Well, preseason game one of season 2 is in the books. Yes, the Vikings are fairly hapless. Yes, it’s preseason, but you had to like what you saw out there. If you like running, that is. What I really liked, besides Brandon Jacobs pounding out some tough inside yards, was the formations the niners were running out of. Yes, they ran out of a lot of 2 TE sets, but the Niners showed 3 WR sets, and ran successfully out of them as well. They ran out of the shotgun. And they ran with authority. Jacobs broke off a nice 28 yard run early. Hunter and LaMichael James had some strong runs as well. The only drive Smith was out there was a 7+ minute grind-it-out deal sealed by a TD on a nice touch pass to Swett Brain. He made a nice little adjustment as well on the pass. Soft shell Crabs had his usual 3 yard out. Moss played a little and had no passes thrown his way. Manningham (along with Frank Gore and Justin Smith) didn’t play at all. Cappy Kaepernick made a big impact on anopther nice little wrinkle. No-huddle. On 2nd down, Kappy made a nice fake handoff to Hunter, which the entire Minn defense bit on, and had pretty much clear sailing once he broke the line of scrimmage. A nice stiff-arm (dude has LOOONG arms) 50 yards downfield got him into the end zone. Cappy also had a nice little FG drive to close the scoring in the 1st half.
The defense as a whole played well, except for the opening drive where Carlos Rogers got beat deep. that happens, but the bigger issue to me is that the FS was nowhere to be seen. Goldson has to be much more aware of where he is supposed to be on the field. He’s deep coverage. He can’t bite on fakes. He should trust the guys in front of him to make plays, and stay in his deep coverage. Other than that, the D looked fine against Christian Ponder. They had more problems keeping Webb in containment, but no damage was done.
Overall good game, however, the injury to Aldon Smith is worrisome, no matter how positively Harbaugh spins it. He says hip bruise, but we’ll see. Smith tweeted he was fine, but I’m pretty sure he won’t see any more preseason action. The hope is he’s ready to go for Green Bay. Another problem that I foresee is the issue with the ground and pound aspect of this offense. As per last year, there was not much of a deep passing game. At least early on. If this style continues, I can’t see how guys like Moiss and Manningham get motivated to play this style of jumbo packages, heavy runs, and TE passes. Yeah, it’s only one not-real game, but Moss has shown his entire career that he can get bored easily and become a disruption.
I’m not raising any red flags yet, but I sure hope that we see more from the passing game as we move down the practice games. It’s not even that they have to heave the shit out of the ball. Just show me you CAN hit a 25 yard crossing route. Hit a deep seam with someone other than VD. Go deep with Moss. You have to like how the run blocking looked. That is usually the hardest thing to get synchronized. We killed in spades on Friday. Now let’s try some intermediate to deep routes where the blocking has to hold the rush for 4 seconds.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
Huh. Wordperess is doing wierd shit again. If I deleted any posts, sorry. It triple posted the new thread again.
Wordshit is just that. BLEEP SHIT!
The passing game will get its chance. Harbaugh does not want to show much until the regular season starts. Plus, it was the Vikings.
From our success running, I can only surmise that Mike Singleneuron continues on his path to be the Greatest Knucklehead Waste of Oxygen Linebacker Coach in NFL history.
Yeah, I figured there would be about 15 cutaways to Aluminum Mike, but I may have fast-forwarded through them. Greatest coach of all time? Good luck with that, Mike.
Glad he’s with the Vikings.
Really, really glad he’s with the Vikings……
I thought we looked decent in that game. Not season ready but cohesive. Some easy drops, Goldson and Carlos screwed up on the same play and we got burned, happened during the season last year too.
Not sure but it seems like Goldson is always looking for the huge hit or pick, highlight reel stuff rather than letting the game come to him. He has good range and hits like a LB too, but he should play within the system and not get greedy.
Yeah, the run blocking was great. Pass pro should come around.
Goldson ALWAYS cheats/bites on the run fake. He HAS to stay in place. He’s SUPPOSED to be the help for Rogers deep. He’s rarely there. Rogers is a above average CB, but he can’t be there every time. Goldson’s job (to lose) is for that very reason. Rogers doesn’t catch a break on this, because he WAS burned, but the team element comes into play. If Goldson is playing where he should be, instead of jumping the run, he gets the pick/break up.
Ok I must still be in my honeymoon period with you Chuck cause we seem to be agreeing on most everything posted.
