miami, presented by Low T-Center and Twin Peaks. Back to the Super Bowl again. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show here on a Sports Talk 790. Ross V. Real live with you from Radio Row in beautiful Miami here. And now joined by Tracy Sandler.

You can find her on Twitter at 49. fan girl, the founder and CEO of the founders, Fang Girl Sports Network, also covers the 49ers. Tracy, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. How are you? Yeah, get, there we go. I'm good. I'm good. I got no complaints. So, first Super Bowl for the Niners since 2012.

You've been a 49ers fan since, as long as you can remember. Are you from San Francisco? I'm not. I'm from Los Angeles. It was very controversial. But when I was really young, I fell in love with Joe Montana. Okay. And the rest is history. Here we are.

Here we are. I've been successful. I mean, obviously, talk to me about, first of all, just the ascent with, I mean, there were some dark times there. There were some dark times. Between when Harbaugh left and then now with Kyle Shanahan. What is it that separates Kyle Shanahan apart from other head coaches? And how does he have the 49ers in the Super Bowl? Well, I think, first of all, his football acumen is just unparalleled.

He's incredible. Obviously, he's been around football since he was also as long as he can remember. remember this father, Mike Shanahan. But he is such an incredibly, he's such an incredible offensive mind. But something that some of the players talked about this week that is so true is he also obviously really understands a defense. And so you can't be an offensive genius really without also being a defensive genius in some way. So I just think his ability to scheme and create ways for his players to be successful.

And clearly, as we've seen over the last several years, the way that he and John Lynch built this football team and did it with a vision, with a plan, with patience, clearly has paid off pretty quickly. Well, Tracy, if we're going to talk about the nineer success, you guys need to give thanks to the Houston Texans first, because basically half the darn coaching staff are guys who were once on the Texans coaching staff from Kyle Shanahan to Robert Sala to, I mean, literally a majority of the coaching staff were once Houston, Texas. So you're welcome. Thank you very, very much. I'm sorry that it hasn't really translated, but I will say to you guys, You guys probably don't know us about me.

I am a huge Dishon Watson fan. Oh, really? I love Dishon Watch. And we have a weekly podcast called Fan Girl Playbook, and we can talk about my love for Dishon Watson every week. I just want you to know that. He's easy to root for. He's likeable guys.

He's religious. Like, he's everything you'd want in a quarterback. It's just our head coach. We've got to do something about it. He's the one who's kind of failing us. We were up 24. I was ready to be here. Tracy to have a Texans 49ers Super Bowl and we blew a 24-0 league.

That was unfortunate and surprising. I was watching that game and I was like, well, it's 24-0-0. I'm going to go get a couple of things done. I went to the other room. I think I was gone maybe 10 minutes and I came back and I was like, wait, what happened? Like what just happened here? So I'm sorry, guys. But better luck next year.

People have been saying that to me for years and it's working. So better luck next year, guys. It's amazing when I look at this 49ers team and I mean, obviously look, like you said, they stunk for a while. And when you stink for a while, you end up with first round picks, high first round picks. And that defensive line, I mean, you look at it, Eric Armstrongstead, DeForest Bagner, Nick Bosa, Solomon Thomas. I mean, these are all their-de-for, D-4. Well, he wasn't drafted by the line.

Right, but all these guys were their first-round picks. And, like, I guess that's how you build a Super Bowl contender by getting a ton of first-round picks and putting them all on the D-line. Well, we talked to Jimmy Groplow a couple of weeks ago, and someone had said to him, well, we've talked him a lot, but somebody had said to him a couple weeks ago, you tore your ACL, so you ended up with the number two pick and you get Nick Bosa, and he said, I guess that's kind of the silver lining and everything happens to reason, because I don't think this team is here today without Nick Bosa.

Yeah, and that's the interesting thing. And first of all, let's go. You were talking about Jimmy Garrappa. Let's go on that angle first, because obviously a lot of the hype, and rightfully so has been on the side of the Chief's offense with Patrick Mahomes. So just tell us your perspective. What are the people who, I mean, we've seen Jimmy Garraub, We know who he is. What makes him special?

