Well, that’s what one ESPN wonk articulated after the game. Don’t know which, but the 49ers were suddenly lumped in with Detroit, Cincy, and KC as pretenders in the grand scheme of the NFL hierarchy. I (and many other wonks) called bullshit on that. To go 4-1 on the east coast is a pretty big accomplishment, keeping the game remotely close was pretty good in itself. As it was, Flacco played one of his better games of his career, and our O line, already shorthanded without Bruce Miller, lost Adam Snyder to a hammy injury early in the 1st quarter. Chilo Rachal filled in miserably, as he whiffed on his 1st play, and was the guilty party on the chop block (albiet, it wasn’t really a hit than a stumble) on the 75 yard TD pass to Ted Ginn. The rest was a defensive battle all the way. The Niners had a decent 2 minute drive to close the 1st half negated by a pick. Edwards didn’t do much to get to the ball, or even break up the pick, but it was underthrown besides.
The 49ers tied it on the 1st drive of the 2nd half with a nice drive that used up half the 3rd quarter. Balt responded with a drive that ate up the rest of the 3rd and resulted in a TD. Balt stayed underneath the whole time, and hit on too many 3rd down plays. Whitner missed a stop on 3rd down, and the Niners didn’t get ANY pressure on Flacco as he dinked and dunked, and ran for 6 yard chunks to score the game’s only TD. After that, it was jail-break time as Smith and the Niners couldn’t get any offense going. Until a small drive near the end was killed by a terrible drop by Ginn to end the game.
As the Niners stand now, they are a bit beaten up. Snyder needs to get healthy. That much is obvious. Same with Bruce Miller. The line play was shoddy at best, and it can be attributed to their absense. Our wideouts are hurting as well. Edwards just doesn’t have the speed he showed in the preseason or vs Seattle even. Crabs is doing decent, but Walker was a no-show in Balt. VD? He made a brain-dead mistake in the closing minute by not going OB after getting the 1st down on a swing pass. Stupid stupid stupid. Game awareness, skippy. He proves himself to be clueless by not knowing the situational aspect of where he is and what he should do. For all his talk of beinf great, he’ll never get there with plays like that, or the one last week when he didn’t try to get his feet down before he went out of bounds.
Anyhow, this game was going to be tough, even without the fact the Niners had a 6 hour plane ride, and a very short week to prepare for the game. The interesting thing to see is the next game vs the Rams. How the Niners bounce back from this game is going to tell a lot about the spine of this team. I think they are fine, and this’ll be a blip on the radar.
Forty Niners Forever 
As it stands now, Green Bay and Niners get the byes. So New Orleans and Dallas would have the opening round home games against two of Chicago, Atlanta,New York, Detroit . The only of those playing well is Atlanta, so I’d guess the Boys draw them, and New Orleans gets the survivor among the other three, I’d take Atlanta over the Cowgirls and New Orleans over whoever. That sets up Atlanta/Green Bay and Niners/Saints.I know I’m way ahead of the game but why not? Anybody else?
Oh- we’re fated to go all the way so Atlanta upsets the Pack and we do in the Saints behind three interceptions of Brees. The title game is thus at home and we crush the Falcons behind Smith’s greatest game as a pro. A rematch with the Ravens awaits..
I’ll go light the votive candles…
Fire up a couple for me snarkk
Huh, a good non-call in the Steeler-KC game. It gets to the point you can’t breathe on the WRs.
With that, KC gets a ticky tack holding call on themselves. Can’t grab the jersey.
The Tebow situation is a connundrum, but not that hard for Denver to figure out. He can’t continue to be QB, unless his pass throwing drastically improves. If he did stay at QB with the poor passing, they’d have to draft and sign FAs over the next half decade or more to accommodate his poor passing, and focus on the run and some sort of pro style “option” offense. That makes no sense. FA receivers and backs won’t want to join that type of offense, and the current receivers will probably want to bail. Why would they come, why would they stay? They’re stats would turn to crap, since they would get fewer rushes and very few passes to catch to show their worth for the next contract. Tebow at some point, sooner or later, will have to go, IMO…
Anybody who thinks Elway will dump his 10-1 QB for some pretty boy passer working outta a pro-set with a nice tight spiral Prolly believes the San Francisco 49ers would dump Shawn Hill for Martz’s boy o’sackashit. Yeah THAT would never happen.
