Forty Niners Forever

Not a huge Bob Seger fan, but I do like that song. I was singing that when I filled up my van with all my shit and drove down highway 50 on my way back to Cali after living there from 1985 to 1988. Not that we (or I) have much of a history there, but the only real significant thing to happen in Denver was the death of Thomas Herrion after a preseason game in 2005. Of course there was that Super Bowl, but I digress. That was in Louisiana. . .

Other  than that, we are 3-2 in the rarefied smog of Denver. A city that resembles a giant dirty bathtub when seem coming down from the mountains during a nice temperature inversion, as the pic shows. Our last game there was in 2006, where we won an OT thriller, 26-23.  Cutler and Alex both threw pick 6’s, and Joe Nedney kicked 4 FGs. The more things change . . .

This game? Well, pressure is the name of the game. Get to Manning early and often. The 2009 loss to Indy serves as a pretty good blueprint. Manning didn’t get going all game. We disguised our coverages and blitzes, and held Manning to 0 TDs (and 347 yards!). Course we lost on a halfback option pass, but that’s beside the point. Point being that was in Manning’s prime. For all his numbers, he isn’t there now.

Play nickel (and some dime), dare Denver to run, and blitz from unconventional places. We stunted very well last week, and blitzed from different angles to flummox Austin Powers. Manning is certainly better than Davis, but neither is good under duress. Manning is off to another big season numbers-wise (1500 yards, 15 TDs, 3 picks), but he did lose to Seattle again amid 36 yards rushing and a lot of pressure and a pick.

So, keep that up. Quick pressure up the middle is paramount. Jam the receivers at the line, and disrupt the quick passes. As long as we don’t follow the trend of falling behind early (against these guys it could be 21-0 before they get it) we should be able to grind this out.

It’ll be tough but it could happen. If not, oh well. Losing in their house is not a sign of anything really bad. We have the Rams at home, and the Saints/Giants on the road. Not easy peazy, but we should be able to get all 3 of those. 7-3 is fine at that point.

Especially on the road and in the division . . . but I think half the crowd that showed up were Niner fans. Or Giants fans left over from the playoff game the day before. In a game that saw a horrible 1st half punctuated by the longest TD in the last 14 years, the 49ers muscled their way past the hapless Rams in what should have been a blow out, but turned into a tense little ending. After spotting St. Loo 14 points in the 1st quarter, and VMcD fumbling away a great play, the Niners struck on an 80 yard bomb to Brandon Lloyd with 25 seconds in the half. Funny thing is, the last 49er to catch an 80 yard TD? Brandon Lloyd in 2005. Realistically though, the Niners could have been down big by then, if not for a very odd PI call on St. Louis.

After the half, the Niners took control and scored two more TDs, one on another jaw-dropping pass where Kaepernick rolled left and spotted Anquan Boldin dragging across the back of the end zone. He flicked the ball, with perfect touch, over the LB defending, and hit Boldin in the back of the end zone. Later in the 3rd quarter, Kappy hit Michael Crabtree on a post/corner/post move that tied up the DB for an easy pitch-and-catch 35 yard TD. After this, Jim Harbaugh seemed to fall asleep and let the Rams inch back into the game. It wasn’t sealed until Dontae Johnson, in for in injured Jimmie Ward, picked off Austin Davis for a pick 6.

Talk about an unraveling. St. Louis was supposed to be the next up-and-coming team in the vaunted NFC West. They had some coaching continuity with Jeff Fisher and co, Sam Bradford was set to shine, they have a stout defensive line that only got stronger with the addition of Aaron Donald, and they added O line depth with 2nd overall pick Greg Robinson.

Unfortunately, Sam Bradford’s season was ended with another knee injury, Chris Long is out with an ankle injury, Erstwhile backup Niner Shaun Hill came and went with a quad injury (no, not like Ozzie’s), and the Rams are down to their 3rd string guy, Austin Davis, a guy who looked good against Dallas (30-42, 327, 3 TDs) til he threw two 4th quarter picks, including a pick 6, to salt it away for Dallas. Speaking of Dallas, thanks for the tarnishing of the 12th man and beating Seattle in their house.

St. Louis, with all their defensive line firepower, has a total of ONE sack in 4 games. Curious at best, but that makes me a bit uneasy.  Wonder if they miss Michael Sam. Still and all, if the Niners are going to progress offensively this season, they need games like this to put an end to the offensive woes. Score early, score often. Win by 21. Dallas did us a big favor, so we need to take advantage of that. Go 4-2 and get 1/2 a game up on Seattle is a good thing. We need to keep pace with AZ. Lose this one, and it just makes everything harder.

