Forty Niners Forever

Well, so far in the young season, the Niners have gotten their first win under Jim Harbaugh, their first road win in Cincinnati, and a near-miss against a quality team vs Dallas. Say what you will about Dallas, but they could very well be 0-3, while SF could be 3-0. As it is, they are both 2-1. AZ and Seattle are 1-2, and the Lambs are 0-3. As good as it all seems, the Niners are about to face a tough few weeks coming up. Games against Philly (road), Tampa, and Detroit (road) lead to the bye week in week 7. The only patsy in the immediate future is Cleveland after the bye week. And you know how much the Yorks want to win the battle of Ohio (having recently won the first leg). 

Philly and Deeetroit look to be the hardest games in the near future. Tampa? Haven’t seen them this year, but they’ve scraped past Atlanta and Minnesota, and lost to Deeetroit. Philly matches up offensively very well against what the Niners struggle with. And that’s the short passing game/WCO type passes to the flat, TEs underneath, and delayed screens. Dallas shredded the Niners in the 4th quarter by going underneath, and featuring Witten to no end. Celek was kept quiet by the Giants, but Philly’s WRs had good numbers across the board. 13 catches for 160 yards. Although Maclin is questionable for the Niner game. Philly aslo runs pretty well, and this will be a test for Sopoaga to clog the middle, and the LBs to stay at home. Overpursuing on screen plays is death, and Bowman especially needs to not get caught out of position on screens and delays. 

Tampa is more of a ball control offense. They don’t do anything particularly great, but they move the chains and grind out drives.  Freeman is fair to good, but 2 TDs and 4 picks  isn’t all that. And their run game is fair to middling as well. This should be a winnable game.

Deeetroit on the other hand, is pass, pass, pass. Stafford is close to 1,000 yards passing already, and they are 4th in the league in passing yards. They have a very good young secondary as well. However, teams run on them pretty well, so our O line will hopefully start to gel and be able to open up holes for Gore and Hunter.  

So, these next three games are a challenge to this young team trying to find its way. 0-3 wouldn’t be the end of the season, but depending on how these games go, it’ll tell how much they have learned. The Niners need to take care of their home game vs Tampa. That is the best chance of winning their next few. A win in either Deeetroit or Philly would be pretty large, and would garner this team some cred and some confidence.

3-3 is the likely outcome at the break. We’ll see what the deal is after that. Then the schedule gets pretty dicey with the likes of Baltimore, the Giants, Washington, and Pittsburgh around the usual suspects of the NFC West. One would think 8-8 is in reach. They’d have to beat some good teams to improve on that.

Those are for Rob! Well, a highly herky-jerky offensive performance was rewarded with a road win for young coach Harbaugh. Harbaugh went to the air a lot more that the first two games (30 passes to 29 runs), and the results were all over the place. Smith ended up 20-30 for 201, but, as usual, he was sacked (5 times), hurried, and pressured all day. This is a recurring problem. He had at least 4 dropped passes. Crabs drop on a 3rd down was plain unnacceptable. The overturned TD looked like a bad call. Harbaugh should have challenged that. Crabs had a couple more drops. VD dropped a nice 20 yard out on the 9 yard line, plus he fumbled, but ended up with 114 yards on 8 catches. The drops are maddening. Smith was errant on a few passes, but Harbaugh must be really working with Smith on his tendency of throwing high balls, because most of his passes were low. Still and all, the Niners barely drove the ball past the 50, and the run game was again nowhere to be found. 68 yards is pretty bad. Gore had a costly fumble (lost) deep in Niner territory, Miller as well, although the Niners recovered that one. Miller looked good catching the ball out of the backfield, though. Without the fumble, he could have displaced Norriss. It still may happen. VD put the ball on the ground too. The highlight of the run game was Hunter’s 7 yard TD run in the 4th quarter to give the Niners the lead.

Defensively, the Niners started this game just like the Dallas game, where the opponent marched straight down the field to inside the 10, and forced a field goal (Dallas missed theirs).  The base pass rush continues to be very solid. Only one sack, though it was a jarring hit by Ahmad Brooks. Aldon Smith was in early, but did not see a lot of action However, Ginger shredded the defense on that 1st drive. The run defense was again solid, but some of that is a by-product of the Niner defense giving up a lot through the air. The DBs, though, did well for the most part. Rogers undercut the out route for a nice pick, and R Smith made a very nice diving pick on the errant deep ball by Dalton late in the game.

