Forty Niners Forever

Moon over My Hammy? Hey, sorry, ended up in Denny’s last weekend trying to get out of town. I-5 was flooded in Stockton on our way to Paso Robles, so we headed east on 12 and it started raining so thick I decided to pull over. There was Denny’s and their Hobbit menu, and their idiotically named breakfast sandwich. Still raining like  a bitch so we turned around and went home.

Anyhow, back to the Miami game. As easy as this one sounds, the Dolphins front line does a good job of run defense (8th in the league), and getting sacks (6th in the league with 33), but that may be due to the fact that they give up so many yards in the air (27th in the league). So, the hope is the coaching staff lets things open up some to attack their weak secondary. Nolan Carroll particularly has been lit up most of the year, so attack him. Miami’s offense is a work in progress and isn’t really scaring anyone. They are 23rd passing, and 17th rushing, 28th overall, and 27th in points scored.

Just scored a pair of tix to the game (I’m taking my son), so I won’t have the pleasure of posting here on Sunday. $150.00 each for 2 on the 4o yard line, lower east (pullout) side. Guess I got to mothball my Smith jersey . . .

“I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.”  God bless Robert Johson for that song all those years ago. Selling your soul for rock & roll fame, for the woman you love, or even being a successful football coach, the crossroads are upon the San Francisco 49ers.

This Miami game looms pretty large in the success of the 2012 football season.  This is the last home game til the end of the season, and the Niners cannot afford to lose this game. Miami is a decent enough team, but they are travelling across country and they are 5-7. Lose this one, and they could very easily lose the next 2 roadies in New England and Seattle. Neither are easy games by any stretch of the imagination. Go 0-3 heading into the last home game vs AZ would be a nasty set of circumstances, but even still, 9-6-1 would likely get them the wildcard. Go 2-2 and the Niners likely win the division, unless Seattle runs the table, but they could lose the bye week.  So, the Niners HAVE to take Miami and the Cards at home to have a realistic shot at keeping the division in play.

Seattle has AZ, SF & StL at home and Buffalo on the road.  A very easy schedule for them. Run the table, and 11-5 could very well win the division. There is Buffalo however. Seattle has been pretty woeful on the road til their recent Chicago win, and the weather in Buff is always an iffy proposition. The Niners would have to go 3-1 to stay ahead of them, win the division, and keep the #2 seed in play.

The good news for the #2 seed is both Chicago and Green Bay both have tough remaining schedules. GB has Det and Tenn at home, and Chi and Minn on the road. Chi has it even worse. They have Minn, AZ, and Det on the road, and Green Bay at home.

Of course the driving force of the team right now is the QB decision. Harbaugh put all his eggs in Kappy’s basket. At least as of now. If the Niners win the Miami game, then the pressure is off, or at least brought down a few notches. Lose this game, and the QB situation will become a full-blown controversy. Harbaugh will be 2nd-guessed over the switch mid-stream, and due to injury to boot, and it could very well fracture the locker room. I’m sure a lot of players were stunned by the switch. I was because it really left Harbaugh little wiggle room. That being said, if Kappy has a lousy game and the Niners lose, I have no doubt Harbaugh will go back to Alex Smith.

The ramifications of going back to Smith would be many. Sure, Kappy is the future, but would this delay the future? Would the Niners ride Alex to the playoffs, possibly to a Super Bowl win, and keep him? Sure they would. If so, does that mean Kappy’s on the block? Would he stand for a benching for another year to bide his time? What then? 2 years on the pine?

If Harbaugh sticks with Kappy, and they go one and done in the playoffs, would he lose the team because of the Smith benching? Next season could be a sea change if the players bail on his college rah rah style, which would then ring hollow due to how he bailed on the most important position on the team. Guys like Gore, Staley,  and VD could very well set the tone in the locker room as one being against Harbauh for blowing their last good shot. Justin Smith as well. The vets on the team could turn on Harbaugh, thus resulting in another coaching change. The year three curse of recent 49er coaches.

