Chip Kelly and his lean green machine come a’calling to the friendly confines of the Great America parking lot this weekend to try and run roughshod over our leaky and suddenly ineffective defense. A defense that is a solid 6th in yards given up per game, but 17th in scoring allowed. Not good when facing a team that is pretty much pedal-to-the-metal when it comes to how the play. Foles and Co. do a very good job of no-huddle and quick-attack plays, much like Kelly did on Oregon. They run out of multi-WR formations, but it’s mainly pass pass pass. Short quick routes that are hard to defend and hard to get pressure on. Foles himself. Weirdly though the Jacksonville Jags, of all teams, sacked Foles 5 times in their first game of the year. However, Foles hasn’t been sacked since. He is, however, questionable for Sunday’s game after getting blindsided by Washington’s Chris Baker in the 4th quarter last weekend, which led to a brawl and some ejections. That being said, Foles played after the hit, and I fully expect Foles to play. For all their success passing, LeSean McCoy, last year’s rushing leader, is off to a slow start, averaging less that 60 yards per game so far. Seeing as the Niners have struggled with the run, I’m a little worried about this. Then again, their passing game worries me as well.
So, how do the Niners stop the attack? Well, by getting back to what they used to do. I’m still not entirely clear as to why the braintrust seems to have gone from Ground Chuck to Air Coryell in a single offseason, but the 49ers are throwing a lot more than usual. It has worked at times, and failed miserably at times (see 3 picks vs Chicago). But I would hope that some of the offense is dedicated to keeping the Philly offense on the sidelines. The 49ers have had some long impressive drives, including the 2 in the 1st half of the AZ game, and they need to keep that up for 4 quarters to pull out a win. Philly’s defense is 26th in yards given up (30th in passing yards), and 20th in points, so one would think that we could get some traction there. They also are struggling to get pressure on opposing QBs as they only have 3 sacks. Certainly something the Niners should be able to exploit. But I would not like to see this turn into a shoot-out.
Beyond that, the run game should be bolstered by the return of the Davises, Anthony and Vernon. Defensively, I just don’t know. The Niner defense is struggling wildly to get pressure, even with blitzes last week, and blitzing the Eagles is not a good idea seeing how fast they get the ball out. Not sure who they will stop the Eagles, but this is a very important early game. Lose this, and they suddenly have a lot of teams to climb over just to reach a wildcard spot.
Forty Niners Forever 
Part of the reason Baalke takes a chance on injured players on Draft Day Spit is the ability to stash them on NFI.
Sorta like a layaway program at Wal-Mart huh?
Risky? Sure, injuries always are.
But I’d rather take a chance on a younger College athlete, oversee his rehab and see what comes.
No money of any consequence involved in that decision, just a Draft Pick.
Wanna spend big bucks on an older Revis for example, after he tears an ACL?
Michigan down to Minnesota 30-14 midway through the 4th Q at The Big House which is about half full at the moment. Brady Hoke is just begging to be replaced by Harbaugh.
When your QB wears #98, you know you’re in a world of trouble.
Big Blue Blows.
Retard or not, Harbaugh is in the process of washing out as an NFL coach. This team had talent when he got here, it still has talent. Harbaugh is being outcoached more and more these days.
Cliff notes, skippy. Fuck.
Washing out as a head coach? I think not. You’re a long way from washing out after making 3 straight championship games. A long way. Maybe leaving SF. Yes. The team certainly had talent when Harbaugh got here, and he added a lot more and tweaked it just right to put together an impressive run with Nolan, McCloughan and Singletary players, and Harbaugh added some of his own (Kaep). But now Baalke has added Culliver, Brock, Bethea, Wilhoite, Skuta, Lemonier, Looney, Jonathan Martin, Vance McDonald, Cook, Cox, Jerrod Eddie, Dobbs, Ian Williams, Brandon Lloyd and Stevie Johnson and the talent level has dropped way off. You can’t win without a GM who adds talent immediately.
The interesting thing for you, Unca, is that Harbaugh is going to coach some place else (probably) and when he does he’ll have more pieces of the puzzle in his head regarding what it takes from an organization to win a Super Bowl. Jim Harbaugh will go out and find a talent evaluator and he’ll put his team back into the playoffs routinely. And the beautiful thing will be watching you squirm as the this 49er teams sucks once again and Harbaugh dominates somewhere else because then I’ll get to remind you each and every day that you were dead wrong about Jim Harbaugh and once again playing the 49er company line. In fact, that’s all you know how to do…. play that company line, silly retarded Unca.
