Forty Niners Forever

From IrishKevin. It’s from week 5 of the season, but it’s funny as hell . . .

Well, here we are in weekend two-o of the playoffs. Most everyone went with the home teams last week, and were rewarded with 3-1 records.The big boys are coming to the plate, so this should be a very interesting set of games. I haven’t really thought about any of these games short of the Niners/Packers, and to say that I’d be surprised to see Atlanta win, but . . .

Seattle wins a closer-than-expected battle 24-20.

The AFC has the oh-so-close-but-not-quite Baltimore Ravens vs the Manning-led (not a dry seat in Dennis’ house) Denver Broncos. Normally I’d think that Baltimore’s defense would win the day, but Manning has been on fire since October. After starting 2-3, Denver has won 11 in a row, including a 34-17 crushing of those same Ravens. They look pretty strong, but can they take the Ravens now that crappy dancer is back? Looks to be a tough game, but Balt isn’t young anymore, and Flacco is, well, Flacco. Never consistent enough. Denver’s defense is better than Balt’s offense, so they go nowhere. Give this one to the Broncos, 28-10.

New England and the Houstons? Houston is a smoke-and-mirrors team. They played an easy schedule, and the tough teams they played: NE, Indy, GB, and Minn, they lost. They did beat Cincy, but shouldn’t have. Ponder missed on too many wide open opportunities, and couldn’t cash in to AJ Green despite many chances. New England wins big. 38-13.

To recap:

SF 34 – GB 17
Sea 24 – Atl 20
Den 28 – Balt 10
NE 38 – Hou 13

Last year it was the Giants in the NFCCG, this year we get Green Bay in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Niners seem to be meeting old friends in these playoffs. Green Bay leads the all-time series, one that has seen 62 meetings dating back to 1950. Green Bay leads 34-27-1. Green bay also owns the playoff meetings. In the last 5 playoff meetings between the 2 teams, Green Bay is 4-1. The lone win for the Niners is the Owens Owens Owens! wildcard win back in 1999. The last playoff meeting betwee the 2 teams was in the 2001 wildcard round. The Niners lost in Lambeau 25-15 in a meeting between Brett Favre and Jeff Garcia.

Now? Well, the prognosticators are pretty much giving the game to Green Bay. At least the ones I’ve been seeing. It’s hard to bet against Aaron Rodgers, but Rodgers had a healthy team at the start of the season, and the Niners pretty much flattened them. If not for a gift punt return where the replacement refs missed 2 blatant blocks in the back when they picked up their flags and ate them. Still, the Niners won fairly easily. Saturday night however, the Niners will have their playoff rookie, Colin Kaepernick, behind center, and a team that is banged up a good bit. Gone are Kendall Hunter, Mario Manningham, Kyle Williams, and a limited Justin Smith. In their place are LaMichael James (good), Ted Ginn (bad), and AJ Jenkins (ugly), and a fair Ricky Jean Francois. I hope to see Randy Moss used more, and having Jenkins do more than get one look would help. Still not enough deep balls being thrown to either Moss or Jenkins.

Other than that, the formula remains the same for the Niners. Get to Rodgers early and often. They did that in the first meeting this year, and Rodgers was obviously rattled. If Justin Smith isn’t providing enough support for Aldon Smith, then the Niners should move Aldon around to force mismatches and get him in Rodgers’ face. Offensively? Well, the Niners aren’t going to suddenly go 4 wide and pistol formation every down, but certainly that is something that they should try on occasion. During Kappy’s time at UNR running the pistol, he had 2 RBs go over 1,000 yards the same year. Running out of the spread can be very effective, and Gore has done it the few times we have tried it. Get that going, and play-action out of that works great.

Minimize turnovers, force Rodgers into bad decisions or sacks, and get some early points on the board. Game over. I think I said 34-17, and I’m sticking with that.

Pretty much everyone went heavy on the home teams, so pretty much everyone got 3 out of 4 on the playoff prognosticating. As it was, only the following got them all right:

• AlleyKat
• Grumpy Guy
• NoFear

The following were 3-1:

• Me
• Snarkk
• Nip
• Phil
• Shaman
• Dennis
• Barley
• 12th

The stragglers at 2-2 were:

• Spitty and Kevin

And the lone disaster at 0-4 was:

• Flava Flav

Twin and RTF have both taken a permanent vacation, I guess. So no clue as to what they thought. Sorry guys.

