Wow. One measly little loss and the bandwagon is in flames in a ditch with two broken axles. Granted, it was about as ugly as it gets, but this is the NFL, where a team like Miami can beat last year’s darlings, the Indy Colts. Or San Diego can finally hold a 4th quarter lead after 8 years of trying. Be that as it may, the niners travelled to the Great White Northwest to take on the rain and the Seahawks. Was it ugly? Was it the worst performance of Young Colin Kaepernick’s career? Were the 49ers outcoached? Out hustled? Outschemed? Overmatched? Scared of the lightning? Yes to all of the above. Much like the GB game, Seattle’s defense stuffed the run. They did it by loading the box with 8-9 guys and daring us to throw. Unfortunately, unlike Green Bay, the Seattle DBs neutralized the passing game. Anquan Boldin went from penthouse to outhouse. 217 yards to 7. The Niners defense did finally hold Marshawn Lynch to under 100 yards, but it hardly mattered. The effectiveness of the defense was obliterated by the colossal ineptitude of the offense. For all the hooraw around this game and the resulting bandwagon leapers, the defense held Seattle to 12 points through 3 quarters. Hardly an insurmountable deficit. The Niners even had a blocked punt.
I could go into the abject failure of the offense (lousy blocking, lousy scheme, bad passing, no run game, etc), and the ease at which Seattle put the game away late, but we all saw the fugliness unfold in gory detail last night. Is this the end of the Super Bowl run? Are we now second fiddle in our own division? This very well may be the case, but then again, minus a DeAngelo Williams fumble last week, Seattle loses. It’s week 2 folks. There’s a lot of football left to be played. Is there reason to worry? Oh yeah. The line play on both sides was shockingly poor. And the refs were absolutely on glue with some of the calls. Nnami Asomugha was called for shielding when he was BEHIND the WR going for the tip. Aldon Smith’s penalty for tapping someone’s helmet was equally ridiculous. But the results speak for themselves. The Niners again looked woefully unprepared for the game. But the deal was, much like the Green Bay game, this was Seattle’s Super Bowl. This was the biggest game in Seattle in years. They played fast and loose. The Niners were tight and reactionary.
So, is Seattle Kappy’s kryptonite? Jim Harbaugh is 3-2 vs his nemesis Pete Carroll, but all 3 of the wins came with Alex Smith at QB. Kappy is 0-2 now. Speaking of Kappy, he looked VERY tentative yesterday. Gone were the slashing runs and accurate passes he’s shown. He was off target all night, which induced 3 picks. The 1st especially galling as the Niners had blocked a punt, and had great field position. He tried to stuff a pass to VD in double coverage. It might have worked if it was on target, but it wasn’t. The deep ball to VD was also badly underthrown. The 3rd pick was flat awful. Don’t know where that was going. His running was tentative as well. He seemed to wait too long in the pocket as the WRs failed to get open, and ended up sacked. The line blocking didn’t do much, but even when Kappy had time, he missed open targets. And Bruce Miller had about as bad a day as possible. Getting called for holding in the end zone for a safety, and dropping a TD pass before the first pick.
So what to gather from this? Mainly the fact that the Niners don’t play well in the Seattle rain, and they need to pay some serious attention to the line play and work on getting the WRs involved in the game plan. The harbinger of the overmatched wideouts getting shut down came to be, and Harbaugh’s idea of going to Miller out of the backdfield, while a good idea, in the end didn’t work. Despite the blowout, the defense played well enough to win. The offense did nothing to keep them off the field. 37:00 to 23:00 in time-of-possession is atrocious.
Forty Niners Forever 
Yeah, I wonder if Miller gets cut for Tukafu.
Miller? I know Harbs signed his pet FB (Marecic) but he has never been sentimental about his ex players, at least not yet. Still it is a head scratcher when the team
really needs D line help in a big way.
The O-line had better block better the rest of the season, or it won’t matter if we trade Gore for the second coming of Jim Brown – no one is running through holes that aren’t there. AD and Iupati in particular were wretched Sunday night.
Staley was no tour de force either.
The O-line will be getting a lot of work this week. They got manhandled, I hate the Seaholds. I did like how Vance McDonald ran right over Sherman. Sherman just got stopped and walked on during that play. Fuck Sherman. More McDonald please.
That game had a lot of noncalls….yeah I know that makes me sound like a cry baby, but receivers were getting mugged. Patton finally got a call. Whatever, that one is over. Seattle won’t go undefeated.
The 49ers need a good replacement for Williams and Iupati and Anthony had better pick up their game. Time to eat horsemeat!
Seattle certainly has the easier schedule early in the season. Which should work to our advantage.
The rest needs to be fixed. The Colts give up 140 yards/game on the ground (380 total) so the hope is the NIners can rip off some good ones.
This next game would be nice to get the running game going. Kap should be a lot better with a strong running attack to help out. I’m looking forward to this next game. Indy just might be the team to get that bad taste of Seattle out of our minds. The quicker the better.
I’m setting the Over/Under for the number of sacks Aldon gets on Luck at 2.5 Nipper.
I also think our running game will get some much needed improvement against them as well.
