In a thrilling see-saw battle in the frozen dirt of Lambeau Field, the 49ers pulled out a taut and exciting game as Phil Dawson put the finishing touches on a 23-20 victory with a 33 yard FG that magically went BETWEEN the outstretched arms of would be Packer savior Devon House. Strangely enough, there WAS an offisdes penalty called on him that was neither discussed or shown during the broadcast.
Either way, a game that will become part of the NFL lore if not for the weather, but another example of the recent history of the Niners having the Packers number. For the 2nd straight year, the Niners opened the season with a victory over Green Bay, and for the 2nd year in a row, the Niners ended Green Bay’s playoff hopes. For all the talk of the Pack being a weak playoff team this year, and them backing in at 8-7-1, Aaron Rodgers put that to rest with some inspired play. He constantly escaped pressure. Most notably on a 4th and 2 play where he escaped the grasp of Ray McDonald (and a major hold on the play), and completed a 26 yard pass to continue their last TD drive. Eddie Lacy also had a big game as he rushed for 88 yards and did his best impression of Marshawn Lynch.
Pack Killer Colin Kaepernick (he must haunt their dreams) threw and ran his way to more than 300 yards of total offense. Michael Crabtree had a game for the ages as Green Bay once again overracted to the previous game. In Kappy’s 1st Green Bay game, he slashed them for over 180 yards on the ground. Game 2 saw Green Bay focus solely on containing Kappy, who then torched them for over 400 yards in the air with new weapon Anquan Boldin. Green Bay response was to then bracket Boldin all night. This left Crabs in single coverage most of the time. He merely had 8 catches for 125, and an absolute game saver on 3rd and 10 on the final drive. Kappy was flushed from the pocket, and rolling left, threw a dart that was just barely in reach of Crabs. He grabbed it for a 17 yard gain, and a 1st down. He also hit Crabs on a 30 yard pass on the opening drive, which led to a field goal (among a lot of non-PI calls).
So, instead of the Niners going big on the ground, or going big in the air, they did enough of both to beat the Pack. Gore was ‘held’ to 66 yards, but his contributions were huge. His 10 yard scoring run erased a 7-6 Packer lead, and his final drive carries for 15 yards don’t sound impressive, but he got a huge 1st down on 3rd and 3 to allow the draining of the clock. Kappy of course had 98 yards on the ground, and a beautiful 28 yard strike to VD in the 4th quarter to erase another Packer lead.
The FG is NUTS. Check this out:
On to Carolina!
Forty Niners Forever 
I just wonder why there seems to be so much interest among actual football folks that gamble with their own money and team in a hard-headed Neanderthal that doesn’t know his ass from the goalposts.
Talking Roman here NoFear49er ?
Yeah, that’s the guy. I’m really just making fun of the bloggers that are so intent on making Roman out a clueless football moron because he doesn’t call the plays the armchair ex-spurts think he should.
I doubt if any of them have an inkling what any particular defense is doing to us, or even the coverage they’re in on a given play or which defender we are trying to attack on a given play or scheme weakness we want to exploit. But whatever, fans bitch, and I’m a fan, too. I just think the criticism gets pretty hilarious sometimes.
So NoFear is a fan of Roman’s red zone play calling? Or is he just criticizing somebody for having an opinion while protecting himself by not giving one inre to the subject being talked about? The real suspense is on. Drum roll please while NoFear tells us his opinion of Greg Roman’s play calling!!!
Roman has a Pro OC job.
We have opinions.
Berger and I have been going around the wagon on this all night on Skeebs’ site.
For me, Wins are the only thing that matters.
So far, Roman, Harbaugh and Fangio have delivered.
I’ve got no complaints in that regard.
Every game is a new chess match.
24 other teams are sitting home this weekend watching from the sofa, wishing their Coaches could be doing what our Staff is doing.
In the end, players make the plays.
Coaches attempt to give them the matchups you refer to Nofear49er.
Gotta execute and make them count.