The beauty of all this is, win the next game, and a lot of this angst and worry goes away. Lose, and the sceptre of doom would begin to rise in the east.

A funny thing happened on the way to Colin Kaepernick’s ascendancy to the upper echelon of the young guns of the NFL. he pitched a ball 15 yards toward his own end zone, thus giving the Rams 8 points and new life. This of course came after retreating 24 yards only to throw an intentionally grounded pass from his own end zone for a safety. Kappy scored 8 for ther Rams, and 13 for the Niners. The Rams earned 5 on their own for the win.

Belaboring the conervative play calling may not be anyone’s idea of fun, but it has to play a part in this team trying to reach the promised land. yes, you change your look to what the defense is showing, but the Rams had the line packed most of the game, and the Niners still tried to run into in, to no avail. this game was so much a Noloan/Singletary game. With the exception that those guys may have WON this one.

Harbaugh called an option pitch from his own 17 yard line with 3:31 remaining in a game where the StL offense had scored zero points. The snap was low, and Kappy hurried the pitch, and it skipped to the 2 yard line, where Ted (Allen Rossum) Ginn pretended to try and get the ball. At best he should have knocked it OB, kicked it OB, fallen on it,   or something other than the lame-ass attempt to get it that he did. Janorious Jenkins recovered the fumble on the 2 yard line. Inexplicably, and with Ginn sitting on Jenkins’ helmet after the recovery, Jenkins wasn’t ruled down by contact  and was allowed to roll into the end zone for a score. Hometown call but whatever. StL converted the 2 pt conversion for the tie. The rest we all saw. Bradford scampers for a couple 1st downs with the obligatory stupid fuckup by Dashon Goldson on the hit to Bradford. For as good as he is, he continues to make some boenheaded plays at the worst possible times.

Anyhow, back to the play calling. As much as Kappy wants to pin this game on himself, and there is a large amount of resposibility that falls on his shoulders, you have to really question what Harbaugh/Roman are thinking. All game the Niners ARE playing it fairly conservative. Gore had one big run surrounded by a bunch of one yard runs. The passing game consisted of the kind of short shit that everyone blamed on Alex Smith’s limitations, not the desire of a head coach to play it safe. Kappy was supposed to assume the starting role because he brings more downfield striking ability to the table. Well, it was rarely shown all game despite the Rams packing the line and daring the Niners to go deep. They didn’t until the 3rd quarter. Again, VD was eerily silent. Walker dropped a sure TD, but there were very few downfield shots taken. Moss? He gets his 1 or 2 12 yard outs. He’s gotten I think ONE deep pass all year. It’s insane.

All that being said, the approach WAS working. The Niners had an 8 point lead with 4 minutes remaining. The D was stopping everything the Rams had. Then the fateful pitch play. If ever there WAS a time to play it conservative, it was then. Instead, Harbaugh wanted to go fucking college gimmick look-at-me-I’m-so-cool play, and boom, a gift 8 points for the Rams. Kappy did make another mistake, but it came after his 50 yard run to set up the late lead. He should not have gone OB on his 10 yard run to set up Akers’ 33 yard FG. A quibble? Maybe, but it would have forced StL to use their last time out before their last drive.

After trading punts in OT, Hekker boomed one 14 yards to give the Niners the ball at the 50. Now HERE’S where you DON’T go conservative. After converting a 3rd down to StL’s 37, the Niners ran right 2 tims for 4 yards. They tried to get the ball to the left hash mark, but the pass to Crabs was incomplete. Still and all, you don’t really want to leave your struggling kicker with a 51 yarder. Even indoors. Take at least one shot downfield. a nice mid-range pass or something. I know they were worried about a sack, but being conservative pretty much sealed their fate. I think about 95% of the Niner fans out there knew what was coming.