At this point, I think the Niners are looking pretty good at getting to the NFC Championship game again. Green Bay was playing at home against a quarterback who was horrifically bad and didn’t crush them like they should have. Truth be told, Jack Webb (Book ‘im, Dan-o [I know, wrong show. Just the facts, ma’am?]) was in a tough spot having thrown 0 passes over the season, and he looked rusty and lost. Still and all, he and the Vikes should have been a little more ready than they showed. That 1st drive looked good til Smoky Joe had to throw. It was like watching Joe Frazier trying to swim in the ABC Battle of the Network Superstars, or whatever that hokey show was.

Minnesota has a good defense, but I think the Niners are better defensively, and worlds better offensively. GB’s run game isn’t really all that great, even with used car salesman DuJuan Harris in there. I expect our offense to be a little tougher than the rudderless ship the Vikes were with Ponder on the sidelines. Juston Smith will be back, in a limited fashion most likely, but Ricky Jean has to really do a better job of holding the point. He will get a lot of action his way early and often. But all in all, I thnk the Niners win this going away.

Here’s how I see it:

Hou over Cincy
Green Bay over Minn
Wash ove Sea
Balt over Indy

Cincinnati may pull this off, but I doubt it. The rest are pretty solid locks. Green Bay won’t lose both halves of a home-and-home series to Minnesota. Seattle, for all their recent glory, still struggles on the road. Indy is a very young team that is destined for greatness, but they are too green at this point to beat Balt in the playoffs.

As a sidenote, this scenario works out best for the Niners.

What do yo think?

Here we are, safely ensconced in the bye week, and the Niners have reverted to mini-camp mode in the kicking department. Because of the status of one David Akers, hurt or not, he’s been sucking the big one. His accuracy rate of 69% is good enough for 31st in the league. Only Green Bay has a worse kicker in (Jackie) Mason Crosby, who is an abysmal 64%.

The season for Akers started out with such hope as he tied the NFL record with a 63 yard kick in Green Bay. But he had costly misses in the Giants game early, and both the StL games (1 miss in the OT tie, and 1 miss in the OT loss) among a whole bunch of other botched attempts. With those kicks, the Niners could have ended up 13-3 and holding the #1 seed, but in the end the Niners still have the bye, and Atl will lose so the NFC Championship game likely goes through SF anyway.

The difference between this year and last is the distance of Akers’kicks. Last year, Akers was 31-32 in kicks from 0-39 yards. This year, he’s 20-23 for the same distance. 40 and up last year, he was 13-20 with an astounding 7-9 on 50+ kicks. This year, the numbers are much worse at 9-19, and 2-6 from 50+.

So, by the numbers, Akers isn’t getting the short kicks he got last year. He’s being asked to kick longer ones, and it isn’t working. He was hurt at some point in the season, but nothing has been done about his problems, til now. The Niners yesterday signed Billy (what, me worry?) Cundiff. He of the blown 32 yarder in the AFC championship game last year. Cundiff has the wonderful stat of being signed to 10 teams in as many seasons. He missed the cut with 5 of them, and played his way off of 4. Sure, he’s got experience, but he also has experience missing big kicks.

Let the competition begin.

The 2012 regular season is in the books. Through the quarterback change, myrial injuries, and a boatload of inconsistency, the 49ers stand exactly where they did last season. The #2 seed with at least one playoff game at the Stick. The revamped WR corps has been decimated by injury, and has not been upgraded through the draft. AJ Jenkins had his one and only look for the entire season on a 3rd and 2, where he promptly dropped a 1st down pass. The fact it TOOK 17 weeks to get him into the game speaks to Jenkins’ inability to catch on to the speed and complexity of the NFL game. Bust? Maybe not, but he’s not off to a very good start.

LaMichael James on the other hand, shined in his opportunity to play after Kendall Hunter was hurt. He more often than not made the first guy miss, and was a real spark on kickoff returns. He proved to be close to Hunter in his ability and there was little let-down when he was forced into the lineup. The rest of the rookie class did little, unlike the year before, when most of the draft class had a huge impact.

The defense played nearly as well as last year, without the huge turnover differential. They had some dominating games, but also laid some stinkers as well. Rogers didnt have the big year he did last year, but Dashon Goldson continued his rampaging through the WRs in the league. He gets a little wild and out of position, but for the most part he scared the shit out of opposing pass catchers and inspired a lot of ‘gatoring among WRs going over the middle. Aldon Smith had a spectacular year in the sack department, and held the point well when necessary. The troubling thing at this point is that defensive stalwart Justin Smith is injured. He does get the extra week to recover, but the thought here is he still won’t be ready in 2 weeks anyway.

