Week 12 is upon us and your San Francisco 49ers are in the drivers seat for that last coveted playoff spot. Expectations have changed dramatically during this tumultuous season. The 49ers defense has pretty much stayed true to course. The offense on the other hand has regressed badly among questionable play calling, fair to poor quarterback play, and injuries to Kappy’s wide receiving corps. Which at times have resembled corpses out there. Win all their games with teams not named Seattle, and they are in. Lose this next one, and with an AZ win, the Niners would be back out in the cold. As of now, the Niners own the 6th spot over AZ because of their better divisional record. Which makes this Ram game all the more important.
The good news for the Niners is they are currently 2-1 in division games while AZ is 0-3. Beat the Rams and they could lose to AZ in that last game, tie with AZ, and still get the 6th spot, providing Seattle does us the favor of beating AZ. Which brings us to the Rams. A team that has had a schizophrenic run this year. They’ve had 2 two=game winning streaks, and 3 two-game losing streaks. Along the way, they’ve played awful (after Sam Bradford went down to injury), and some great performances as Kellen Clemens has settled in as the QB. Most recently, speedster Tavon Austin had a coming out party in the beat-down of Indy in their house and, last week, a trouncing of the Chicago Bears and their once-highly-touted defense.
For sure this is a different team than the one the Niners trounced in their house way back in September, but defensively, they haven’t changed too much. Gore ran wild, over 150 yards rushing, and I’d think we would start out trying this strategy. Michael Crabtree should make his return to the field in this game, so we will finally have out complete set of WRs. Something that should also loosen up the running lanes. The Niners were missing Patrick Willis and Aldon Smith in the previous game with these guys and handled them easily, even with their starting QB in there. The biggest difference between this game and last is the emergence of 1st round WR Tavon Austin. He of the slow start and instant sensation these past couple games.
I’m hoping we handle these guys fairly easily, but I haven’t been very right this year. Except for game 1. Besides, we have out secret weapon, safety Chad Hall.
Forty Niners Forever 
The only thing I’ll say about that is they had all their backup defenders out there in the 4th. Yeah you want to run the ball down their throats and burn the clock, but really, I was more impressed with them getting aggressive to get the scores in the 3rd and 4th quarters. I was a little dismayed that they didn’t take a shot into the end zone on the drive that ended in a FG, but they DID burn nearly 6 minutes of clock, and were about to score on the next drive when Gore fumbled. It wasn’t especially pretty, but it was effective.
Still have to wonder how things might have changed had Fisher not gone into vapor lock with the fake punt. Also, the announcers were both saying that the Niners were completely fooled, but Dixon blew the play up. I saw 3 other guys right there who would have made the tackle. Even if the pitch was made. Fisher also should have gone for the FG later in the 4th quarter.
Curious at best. Sure, their season’s lost, but those were 2 nutty decisions that made our lives much easier.
Well Chuck, IF they make the playoffs Harbs and Roman had better go into KILLER mode on offense. Cause granted they were up by 2+ scores, in the playoffs that might not hold. I have yet to see Harbs go into KILLER mode on offense to make sure the game is out of touch.
Yeah, I said it above. They didn’t turtle with the 10 point lead to start the 2nd half. If Gore hadn’t fumbled, it would have been an even bigger lead. Like I said, the play calling was much better. I don;t have a problem with how the 4th quarter went. Given the fact the Niners had shut them down all game, there wasn’t a threat of them coming back.
The hope is they take into account the opponent when strategizing how to deal with a late lead.
This Niner D can dominate lesser opponents, that’s the main reason Harbs goes into turtle modes early with a moderate lead. I think he doesn’t trust Kap yet, doesn’t want to give the ball away with turnovers, would rather let his D stall out the game. That doesn’t work against top opponents where he can’t get a decent lead, and can’t expect the D to totally shut down the other offense…
Well, he didn;’t go into turtle mode with the 10 point lead coming out of the half. Which was my fear. Harbaugh is conservative at heart. Like many NFL coaches. But we hit big plays in the 3rd quarter and didn’t coast until it was a 3 score game with 6 minutes left.
New thread is up.