San Francisco 49ers Forever

Bleeech. The 2013 season came to a resouding thud last night as Richard Sherman tipped a Colin Kaepernick pass intended for Michael Crabtree that was intercepted  as time was winding down. Sherman of course classed the joint up by giving the choke sign and screaming at Erin Andrews as his team celebrated their trip to the Super Bowl. God, I hope they lose the Super Bowl. Don’t want to think about or mention the game. Might as well look ahead.

What happens now will be interesting to say the least. Donte Whitner’s a free agent, but he has stated numerous times he wants to stay here. Carlos Rogers is the one on shakey ground. He’s scheduled to make $13.5 mill over the next 2 years, and he’ll be 33 come summer time. With Chris Culliver hopefully coming back from injury, Brock and Brown playing well, and Perrish Cox as the backup, I think we can lose him, and he’d only be around $3.5 mill of dead money. Plus we’ll draft for DB help as well. The linebackers are locked in for the next couple years, and even Dan Skuta is signed through next year. You have to wonder how much longer Justin Smith can play at this level, but he showed he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. He’s got one more year as well. Tarell Brown, who mistakenly lost out on $2.2 mill this season by not participating in team-scheduled practices, did get a bump from the Niners in December, but they still need to decide what to do with him. I’d say sign him. Adios Carlos.

Offensively is where things get sketchy. Michael Crabtree has one year left on his contract, as does Colin Kaepernick. Those 2 stand to cash in very heavily, and the Niners may try to work on contract extensions before they hit the free market next year. Mike Iupati is down to his last year as well, and with the extension of Anthony Davis, you have to wonder how hard they’ll want to hold on to Iupati. He may end up a cap casualty, but I think they’ll at least try to sign him this offseason to a multi-year deal. Crabs likely wants something in the $50-60 mill/5 year range. He came back ahead of schedule and played outstanding ball, so you’d think they will go hard to extend him. Kappy? Well, had he won yesterday his numbers would have gone up. As it is, the Niners could hedge their bet and not re-up til the contract ends after next season. This could prove to be very costly, as the Baltimore Ravens recently discovered. Sign him up front, and you control some of the cost, but his star-crossed career has already had more that its share of big wins and crushing losses. Can they make another deep playoff run 4 years in a row with Kappy at the helm? Or do they draft his replacement and play out the string? I don’t see that happening, but do they want to tie themselves to a 5 year $120 mill deal with him? I think we draft a QB at somewhere around the 3rd round just to be on the safe side.

Whatever the case, Crabs and Kappy are set to cash in. Beyond that, there are a lot of instant free agents as of now. The list is:

WR Anquan Boldin
CB Tarell Brown
CB Perrish Cox
K Phil Dawson
RB Anthony Dixon
C Jonathan Goodwin
WR Mario Manningham
QB Colt McCoy
WR Kassim Osgood
S Donte Whitner
CB Eric Wright

Off the top, I think Manningham, Pea Shooter McCoy, Goodwin, Wright, and Boobie are gone. The obvious concerns are Anquan Boldin and Tarell Brown. Boldon is 33, but his impact on the success of the team was pretty much off the charts. He and Kappy developed a quick rapport and without Boldin, I don’t think this team even makes the playoffs. But he’s going to want 3 years at least. And with Crabs set to break the bank, I’m not sure how they handle this. I’d think with Rogers coming off the books, they’ll try to keep Brown, with Culliver hopefully recovering from his knee injury.

Phil Dawson was money as well, but he shouldn’t cost all that much. Keep him. Cox and Osgood shouldn’t cost too much either. Get them back as well.

Beyond that, all these upcoming deals have the huge caveat of the 49ers moving into their shiny brand new stadium. They aren’t going to want to lay a big fat egg once they get there, so I wonder how this affects their thinking, if at all. One would think that they will maybe spend more than the may want to to keep the core group together, and make sure they have a strong team going into the 2014 season. They can pass the buck til 2015, but by then the team could be stripped of a lot of good players and we hit another rebuilding session. Will Harbaugh be up for that? He’s looking for a new fat contract himself, and he certainly burns brightly as he moves around the coaching sphere. Will he get itchy feet?

