Color me unimpressed, but the Niners played a very bland ho-hum type game vs a very inferior opponent. I didn’t expect a Sea – AZ type score, but I certainly didn’t see a 6-3 half time score either. In yet another game where Fangio’s defense decided to give a young QB time in the pocket by strictly rushing 4 guys and playing soft on the outside WRs, the Niners were outplayed in the 1st quarter, and fell behind 3-0. The offense? Well, after the 1st play, a 20 strike from Kappy to Walker, we were generic there as well. Wake caused a fumble on 3rd and 3 on that opening drive, and it was a struggle the rest of the way. There was a lot of 3 back, 2 WR formations, 2 TE 2 WR formations, and the Niners trying to run, with varying success. Early on, Miami was rushing 5 and getting through.Since the Niners had 2 TEs in there blocking, there was often no one open to throw to. Kappy took a couple needless sacks, but the WRs were covered, and TEs were blocking so he had nowhere to go. VD again spent a lot time in protection. He got 2 looks, and one catch.
The 2nd quarter was much the same. The niners didn’t let Tannehill do anything over 8 yards, and the Niners couldn’t generate much. However, with 3:15 left in the 1st half, the Niners finally took advantage of the 15 yard cusion that Moss got. The Niners quicly got down to the Miami 10 with about 55 seconds left, after LMJ made a nice catch and run in the flat and got OB. Here is where it got stupid. Kappy inexplicably took a sack out of the shotgun. 8 yard loss. Tick tick tick. Then Harbaugh dials up a run for a 2 yard loss. Tick tick tick. Then Kappy bascially throws one away with time juuust about gone to stop the clock. Smart, but it shouldn’t have come to that. So, they had a 1st and goal from the 11 and were able to run 2 plays in 55 seconds. Awful. The time outs were gone of course, as getting plays to the QB in time seems to be an issue once again.
The second half was punctuated by the muffed punt for a FG, and the 50 yard Kappy run. The Niners finally started dialing up the pressure, and got to Tannehill. Culliver made some nice plays on their deep balls, but Miami has maybe 2 third string WRs at best. Donte Whitner had the pile-drive of the day when he picked up Regggie Bush and body slammed him to the turf. Aldon Smith looked great in getting pressure. There was one play early where A Smith lined up a half-step behind and off of Juston Smith’s right shoulder. I told Garrett, watch A Smith. He’s getting in there. Sure enough, he got through for his 1st sack.
This game, while the Niners had a few big plays, ad a couple nice passes, sure felt like a preseason game. The Niners played their base D for most of the 1st half, and while they stopped the big plays, they let Miami diddle around all over the place. The offense was a staid, boring, pack a bunch of guys on the line and run up the middle thype deal a lot of the time. What was encouraging was they ran out of the shotgun more in the 2nd half. LMJ broke off some nice runs in the 2nd half as the Niner line wore down Miami’s D line. And Kappy’s keeper was nice. It was set up by a run in the 2nd quarter where Kappy handed to Gore, and faked the keeper reverse. The RDE totally committed to the run on the play. Flash forward to the 4th quarter, and they ran the same plsy, with Kappy keeping the ball. The RDE totally bought the fake to Gore, and Kappy was free and clear.
This all plays like the Nolan/Singletary ‘let’s keep it close til the end and hopefully win’ philosophy. These coaches are either playing it close-to-the-vest because of the New England game coming up, or they seriously think they can win in the playoffs with this philosophy. Well, they can’t. Not unless they score 2 or 3 times on defense. Kappy’s stats look OK, and the numbers all look like a win, but we let a crappy team hang around most of the game. But, if not for the bungled punt, this game could have gone either way. These coaches either have to generate a real offense, or suffer the consequences. The Niners need to really open things up for Kappy. Otherwise, the QB switch is merely window-dressing.
Glaring problems? We gave up way too many 3rd down plays to Miami, and the Niners didn’t do shit on 3rd down. I don’t know the numbers, but Miami must have been close to 50% converting, and the Nners around 15%.
Here are some pics I took of the game.
Opening drive offense – 2 WRs, 3 RBs. Miami rushing 5.
Opening drive defense – Base 3-4. Safeties deep. Bowman on Bush in the slot. Rogers backed out of press before the snap.
Later in the game – 5 rushers. Willis covers the strong side TE, Golsdon moves up to take the slot left WR.
One of the few multi-WR sets of the game on 3rd and one. Didn’t make it.
Kappy throws to Miller for a 2 yard gain. The only 3rd down conversion other than the 50 yard run.
Dixon with a nice run to the one.
Forty Niners Forever 
definitely a strange situation and seems to be a waste of time for all concerned. I would think that Jacobs being a free agent at this time could cause us some potentially serious trouble
As far as the offene, Harbaugh didn’t say anything in his presser that would lead one to believe it will change…
“-Q: Frank Gore was saying that the offense with Kaepernick is really the same, just you do more read option. Is it essentially the same?
-HARBAUGH: That’s one take. I think for the most part it’s the same offense, don’t know that it’s dramatically different. I’d concur with Frank.”
Game plans always change depending on the opponent, but it’s like I said, what Kawakami
is calling “Alex Smith-Plus”. We haven’t seen a whole heckuva lot of the plus part yet, if Moss catches the deep one, it would have been 2 of that “plus”. At NE we may see more of that, might have to,
Time’s up. I know Twin watched the former OC Vince Lombardi and maybe met him.
The DC was Tom Landry.
I think they had rivalry that helped the league and was great fun to watch.
It wasn’t a fight I was intending, Twin. Just getting ready for the road trip against Pete’s team in 13 days.
I met Lombardi many times…
Trying a two point conversion when up 48-21 is not “competition”.That’s why I asked if there was a history..