Elway will GO before he cuts this winner I’m guessing. (we got a lot of ‘guessers’ around here who won’t admit it).
Love ya but you are just GUESSING my friend
Elway may not like it, but he’s got to do what he can with what he’s got. And that’s Tebow for the foreseeable future. This all may get figured out by other teams, but until they do, Denver has little choice but to ride that horse. With Tebow, they are 5-1. With Orton they are 1-4. Denver might get smoked in the playoffs, or not even reach it, but they haven’t been there since 2005, and Tebow’s the reason they are in the hunt.
That being said, Denver seems to have a little divine help. Denver calls a timeout and SD’s FG attempt is blocked. The next one? Wide right anyway. This was preceded by a 4 yard loss on the 3rd down play to set up the FG. SD got Norved yet again. . .
Well, the defense is more of the reason…
Elway will NEVER build his team around that offense regardless of short term success Tebow will learn the offense Elway wants or he’ll be gone.
I’ll believe my eyes before my lying ears. Eyes = TT 5-1 NFL + winner on EVERY LEVEL. Ears = “trust me, he’s a sack”
Fine, he’s the next Alex. Yeah sure we trust you….uh huh
Denver (under TT and only under TT) has Divine Help?
Yes, true. Much like Harbaugh’s 49ers have ‘just a little’.
Deal with it
Divine Fucking Help? Was that with an “F”? Uh, no divine help there pilgrim.
How ’bout No Win? Got some ‘divine f ing help’? PLEASE….
Did you see Stevie Johnson pretend to shoot himself in the leg after scoring a TD?
Funny, but it cost Buffalo 15 and let to the Jets winning drive. He then dropped a deep pass over the middle near the end of the game to seal Buffalo’s fate.
There’s no question he’ll finish the year with Tebow. But extremely doubtfui he’s the QB next year. For the reasons given above…
there is zero way they build around that offense. Enjoy the gimmick de jour, it ain’t lasting..
It’s patently obvious after today’s loss to the Broncos that the Chargers, Norv Turner, and in particular their kicker, Nick Novak, are pissing the year away…
Wow, NOTHING is beyond the reach of youtube. Either he forgot to hit the urinal at halftime, or sucked down a giant Slurpee on the bench…
Hilarious Del, great comment!
Ok chuck, jmho but “Pissing the year away”? While SD moron pisses in a cup??!!
Pulitzer Prize material!! Get on board man!!
The thing is, what if they reach the playoffs? Good, bad, or indifferent, there will be a lot of people in the orgainzation that won’t want to make a change. It’s very similar to the Niners situation last year. Thank God it didn’t happen, but if Singletary had somehow gotten the 7-9 Niners into the playoffs, do you think Jed pulls the trigger on his axing?
I don’t. Unless we lose like 49-0 in the playoffs.
They’ll try to make him a real QB, once again- it is not feasible to build a team around that offense. Ain’t gonna happen., playoffs or not.
What we don’t know is his capacity to learn and evolve. What we do know is that TT won the Heisman and 2 national championships and has been a winner on every level he has played football. Fact.
No one except the man himself perhaps and God knows his capacity. No one can legitimately say what that is. It’s the same shit they laid on Alex Smith for years. I’ll believe my eyes not my lying ears.
And you know this how?
GUESSER, that’s you my friend. FACT: YOU do not determine the fate of ANYONE on planet earth my friend. FACT: you do not Know what will be the fate of TT or ANYONE else including yourself, jackson. What is YOUR fate? Tell us…
Since you do not have any power over TT, the NFL or any situation on the fucking planet we should swallow your ‘opinions’ (Many many opinions) WHY?
Look twinfan, you make big shit out of knocking “”””DTD””” for his whatever. No, joking death threats are not funny but PLEASE! (just vote the MF O’boma outta office already, IMHO, fuck)
I liked you better when you looked kindly on my friend Del mar. It is not in our hands totally!!
Please? Okay then….
Naw no clue on HIS FATE but gonna pronounce much on OTHERS. Right…
please!
Wow. KC has a shot here to beat KC. Hell of a job by KC’s defense.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand Palko throws a pick.
Criminy, the WR jumps for the ball, but doesn’t raise his hands to eve try for the ball. Ouch.
Philly’s dream is now a full-blown nightmare. 4-7 and infighting with Morningweg and Reid. DSJ benched. The $100 million man misses another game.