But as the SF Giants proved, it isn’t how you start, but how you finish. This team is actually doing much better on defense than I imagined. Time for the offense to step up.

In a crazy bit of timing, the San Francisco Giants, winners of their divisional series last night, will be travelling to St. Louis today. If they planned it any better, they could share their plane with the 49ers, who are travelling to St. Louis for a Monday night matchup with the Rams. They could also possibly rub shoulders with them to get a sense of how a real team is supposed to act. All baseball season, all you heard about was the Dodgers and their ace pitchers, their ginormous payroll, and their Cuban psycho player Yasiuel Puig. Or the Nationals and their superstar players, pitcher Ryan Strassburg and major-league douche-bag Bryce Harper. Or the A’s and their scrappy play, or the Angels and their enormous payroll, Yankees, Red Sox, blah blah blah.

The Giants? No one had them on the map. Even after their hot start. They didn’t complain about their myriad injuries  that threatened to derail their season, their anemic (for months) hitting, and their lot in life as they went from 21 games over .500 and a 10 game lead in early June to 5 games over .500 and 6.5 games back in late August. They just kept battling as new pieces were picked up from the scrap heap, and untested rookies stepped up and contributed huge. No one getting arrested, no fights, no front office turmoil (self-generated or otherwise) no crazy distracting antics, and no headline-grabbing bullshit. Just playing the next game on the schedule.

The Giants mantra was, just get in. Play October baseball. Reach the playoffs and everyone has a 0-0 record. A new season. A new beginning. In one short week they have knocked off the favored wild card Pittsburgh Pirates, and the best team in the National League Washington Nationals. The Giants did it through strong pitching, solid defense, and a bullpen tough as nails. They may not reach the promised land and win it all, but a lot of people are going broke betting against these guys.

Jed York, Trent Baalke, and Jim Harbaugh can learn a lot from this Giants team. They need to stick to the business at hand and neither create, nor flame, any distractions that could derail what they are trying to accomplish. Ignore the tornado of bullshit flying around the HQ and just play football.

Truth is, the 49ers ARE on a bit of a roll. Much like the Giants, they struggle mightily to score, but play solid defense, and are slowly minimizing the God-awful penalties that plagued them the first couple games. If this team eventually figures out that what works between the 20s can work in the red zone, they just might be on to something. PLEASE ditch the trick plays and just play sound football.

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.

Haven’t heard too much chatter about the return of Young Sir Alex to his old stomping grounds, but then again, he hasn’t played here, and no one seems to really care that much. KC is a team that is a bit scattered. They beat the bad teams (Miami, NE) and lost to Denver. Without Jamaal Charles, they lost badly to Tennessee, as Alex was pressured all day and threw 3 picks.

And therein lies what we all know. Alex Smith does not do well under heavy pressure. Really. no one doss well, but you get the point. Kappy was under pressure about 70% of his passes last week and managed to pull off some spectacular plays. So, to me the formula is pretty simple. Stop Charles. Pressure Alex.

On offense, I’d do what we did last week, and establish the run. Roman still hasn’t really grasped the concept of what play-action is, and when/how to use it. Nuts, I know. At least he hasn’t with Kappy. Anyhow, still a little giddy from that 18 inning epic Giants game last night. Woo hoo! This would be a good win against a decent team. One that would hopefully shut up the likes of tin star Deion.

Nothing like the words ‘Alex Smith’ to light up the bloggolands. Our hardly, strictly bluegrass quarterback, Young Sir Alex, makes his return to his old stomping grounds (well not really) to the team (anyway) where he suffered some painful seasons, recaptured his mojo, and was then concussed to a back-up role. All through no doing of his own (insert incendiary posts below).  He returns, leading the 2-2 KC Chiefs against the 2-2 49ers. Both teams coming off impressive wins against tough opponents.  Smith’s Chiefs ran roughshod over the NE Patriots, who appear to be juuust a little bit past their expiration date. The Niners of course pitched a defensive shutout, yet still nearly found a way to lose to the Eagles.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was a dark and stormy might. Call me Uncachuck. The Alex Smith drama has been played out over and over, so I’ll just say, thanks for the picks, KC. For the Niners at least, we have a team searching for an offensive identity. They have played well in stretches, but have yet to put anything resembling a complete game together. The new offense isn’t blocking well enough to unwrap their shiny new WRs in Brandon Lloyd and Stevie Wonder. They have made plays, but there still isn’t a deep game to speak of. VD is likely at least hurting and may not provide much, but these other guys need to step up. Carrier has waltzed past VMcD on the TE depth chart and has made a couple tough catches.

