In another weird game that saw Kansas City and Alex Smith jump out to a quick  17-3 lead, the 49ers, behind their suddenly tough 2nd half defense, shut down the KC attack and booted a bevy of field goals to win the game. Again though, it came down to the defense to put the kibosh on a last-second drive. Fortunately for us, it was Alex Smith behind the wheel, and not Nick Foles (or any number of others) and he promptly threw the game-ending pick two plays into their last drive, again picked by Perrish Cox. Love me some COX!

Good win against a strong team, but again, this team is leaving way too many points on the field. Turn one or 2 of those FGs into TDs, and the game is a cake walk rather than a defensive struggle. You tell me the difference between 35 points and 15. It seems to me that this is EXACTLY how Harbaugh likes to win. He doesn’t want to blow people out. He’d rather slowly grid them down. Some sort of force of will thing. Whether it costs him some games in the end doesn’t seem to matter to him. As long as he can grind away. It sort of fits in with the daily maelstrom that swirls around Harbaugh, the front office, and the players. A maelstrom of his own device.

The pressure is certainly off the players as Harbaugh is orchestrating all the whirlwind directly toward himself. He’s the eye of the hurricane. How this works out no one knows, but it sure paints the world very black and white to the people in the locker room. It’s the team vs the media. It’s the team vs the management. It’s the team vs the next opponent. It’s the team vs the world.

Yeah, this is taken directly from the Bill Walsh school of media manipulation, but Bill was in no way this fanatical about it. He had a thinly veiled but very cutting tongue when dealing with the media,  but he wouldn’t go out of his way to ratchet up the bullshit. Believe the bullshit, and you get to the report that even a Super Bowl victory wouldn’t save his job. Is Jed that stupid? As ludicrous as that sounds, it isn’t unprecedented. Just ask Jerry Jones how well firing your Super Bowl coach goes. Does one playoff game win in 20 years ring a bell? Or even Uncle Eddie. He drove HIS Super Bowl winning coach out by shitting on his head at every turn.