All in all, a decent effort. The main thing is, it is a win on the road. Those are hard to come by in the NFL. Especially for a rookie coach. Just ask Tony Romo. Harbaugh is still trying to find an identity for his offense, and the struggles were apparent yesterday. False start penalties, unneccesary time outs, and missed blocking assignments were many and varied. Mainly because the Niners were trying to throw more than they had in the previous two games. Yes, this looks a lot like last year, and the year before that, but the reality is, this coaching staff has had little time to install this new offense. They started out with the run and are now moving on to the pass. Kind of an extended training camp. The hope is that they get more cohesive and right the little mistakes before they become a bigger problem down the line. Strangely, Gore was pretty passive blocking yesterday. He’s usually solid at picking up blitzes, but yesterday not so much. Gore had a bad day yesterday, and he may be in danger of getting spelled more often by Hunter.

Philly is next, on the road, and they were embarrassed by the New York football Giants yesterday. E Manning torched the vaunted Philly secondary for 4 TDs in the air, and Bradshaw gained 86 yards on the ground. Philly is a bit demoralized, but a win in Philly would be very hard to come by. The Niners would need to bring the pressure even more, and slow down Philly’s WCO. They throw underneath a ton, and with Vick likely out, this would be even more likely with Franz Kafka in there. A metamorphosis into a punishing defense that can stop short passes is needed.

So, Harbaugh did in game one what it took Singletary 6 weeks to do last year, and that was win game one. Next on Harbaugh’s bucket list is to win on the road. Since last year’s Denver gasme was technically a home game (London? Right), Singletary didn’t win a road game til week 12 in AZ. Yes, Cincinnati is a bottom-feeder in the NFL, but home field is a pretty big equalizer. Just ask Dallas. They barely escaped an 0-2 start, while the Niners would have been included in the list of surprising 2-0 teams (Washington, Detroit, Buffalo, and Texas).  Anyhow, 1-1 is fine for now. However, if this team is going to be thought of as making progress, they need to beat the crappier teams in the league. And Cincinnati certainly falls into that realm. Gingerbread man Andy Dalton notwithstanding.

Raggedy Andy has put up decent numbers (37/56, 413  yds, 3 TDs 0 picks, 105 QBR) against a couple of bad defenses in Cleveland and Denver. He’s hitting a lot of underneath stuff (7.4 yds/completion), so this may not bode well for the 49ers. Dallas killed the Niners in the 4th quarter with underneath stuff after harassing Romo most of the day. Their pass pro is decent enough (5 sacks in 2 games) but one can hope we bring the pressure more than Cleve and Denver.

As far as our offense goes? I can’t even hazard a guess. The Niners played as good a 1st half as they could have offensively. They followed it up in the 2nd half with a strategy that let Dallas right back into the game.  one hopes that they’ll keep the offensive flow going throughoout the entire game on Sunday, and not try to force the run at all costs.

Well, here we sit, atop the NFC West, tied with AZ. A team that has given up 932 yards in 2 games. It makes the Niners 691 given up look paltry by comparison.  The Rams are being crushed by a tough early schedule, and they could very well be 1-7 at the mid-point of the season. Seattle is in full rebuild mode, and isn’t going to win many games this year. Which I think is why Jim Harbaugh is taking the slow and steady approach to build this team. As we all apparently realize, he isn’t going to change shit up much from what we have seen in recent memory. He wants to establish the run in order to, well, I don’t know, throw dump-off passes?  Seriously, though, I’m of a mind that he’s going to slowly move the offense into something a little more passer-friendly as the season marches on. This year will end up a lot like last year. No one is going to run away with the division. It is really possible that the Niners, the Rams, or the Cards win it. It will come down to the division games. Get the best division record, and any tiebrerakers go to you.

Is this the prudent approach? The feeling here is, long-term this is the right way to do it. Try to run the offense you want to develop, and see who is worthy of it. The problem is, you will have growing pains, and guys like VD, who may very well be relegated to blocking duties again, will get pissed off at the direction of the team. Still and all, they CAN win the division this year. So, that has to be in the back of Harbaugh’s mind. Although, I’d think they have to change their offensive philosophy (short-term) to do it. As we saw in the 2nd half, the offense went into a stupor. Dallas didn’t seem to be doing anything differently, but the O line was getting progressively worse as the day wore on. Everyone seems to be clamoring for smaller WCO-type linemen, but it sure looked like the line was overpowered by a big dominating Dallas D line.

Alex Smith was 4-8, 48 yards in the 2nd half, with the pick, but he went back to pass 12 times. 3 sacks, and 3 scrambles. The 1st half netted 3 sacks for Dallas, but Smith went back to pass 19 times, and was 12-16, 131 yards, and 2 TDs in the 1st half.