Our defense looked a lot more cohesive than in recent games. The DBs especially played very well against a fast Philly team. Bringing in Aaron Lynch in place of Corey Lemonier seemed to light a fire under the defense. They were in the Philly backfield all day, and forced a lot of bad passes from Nick Foles. That being said, Philly was starting 4 backups on their O line, so I’m not sure if the same pressure will be there. KC has a similar underneath passing offense to Philly, so we match up well with them. The defense should continue to shine in this game.

KC? Stop Charles. Pressure Alex. Game over.

In what should have been a jubilant head coach answering questions about a gutty win by his tough team over an undefeated opponent yesterday, instead turned into a presser full of talk about a broken locker room and players supposedly bailing out on their head coach. Funny thing is, didn’t we all see this before? Wasn’t there talk of rats in the cupboard during the death-throes of the Singletary era? Talk of a broken locker room? Talk of players giving up on the antics of their wild-eyed head coach? No communication between the coach and the front office? Leaked reports of trouble inside the walls? Leaks, rats, fingers in dykes. There’s suddenly an eerily similar tone around the team.

Strange how all these reports are happening AFTER the front office kicked the tires on trading their head coach to Cleveland before backing away from it in a cloud of misinformation. Funny how this stuff is percolating around the headquarters AFTER the coach and front office decided to table the contract extension conversation until after the season.

So, the big question here is, who is engineering these rumors? Is the front office trying to undermine their head coach to hedge their bet for a contract extension? That sure seems like the strategy. Throw a little blood in the water like ‘locker room turmoil’ and the bloodsucking leeches come out of the mud to attach their name to a story of players tuning out their head coach. Deion Sanders, who is a good friend of one Michael Crabtree, has been running with this story for a few days now. As have a lot of national press guys. Of course, Deion’s response was  “it isn’t Crabs” but his talk mirrored the words from Ian Rappaport of SI,  Harbaugh’s an overbearing task master who treats players like children.

Local hack Tim Kawakami has been all over Harbaugh for the last few years, but his bone to pick is for the RayMac situation, and many others, but not a peep about this so-called dissatisfaction and tuning out. He, and all of the local media, have <strong>nothing</strong> to share regarding the locker room and the supposed tensions. Very curious to me. Trent Dilfer went on to use the word ‘toxic’ to describe the locker room, but after the Monday night game he was backpedalling faster than the French in WWII. He said (paraphrasing here), I know players in the organization , I know the owner, and the coaches as well, but I have no inside knowledge of what is really happening. I haven’t talked to anyone in the organization. I just think they are in disarray based on what I see on their sidelines. Lousy communication, dumb penalties, yadda yadda yadda. Right, Trent. Way to weenie out.

Harbaugh for his part called the talk ‘a load of crap’ and went on to get off a great line, saying “I haven’t seen Trent or Deion around here much.” Sanders went on to tweet this: “I never knew the Truth hurts that much. Sorry San Francisco 49ers fans but it is what it is. Ask yourself why would I lie!” <strong>To me, this is the biggest red flag in all of this.</strong> It sure feels like Deion has the mouth of someone in the 49ers front office whispering in his ear. Someone with direct knowledge of the situation willing to float the premise that the front office is undermining their head coach as the season unfolds. Deion’s never one to shy away from controversy, and as a member of the NFL through its TV station, it baffles me that he’s allowed to be such a shit disturber. But he wouldn’t be this adamant regarding the 49ers without someone feeding him this information.

The players, for their part, appear to be united in supporting Harbaugh. Newcomer Antoine Bethea, Alex Boone, I mean, who really knows what goes on on their flights? No cards? No music? The team has people monitoring players’ behavior on flights? Beyond the lunacy of treating grown men like that, it smacks of utter bullshit. Would these national reporters know this? No. The locals have never mentioned it, and they are the ones who travel with the team. Something like that would be patently obvious.

So, the national media, and glory whores like Deion (who WORKS for the NFL), and wannabe journalists like Trent Dilfer,  glom onto innuendo from the front office, and report it as fact.