I agree about Cartwright/Dixon, much more utility and what looks light decent RB ability to boot. Can’t see em keeping Dixon but he should catch on somewhere.
Chad Johnson, T.O., Randy freakin Moss, Plax Burris, Braylon Edwards all on their last chance or done. Lots of ego’s heading off into the sunset soon.
Ha ha. No kidding. The only real problem I see is the downfield passing. The lack of that always seems to bite this team in the ass. Whether early in the season as it did with Tweedle Nolan and Tweedle Tary, or late in the playoffs with Harbaugh last season, the non-existence of WRs made it difficult to sustain drives. I think Jacobs is a big help there, but the only deep weapon these past few years has been VD. He CAN be shut down at times. Having SOMEONE else to go to is imperative. And these goddamn motherfucking 3 yard slants have GOT TO GO. Crabs got that one, and my thought it FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!! It rarely works! UNLESS they can run someone else (Moss) deep, this shit doesn’t work.
I love the running out of the 3 wide formations and out of the gun, but they really have to develop a more sophisticated passing attack. Sure, they can run these guys in and out of the games, but at some point, Smith is going to have to trust that they get open, the line has to block for 4+ seconds, and the NIiners NEED to get the ball downfield. I like grind-it-out drives, but to use that all the time means a lot of stalled drives. Get a fucking 17 point lead, THEN go into ground and pound.
I really like Harbaugh, but I see some similarities in the dealing with Alex. He really isn’t asked to do all that much. Things progressed last year, they got better, yeah, I get it. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but at some point they really have to let him air it out. And, like I’ve been saying, not all the time. But SOME. Like Minn did. 1st play? Bomb. Philly used to do that ALL THE TIME. Especially agaiinst the Niners. It worked nearly every time.
Weird cause that’s pretty much what I’m seeing too. You can’t be a one trick pony. We got away with it last year because ST and D and turnover ratios, likely hood of a repeat of that = 0
It seems they have been afraid to let Smith do too much, my fear is that its for a good reason they reign him in, meaning if they take off the training wheels he falls on his face. Something about his body language in the last game shows confidence now. If he has early success who knows what can happen. I just feel we need to risk it a bit more and see what he really has got.
A flea flicker would be a good gimmick play for Alex since every team has to respect our run game, anyone got Roman’s number?
Any ‘opening up’ of the offense won’t happen before Green Bay at earliest.
Harbaugh is no more likely to show his cards in August than the Pentagon is to publish all their war plans. Fucker may be even MORE secretive.
Yup
Grumpy, real playbook stuff won’t see the light of day before GB just as you say, but they showed lots of formations and put the league on notice that when Kap is in they have to put a spy on him, taking the pressure off the receivers to a degree.
They could easily use some vanilla downfield plays without tipping their hand.
My worry about the GB game is they still won’t open up the offense and we use grind it out ball for 58 mins that Rogers can demolish in 2 mins.
Or not.
Yep we really need to make them think a little and grab a lead. Didn’t we learn something about conservative offense in the NFC Title game?
Well, there’s being stealthy and there’s not bothering. We are showing a shitload of different formations, but doing little out of them. I don’t know. My patience gets tried at times like this.
Fun being relevent again huh? Now we get to bitch about just HOW good we can be!
Bitch, bitch, bitch…..!
Pre-season is an abomination. One big ” fuck you fans” by the NFL.
My word! Such language, Nipper! I’m shocked!
Christ, it ain’t THAT bad. Wake up on the wrong side of the van?
Huh. Thought I posted womething about the backup situation. maybe I just thought it.
I like pre-season, camp, the games, the whole ball ‘o wax. Lotsa info to absorb, lotsa fuel for us armchair pundits. Lotsa questions to ask: How will the team evolve as far as new personnel? Schemes? Lotsa questions to answer: Will the fucking coconut internet actually work? That’s a big one. Beats watching the grass grow
How about smoking some grass?
That’s a dumb idea…
Fan, got a bit wet out your way recently, hope you kept your tootsies dry.
12, damn if all the rain is actually up north near Manila. We’re down south and it’s dry as a bone. Tootsies are dry..
Got booze?
Damnit, Nipper, SOMEONE here needs to be the designated driver. And it sure as hell ain’t gonna be Dennis, Chuck or me.
burp!
I’m the designated drinker. . . . as we all are.
Bottoms up!
Gotta love it, men…
New post tsop weN