Its finally game day. Seattle fans are icing their throats in preparation to scream their brains out. The talk is over, only the game remains. We’ve all given our reason why, but in the end, it happens on the field. Amazingly, since I’ve been a Niner fan, I remember every playoff run short of the 1957 loss to the Deetroit Lions. I sat in the Candlestick rain for 2 straight championship losses to Brett Favre and the Packers. Reveled in joy when we finally beat the Cowboys in 1994. And threw a lawn chair 400′ down a hillside when Roger Craig fumbled 3-peat away. And died a little when Joe Montana was driven away in an ambulance in the loss to the Giants. These games are usually intense and hard-fought. As of now we are 5-9 in NFC Championships.

Time for number 6…

SEATTLE WEATHER: 50º, 2 MPH winds, 10% chance of rain.

The big news out of Seattle is that Percy Harvin is out for Sunday’s game. Not that it really changes anything, but there you go. Does anyone see the 49ers doing anything differently against Seattle on defense than they’ve done in recent weeks? I don’t. We certainly won’t stack the box to stop Marshwn Lynch, and that worries me. Then again, the weather conditions aren’t: a) -40º; b) 50 MPH winds; or c) rainy as hell.  With the weather not being a factor, one would think both teams may try to stretch the opposing defenses for some big plays. With Harvin out, this will be more difficult for Seattle, but Tate is a big guy and has caught some long balls. On the Niner side, it’s a little more difficult with Seattle’s aggressive corners, but I think we should test KJ Wright and his recently healed broken foot by sending VD on some deep seams. The Niners WILL pound Gore up the middle, but I’d still like to see some misdirection with Hunter. Screens are still a pipedream, and the flare to Tukuafu resulted in his ankle sprain, but I see the same idea of thro2w to the guy single coverage. Whether it’s Crabs, Boldin, VD, or a recently productive Patton, Kappy needs to hit his mark quickly. Saeattle’s D line isn’t quite what Carolin’s was, but the difference is negligible. Quick plays are the idea. get the ball out fast to loosen things up for the running game. Get them back on their heels and then Gore them.

This game is going to be a very interesting chess match, if chess matches were blood sport. But both teams are built very similarly, and both coaches would love nothing more than the complete annihilation of the other. Ball control is paramount. Field position palys a large part in thids game, so LMJ becomes a focal point for not making mistakes. A big punt retun can change this game, as can a blown coverage or turnover. I’d stack Dawson vs anyone, so this game could very well end up something like 12-9.

SUNDAY WEATHER REPORT: 50º, 2 mph winds, 10% chance of rain

However these two guys managed to meet up, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh face off against each other for the tenth time. They have become as entwined as peanut better and jelly. At least when the peanut butter hates the jelly. Carroll, born in San Francisco and raised in Larkspur, played college football at UOP and couldn’t make the grade in the USFL Honolulu Hawaiians. Harbaugh of course had a long and varied career as a successful QB at Michigan under (say it with me, Dennis) Bo Schembechler, and with the Bears, Colts, Ravens, and Chargers. Carroll took the long and winding coaching road, including stints with the Niners as their DC under George Seifert, and head coach of the Jets and Patriots, to varying amounts of success before becoming the head coach of the USC Spartans in 2000. Harbaugh spent a couple years with the Raiders as a QB coach before taking over that powerhouse of the Pioneer League, the USD Toreros. Success there got him the Stanford head coaching job in 2007, where he actively bugged Bill Walsh as much as he could to pick his coaching brain.

It was in the Pac-10 that the two first crossed paths. Carroll of course was king of college football, having won a couple national championships when Harbaugh came around. Harbaugh started the back-and-forth by saying Carroll would defect to the NFL in 2008, and blaming the news on an ‘insider’ at USC. Pete denied this, of course, and ended up coaching at USC 3 more years. Harbaugh also called USC the ‘best program in the country, and possibly the best college football team in history’ (sound familiar?). The fact Harbaugh beat USC as 28-27 as 41 point underdogs that year just added to the fun. Harbaugh lost in 2008, and then won the infamous ‘what’s your deal?’ game in 2009, 55-21, as Harbaugh went for 2 points on the last TD. Harbaugh’s record vs Pete was 2-1, having never lost in the LA Coliseum.

