Or, Highyway 61 Revisited. The Niners are gearing up for their longest road trip of the season. A trip to Tennessee, Youngstown, and then Jolly Old England. They won’t be playing at home for a little while anyway, as the bye week follows the trip overseas.
Speaking of crossroads, we’ll see if the 49ers can do something that still hasn’t been done since Jolly Roger Goodell started these yearly jaunts to Wembley, and that is to win the game previous to the trip, and win the game in England. There’s still a lot of question marks around this team as it struggles to find its way offensively. The good news is Mario Manninghamis closer to being activated, likely after the break. Quinton Dial has been activated to shore up a defensive line decimated by injuries. The run game has been stellar lately, but this hasn’t translated into huge success for the passing game. Which hasn’t looked great since week one. Still and all, not a big problem if Kappy can hit the big play when the opportunity arises, as he did with VD last week.
The defense has been wreaking havoc by generating turnovers these past few games, and it very well may have saved the team an embarrassing loss to AZ with the strip by Patrick Willis on Larry Fitzgerald as the Cards were driving to take the lead.
The Tits on the other hand have been sagging in recent weeks due to Jake Locker’s dealing with hip and knee injuries. Ryan Fitzpatrick has not rallied the troops, and has engineered. 2 game losing streak for them. Locker has been named the starter for this game, so the he is we get after him and hit hi early and often. For once I’d like to see the defense come out blitzing and generating tons of pressure instead of our usual base package til we see what’s going on defense.
Bottom line is, this is a game the Niners should win. Tennessee isn’t that great at any aspect of the game. A couple quick strikes and a couple long drives should harness these Tits handily.
Forty Niners Forever 
Niners are rightly afraid of Kap doing the RO too much so that he’s exposed to major injury, which could happen while he’s running and cutting whether he takes a hit or not. QBs are dropping like flies all over, and if Kap goes down, ballgame over for getting through the playoffs. I like the idea of a handful of RO plays per game or every other game, depending on strength of oppo LBacker corps. That way, if you want to use RO in the playoffs, you’re up to speed on it in game conditions, not rusty…
Snarkk, I think they’ve struck a good balance with Kappy and the read-option these last couple games. Breaking it out 2-3 times a game rather than a couple times per possession is prudent on their part. It actually works when they don’t expect it.
I wonder if this is all a grand scheme to get teams to stop looking for it after teams overreacted to stop it (a la GB).
Not a bad plan if so. The offense seems to be getting more consistent in hitting bigger plays.
A new thread is up. One that addresses these very issues . . .
And, thanks for hanging out here, all.