And all is right on the East Coast. Yes the season was a huge success for the San Francisco 49ers, but it was still a huge let-down for me, as I know the 49ers would have more than likely beaten the Patriots. It’s a big disappointment to come so close and get jilted at the front door, but the good news is the team is definitely pointed in the right direction. A year ago today was a time of major uncertainty around the team, and the NFL in general. The lockout was in full force, and the previous coaching staff’s stench was still lingering at 4949 Centennial Blvd.
As the situation stands now, the front office actually appears to be plodding along nicely. There haven’t been too many coaches gutted from the staff after this watershed season, Baalke has a very successful draft under his belt, and Coach of the Year Jim Harbaugh has the players hungry and wanting more. However, the front office has a lot to do around the 19 FAs we currently need to deal with.
The free agency gate opens on Tuesday March 13th, and the NFL draft is Thursday April 26th and Friday April 27th. Prime time. God know why . . . So, with a normal offseason staring the team in the face, they can address their needs in the correct order. Last year, the Niners were hamstrung because the FA period was after the draft, so they decided to stick with Alex Smith. A wildly unpopular decision at the time, which happened to pay off in spades, when Smith nearly led the team to the Super Bowl. A full offseason, camp and preseason should get this team in better shape offensively, as long as they do something about the WRs. I expect the team to focus on O line depth, WRs, Safeties, and OLB depth in the draft and the FA signing period.
And, someone actually bet on this, and won big . . .
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
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I enjoyed the game.
I have to assume that the gambler who won the 50K also bet $1000 on NE to score a safety, too. Why would you just make that bet on only one team?
I’d imagine he bet a grand on each team scoring a TD and a FG first. 6 bets, a grand a piece, and he wins $44,000. Not too shabby.
About the 6 or 7th best team won. If it wasn’t NY they be bitching as much as if Seattle had won last year. You know it’s a fluke when about 10 of what should have been turnovers bounced their way or were dropped.
Agreed. the Giants got unbelievably lucky that none of those fumbles got recovered and that the two burned TO’s didn’t come back to bite them in the ass…..
Yeah, I said it before the game that the Giants had more than their share of lucky bounces these last few weeks. The fumble NE recovered with 12 men on the field was real bad. That would have negated the 1st TD. Ouch.
As said before- these teams got in on mistakes by two scub-weinies and a keeker.
Giselle responding to NYG fans taunting her at the airport: “My husband can not f****ing throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time,” she said, according to insider.com. “I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.” Pretty accurate assessment, I’d say. And, that excludes the Welker drop. That was a tough grab, awkward position he was in, he doesn’t deserve the crap he’s getting. The Niners should snap him up with a good offer…
Welker doesn’t need someone else to tell him whether he should have caught that.
He knows. They did come up small in the end. the 1st drop on that drive would have been about a 30+ yard gain. He was wide open with no one around him.
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I’d take Welker in a second. Go tell Jed to get on the horn.
The game did nothing to help the pain of the Niners losing to the Giants. Niners D would have decked Brady more often, and throttled them to 14 or less. Niners would have won that game. I don’t see how a team with that many faults got out of the AFC to the Super Bowl, other than a cush schedule facing only 2 teams with above .500 records. If Brady’s not the QB, they’re 8-8…
What I can’t figure out is why NE didn’t go deep at all. The only time they did was on the scramble play to Gronk deep that got picked off.
Brady ALWAYS had the “Checkdown Charlie” rep, he’s just had guys to get the YAC. Some call him “Admiral Checkdown”.Nothing wrong with that if it works, but they don’t go deep because he’s not good at it.
Brady in 2011 among NFL QBs:
#1 for completions over 20 yards with 71.
#2 in yards per attempted pass.
#3 for completions over 40 yards at 14.
http://tinyurl.com/7p39s4w
My point at the Flap today was that I didn’t understand why the announcers were jizzin’ on Brady’s *epic* performance. The ESPN radio guy I was listening to, during the 14 completions in a row, called it *maybe his best career performance*. I’m like, huh? He’s checking everything down, who COULDN’T make those throws?