I see it that way, too, NJ49er.
Reno Berger, I’ve been commenting on that and many other things all season. You might have missed it. You may have noticed that the passing plays aren’t automatic either.
You’ve been bitching about any play caller that doesn’t spread the formation on every play with an empty backfield for years. So what? Just because that’s the game you like doesn’t make it a winning proposition and anything else the product of an idiot who has to “learn” and “evolve” until he sees things exactly like you do.
If you want to debate the differences make your case and answer your critics. If you can’t defend it without resorting to the name-calling maybe it wasn’t worth a shit to begin with. If you think that your opinion is the only one worth a damn, what’s the point?
I take my shots to change his views NoFear49er 🙂
He experiments with quite the varieties of beer, while I’m pretty loyal to my brand, so I know he’s capable of keeping an open mind in that regard.
I may have gotten him to budge on Roman, (just a little) through my efforts however.
He’s not using the word HATE as much.
Of course, in his opinion, I (we) hate Alex when I criticize him at times too.
We need to get Berger to relinquish the HATE word and, learn to be a little more open minded to those of us who attempt to bring constructive criticism to the table.
He’s a challenge but, I think I’m wearing him down 🙂
Something else I’ve noticed too.
We both think like NTs.
Gotta keep pounding to earn respect in the trenches.
NJ- When Del, NoFear and RT say negative stuff about Alex it is funny. They have declared their anti Smith feelings and back it up. When somebody says they are not a hater and blames the KC loss on Alex leading Bowe out of bounds I see contradiction and selling your point by telling us you are an independent. I had to call you out.
You have not worn me out on Roman. If you go back to the beginning of the stream of Roman hatred by me, you will see I have never waivered on my stance. He is a bad play caller who is improving. He still is dangerous to our team in the red zone. He is old fashioned and does not want to easily relinquish his power of decision making to the QB. He understand football very well. What it seems he doesn’t want to do is change what brought him to the dance. I can understand that. What is frustrating is the slowness of the transition from an 80s play caller to what works in today’s game. Defenses know how to stop 80’s play calling. It works in college but the talent in the pros is more even from team to team. I have faith in Harbaugh to give Roman a QBs perspective. Problem is Harbaugh has a little evolving to do too from his background of Schembechler and Ditka. Luckily, he did have Tom Moore.
Jim loves his power football, and I love the running game too with the exception that I am so sick of jumbo I cringe when I see it. I wouldn’t go away form it completely but it would be more of a specialty if it were up to me. My base formation would be 3 WR, one TE and one RB. And I would try my best to have a good running game. Since NoFear is trying to tell people how I think, let him know this is it.
NoFear says: “You’ve been bitching about any play caller that doesn’t spread the formation on every play with an empty backfield for years.” This statement is factually false. I have never advocated for what you say I advocate for. ‘The Central Scrutinizer obfuscates again.
Outside of calling you the Central Scrutinizer, show me where I called you names. Calling you The Central Scrutinizer is not name calling, It is very descriptive of your condescending style. I try to be respectful. When somebody gives me a shove, at some point I shove back. Since you like shoving you get shoved back.
When you try to broadcast what I think please try tell the truth.
GO NINERS!
Naw and interrupt a good food fight ‘n bitchfest? Naw no way
Carry on boys
From NoFear:
“Do you think his OCs getting promoted out from under him every year hurt at all, genius?”
Who, pray tell are you referring to? Jim Hostler? Yeah, losing McCarthy was a setback. As was Turner. Turner had the team going in the right direction, But Nolan losing his OCs was a detriment to the coach but not the quarterback? Got it. Reconcile that.
Nolan lost the team. Plain and simple. The sooner you accept this fact, the better. The players knew what Alex went through with trying to play through the shoulder injury, and getting called out by Nolan. And how many games has he been a head coach since he left? And where did his defense rank this year?