This is starting to look like Young Sir Jed is grinding the wheels under his head coach. He did it to Singletary with veiled leaks and unsubstantiated rumblings from unnamed people, and he’s cranking the propaganda machine again to discredit Harbaugh.

Well, it took two games, but the Santa Franciscoclara 49ers of silicon valley won their first game in their new digs. In what should have been a 35-0 beat-down turned into a near-tragic loss as the defense pitched a shutout, yet the special teams unit gave up two touchdowns on a blocked punt in the end zone, and a 60+ yard punt return by continual pest Darren Sproles.  Throw in a pick 6 by Colin Kaepernick, and you have a Niner team down by 14 midway through the 2nd quarter, and down 21-13 at the intermission, despite having outgained Philly 197 to 77 yards. The lone TD in the 1st half came on a supremely strange play in which Kaepernick rolled left to buy time, and threw a 35 yard sideways pass to Frank Gore while running left. A throw that maybe 5 QBs in the league can make, btw, and Frank, who was all alone, took the rock and okey-doked ‘n’ stiff-armed his way into the end zone for a 55 yard score.

The second half was highlighted by Antoine Bethea smoothly taking over as the enforcer of this defense. His hit on Zach Ertz early in the 3rd quarter forced a fumble that Perrish Cox recovered, and that set up Kappy’s laser throw, and Stevie Wonder’s tippytoe 12 yard TD catch to cut the lead to one for Philly. 2 possessions later, Bethea, on a pass thrown under heavy pressure by the ageless Justin Smith, Bethea picked off the underthrown bomb. Bethea, making his 100th consecutive start, despite an ankle injury that threatened to sideline him, made a huge tackle late in the game, as Philly tried to score late in the game. He shot through the line on a Gerald McCoy run to tackle him one yard short of the end zone. On the next play, he came on a blitz and pressured Foles into a 4th down incompletion to end the threat.

For all the struggles to pass-protect, the run blocking was solid, as Gore hit many big runs on his way to a 119 yard effort, and the team totaled 218 yards on the ground while giving up only 22. So, despite outgaining Philly 407 to 213, and winning the TOP battle 42 minutes to 18, the 49ers were in real danger of losing this game. The defense stepped up in a huge way, and you have to tip your cap to Vic Fangio for shuffling his lineup to get real pressure on Nick Foles all game.

As in the 49ers may need an IV after this one, to keep them on playoff life support. This is either the beginning of the end of the Harbaugh era, or the end of the beginning of this shitty start to the 2014 season. I, along with many others, saw these early games as mere tests to our depleted defense that would be overcome by our newly retooled offense. Funny thing is, though, the NFL, in all it’s glory, decided to institute new rules around line play and WR rules. Which was seemingly designed to slow down Seattle’s constant harassing of WRs, most notably, Denver’s in the Super Bowl, Seattle had the temerity to slow down Pyeton Manning’s passing attack.  Verboten, in the eyes of Herr Goodell. The fallout from that was the apparent referee revenge on a 49er team that is extremely physical and hard-hitting. Recent case being two 15 yard penalties on Dan Skuta and Patrick Willis, which both proved to be legal hits as neither were fined. Anything remotely close to being a penalty has been called on us. Harbaugh redux, or merely kicking big dog when he’s down? Don’t know. Don’t care. But these penalties have been a BIG hindrance in these last two losses, and they need to figure the boundaries and stay within them. If not, this team could very well see themselves looking at a very tough road to even reach the WC. 1-3 and the division is pretty much gone. And we’re on;y at the quarter pole.

Beyond that, this is the second opportunity to win a game in their shiny new stadium. Philly comes in seemingly matching the Niners style of play by falling behind early, and zooming back to victory. The Niners of course have zoomed ahead to leads while coughing them up late. Philly surely doesn’t defend the run or pass well, and is having trouble running themselves due to a decimated O line, so one would think the Niners can attack on the ground and in the air. The key for the local team is to keep the ball away from Chip and Philly’s offense and score TDs when they get the change. I woud love to see the Niners get on top of a team and then keep the hammer down and win going away, but I just don’t know. I think we turn the page back a little and stop ;the 5 WR formations and get back to a more traditional 2-3 WR offense that doesn’t telegraph our intentions.

Tell ya one thing, Philly loves to attack with 3 WRs all day, so our safeties have to do a much better job of communicating downfield. Could be a barnburner. Course that usually means a 12-9 game.