His defense isn’t as big and bad with the suspensions and imjuries, therefore, he’s losing as games go on. If he doesn’t figure out counterpunching, he’s going to lose a lot of games down the stretch because his defense isn’t shutting the door like it used to..
If Harbaugh coached like he played as a QB in the pros, he’d be fine. Unfortunately he coaches like he was coached in college. Bo Schembechler Jr.
I should have had that name fucking trademarked. I gave Jimbo that name.
It’s my fucking name! Bo Schembechler Jr.™
You don’t remember anything. You don’t remember me calling him Jim Schembeckler and you telling me I was spelling it wrong? You basically cut and paste me all over the blogs. It’s disgraceful.
Nice try.
Go check Skeeber’s blog. Remember this…. “Jim Harbaugh: the only man to hold Colin Kaepernick under 300 yards passing?” And I also talked a lot about Dean Smith and Micheal Jordan. Of course you forgot. Kirk Cousins, Jim Schembeckler…. it’s all there.
Nice try.
I remember all of that. I distinctly remember you misspelling Schembechler AFTER I had dubbed him that.
Bo Schembechler Jr.™
Look, if you worked in a lab alongside Einstein you’d try to steal some of his stuff, too. It’s understandable. I forgive you.
Did you guys hear the reason why that FG was blocked last week in Arizona?
Bo Schembechler Jr.™ said there was a fake called but it was called off because of the defense Arizona showed and only half of the ST unit knew about it.
That’s a hell of a organization they’re running over there.
Regardless of the coaching and ST unit SNAFU, Dawson’s kick was extremely low and was going to get blocked even if all eleven ST unit players didn’t know the fake was called off.
We suck.
We lose tomorrow and there’s going to be a run on pitchforks at Ace Hardware unlike none other. I’m making the torches tonight myself.
We’re gonna lose tomorrow. No doubt in my mind. Go after whomever you’d like. But in the end, it’s Jed York and his decisions. Ouch.
Del I posted a piece the other night regarding that blocked FG vs AZ.
AZ had 9 guys on Defense and we called off the fake FG play.
According to Maiocco, some of our guys ran the fake and some didn’t, which resulted in Staley’s guy getting in to block the kick.
Pretty sums up the storyline of what confusion looks like.
With all the talk of playbooks being too thick, plays getting in later and later, execution/adjustment problems and penalties, this team is looking like the Bad News Bears of late.
Fuk’n Baalke I’ll bet.
Jim decided our 11 guys vs their 9 guys wasn’t advantageous enough.
Granted it wasn’t a short 1st Down to gain.
I’m still taking 9ers convincingly over Philly today.
For all the accolades bestowed on the Philly Offense, their Defense can, and should be, had.
Hey NJ49er, I didn’t notice anybody looking like they were looking for a pass or blocking for a run. I did notice two of the nine defenders double-teaming Staley and pushing him back half way to the kicker while the long snapper stayed down on all fours while the defense rolled by. fuk’n frostee.
I’d think Martin was a Harbaugh deal, too.
Yeh NoFear49er, total chaos.
Whether the fake was called off or not, their 9 outplayed our 11.
Have to agree with you regarding JMart too. Stanford connection and all.
We’re a befuddled team at this point.
1st half Warriors, 2nd half Bad News Bears.
Read somewhere that they (likely Fangio) were none to happy with Ahmad’s conditioning coming into Camp this year too.
It’s somewhat concerning that the edges of this team are looking a little frayed.
Gotta get things back on the rails today.
Possible that Harbaugh wanted a crack at straightening out Gabbert too?
Yeah…. all the poor personnel decisions are Harbaugh’s. That’s rich.
If we can’t/don’t run the wheels off against a weak Philly D, we’ll seserve all the sh!t we get from everyone who suggests we’re posers.
This Philly OLine is beat up, Foles has been planted repeatedly in recent weeks and we’re starving for an answer to Aldon and NaVorro.
This remains as my barometer game.
We’ll see what Jim and Co have in terms of an answer for what ails us.
They called off the fake AFTER Arizona lined up 9??
That’s what I read RT.
We’re a walking cast of clowns lately.
Hey Jim. Gamble much?
http://www.csnbayarea.com/49ers/49ers-called-fake-fg-dawsons-kick-was-blocked
Jim suggested that they didn’t communicate the fake taken off very well.
It’s beginning to look like we flat out don’t communicate well in too many phases of the game.
Fuk’n Baalke.
Del Mar Dennis says:
December 13, 2012 at 12:04 am
Our team is not set up to win Super Bowls with Harbaugh’s offensive mentality. The Niners have the second fewest pass attempts 346 (Seattle 341) for the current year. Has Jimbo not received the memo that the NFL is now, and has been for a few years, a passing league?