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
And regarding the red zone offense. You of course take what is being said as mixing things up to mean run 5 WR formations every play regardless of the situation. In other words, your usual reductio ad absurdum argument.
Losing an OC every year was bad. Nolan made it much worse by changing the type of offense we ran every year. A little consistency would have helped a lot.
I would have liked to see Alex healthy for when Martz was here. I think he would have done well. At least Hill did well in that system.
If Nolan hadn’t lost his team at that point he might have had something going. I think throwing Arnez Battle under the bus in the summer was his beginning of the end. It is hard to believe the players didn’t take notice after the Smith debacle. Blaming Ann Killion for his losing games was the punch line he exited stage left with a hat and cane in hand, still dancing away!
But the clown Singletron that ownership ushered in (Jed) after the poser/vaudeville act Nolan exited marked our real bottom. She never got any lower than that. Nolan was not the worst
And Eddie hired Joe Thomas who engineered the similar mess Walsh fixed. Singletron is Jed’s Joe Thomas and we long ago turned the corner from that rookie mistake. And in both instances the Niners have gone on to glory. This will become more obvious in a few weeks to those blinded by the dark of our previous decade of futility. Wake up children the bad dream is over
It’s so nice to get along. BLEEP!
I recommend the Squirrel Brains with a woodsy Cabernet Sauvignon..
http://zekesplace.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/super-bowl-buffet-for-the-brave-of-heart/
Spit-roasted tree climber washed down with iodine flavored brown river water finger-strained of “floaties” isn’t bad either if you want to eat exotic.
Quite the coincidence, we just had that last night.
LOL, that’s more like it
Damn we are still debating Nolan and Singletary as Quality HC’s? Lets be perfectly clear here. Nolan and Sing were excellent defensive minded coaches. The defensive players they drafted, some are still here and we do have a SB qualtity Defense. But Nolan had no clue on how to run the offense or how to treat the Player on Offense. Singletary wanted a run oriented game due to the fact he playes on the Bears while Walter Payton was there. well the Niners did not have a Walter Payton and the game was/is completely changed now. I said this earlier if Mike S could have just given into Martz’s offense Singletary might still be here and the Niners might have won a SB by now. But he was a stubborn old coot. There are HCing jobs open right now, how many teams are burning up Nolan or Singletary phone??? right NONE.
You used Singletary, excellent and minded in a single sentence. The universe has encountered an unexpected error and will now close.
Sorry, when Sing dropped his pants, his HC days were numbered…
Off the top of my head, Alex Smith, Frank Gore, Vernon Davis and Joe Staley were Nolan adds on the offensive side.
He just got extended for two in Atlanta. You won’t find too many across the league that think badly of Nolan’s coaching save some Kawakami acolytes or die-hard poor-Alex sycophants from the BA.
Well, Smith and Nolan have both landed on their feet, Nolan got extended and the Chiefs are reportedly planning to give Alex an extension this off season.
BTW, if the Squirrel Brains are not your cup of fertilizer tea, try the Cuy Bien.
Sounds tasty. I wonder how it compares to fried Montagnard rat with homemade rice wine.
I haven’t come across a Montagnard rat .But if it’s fried, it’s all good.
Excellent choices gentlemen and may I recommend a local favorite- the bat guano pate served with a chilled monkey brain pie?
I always had the sense Nolan was grasping at straws on offense. When did Justion Smith get here? That was Nolan, wasn’t it? He didn’t screw up the whole thing, just the head coaching part of it. His personnel decisions were solid for the most part.
It was the year Nolan was fired and Singletary took over, 2008. So yeah, Nolan got him.
I’ll get my picks in early- San Diego is my sleeper pick for the postseason
SD 31 Denver 27
NE 28 Indy 13
SF 20 Carolina 10
This one might be a hope, so we get one last playoff game at the ‘Stick
NO 24 Seattle 17
Nolan was the guy who talked Justin Smith into coming here. Then he had to try to talk the area sportswriters into buying him as a good addition. Most, like Kawakami, panned it as most everything with Nolan attached to it.