I’m sure you guys don’t remember that old Woody Allen movie that had Gene Wilder drinking Woolite at the end of it. Not sure how these guys tied us at out house and then proceed to lose in their house to the lowly Jets, but that’s football. Some teams match up well with others, some just get your number that day.

And, seeing as that last Ram game very well may be the last start of Alex Smith’s 49er career,  at least he went out on a good note. His last throw was a TD to Michael Crabtree, and his last game and 1/3 he was 25-27 for 304 yards and 4 TDs. Anyhow, I’m not here to bury Alex, but to praise him. Or is it the other way around?

This does however, for all intents and purposes, appear to be the start of the Colin Kaepernick era no matter what Jim Harbaugh says. My thought is the Niners come out and try their new QB out and go a little more pass happy. Some of this is due to Kendall Hunter being out, but some of this is due to just getting the kid some more work. They need to get Cappy up to speed for the playoffs and we have 5 games to get this right.

I hope this isn’t going to be as crappy as the last Ram game, but I seriously don’t think the Niners let this one get away.

Cue the Star Wars music. This, I suppose is the official game 1 of the Colin Kaepernick era. If you don’t know the story, it’s a pretty good one of a kid born in Milwaukee, adopted and raised in Turlock, CA. He was a phenomenal athlete no matter what he did, and was an outstanding pitcher and all-league basketball player at Pitman High in Turlock. He was recruited by a bunch of colleges for baseball and basketball, but only University of Nevada Reno offered him a football scholarship. After a stellar college career, he ended up as the only guy to evern throw for over 10,000 yards, and rush for over 4,000 yards in a college career.

I’m going to be out of town for the next few days, and I’m leaving this to you guys. Please try to keep it clean. Or at least civil. Ahhhh fuck it, you’re on your own. See ya Sunday night.

One of my favorite lines from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  Anyhow, remember the thrilling days of yesteryear, when the Niners were coming off 2 resounding division wins, they were 6-2, 1st place in the NFC West, and there was a clear cut starting quarterback on the 49ers? You know, 16 days ago? Well, on that fateful day 16 days ago, the 49ers played the hapless St. Louis Rams. A team that was 3-5 and stumbling around pretty aimlessly under  1st year head coach Jeff Fisher.

Most everyone figured a crushing defeat for the Rams, but a funny thing happened on the way to the victory party. Steven Jackson ran the ball down the Niners throat. Jerry Amendola caught a ton of balls for a ton of yards, and with some stupid decisions on both sides, plus a few missed FGs, the game ended in a tie. And, Alex Smith was knocked out of the game in the 2nd quarter after sustaining a concussion. Colin Kaepernick did well enough down the stretch of that game to win it, and also made a play which could have lost it. Fisher made some very dumb calls, but all in all,  it felt like a loss for the Forty Niners, given the circumstances.

Fast forward to the present, and the Niners know now that the Rams, for all their faults and growing pains, aren’t a pushover. Jackson shredded the Niners defense early, and the D missed more tackles in that game than in all the rest of the other games combined. Bradford had way too much time, and Amendola torched Carlos Rogers all day. I heard Fangio this morning stress tackling and say if their effort is the same as the previous game, the results will be similar. I don’t see that happening.

Offensively, both QBs did well vs the Rams. The run game gained steam going along, and both QBs made some good throws. We should know by tomorrow who gets the call. Other than that, KW is out, and also it looks like Kendall Hunter is also lost for the remainder of the season. Jewel Hampton, an undrafted RB, has been promoted from the practice squad to take Hunter’s place. The Niners are going with 52 guys for now, but I’m sure someone else will be added shortly.

BREAKING NEWS: NaVorro Bowman has been signed to a 5 years, $48.5 million extension through the 2018 season.

So, Jim Harbaugh came out yesterday after an especially impressive performance by Colin Kaepernick, and said he had no idea who would start next Sunday in St. Louis. This information of course is up there in the pantheon of who shot JFK, and who General Patraeus is currently banging.