When various NCAA sanctions were about to castrate USC’s football program and take away Reggie Bush’s Heismann Trophy, Pete of course took off for the greener pastures of Seattle. Harbaugh meanwhile took Stanford to their greatest heights, and a #4 ranking as they defeated VA Tech in the Orangew Bowl. He interviewed for the NY Jets job in 2009, but they thankfully gave the job to Rex Ryan. Harbaugh then came to the Niners in 2011 as the Niners were looking to replace Aluminum Mike Singletary. In what was supposed to be a transition year in the wake of the lockout, and with little practice time, Harbaugh guided the Niners to a 13-3 record, validation for Alex Smith, and an opening day win over Seattle as Ted Ginn ran a KO and punt back for 2 TDs in the 4th quarter. They tacked on a win in Seattle later that season as the last time Seattle lost at home, until week 16 of this year at the hands of the AZ Cardinals. Harbaugh leads the NFL version of the rivalry 4-2.

Since then the teams have split their remaining skirmishes where the home teams have won. Seattle seems to hang their hat on the fact that they annihilated the 49ers in their house 42-13 and 29-3, while we squeaked our wins out at the Stick 13-6 and 19-17. All the while throwing fuel on the rivalry with Harbaugh calling the Seahawks cheaters for all their PED violations saying ‘if you have to cheat to win, then you’ve already lost.’ Brandon Browner said if he see Harbaugh he’d ‘wring his neck.’ Not so ironically, since that quote, Browner has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL for substance abuse violations among 5 other suspensions.  Fuel for the ever-stoking fires. The players seem to be having fun with it at least. Anthony Dixon called Seattle the ‘She-Hawks,’ and KJ Wright responding with the ‘Forty-Whiners’ in a twitter battle earlier this year. Hearing a miked up NaVorro Bowman after the Niners win over Seattle this year, they meet on the field and Russell Wilson says “Great game. We love playing you guys.”

Truth be told, and this is the beauty of the rivalry, is there is real animosity between the two coaches and now the fans. The ’12th man’ banner flown above the Stick was matched by a billboard in Seattle showing 5 Super Bowl trophies. In a very short time, this has turned into one of the most heated rivalries in all of sports. The fact that the winner of this game becomes the NFC champion and thus reaches the Super Bowl makes the game even more significant and intense as these teams prepare for the game in Seattle. All in all, it should be a spectacular struggle between 2 very very good defenses and 2 smashmouth offenses.

Seattle can lay claim to winning the NFC West this year, but the NFC Champions will remain the San Francisco 49ers. Niners win 23-13. I think Russell Wilson has a bad day and commits a couple turnovers. Theusual clampdown by the defense keeps the score low.

SEATTLE WEATHER REPORT: 50º cloudy, 20% chance of rain, 6 mph winds out of the southeast. 100% chance of bloviating . . .

For all you Al Di Meola/Stanley Clarke/Chick Correia fans out there . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSksWyHsYw8

Well, the inevitable has happened. We remain road warriors and now travel to Seattle for the be-all end-all showdown. Everyone knows the particulars. Seattle wore us down in week two 29-3. The Niners took them at the Stick 19-17 on a game-winning field goal.  the trash talk is prety intense, at least among the fans. I posted a couple innocuous posts on Field Gulls (an SBNation blog) and was promptly banned. Much like the Seahawks themselves blocking anyone from the state of California from buying tickets to the game. Pretty fricking hokey if you ask me.

Anyhow, as much as Seattle fans want to deny it, the Niners are coming in pretty hot. Russell Wilson has posted very pedestrian numbers these past games starting with the Niners. I’ll post them soon when I get them, but Kappy is spreading the ball around nicely. He looked off Keuckly on a couple completions over the middle, and generally looks a lot more comfortable in the pocket. Gore was Gore, and the defense took a little while to wear down the Carolina line, but they eventually did in the 3rd quarter.

Should be a hard fought game, and the winner truly deserves to bring home the trophy.

Bring it on.

Here we go. A shot at our 3rd NFC Championship game in a row. We do know that to get to the Super Bowl we would have to go through Seattle. Stop me if you think the Seahawks were pretty nondescript in their win. If not for the fumble, the Saints could have taken over in the 2nd half and won. And if Marcus Colston didn’t have the biggest brain fart in sports history, well, they could have tied it.

Anyhow, as much I would have loved to see the championship come here, it would be a certain kind of special to beat Seattle in the Ding dome next week. Today? Well the biggest thing we need is a better showing by the offensive line. Mike Iupati was dinged up, and of course VD got dinged up early and Celek was out as well. I think Eric Reid went out as well, and Aldon Smith was just returning from his rehab. And Crabs of course. The biggest missing piece. With all that, the Niners were a near-completion to V McD that was broken up from kicking a game winning FG.