Harbaugh’s idea of offensive innovation is having seven offensive lineman, not five wide receivers. This is a guy who had Andrew effing Luck as his college quarterback and he still chose to run the ball 57% of the time at Stanford. He’s Bo Schembechler Jr.
Good night and good luck,
Bo Schembechler Jr.™
That’s fantastic, but I was calling him Bo Harbaugh / Jim Schembeckler this time last year on Skeeber’s blog. It’s okay. When you’re the greatest blogger in the history of mankind people steal your stuff. It’s like China and Apple products. Bound to happen. Just don’t lie about it like Skeebers. (and I don’t think you’re lying…. just confused).
Me calling Harbaugh, Bo Harbaugh or Jim Schembechler was because I was the one claiming and letting everyone else know that Harbaugh hadn’t won anything at any level in his entire career – just like his mentor, Bo Schembechler. And this was when Alex Smith was our qb. I was pissed that Harbaugh wasn’t moving Smith out sooner, then attacking Harbaugh for this serious transgression, which, after he moved Smith out, made Harbaugh in my eyes the greatest head coach in the history of football. Still is. Asshole on the sidelines be damned. He got rid of Alex Smith. My hero. No exceptions.
So does Harbaguh revert to the familiar run-first offense against these up-tempo Eagles? Or try to out-shoot them? Does it matter if Vernon is back in the game?
I think it’s do or die for Kaepernick making the transition to pocket passer and we’ll keep up the passing game. I also think we’ll try everything in the bag to get pressure on Foles. How about Ian and/or Tank on some inside pressures against the Eagles banged o-line?
Whatever we scheme we need to take care of the ball better and play with some better discipline. The funny thing about this matchup is we’ve tended to start out fast and fall apart late and the Eagles start out in the hole and finish strong. Should be a good one and a chance to get back some winning attitude.
All of the above NoFear49er.
Spread them, gash them, go over the top, down the seam, you name it.
Inside pressure is my recipe too.
Rookie Center, Molk, making his 1st start.
No cheap TDs by our Secondary either.
Live by the blitz, die by the blitz.
Foles can kill from the pocket. And apparently, Stanton can too.
Fangio needs to disguise things and take measured shots.
I’m with you on Kaep too.
He’s running too much instead of standing tall and finding a hot read.
Hoping this is the game they all click.
For 60 minutes.
Philly’s D should be beaten. Repeatedly.
Grind them down, beat them deep.
Can’t let Sproles get going either.
He’s a blitz beater.
Patrick should be all over him today.
Well, a big surprise to this game could be both Anthony Davis and Carlos Hyde. You get Davis back and give Hyde some more plays and we could start doing the old ground and pound that got us out of the hole last year. AND, and it’s a big AND, if Anthony Davis does come back, it could mean that Kaep has longer than 3 seconds to throw and maybe Roman will have some depth variance to his routes. It would be crazy to see a deep ball.
On defense, I don’t think we blitz. I think we blitzed the Cardinals and our blitzes didn’t get home. I’m fairly certain Chip Kelly watched the tape on that (sarcasm) and knows how to pickup our blitzes. If it’s me, I bring in Nick Moody just to blitz for this game only. You can’t do that for multiple games because it tips your hand pre-snap if a guy’s just good at blitzing. But this a must win game and Nick Moody can blitz a lot better than Wilhoite. All that said, if it’s not Moody, I don’t blitz at all and play the old bend but don’t break defense, trying to at least slow down the Eagles offense. Carlos Rogers could blitz from the slot, but Jimmy Ward? A mosquito could swat Ward out of the way. Darren Sproles would knock Ward into Tuesday. But watch out for Jordan Matthews dominating Jimmy “too small for the NFL” Ward. Thanks Baalke for another great first round pick.
Keys to the game will be Anthony Davis replacing the shittiest O lineman ever, Jonathan Rachal Martin. Baalke either not blitzing or blitzing different guys because the ones he blitzed against the Cards sucked. Jimmy Ward picking up his game and starting play like a first round draft choice, and Carlos Hyde starting to get more touches that aren’t just read options plays.
And hey, how the fuck about a little play action? How ’bout just running some basic run plays with Carlos Hyde, then going play action? How tough is that?
I just think the 49er have too many bad players still at crucial positions and that Chip Kelly is smart enough to exploit those bad backups. I’m sticking with my initial call 56-17, and 156-17 if Bethea goes down and Craig Dahl replaces him. But at least we have a 2 million dollar backup qb.