Funny thing is, a case can easily be made for either. Smith has put together quite a resume since Harbaugh took over. 20-6-1 and a botched punt or two from the Super Bowl. Cappy? Well, he’s the hot hand right now. He has put together 2.6 games of very solid play with some absolutely beautiful passes along the way.

So what will Harbaugh do? I have no idea. Does he ride the horse he’s got now? Or defer to the guy that got him close last year? Alex Smith didn’t do anything to lose his job besides get hit in the head, but Cappy is very dynamic and has strung together a great stretch of recent game play. If it was me, I’d keep Kaepernick in there. Let it ride. I love what he has brung to the table, and the team sure seems to feed off his energy.

As recently as Saturday I thought they should go back to Smith after NO, but this last game was a pretty big deal. Norleans needed this game in the worst way. They were on a roll, and desperately trying to climb back into the playoff hunt. They threw anything and everything at Cappy and the offense. A win would have put them solidly in the hunt for a wildcard spot, and no one would have blinked had the Niners lost a tough road game on the bayou. Instead, Cappy played tough, driven football. His field vision is outstanding, and his passes were accurate. The only blemish came on a bad snap, and Cappy didn’t get much of a look downfield when he threw the pick. He likely should have taken the sack, but that INT let to Ahmad Brooks’ pick 6, so it ended well for ther Niners. No one was happier when the defense came off the field than Cappy.

That being said, it would be so like Harbaugh to start Smith this Sundy just to tweak us droolers and mumblers out here in the wasteland of fandom. If so, I think Harbaugh has a megalomaniacal bent of the highest order. He’s Dr. Frankenquarterback. He can whip up QBs out of lumps of clay in a week.

I suspect Scott Tolzein will enter the QB race by week 14. But he’s not included in the poll.

Yet.

Here we sit, the 49ers 1.5 games up on Seattle, a recent pounding of the Bears in their rear-view mirror, and an apparent first round bye if they keep up the strong play. The offense is clicking along, the defense has been getting tons of pressure (Aldon Smith leads the league with 14 sacks), and the special teams (minus a couple fake punts) has been getting better. All these great feelings however have taken a back seat to a seemingly self-made quandary which has the airwaves burning, and the bloggosphere absolutely incendiary. The quandary of course is the instant QB controversy that sprung up out of the concussion to Alex Smith in the Ram game, and  the subsequent dismantling of the supposedly impregnable Chicago defense by Colin Kaepernick.

The stupid thing to me is this could have been averted by Jim Harbaugh.  All he had to say was Smith is getting one more day off to make sure he’s good to go down the stretch. Cappy gets the NO start, and things go back to normal. But Harbaugh seems to be the one holding the gas can at this point. He has baited the fans by calling them drooling idiots who don’t care if they win or lose, called the press liars, and left it to his starting SS Donte Whitner to say Cappy was starting. Which Harbaugh then denied. Alex Smith’s status is still unclear at this point, although it seems that he’s good to go. That his health even matters is up for debate. Cappy played a great game, but it was one game. OK, 1.6 if you include the 2.5 quarters of the Ram game. Even still, based on that, you usually don’t make a quarterback switch based on a handful of quarters.

The point being, there was a whole shitload of unneeded thrash around the team this week. Now if this was Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, I’d certainly understand the impetus to get one’s team in the news by any means. But for all intents and purposes, this is the buttoned-down San Francisco Forty Niners.  The classy team finding its way back to relevancy and the top of the football pyramid. Not a grandstanding hottdogging look-at-us kind of team. Harbaugh is really alienating everyone who is a fan of the team, and has made a chilly press relationship even more cold with his recent statements. For no other reason than apparently to leave the Saints in the dark regarding who starts.