It’s sorta like San Diego’s situation. They had a good run but were never good enough to win it all. Now I’ll be very surprised if it’s not back to the drawing boards for both.
No tears…
Anytime Philly Phans are suffering, I tend to laugh a little. Don’t know why, but– maybe because they deserve it?. If Reid is fired, he’ll have half a dozen teams at his doorstep offering him even more cash to coach them…
At least one Bronco is no Tebow fan- McGahee. He was obviously fed up with Tebow being the only one to have won these games. Repeatedly he said there were 52 guys who win, and also a defense that won them.. he was repetitive and NOT happy. Keep in mind that he’s dead on and that he made the key plays in least two of the wins, not Tebow. That would his big run today and also his performance in the Raider game. I haven’t seen all of Tebow’s interviews after the games but he rarely mention teammates by name- it’s “these guys, “those guys”, not much of “Willis”, “Decker”, etc. If he has, it’s either extremely rare, or I’m missing it.
I guess he’s not a saint. But no one is. Point is we can all improve whether it’s our characters or our passing.
But thanks for keeping me up to date on Tebow news Over here the USA barely exists, nevermind the NFL or individual players.
Phil- i don’t give a shit if you believe or it or not but John Elway is not building his team around that offense. Do I know this? Yes, because I have a fucking brain.The spread option is NOT the spread. Unlike with Alex, by the way, the haters are the “Christians” who hurl obscenities at Elway and accuse those who don’t buy into Tebow-mania of being the haters. For Tebow to have a future in Denver he will need to learn to be a real QB.
My whole point is Denver is in a world of weirdness right about now. They are forced to ride Tebow as-is right now. They ARE making headway to the playoffs, and could win the AFC West if (when) the Raiders falter. Yes, they are winning with defense, and just enough offense. But it was something Ortron wasn’t doing. 98 out of 100 football people will tell you Ortron is better than Tebow. The results speak different. I’m just perplexed by it. As of now, the Broncos win the west if they tie with the Raiders due to a better division and conference record. Denver has a harder remaining schedule though.
This is a bit like the Steve Young deal. Young was a decent enough passer when he came here, but the prevailing sentiment was that he was a runner. Yeah, Denver will work with him this offseason to see if they can get him closer to a pro-style QB, but it was obvious that Denver had no intention of playing Tebow this year. It all just fell into place.
MacGehee can piss and moan all he wants about the QB, but he may piss and moan all the way to the playoffs. Something is happening in that locker room, and they might as well ride it til it breaks. Tebow must have some people in there believing. And by no means does religion play into any of this. Sure, the believers and whatnot will read more into this than it deserves. God does not care who wins or loses football games. If he does, then what a jive-ass God we got . . .
LOL, exactly
Where religion plays a part is in the fanatical zeal of the Tebowites and their hatred for Elway because he won’t anoint Tebow as the second coming… MacGehee very properly pointed out that this is NOT all all about Tebow, and you can bet your ass he’s not alone in his sentiment. When this falls apart, as it surely will, we’ll hear from many pissed off “teammates”. That’s in quotes because Tebow has shown his dedication to self when he earlier bitched that the failure to trade Orton had deprived him of his dream to be a starting NFL QB.
But anyway, and again, if you think Elway will build his team around that offense, you’re a fucking idiot. Tebow will learn and show he can run the offense Elway wants him to or he’s out.
At what point are zealots reasonable? Come on, Mike. You know better than that. Don’t be a fucking moron. Have you ever been to Denver? Football is pretty much a religion to the folks there. Given the gun-toting God-fearing wild west town Denverites consider themselves to be, you throw in Tebow to the mix, and you ratchet up the zealotry to another level. The fans now view Elway as someone from their sordid past. Elway’s God-hood status be damned. Tebow is the new religion.
If Tebow wins out as -is, and, say, wins a playoff game, then Elway will be forced to adjust SOMEWHAT to what he has. He’ll work with Tebow yadda yadda yadda, but in the end, to think they’ll shit-can the QB that gets them over their 5 year playoff drought is ludicrous. Elway may not like it, and their front office might crack under the pressure of possibly trading The Chosen One to the hell of Miami, but they’ll have some unpleasant shit to deal with this offseason.
Funny thing is, the refs seem to be dealing with Tebow the same way they do with Vick. He’s so mobile that he ‘deserves’ the borderline shots that he routinely gets.