I mean Fangio blitzing, not Baalke. It’s late.
I’m definitely predicting a Frank/Carlos grind it up Offense today.
Philly doesn’t score while Foles is watching from the sideline.
Philly doesn’t have the LBs to hide from either.
Agree about play action too.
Once you sell the run, it’s a no-brainer IMO.
Get them to defend the run, take a shot over the top.
If you can’t get Kaep to stand in the pocket, design some rollouts.
I’d guess we do more of what we did vs Dallas, week one.
Cover 1st, dare them to run.
No big plays is the Flavor of the Day.
Jimmy on Matthews isn’t the same as Jimmy on Brandon Marshall.
Rookie on Rookie works for me.
Our personnel has to deliver.
Whoever Fangio assigns to Maclin better deliver today too.
Philly does a good job of getting people in space.
Something I’d like to see us do successfully too.
What’s missing from Kaeps’ game right now is the quick hitters.
You don’t get sacked when the ball comes out quickly on time.
Again, it’s all about finding a rhythm.
Keep a Defense on it’s heels and things get much easier to execute.
Good spot to do what we did to AZ early too.
Run the no huddle, wear them down early.
All about ball control and keeping our Defense fresh.
For a change.
I guess Willis will play first man out of the backfield on runs and cover Ertz unless they stick Ertz in the slot to play against Ward.
The safeties won’t have the communication problems they had last week so that should help the out of position TDs we let the rookie get on us last week.
You’d think running is the way to keep the defense fresh but the Eagles will be taking that away as much as possible anyway and daring us to beat them in the air. I think we accept that challenge.
NoFear49er we’ve shown some interesting wrinkles thus far.
What’s missing is the thread to stitch it all together.
Philly can be run on.
We have to show it, and stick with it, until it opens up the passing game.
Our personnel trump theirs.
We just haven’t found any rhythm or balance to keep it in motion for 60 minutes.
Has to come together today.
Good spot to employ multiple TE sets too.
Show a run heavy formation and mix in the passing game perhaps?
Hoping the quick hitters work with VMcD and Carrier.
Vernon isn’t your typical snatch catcher as is Crabtree.
If we could get Kaep to hit on 3 step drops we wouldn’t be watching him running for his life back there.
Composure and execution are in high demand, along with keeping our Defense off the field, while grinding theirs down.
They’re OLine is depleted, no LB Mychal Kendricks in the middle either.
They can rush and apply pressure.
Ball out quick, no worries about Cole or Barwin.
Chip obviously has weapons.
But, he’s missing some valuable pieces right now.
You know Frank is licking his chops for some meaningful carries.
Get him and Carlos going and this should be a successful afternoon.
If they continue to get behind early, they’ll have to throw.
Should help to neutralize Shady somewhat.
As we did with Dallas, let them run between the 20s and chew clock.
Just take away the easy scores, which we didn’t do vs AZ.
NoFear – “The Safeties won’t have the communication problems.” How do you know it wasn’t just sucking? I saw Ward pointing to his supposed help (I think it was Reid), but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a communication problem. Ward could have just gotten beat….. because, er… he’s been beat a lot this year already. Could have been him just no longer wanting to own up that he’s been sucking for three games straight.
I don’t know if the Eagles will take away our run. I think the Eagles will spy Kaep, rush 4 and make Kaep make throws. They’ll sprinkle in some blitzes and then Kaep has to show what he’s got. I’d love to see Hyde run the ball more and have Harbaugh, Roman and Solari challenge the O line to compete. Personally, I think that’s our only change…. with Hyde. But the kid’s young and doesn’t know the entire playbook.
Run the ball with Hyde and play bend but don’t break D without blitzing unless you blitz Moody. That’s our only chance.
chance*
Hyde is very adept at catching his share of passes too Spit.
Use him as a receiver too.
I’d prefer a heavy dose of clock management today.
Let Foles watch from the bench.
However that is accomplished is fine by me. Just execute and keep our Defense fresh.
1994.
Eagles 40-8.
Charlie Garner couldn’t be stopped.
Be nice to have Carlos unload on them in the same fashion.
Keep the score close and run the ball! For the coach’s sanity, they better win. Dennis will not last this game. He’ll be flat on his back rolling around on a sawdust floor cursing Harbaugh in the darkness of his cellar.
Game day thread is up.
Hey, Spit. They resurrected your boy Charlie Whitehurst. Jesus is starting for the Titans today. The Son of God is going to have to pull off every miracle from his little bag of tricks to even have a chance today. Andrew Luck has been paid in full thirty pieces of silver and is going to have Whitehurst crucified.