So, I don’t get it. I also don’t expect the Saints to be pushovers as some think, due to their poorly ranked defense. They show a bunch of different looks, disguise blitzes,  and have been playing better in recent weeks, and are always tough at home. Besides, the Niners are the agents of a lot of their recent problems. The Niners beat the Saints in the playoffs last year in one of the best games in NFL history, Gregg Williams was fired for his singling up on VD in crunch time in the playoffs, Williams was then suspended indefinitely for statements he made (knowingly taped) prior to that playoff game, and the whole Bounty-gate deal.

So, there’s certainly enough on NO’s plate to want to knock the Niners off. Who knows? Maybe this is Harbaugh’s way of getting the pressure off the players. Then again, what do I know. I’m a drooling idiot.

Made it through Thanksgiving, fatter, slower, and safely parked on the couch. I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving as well. As far as the 49ers go, last I heard, from Greg Roman, is that there has been no decision made, and both guys are getting resp as the starter. And Smith still hasn’t been cleared to play.

In other words, same as it ever was . . .

So, what do you guys think? Go with Alex if cleared? Go with Cappy for one game? Go with Cappy til he fails?

I still feel the same. Give Smith one more game off. Go with Smith going forward.

Quite the game by Colin Kaepernick yesterday. On national TV, and in front of the guy whose job he wants, Cappy came into the game throwing darts all over the field. 16-23 for 243, 2 TDs sounds very Smith-like (esp with the 123 yards on the ground), but it sure looked different. Particularly sweet was the bomb to Kyle Williams on his 2nd drive. He couldn’t have handed the ball to him any cleaner as Cappy hit KW in stride for a 57 yard strike to set up a TD on the next play, a nice play action pass to VD for Cappy’s 1st TD as a pro. The next drive featured a 32 yard strike to VD and was capped by a 14 yard run up the middle by Kendall (end zone) Hunter. Drive #4 was puctuated by a 20 yard pass and run by Michael Crabtree, with some touogh running form Frank Gore. All in all, 4 possessions, 4 scores, and a 20 point lead going into the half. For all intents and purposes, the game was over. Not bad for the gangly kid from Turlock.

Leading off the 3rd quarter, Cappy his Mario Manningham on a nice slant that MM took up the field for a 37 yard gain. On 3rd and gola from the 6, Cappy dropped back to pass and looked right for VD dragging across the back of the end zone. he was covered, and Cappy rolled left to buy time, and Crabs read this and cut to the left corner of the end zone. Cappy hit him easily for his 2nd TD pass of the game for a 27-0 lead.

The rest of the game was just handoffs for the most part as the defense laid to waste the Bear offensive line. Aldon Smith had 5.5 sacks by himself, and really, the Niners should have pitched a shutout as Aldon Smith was penalized for trying to get to a fumble on 3rd and 19 after yet another sack by the Niner defense. Jason Campbell, the erstwhile vet, didn’t stand a chance against the Niners intense pass rush. They [pretty much were forced to abandon the run due to the instant deficit, and Campbell rarely had a clean pocket to throw from.

So, what now? I don’t listen to KNBR much, nor do I spent too much time reading other blogs and such, but I’m sure the airwaves are sizzling with conjecture regarding who starts next week. Add to the firestorm the fact that Harbaugh didn’t  douse any fires by saying “I have 2 hot-handed QBs” and the controversy begins. Frankly, with Alex Smith not even cleared to play, I don’t see too much reason to take anything from Harbaugh’s comments yesterday. They were made right after the game, and Harbaugh always seems to be struggling with the come-down from his hypersonic adrenaline-fueled coaching high. Until Smith gets cleared, everything WILL be conjecture and innuendo.

I’m fairly certain Harbaugh reinstates Alex Smith as the starter going forward if he is cleared to play. Cappy played as near-perfect a game that anyone could have expected, but one game does not make a ginormous decision like this cone to pass. Although the pressure to perform is ratched up a little bit under Alex Smith’s ass.