And how huge of a presence has he been for this Niners team? Well, I'll start with how he's your presence. He's been an incredible presence. His teammates, love him. He's an excellent leader. And he knows how to win football games. I mean, you could say, well, he only threw eight passes in the last game. Look at his record.

And in his first full year as a starter, his team is in the Super Bowl, and that is in a huge part to Jimmy Garoppolo. And what this team has is a lot of unselfish players who just want to win games. So you have situations with like Nick Bosa, Kyle Uzchak who are blocking in the run game and being okay with the weeks that that's their priority. You have a quarterback who doesn't need to throw a ton. He wants to win. And if the running game's working, great, the running games working.

But Jimmy Gropolo can win football games. We've seen him do it all season long. When he has to, he can 100% do it. So I have complete confidence in that. It's interesting because us in sports radio, I think we're allowed to be fans. I think, you know, to a certain point, some journalist you can be a fan of a team. And I think as long as you're outright and admit that, I think it's fine. But what you're going to be to watch in the Super Bowl,

are you going to be covering the Super Bowl? Are you going to be just being a fan? There's no cheering in the press box. What are you doing on Super Bowl Sunday? Well, I'll be in the press box. I'll be in the Press Box. With your hands tied behind your back. But you know, at this point I'm used to it.

I've been credentialed by the Niners the last several years. So I am used to it now. I'm 49ers fan girl. It's not a shock that I'm a Fortinanders fan. But what I always say, you know, don't wear team gear in the press box. I'm professional in press conference and professional at press box and professional in the locker room. I am a fan of the team, but I've managed to learn how to be a fan but still be a professional journalist at the same time.

Well, I always say, like the people who cover a team, like the TV people who cover the Texans, they want the Texans to win, right? Like you want the team to do well. You kind of have a vested interest. So a lot of people cover the team kind of our fan. Now, the writers are a little bit more, hey, I'm neutral. and that's what I'm talking like the newspaper columnist and those kind of people but I think from blogs to radio people I think it's fine to me anytime I'm in a press so I'm from Houston I'm a huge Astros Rockets

fan so like when I'm in there for the playoffs in the World Series and you get shit what do you what do you guys just like that's a grunt or try not to make any sudden movements yeah you just kind of learn you know what I think one of the great things about like Twitter and social media is that I can tweet out my feelings so I have I have an outlet that I can share what I'm thinking. And again, I'm 49ers fangirl, so it's like not a big shock. You are 49ers fan girl, Tracy Sandler, with the Fangirl Sports Network.

So tell us more about that. So Fan Girl Sports Network, it's a digital media platform of all women covering professional sports. And we have a fan girl for every NFL and NBA team, though as a brand we do cover really kind of everything that's going on in the world of sports. And we say that all of our content inspires, informs, and makes you laugh. and we give a little bit more of a female perspective to our inspiring content, our humorous content, and create things with a little bit more of a female lens on them. So who do we have locally here in Houston?

Do you know our, you said you are Texans fan girl? We have a Rockets one as well? Yes, and it's actually the same person. Sometimes it is the same person, and her name is Aria Rich. You can find her at Texans FGSN and you can find her at Rockets FGS. There you go. Fan Girl Sports Network, Trace, before we get you out, what's going to happen?

I think I know who you're going to pick. Yeah, I don't want to shock you. anybody but I am going to pick the four-n-hires I do think it's going to be a really hard fought game and it could easily go either way and I think it's to be close the score I'm going with though my caveat is I'm terrible at score predictions and I mean awful but 31 28 San Francisco 31 28 let's think that's gonna be an over and a cover by the 49ers there well there you go I'm not even good at that I didn't even know that's better what was last year 13 to 3 oh the last year was one of the worst Super Bowls we've had

but a great defensive matchup but Nobody wants to see that in Super Bowl. 31 and 28 is much more fun. There's a reason they made all the rules against the defensive players. All right, that is Tracy Sandler of Fangirl Sports Network. You can find her on Twitter at 49ers Fan Girl. Tracy, thank you so much for the time. Thank you for having me.

All right. I'm going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790, broadcasting live from Radio Roe. Ross Villarreal, Matt in Miami. Matt Thomas back in Houston. We'll be back with you in a minute.