We have to be ready to run in St Louis on a short week too.
Not too worried about the o-line based on Seattle game performance. Seattle’s front seven jumping all around and line calls impossible. May use an inside-out or outside-in system but too many times require communication to get right.
Don’t know how we practice silent snap count but not a good system or practiced enough I’ll bet. It wouldn’t surprise me if they (Seahawks) had it figured out early on and we didn’t change it.
We have no answer for the aggressive press coverage they run and that kinda pisses me off, coaches.
Hey NoFear49er – Long Time
That’s my assessment also. It does come to down to adding wrinkles if you have to play deaf.
You could see our OTs just getting beat to the punch all night.
Seattle has one helluva home field advantage.
Not sure how you combat it but, we need someone to invent it.
Just adds some new salt to the wound for the Indy game I hope.
Hoping to see Luck getting buried early and often.
If I’m not mistaken, they went undefeated at home last year.
That’s extraordinary.
Time to nuke that 12th Man garbage.
Once again, we lose in their building.
Let’s hope the game film provides the Staff some ambition to locate the answers for the next encounter.
It could very well be a Playoff game on the line next time.
Hey NJ49er,
I’m sure you’re right. But press corners don’t work well against a power run out of say, a pistol or an I. What if we lined up once in a slot formation with the X and Z split out wide and Vernon with a tight split on Anthony and Gore behind CK7 in the I? Carroll is going to have to stop a power run with nine defenders, four of which are lined up on the wrong side.
If they adjust to the strong side a weak side run or cutback lane is wide open and easy to run either from the I or pistol. If the corners are forced to zone to help out against runs you’ve taken them out of the game they want to play and maybe taken some speed off their pass rush and helped our receivers get the release they want.
Right you are Sir.
We’re not being very creative up there.
Excellent analysis as always.
Why is it so tough for the coaching staff to tinker a little more?
You profess to be a powerful running team yet they don’t go at the edges very much.
I’m scratching my head as to why we can’t adjust quickly either.
Let’s hope they’ve learned something.
Yeah, factor in the monsoon they were playing in, and add deafening noise, you get a recipe for home field advantage x2.
Well, the easiest way to combat a pass rush is screen passes and hooks over the middle. Not slow developing pass plays. You know, check downs. With the pass rush in at every turn, there were NO quick hits or slants. Why they stayed the course is baffling.
It’s almost like they make a game plan and are so confident it will work over 60 min they barely tweak anything during the course of the game. Even coach comments and player comments since are basically saying “if we had executed better all would be well”.
I don’t agree with that sentiment.
Bingo. Smacks too much of Nolan/Singletary in the unyielding need to impose his scheme on everyone regardless of consequence. Plus, Harbaugh can get too cute for his own good.
Reminds me of the old Tampa Bay coach John McKay, when asked about his team’s execution in a particularly galling loss, said “I’m all for it!”
Simplify the damn offense and play calls. End the endless shifting before the snap.
Get out of the huddle, survey the D, call an audible or not, and get the play off. Stop this nonsense of taking so long. Did Bill Walsh’s team take forever to get a play off? NO. First 15 scripted, fire away. And, a first drive TD just about every game. Next draft, they need a big, fast premier RB. This is Gore’s last hurrah…
Yeah, I know they have Lattimore stockpiled, but until we see him play, I’m up for another drafted RB. Hunter is good, he’s not great. And, if he goes down, we got squat…
Totally agree. especially this is Gore’s last hurrah
How many sweeps do the niners run with Gore in there?? not very many. Under Walsh that was a staple.
In Walsh’s era, the LBs and DE weren’t nearly as fast. Lawrence Taylor was the guy who brought about change. And Gore is too slow for sweeps these days. I wouldn’t might seeing LMJ and Hunter getting pitches, but the Niners need to do that with at least 3 WRs on the field. Force teams to unload the box and pay attention to our paasing game.
Unfortunately, the Niners rarely go deep. And when they have this year, Kappy has badly underthrown both of them. KW was wide open vs the Pack, and VD was open as well. One was broken up and the other picked off. KW certainly was doing his part to get free, so maybe they’ll look his way more often.
The only problem with doing this using LMJ or Hunter is then Defenses know they are in the game it is not going to be a run up the middle. They know the Niners are going to something different than with Gore in there.
Doesn’t matter. Spread out the formations, get a safety out of the box, open up the lanes.
Hunter can run between the tackles and on the edge, he is a good back.
If he comes back fully from the injury.
Yeah i agree about Gore as well,this is last hurrah.
He looks like Chuck’s broken down wagon trying to run right now
I bet Chuck’s wagon gets cheap insurance.
Great gas mileage too.
The not so simple answer is, to devise a system to make adjustments, when you can’t verbally communicate.
When a Defense can tee off before the OLine can, you see what happens.
Nothing worked.
We all know how weak we are at WR against the press too.
Suddenly the Oregon/Chip Kelly placard system doesn’t seem so infantile.
Hey Chuck –
Looks like there’s a troll posting as unca_chuck1 over at the SFGate Niner Insider.
V?
Probably. Dude is seriously off the rails.
He may have been banned already. Don’t see his posts.
New thread is up.