Special teams is a bit of a mess at this point. David Akers missed 2 easy FGs yesterday, and was nailed in his left leg on an extra point. He’s been very inconsistent despite tying the NFL record with a 63 yard FG opening day in Green Bay. Ted Ginn has been pretty abysmal on punt returns in his Allen Rossum impersonations. Kickoff coverage has been spotty, and the loss of Costanzo has been felt across the board. On;y LaMichael James has been the bright spot in recent weeks for the ST group.

As of now, I’d think we’ll play Green Bay.

As the 2012 season winds down, the 49ers aren’t exactly right where they want to be. The offense has been a little spotty at times, and the defense, minus Justin Smith, is struggling  pretty badly. Special teams are a shambles, and the coaching staff was pretty badlyt schooled in that loss to Seattle. They are dealing with a lot of injuries, including the recently concussed Vernon Davis, Mario Manningham, and the still -healing KW and Kendall Hunter.

In other words, the injury bug couldn’t hit the team as a worse possible time. Even still, the team has a shot to secure a bye with a win over AZ, and a GB loss to Minn. Both eminently possible. Or they could fall as low as the 5th seed if the Niners lose, Sea wins, and a bunch of other weird shot happens. Sea has a shot at that bye week. How important is the bye? Well, let’s see how the team gets through the AZ game before dealing with that. More injuries to key players would likely kill their playoff run, but a week off to healthy up would do wonders to the team’s chances. More than likely, the Niners would be facing Chicago or Minn if they play the 1st weekend, or Atl if they get the bye.

AZ comes to town looking like a team that got beaten, robbed, and left for dead in a ditch on the side of the road. They beat NE on the road, and took care of biz early to go 4-0 out of the gate. Since then? 1-10. Ouch. They are in the midst of a QB merry-go-round, and their offensive line is flat terrible at pass protection. Their run game is stalled, and Larry Fitzgerald, an otherwise top 3 WR in the league, is wasting away as the QB du jour throws shit 10′ over his head, or down near his feet. Should Alex Smith hit the market, this is his likely landing spot. Granted, he’d be dodging LBs as he tries to throw, but if AZ can build a decent enough line around him, he and the team would be solid contenders in the NFC West next year.

Here we are in the final week of the regular season. Kudos to Jim Harbaugh for making the playoffs (and possibly winning the NFC West) in his 1st 2 years as Niner coach. For all the improvement of the team in this short period of time, and for the daring (if not crazy) mid-stream switch-out of Alex Smith for Colin Kaepernick, certain troubling things don’t appear to be fixed. The 3rd down conversion rate is still an abysmal 35%, for 23rd in the league. Sure, it’s up from 29% (and 31st) last year. Astounding considering the Niners were nearly in the Super Bowl. The passing game is up a little from 29th to 25th. All the new WRs have helped a little, and Crabs is having a solid year, but VD has disappeared, Manningham (as well as KW)  is now hurt, and Moss is getting some time, but not as much as I anticipated. Walker has gotten more looks, which is good and bad as he’s dropped a lot, and fumbled a few. The run game is doing better, but has also gotten hit by injuries (Hunter) and animosity (Brandon Jacobs). Gore is doing very well despite his age, and LaMichael James has done pretty well covering for the injured Hunter.

The Niners offense is identical to last year’s, as far as points scored goes. The defense is also ranked about the same in points allowed, although the Niners dropped a few spots due to the recent beat-down. That being said, the Smith to Kappy switch-out didn’t cure the 2-steps-forward-1-step-back deal. This team when on, beats the likes of Green Bay, New England, and Chicago with relative ease. Yet, when things don’t go well, they lose to (or tie) the likes of StL, Minnesota, and  the recent debacle vs Seattle. The wins were studies in offensive effectiveness and defensive domination. Solid running, errorless passing, and tight defense, with a few turnovers led the way. The losses were pretty much across-the-board failures. Strange coaching decisions, horrible special-teams play, defensive lapses, and killer penalties have plagued the losses. Strange, to say the least, that this team can’t put 3 games together when you look at last year’s 8 game winning streak.

All in all, a quandary. The AZ game should be little more than a formality, but as we all know, this team can look last with the best of them. I’m not too worried about it, but going forward, the Niners need luck to get the playoff bye, and will likely host a playoff game in the WC week. Chicago or Minn likely. Even still, the Niner playoff run is supposed to be about the NFC Championship game. One that will likely go through Green Bay AND Seattle. A tough row to hoe at this point.