He did get fucked at the end of the game with 4 of last 5 passes dropped……
That counts YAC.
For instance, in game 1, he hit Welker at his own 18 and Wes went 81 more yards to complete the 99 yard TD. They led the league in YAC with 2483 after 15 games, highest total since the stat became official in 1992..
http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-30/sports/30573857_1_welker-kevin-faulk-patriots
Again, it’s not neccessarily an indictment, obviously he’s putting the ball where the guys are in postion for the YAC. But fact remains, he’s not an effective deep passer.
Between Monte Poole and Tim Kawakami, I’m not sure who flings more shit at the Mercury. Before the New Orleans game, Poole wrote an article about how the Niners weren’t ready for prime time and that NEW Orleans was going to dismantle us. Then before the SB he writes an article saying that if Brady wins he will be a more accomplished QB than Montana and listed off a bunch of very subjective reasons why. Oops. Now he’s 3-2 in Super Bowls while Joe shines above at 4-0
Kawakami is a known shit disturber and a lost cause. That’s his schtick. Poole should try either having some predictions actually pan out or wait till something happens before he talks shit about it……..
Kawakami picked T- Blow as his QB over Smith when asked on Comcast before the New Orleans game.
BTW, before yesterday Brady’s postseason QBR was 85.7. Montana’s was 95.6.
The only SB numbers about Montana that matter are 4 wins, 0 losses, 0 INTs in 4 games. “Tom Terrific” is not even close.
Obviously Brady isn’t close.
2011 Total Receiving Yards Before YAC = Total Receiving Yards Less YAC
http://hosted.stats.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?year=&type=Receiving&range=NFL&rank=054
Top 10 Teams
Team Total Receiving Yards Less YAC (TRYLYAC rank per reception)
Saints 2971 (9)
Giants 2758 (1)
Packers 2751 (3)
Lions 2668 (8)
Pats 2551 (7)
Falcons 2505 (4)
Chargers 2464 (6)
Eagles 2445 (2)
Cowboys 2412 (10)
Steelers 2412 (5)
So what? He threw the ball over 600 times. Being 7th is hardly good, dude.
So he was third in the league in attempted passes, 1st in YAC, 7th in receiving yards after YAC. Again- it’s not an impressive number.
I don’t know what you want to prove, he’s a good QB, and a very good checkdown artist…
7th out of 30 teams is pretty “effective” at pre-YAC, hardly “Checkdown Charlie”…
That’s 7th BEFORE YAC, so he’s NOT just throwing short dump offs. There’s plenty of QBs doing more of that than he is…
The YAC confirn he’s actually General Checkdown…7th when he’s thrown the ball over 600 times? Yep, Admiral Checkdown..
If you don’t understand stats, don’t use ’em. Again, if he’s thrown the ball over 600 times ,third in the league, being 7th in yards less YAC is just not that a good a number. You want to ignore attempts as if they have no bearing on it.
In “air yards” he is 13th. Alex is 23th, so this is hardly about him.
http://www.advancednflstats.com/2012/01/air-yards-2011.html
It just shows that Brady is hardly an impressive deep thrower. Better than Alex, worse than, oh, Matt Moore.
Good Night, Snarkk.
I was talking about his 6.4 Y/A (or whatever it was I don’t have it in front of me) from the SB. That’s low, super low, hardly *epic* as the idiot ESPN guys were saying. Brady and Eli had pretty pedestrian games yesterday, despite their passer ratings.
Test
Who does throw long consistently much anymore? Didn’t that all change with Walsh bringing in the West Coast O? Brady did go long more when he had Moss.
I tell ya one thing, Eli and the fade pass was a pretty good combo for them all year. It worked in the game the Niners won, a couple times, and it paid off in spades in the SB.
Just shows what good WRs can do for you.
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