Psych warfare.
I met Lombardi many times myself — Gina Lombardi. She used to be a barista at the Pinole Starbucks. Cute girl, but she took forever to get my coffee. I found myself in line yelling…
And Twin, I was dead wrong. Carroll’s team did beat Harbaugh’s once. I don’t generally follow college football unless I want to make stupid scouting reports that sometimes are right on.
Ask Carroll about that 58-0?
You want to beat my team, you outscore us.
I believe that’s the answer to your original question.
Do you mean Seattle 58-AZ 0 Sunday? I don’t recall a Stanford-USC game like that.
Why did Petey run the score up in the pros? A prick, perhaps?
AZ fumbled 5 times, Skelton threw 4 picks. Carroll pulled most starters in the 3rd quarter. And that doesn’t address Carrol/Harbaugh anyway.
I thought I answered your question already. If I didn’t, I’ll try again tomorrow. Gonna be a long very cold night again tonight.
I’ll pick fights in the spring after I defrost.
You answered a question about history betwen Carroll and Harbaugh in college by talking about Carroll and Whisenhunt in the pros.? i think you’ll need an extra comforter tonight, RT. Sleep well.
Did I mention Whizzy?
Thanks, when it gets this cold you just huddle up with a friend and wait for it to pass.
Hard to sleep, though. Been rereading Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”.
New Mexico is great if you live through the winter.
Comforters are warm, though.
Thursday night I got to watch Peyton Manning play quarterback and tonight it’s Tom Brady. Christmas come early for the Heat Miser.
So, do the UFO Coyotes make the playoffs and how does that work? I’ll be missing RG III.
Nothing’s final at the moment as many active players still going here on MNF. BUT it looks like if you hang onto your lead and if Berger doesn’t get 100 pts from Brady (he just might) your Coyotes will make the playoffs based on most pts. scored throughout the entire season. That’s the tiebreaker.
Twin,
http://sports-glutton.com/2011/01/07/jim-harbaugh-vs-pete-carroll-round-2/
So Jimbo beats Petey one year, Petey doesn’t like it, and comes back and runs it up a bit on Harbs the next year. Year Three, Harbs unleashes the Kraken. And so, “What’s Your Deal?”
Two competitive, not very nice guys who don’t much like each other, I’d say.
45-23 and *rushing* for 240+ yards in the second half is piling it on? Lessee, Passing=piling it on. Rushing=piling it on. I guess they could have punted on first downs.
It was the 2 pt conversion on the last TD that pissed off Pete.
That was the “What’s your Deal” game. I asked if there was any history before that. The 45-23 game was what Grumpy said was the history. I didn’t think it was a hard question but RT responded about a game YESTERDAY and GG cites the 45-23 game where Carroll’s team rushed for 240 yards in the second half. Maybe someone else has an idea of what a coach should do if passing *or* rushing is considered piling it on. Play the cheerleaders?
Son of a bitch. Brady and his Pats are in rare form tonight. We should save the trouble of packing and air travel and just take the L next week and stay home. We could use the extra time practicing getting the plays off in time.
Peyton tore the Texan defense apart in the the 4th qtr of their game.
This fake PI call that made it go from 14-0 to 21-0 didn’t hurt.
They get calls like that against the Niners it will be a long game. They have to hit Brady early and often.
You didn’t answer my question about your Yahoo league.
Brady says SWatt who.
Think we can put up four TDs in a half next week with that college inverted wishbone option game?
At least we can run outside zones around Wilfork now.
New England is “Steamrolling” the Texans 21-0 ,2nd quarter,Brady 3 TD passes.You can bet this next game in NE,will be high octane battle.The Niners better bring some new wrinkles on their offense if they want to hang.Of.course a great D can help keep it in check.
Getting phantom PI calls helps. It doesn’t look that cold in RI tonight.
So can I go to RI? At least for a couple days until it’s back to 70.
How would know how cold it looks in Rhode Island tonight? New England plays their games in Massachusetts.
Foxborough is closer to Providence than anything in Mass.
I haven’t seen Schaub much. but he looks like crap tonight.
Nice picts chuck.
I think NE getting beat at home tonight would bode worse for us than this.
The combined score at the moment of the Niners next two opponents is…
86-0.
Does that worry you?
Did you read my next post?
86-7 but who’s counting . . .
Show weakness, cash it in, and we’ll be back to the Nolan days.
We’re far better than those days.
Well, w’d better come up with something better than the wishbone and the passive defense. The whole 1st half yesterday was an exercise in blah.
Chuckles, you know that game plans differ with the opponent. What surprises me is how anyone could have expected the QB switch to go any better than it has.
thx winder.,
Brady’s getting thumped pretty good. Surprised he didn’t get the helmet-to-helmet call there.
You have to abandon the 2 deep. It won’t work against Brady next Sunday night.
1 deep to defend the run and that 1 is Goldson.
Everybody else has to hit, wear out the Pats OL, and go for Brady.
Who can run back to help double that great receiver. It’s going to have to be a backer.
We have the corners. We have the line. We have the backers.
Playing conservatively on defense against the Patriots right now is not a good idea.
Blitz from every direction.
If the Niners lose 96-0 with that gameplan, well at least Pete will have something to worry about.
Might be better off against Brady and Belichick on the road to stick with line stunts and games than to bring a DB and leave a hole in the coverage. A linebacker dog or two through the A gaps might work though the way Brady instinctively steps up. I’d think our biggest concern will be giving up the big play and keeping Goldson home against the play action.
Brady is deadly when he can get set and throw. Just cannot let him get time to do that.
He can’t run.
Rush him and rush him hard with as many guys as it takes.
Gruden, you’ve said the ;he makes you play left-handed’ enough already.