Weather is 33º at game time, with winds out of the SW at 8-10 MPH.
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A strange season is getting progressively stranger as the weeks go on. The 6-4 49ers are currently on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. Mainly due to the fact that the Indianapolis Colts feasted upon the ‘elite’ NFC West teams (Seattle and SF) and got blasted to kingdom come by the ‘also-rans’ of the West (AZ and StL) to the tune of 78-19.
Carolina showed its guts by squeaking out a win in Fin-land behind the legs of Cam Newton. He was beaten, battered, and bettered all day, but scored late TD to win it. Much like Tennessee over the Raiders. Oaktown had a chance to insert themselves into the playoff picture (!), but couldn’t finish off the woeful Titans and Ryan Fitzpatrick (and his friend Patrick Fitzmichael), giving up a TD with 18 seconds left.
Green Bay’s playoff hopes were dented by a tie in frigid Wisconsin, as the Packers inexplicably kept trying to ride the Scott Tolzein Experience to a victory. After his debacle last week, why they put him in over Flynn yesterday has to be seriously qiestioned. I thought they’d put Flynn in at the easdrliest opportunity. Ooops. As it was, he led the Pack to a late tie, but that was it. GB and Minn traded FGs in OT and that was it.
Which brings us to tonight’s game. Win, and we are back in the 6th spot due to our previous win over AZ. Lose, and the team may not recover from the fallout. Lose, and we are effectively 2 games behind AZ, as they own the tiebreaker with SF due to their wins over Indy and Carol. Although if the last game of the year comes down to AZ vs SF for the last playoff spot, even if SF is a game behind, we would win the tiebreaker should the Niners in that game, due to sweeping them. Of course the flip side is true. We come into that last game one up on AZ and lose, SF is out. All those other teams (Chi, GB, Det, Philly, StL) will be beating each other up, so the likeliest of scenarios is the 6th seed comes out of the West. No one said this would be easy, but I certainly didn’t think it would be this hard.
In some good news, Michael Crabtree is a game-time decision. I thought the activation of Mario Manningham would help the offense, but he’s been slowed by knee issues and general shitty play calling. Frankly, I wouldn’t play Crabtree tonight. It’s going to be cold and miserable so it isn’t a good scenario to get his first taste of action.
Forty Niners Forever 
I will say it again, this is a passing league. and it showed. So what if the Redskins are a bad team. The Niners needed to show they could pass the ball. Nice to see that Gore was the only one in the back field. Nice game NINERS.
I never doubted Kap could pass but someone has to be there to catch them. Last nights game took care of that problem. Now to RAM the RAMS off the mountain!
No, NoFear. It’s just interesting how you parse the information. Manning and Co. blow a 24 point lead in the 2nd half and the guy running the offense bears little responsibility for it? 11-22, 98 yards, a TD and a pick. Great. They ran and lost.
OK. Cool. Just as Alex Smith has nothing to do with his 28-7-1 record these past 3 seasons. You can’t play both sides of it that way. Like giving Romo a pass on the 51-48 loss. He throws a late pick to lose the game and it doesn’t matter? Because his numbers are good? It’s Steve DeBergitis. It’s like the Miami game and the Raider game last weekend. Miami beat Carolina all over the place, but couldn’t finish them off and left the door open for a last drive. As did the Raiders against Tenn. Playing well enough to lose is still a loss.
The point being, you merrily pointed at every Alex ASmith loss as a personal failure. No one dropped a pass or fumbled the ball or gave up a late game-winning drive. It was all in Alex. Til he started winning. Then it was everyone but.
New thread is up . . .