Why the switch in philosophy? Was Harbaugh trying to protect Smith from getting hit? Was he protecting his linemen? Was he trying to slow the game down? Was he trying to show his ground-pound approach? I didn’t understand what he was trying to accomplish, but it pretty much gave the game to Dallas. The Niners had a huge TOP edge in the 1st half, even after Dallas’ 7:30 1st quarter drive that netted them nothing on the missed FG. The Niners gave it back, and more, in the 2nd half.

Regardless of the defensive shift (no more blitzing in the 4th quarter even though Romo was in the ‘gun all the time), I didn’t like how the 2nd half killed any progress that the team had made offensively in the 1st half. Growing pains? Conservative play-it-safe approach with the lead? Say it ain’t so. The last 2 coaches were scared shitless of getting a lead.  They only opened up the offense when they were down by 3 scores. I don;t think Harbaugh will follow this path, but the result looked all too familiar.

On a different note, has anyone out there been to a game this year? After the raider debacle? I want to know if the tailgating situation has changed at all.  I went to a game last year, and it was hunky-dory out there. Grilled some burgers with my son, threw the ball around, and had a couple beers. Has the situation changed with the new rules in place?

What started out looking like a beat-down of a demoralized Cowboys team, and Tony Romo in particluar, turned out instead to be a gutty victory by Romo and the dreaded Cowboys. the game hinged on a couple plays. As the 1ast half was winding down, Dallas faced a 3rd and 9. romo missed on a deep ball, and apparently forced a punt. However, Brooks was lined up in the neutral zone for a penalty. On the subsequent 3rd and 4, Romo hit Austin on a short slant that Whitner just flat missed. So, after outplaying Dallas through the first 28:10 of the 1st half, the Niners caved in at the wrong time, and gave Dallas 7 to close the half. To make matters worse, the Niners got the ball with 1:48, but had no timeouts. Thus, the clock ran out on them.

The 2nd half seemed to devolve into a field possession battle for Harbaugh. After Kitna killed a Dallas drive by throwing a pick into the end zone, Smith returned the favor, and Kitna then drove Dallas downfield for the tying TD. The niners inexplicably then left DeMarcus Ware unblocked for a 7 yard sack on the ensuing possession. Punt. Kitna was again picked off on a tipped pass that Brock caught. Smith made a great read on singl;e coverage on Walker split out to the right, and hit him for a 30 yard score. The Niner D stiffened , and forced another Dallas punt on Romo’s return. After the punt and the penalty, the Niners had excellent field position. So, naturally, the Niners run up the middle a couple times, and Smith scrambled for 12. On the enuing 55 yard FG, Dallas was assessed a 15 yard penalty for leverage. Harbaugh said he trusted his defense with a 2 score lead at that point. Unfortunately, there were 11 mintues left . . .

The aggravating thing is, with the game in hand, the defense gave up a ton of short passes to Austin and Witten. The TD to Austin was a very good play, but the whole drive was pitch and catch. The pressure that was there all day evaporated. At that point, the D should have been fairly fresh, but after the subsequent 4 and out (they threw a slant!), the D was gassed. At least they kept Dallas out of the end zone.

The OT was more of the same. 7 yard run. 8 yard sack. 10 yard pass on 3rd and 11. It got overturned anyway after Harbaugh called a timeout, thus allowing the replay to happen in the 1st place. They should have just went ahead and gone for it. Dallas wasn’t going to challenge. Chalk that up to inexperience. These guys have to plan for contingencies like 4th and short, and how to  get a play off quick. Same thing with the illegal formation call. Harbaugh chewed the ref’s ear off while the play clock ran down and forced a time out.

Way too much Gore. Way too much Ginn. At some point soon, Harbaugh has to trust Smith and the O line with a game that is more committed to passing. After everyone screamed for more passing than the Seattle game, the Niners threw the ball 4 more times. Not exactly the offensive juggernaut most envisioned. Yes, it’s early. Yes, they are learning on the fly. Yes, this is the safe approach. The problem with playing it safe in the NFL is that usually bites you in the ass. Just ask Miami’s defensive coordinator, or Minnesota’s linebacker coach . . .

This game will be a very good indicator of the talent of this team. In the preseason, the Niners were easily handled by the likes of NO and Hou. This is the real thing, though, and whether taht makes a difference remains to be seen. All we have heard about so far is what the Niners have supposedly kept under wraps, not what they accomplished last week. The O was vanilla. And even blander in the red zone. The D was straight up for the most part, and didn’t do much blitzing or trying to fool anyone. In other words, this was a Singletary game. However, it was a game that Sing usually lost. So, that alone is a plus for Harbaugh.