Sounds you’re drinking the Kool-Aid too, Chuckles. I don’t usually like that reference but his fans are more remindful of a cult than actual sports fans. As far as the playoffs, well- getting there might give him a chance to learn the offense that Elway chooses but won’t do a fucking thing toward furthering the idiotic notion that Elway would build his team around the Gator offense.
And it’s bullshit that he gets poor treeatment from the refs- run like a running back and he gets hits like a running back. He wants the benefit that a sliding QB gets but without sliding. Fuck both those pussies.
I could give a fuck either way. Twin. Just yer stance is as the anti-Tebow is funny. You just seem hell-bent on him failing. Your hatred clouds your judgement. Nowhere do I say Elway would turn Denver into an option offense. Nor is it a good idea.
So, if Tebow gets Denver into the playoffs and wins a game, you think Elway trades him after the season? Not a chance in purgatory OR hell.
And if you think the refs wouldn’t throw a flag on hits that Tebow/Vick get if it involved Brady or Manning, yer crazy. The refs know who to protect and who not to.
The same for Orton? Well, not quite. The defense was much worse earlier in the year. Even Jesus was unable to overcome the 45 points the defense gave up in his second start. During the 4 game streak they’ve given up 15 points per game, a far cry from the 28 per game when Orton started. Even a Tebbie can’t attribute the huge diff to the savior’s arrival..Offensively, the team has scored 116 points in Tebow’s starts. 19.3 per game. In Orton’s: 105 or 21 per start.
Tebow mania or not, how many NFL QBs, starters and reserves, would Elway take over Tebow?
A. 25
B. 30
C. 35
Excuse me, but why the fuck are we even wasting bandwidth talking about Tebow?
He is not a 49er.
His team is not on our schedule. In fact, we won’t be seeing them until 2014.
I rather doubt he’ll still be the flavor of the week then. Little better chance than Nate Davis, little worse than Scott Tolzien, IMHO.
I’m more concerned about the NFC West, Pittsburgh, and playoff seeding at this point.
Rams lost to AZ at home? Really? Holy fuck. That’s awesome. Way to go, McDaniels. Coach of the Year candidate, right there. Not.
Yeah, a certain guy that used to hang around here was all over how wonderful McDaniels was. My take on Josh was he singlehandedly destroyed the Broncos, and would likely end up doing the same thing to the Rams.
Since I hate both those teams, it’s a good thing!
Tebow? Man this not about the Bronks 5-1 Qb!
It’s about this: Who gets to impose their opinion on chucks’ blog!!
Lucky for us old chuck puts up with 10 tons of our shit!
That my friend is NO SHIT..
And your candidates for team flop of the year are:
4. KC
Last year’s darling, this year’s roadkill. Another team finds out you cannot win without a QB.
3. SD
Every year, they’re supposed to be in the SuperBowl hunt. Recently, they seem to be in the crapper. Norv Turner is already playing “Leaving on a Jetplane” as he packs his bags.
2. STL
The Young and Rising team in the NFC West? Oh, that is so 2010. McDaniels is another Turner: a decent OC who should never be a Head Coach. The Peter Principle at work.
1. PHILLY
Admit it, it’s like a train wreck, you can’t look away. Personally, I can’t stop laughing, either. The Dream Team is looking a little Freddie Krueger these days. Call it Karma Is A Bitch, for signing Michael Vick. I actually feel sorry for Reid, though: his family life is the shits, and he goes to work, for THIS? Fuck.
Grump, the J-E-T-S are pretty close to making that list. Another perennial shoulda coulda woulda, these guys are inconsistent as hell, and Mark Sanchize is doing his best Richard Todd impression. Their ‘vaunted’ defense is 17th in points allowed, and 16th vs the run.
Reid? Yeah, what a clusterfuck he’s living in. This has to be the diarrhea icing on the shit-cake of life . . . He’s in the inenviable position Mike Singletary was in last year. Will he make it to the end of the season? Or will he just get jettisoned?
Mark Sanchez is in the same boat as Smith was last year, HC and the OC don’t trust him to win games. The Jets are just an average team really. Pretty vanilla on Offense.
Sanchez isn’t reaslly progressing to where he should be. His decision making isn’t all that.
56% completion rate? 18/11 TDs to picks? I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the Jets, but yeah their offense looks suspisciously like a certain hat-wearing guy that used to haunt 4949 Centennial Blvd.