Coming down to the wire here. There’s a lot on the line for both sides. Seattle has little chance to win the West, but they are fighting for their playoff lives. If Seattle IS to win the West, they need this game plus help. If the Niners want to get the 1st week bye, THEY need this game. Green Bay is playing the Tennessee Tuxedos, so they will most assuredly go to 11-4.  Seattle has some depth problems in the defensive backfield. CBs Thurmond and Trufant are questionable, No decision has been down regarding Richard Sherman, so he’s apparently  cleared to play, but Brandon Browner is still serving his suspension. I’m sure Jim Harbaugh knows this, so I see the Niners opening up early on the deep passing attack again.

The Niners D of course has to worry about Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson. I think the defense come out of the nickel they played a lot of last week. The Niners need to focus on Lynch more than they had to with NE. Lynch is a beast, and he looks to tear the Niners up if they go light on the line. But Wilson brings a big run threat as well as his passing game. They use the read option, and have been slowly running it more and more. So who decides this game? The crowd? The weather? The coaches? Turnovers?

Yeah, could be all of the above. This will be the 6th nationally televised game for the Niners, and they are a gaudy 5-0 so far. There’s a shitload of talk regarding the freshman class of quarterback who are tearing up the league. From  Griffin to Luck to Wilson, they are gathering all the press. Colin Kaepernick. For all he did in his few chances, there’s not a hell of a lot of notice about him, other than his tattoos and how he got the starting job. A few out there are taking notice, but as of now, he’s still pretty much under the radar.  Frankly, that works in the Niners favor, but in the end it doesn’t really mean much.

Seattle’s a young team making waves, but I think the Niners are the stronger team, and they will prevail.  Also, I’m gone all day, so play nice…..

Pete Carroll seems to be getting a handle on not shooting his mouth off these days. Or his players. His MO has been to do a little too much talking. Before and after games. While Jim Harbaugh tends to talk to the press in non-sequiters (Jive turkey gobble gobble, ropin’ and ridin’).

Still and all this game will be played on the likely rain-soaked turf of Seattle. This game will also bear little similarity to the previous meeting of the Niners and Seattle in week 7 at the Stick. That game saw a lot of Frank Gore and Marshawn Lynch. Russell Wilson had one of his worst days as a rookie phenom, and Carroll was still working on how to use Wilson in the framework of their offense. Wilson went 9 for 23 for 122 yards and a pick. Since that game, though, the Hawks have gone more read option, and have thrown more than earlier in the season. Passing to set up the run. Wilson has gone 13-2 TDs to INTs since that Niner game. And obviously they’ve been scoring at a very high rate. Of course, scoring on Buffalo isn’t all that, and AZ has been on a steady decline since they beat the Dolphins on Sept 30.

The 49ers? Well, beyond the fact that they’ve changed QBs, and they too run the read option now (out of the bug-eye formation), and are a little more aggressive in their passing game, their philosophy hasn’t changed all that much. They still try to pound the ball up the middle with Gore, and hit the edges with LMJ. They use play-action to try downfield shots. Very much like Seattle. Even with Seattle’s recent onslaught of points, the Niners have still outspcred them 357 to 350, but it’s basically a wash.

Defensively, both these teams are similar. A defensive backfield full of big-hitting safeties and good cover guys. The numbers bear this out. Even with Sunday night’s defensive collapse, the Niners still lead the lead in least defensive points allowed 218 points. Seattle is a close 2nd at 219. Both teams have 35 sacks, but Seattle’s defense is slowed by the loss of Jason Jones, Brandon Browner is serving his suspension for PEDs, and the impending suspension of Richerd Sherman is still TBD today. He may or may not be cleared, and even if suspended, could still have the suspension hit next week instead of this game. They do get safety Winston Guy back. He has served his 4 game suspension for PEDs.

The Niners of course may not be getting the services of Justin Smith. He of the 185 consecutive game starting (and 188 games in a row) streak, and the heart of the defensive line for the 49ers. Earlier reports of Smith playing have been clouded by the fact that Smith hasn’t practiced all week, and his status is less clear than when Harbaugh gave his ‘ropin’ and ridin’ report on Tuesday. Ricky-Jean would take his spot, and he had a decent game once the Niners got out of their zone coverage and stopped letting Brady hit 8-12 yard passes at will. Still and all, I think Justin is a game-time decision and could still play if he improves enough. Missing a few practices isn’t a deal-breaker for him.

So, I see a game plan similar to what they did vs NE. Come out aggressive. Try to get up early, and force turnovers in the bad weather. The big hope for me is that Kappy and Goodwin have figured out the center/QB exchange problems which plagued the Niners, to the tune of 4 botched snaps (but no turnovers), in the New England rain.  They cannot keep making mistakes like that and expecting to win games.