Truth be told though, hearing what these guys will do in an upcoming  game is also a Singletary thing that I couldn’t stand. Show it. Don’t talk about it. Hearing how well practice went, or how well Smith hit deep balls on the practice field usually makes me throw up in my mouth. Show it, and shut up about it. Harbaugh, to his credit, doesn’t talk much about anything regarding practice, injuries, or anything that could even mildly be construed as something the opponents can use against them, or the writers can write about.

So, another excersize in vanilla ice cream, or will Harbaugh unleash a bit of a down field passing attack? It would be nice to see the run game go as well, but you, me, and the watercooler all know Dallas will come out and crowd the line to force Smith to beat their D with some mid-range passes. Bubble screens, smoke routes, and runs up the middle won’t work until the Niners hit a few passes longer than 5 yards. Pass blocking is essential. Somethng that was a problem in the preseason. DeMarcus WHERE? is the key for the O line. Slow him down, and let Smith hit some passes, and the line should be able to get the run game going.

Beating Dallas, a good but flawed team, would be a big feather in Harbaugh’s cap. It would give the Niners confidence, and the fans a little hope, and hopefully swing the momentum for this team going forward.

Yes, the infamous 1972 30-28 playoff loss vs Dallas. Yes, we all know the details. I hadn’t even sat down when Vic Washington returned the opening kickoff 95 yards. Roger Staubach, replacing an ineffective Craig Morton. directed a 17 point 4th quarter comeback. He who shall not be named. Brodie’s comback from injury the week before. We were sitting in the south end zone, which just happened to be where the two Dallas 4th quarter TDs happened. Which also happened to be where John Brodie the week before threw 2 TD passes in the 4th quarter to beat the Vikings to get the Niners into the playoffs. The pisser? After the last TD by Dallas, the Niners got the ball on the Dallas 14 yard line. Brodie hit Gene Washington pass down the left sideline for a 45 yard gain. However, the play was nullified by a holding penalty, and they Niners couldn’t move the ball after that. That was Brodie’s last gasp at greatness, and I think that if he got to the Super Bowl in any of those 3 years, he’d be in the Hall of Fame.

So, with those 3 playoff losses, and the subsequent playoff losses in the 90’s, it’s pretty hard not to hate the Cowboys with a passion. Which is why it was equally as sweet when I went to the NFC Championship game in 1994 where the Niners stomped pistol packin’ Barry Switzer and the Troy Aikman led Cowboys to go on and win Super Bowl XXIX. Gonna have to find those pictures that day. I almost buried the ticket stub on the field, but no, I still have it, with about 699 other ticket stubs from the thousands of Giant and Niner games I’ve been to. I pulled a piece of the field up (the back right corner of the north end zone of course), and planted it in a planter box. That little piece of turf lasted about 3 years. The red paint eventually grew out . . . .

So, enough woolgathering. I sincerely hope that this time around, the Niners make a big fat statement and beat the shit out of the Cowboys. When the Niners did that to them in the 45-14 beat-down in the 1981 regular season, it was the beginning of the end for the Cowboys. After that year, they went into their own tailspin for 8 years. here’s to starting the downward spiral . . .

Dallas, coming off a dismal 6-10 season, and an embarassing loss to the J-E-T-S on Sunday night would seem to be ripe for the plucking. Tony Romo tossed a game-ending INT in the last minutes, and fumbled and stumbled his way (5-12, int, lost fumble) to an epic 4th quarter meltdown which led to  Nick Folk’s game winning 50 yard FG with 27 seconds remaining after Romo get them to a 14 point lead to start the 4th.

Dallas gained 340 yards through the air, so this looks to be a huge indication of how well our newly formed defensive backfield has coalesced. Witten, Romo’s favorite target, should be jammed at the line constantly. Knock him off his routes early and often. However, it’s hard to double him when they have Dez Bryant and Miles Austin waiting to catch balls. Regardless of Romo’s meltdown, Dallas has a strong passing game, but did give up 4 sacks that caused two Romo fumbles.

Bringing the pressure is going to be key. The Niners were able to get away with a fairly vanilla defense vs Seattle. The Niners were just blowing their O line away for the most part, so blitzing wasn’t used much, or needed much. The hope is that they dial up some different looks (like say Willis getting some backfield action) and get some unblocked guys in the backfield. Romo gets as skittish as a kitten when under constant pressure, hitting him early would help. The last time these guys played, the Niners were able to get pretty consistent edge pressure, but AF had one of his weakest games in his time here, and couldn’t push Stepnowski back, so Romo was able to step up and hit passes downfield.