Fact is, Nolan designed (fundamentally) the team Harbaugh is winning with now. Does he get any credit? No, he’s the guy we were all told to hate. So many sheep.
Boo hoo. he still sucks as a head coach. And until or if he gets another shot, he’ll be forever 17-34 as a head coach. I’ve given him plenty of props as a talent evaluator, and he inherited a bad deal when he got here, but 3.5 years later, he was going backwards.
Everyone knows this. Why must you cling to Teflon Mike? HE couldn’t win with his guys. Why do you forever point to Nolan as some sort of railroaded talent who was jobbed? He was in over his head, and lost his team. Mainly by his own doing.
Let it go.
If the reports are correct it seem’s Roman interviewed for the Penn St HC position. Also the Niners have lost another assistant coach:
No problem Harbaugh has a list a mile long of replacement candidates. As has been proven he’s pretty good in getting top notch coaching talent. Shit he’ll have David Shaw salivating at the prospect of running the Sardine Can as OC. I know Chuck will love this
I can see SD getting past Denver. They just beat them at their house a few weeks ago. Plus there’s the Philly factor. The last 4 super bowl winners were Philly’s home opening opponent. This year was San Dawg.
Anyhow, I’d love to see the Niners play here one more time, but I don;t think that happens. NE wins easily over Indy.
Chuck saving his dough for a couple of those orange seats?
NO beating SEA would be a sesmic shift but would love to see ‘er happen: One more dance at the Stick on our way to NJ
My guess is only one road team wins this weekend.
SF.
Yeah agree but still hopeful for the others
Berger I never said Alex lost that game by leading Bowe out of bounds.
I simply said that specific throw led Bowe out of bounds while questioning whether the Safety had even gotten to the right hash on said throw.
The scab I pick with you is the fact that you immediately labeled me a hater.
Alex missed the RB on the right sideline in the same game.
It’s always about ‘what if’ the throw was better?
Then, the incompletion isn’t an incompletion is it?
I questioned throws Kaep made on Sunday in GB, again, just being objective.
I also went on record to say Alex did enough to win that game, if you’d have given me that latitude.
Their Defense imploded.
We jaw about our team, share observations, share our views and opinions.
I don’t intend malice by suggesting that our guys are prone to mistakes, everyone is.
It’s about football. Not hating on anyone.
Nothing I share here is personal in nature to either Alex or anyone else I comment on.
Just busting your balls to relinquish the use of calling me a hater, for having a differing opinion is all.
Sounds rational to me
Thanks Phil.
I look at it this way.
We sucked for over 8 years, mainly in the Offensive category.
Changing OCs as often as they did, had too many negative repercussions on Alex and, the Offense in general.
Sure we’ve gotten frustrated with Red Zone production with Roman but, we’re winning.
Can’t get too bent out of shape with the results this Staff has delivered on since their arrival.
Continuity helps any unit in this game. Adding the proper pieces does as well.
Gone is Alex, in is Kaep. Come May they’ll address other positions and so on.
I happen to think Crabtree would’ve scored twice in GB.
Kaep turned him around on the 4th down throw, which could have easily resulted in a TD, followed by the PI that didn’t get enforced on a later throw into the End Zone.
That’s football, not necessarily play calling.
One more for nofear. Nolan paid WAY too much attention to the press and the way he was portrayed. One of his problems as a head coach. He became paranoid and noncommunicative. It affected the way he dealt with his team in the end and led to his losing the team and being fired.
New thread is up.
All of what you write as fact is purely conjecture. You don’t know any of that. That’s why I bring Kawakami into it. He wrote the exact things you said then and still parrot today. And none of it was ever fact.
You say let it go, as you respond twice to my reply to you. You’re the one who brought up Nolan and you’re the one who says let it go. Maybe Mr Pot and Mr Kettle are one and the same in this instance.
Another old saw comes to mind. Something about the heat in the kitchen.