Surprising in the 2nd game was the effectiveness of LeGarrette Blount. Indy’s defense was great at keeping Brady out of the end zone, but not the running backs. For all the injuries NE has overcome, they are doing a pretty good job of things.

For once can we have a laugher?

So, here we go. Round Two of the NFL playoffs. Last week is was all about the comeback and the cold. Had KC held on to win, it would have been a clean sweep for the away. The 49ers won in Frigid Green Bay, the Saints won in slightly chilly Philly, San Diego won in convincing fashion in Cincinnati, and Colts broke the streak by breaking Andy Reid’s heart.

Round Two brings about rematches of previous games. Famously, the depleted Niners lost at home to Carolina to validate their hot start. San Diego split home losses with Denver, Seattle famously beat the living shit out of Nawlins on Monday Night in the Speakerdome. only the New England and Indy have not faced each other yet this year.

Saturday

Sunday

Great match-ups across the board. You have 2 new-age QBs facing off in Cam and Kap, 2 undersized phenoms in battle-tested Drew Brees and Russell Wilson, Consummate pro Tom Brady vs the upstart pocket passer Andrew Luck, and 2 old pros in P Rivers and Peyton Manning.

All in all an excellent weekend to sit around and watch football.

For you Gene Vincent fans. . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TpX4g7-dpM

Here we are in week 2 of the 2013 playoffs. Again, the Niners are the faves on the road. I understood that for the 8-7-1 Packers, but not quite the Panthers. They are the 2 seed coming off an 11-1 streak after starting slow at 1-3 and calls for Ron Rivera’s head. After 4 wins over some non-descript competition, they rolled into SF and beat us 10-9. A validation of their win streak. Which they followed up with a home win over New England. They overtook New Orleans to win the NFC South. They are a strong defensive team with a young, dynamic QB.

Sound familiar? Yeah, kinda like the 49ers.  This game looks to be a clash of the new-age NFL QBs. Big fast mobile QBs with big arms and dangerous legs. Their numbers are comparable, their records are identical, and their defenses are equally stingy. And Cam beat us. So, why do I think the 49ers will win? Mainly because when the 49ers played the Panthers, we nearly won the game despite missing many of our best players. Crabtree was still MIA, Aldon Smith was just back and rusty from rehab, Eric Reid and Vernon Davis were knocked out with concussions, and the team was struggling with every aspect of the offense. Mike Iupati and Joe Staley were dinged up, and Colin Kaepernick had his worst game as a pro, and I think they Niners abandoned the run to ill effect.

All that being said, the Niners were close. The troubling aspects of that game was the pressure Carolina got on Kappy with their base 4 man rush. They didn’t do much blitzing but still got 6 sacks. Gore had a good game, gaining 82 yards,  but, again, the play calling went away from the run, and all the Niner drives stalled in the 2nd half.

Anyhow, this looks to be another defensive struggle, minus the minus degree weather of Green Bay. Forecast for Charlotte, NC is 59º, light winds, and a 30% chance of rain. Again though, this is the playoffs. Mistakes are verboten. Frowned upon. And usually taken advantage of. The Niners had Green Bay held to 6 yards until the Kappy interception woke them up and they drove to a touchdown and an early lead. Point being, points will be hard to come by, and turrnovers can kill. Protect the ball. Contain Fig Newton, and force known fumbler DeAngelo Williams into a couple cough-ups and all should work out fine.

24-14 Niners.

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!

Well, those were some crazy ass games today. Alex Smith matches Andrew Luck TD for TD, throws no picks to Luck’s 3, and still KC loses 45-44 after Smith and Co built up a 38-10 lead minutes into the 2nd half. Philly and NO played a more defensive battle in the cold, and NO wins their historic first road playoff win hitting the game-winning FG as time ran out 26-24.  Again, the winning QB was the one throwing picks as Foles had none, and Brees had 2. NO brought something they haven’t shown too much of, and that’s a strong run game. Something KC could have used, but lost early with Jamaal Charles leaving after the 1st series,  and the backup RB Knile Davis also going out in the 3rd quarter.

The good news for me, besides the entertainment factor of these games was the fact that the refs were for the most part in the background. There were no blown calls, and there were no game-changing mistakes from the guys in the stripes.

So, here we go. We are the last playoff game, and I think this is another exciting nail-biter. However, I think we can wear down Green Bay’s banged up defense and win this going away. 31-20 in the cold cold cold is still my call.