Safety work is aslo big. Whitner and Williams played pretty well most of the game. Rogers had a nice breakup of a pass in the end zone, and Williams was wrongly called on the hit he laid on McCoy to break up a pass down the middle. Don’t know if Goldson even gets back in the line up after what they showed. There were only a couple times that the coverages were blown, and one of them went for a 55 yard score.

Offense? Well, we’ll see. Dallas gave up a lot through the air, and the Jets didn’t run much anyway. Keeping DeMarcus Ware in check looks to be a tall order. Getting a decent run game going woukld go a long way to helping out the offense as a whole. As the Jets showed, these guys can be passed on. But Dallas WILL bring pressure. VD needs to get his ass open, and Edwards should get some shit thrown his way. Crabs should be passed up by Kyle Williams very soon. Morgan? He’s a strong 3. 

All in all, this game is a strong test for this young Niner team. Win, and they’ll be the toast of the NFL, for a few hours anyway. Lose a tough one, and they’ll still gain some recognition. Lay an egg, and the little attention these guys get will fall off the map. This game, more than last week’s game, will be determined by the QB play. Give Smith some time, and crowd Romo, and these guys can win this.

Game one of the Jim Harbaugh era was a resounding success for the nascent head coach and the revamped coaching staff. I was especially surprised at the defense’s  consistent pressure from a fairly basic set. The Niners didn’t blitz much, and therefore had good downfield coverage for the most part. The DBs were solid most of the time as well, and Rogers had a nice breakup in the end zone. Seattle, though, started going downfield more in the 2nd half, and they moved the ball much better in the 2nd half rather than the 1st. To the tune of outscoring the Niners 17-3 on offense. Fangio has spent enough time in the NFL to know his way around a defense, and he had to be happy with the results. Seattle has a very young line, and the Niners had their way with them.

The offense on the other hand was restrained to say the least. Seattle was intent on not letting Gore beat them, and they held him in check all day, minus a couple good runs. The passing game was dinks and dunks most of the time, and the red zone offense was bland to say the least. No mistakes by Young Sir Alex, but one TD in five trips to the red zone isn’t the way to dominate opponents. The one thing Smith has shown in his career is his taking care of the ball in the red zone. To the tune of 30 TDs to one pick.

The return game? Well what can you say? Ginn scored 2 times and iced the game for the 49ers. The Niners gave up a punt return for a TD, but it was called back due to an illegal block in the back. One that actually sprung the return, so there you go. You take your chance and hope it doesn’t get called. The Ginn TD on the kickoff return was critical to the game as the Seahawks had cut the lead to 19-17, and the Niner offense had mustered only one decent 2nd half drive (for yet another FG). A bit galling was the 6 shots the offense had inside the 10 (due to a roughing the kicker call on a made FG) to score a TD, yet couldn’t. This team has too many weapons to not try things a little bit more risky than Gore left, Gore right, Gore up the middle. I understand getting the lead to two scores, but Seattle ended up getting a TD in about 45 seconds.

All in all a solid effort. Going forward, they need to get this offense up to a higher speed. Sure, they played it safe due to their opponent, but Dallas, while not a top-tier team, is better than Seattle in many different ways. This will be a truer test as to how far this team has progressed in this compressed timeframe.  As The J-E-T-S showed, Dallas can be thrown on. VD should get some heavy action, as well as Braylon Edwards. So, bombs away . . .

Well, game one is in the books. Crazy-ass game. Just when it was getting scary, it turned into the Ted Ginn show. 276 yards in KO and punt returns, and his 2 scores late in the 4th quarter sealed the game. He outgained both offenses. The D played well for the most part, barring the breakdown in the 4th quarter.  5 sacks and innumerable pressures werew good to see. Seattle didn’t run for much or pass for much.

Young Sir Alex? Well, he played what they gave him. Didn’t see the deep coverage, so it’s hard to see what was going on downfield, but he did miss aan open Crab in the end zone early on. Smith was more a victim of some questionable play calling in the red zone more than anything else. 1-12 on 3rd downs will not get the job done. 1-5 in the red zone won’t get it done either. Seattle seemed very intent on not letting Gore beat them. As he has had some of his biggest games against them. They forced the game into Alex;s hands, and he did OK with the sort passing game.

My fears of the defense being out of their depth proved to be unfounded. At least against Seattle. Jackson isn’t Romo, but the pressure was in his face all day, and the defense caused their share of havoc all game.

All in all, a game to build on. Let’s hope they give it a little more gas in the red zone next week.