Forty Niners Forever

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.

In a galaxy far far away, blah blah blah. . . Well, this is head coach IV (the new hope, get it?) for the gang that can’t run the team straight. The Yorks are hoping against hope that Jim Harbaugh can get these guys on the right path. They’ve had one draft, and some fair to middling preseason resluts. Fairly impressive when you take into account the fact that there was little coaching time. This will be a learn as you go kind of season, but the easier games are early.

What does it mean for real? No clue. The hope is the offense gains some consistency, and the defense gets more aggressive. That’s all I’m looking for, in a nutshell. Nanoo nanoo . . .

 T-minus 51 hours til kickoff. The respective coaching staffs are both scrambling to find ways to make the other guy look silly. This game has subtexts up the wazoo. You have the ex-USC and ex-Stanford coaches (who have had their share of clashes) going at it for the first time in the NFL, you have the interest of a divisional game, you have the 1st game of the year, at home no less, and you have Jim Harbaugh’s debut as the 49ers coach. A job few thought he would want, let alone take. You also have the fact that this game comes down to a battle of two very maligned QBs. Tavaris Jackson had Chilly Childress singing his praises all the way to the old coaches home, and we all know about the supposed coach-killer that is Alex Smith.

This may not determine the rest of the season, as last year’s debacle in Seattle seemed to be, but this is a game that the Niners should win. The teams are evenly matched, and mainly because they are at home. Plus, if they get beaten by the likes of Tavaris Jackson this WILL be a long season.

The 2011 season is finally upon us. Long gone is the talk of lockouts, strikes, free agents, UDFAs, and holdouts. Tonight we get the last two Super Bowl champs in New Orleans and Green Bay. Frankly, this looks like a cakewalk for Green bay, as New Orleans is (in my opinion) a team on its way down from the pinnacle. They were trounced fairly easily by the lowly and ridiculed (and rightly predicted by Unca) Seattle Seahawks.

The Saints could be better than I think. They did hit the FA market pretty hard, getting Darren Sproules, the oft-mentioned Aubrayo Franklin, and another strong DT in Shaun Rogers, and they got Cam Jordan from Cal and Alabama’s Heismann winner Mark Ingram in the draft, but I still don’t think they win out over Atlanta.

Anyhow, welcome to the new blog, and onward to Sunday . . .

Here we are at the cusp of another San Francisco 49ers football season. The preseason was a mish-mash of success and failure. The 49ers played badly against good teams (NO and Hou) and fared much better against lesser teams (Oaktown and San Diego). The better teams dominated both sides of the line, while the lesser teams were pushed around by our lines. Good, bad, or indifferent, this trend looks to be followed during the season. better teams (Pittsburgh, Balt) should beat the Niners with relative ease, but they should be able to beat the lesser teams like Cleveland and Cincinnati. Division foes for the most part fall into the lesser category. There are teams that they may be able to beat, but aren’t top tier teams. Detroit and TB fall into that category.

The fact that the Niners were able to put forth a decent offensive effort this preseason has to speak to the coaching staff at least somewhat. The run game was solid, and the run blocking was there for the most part. Hunter was flat great in his reps out there. Gore got a few good runs in. Dixon was likely passed by Hunter, except in goal line situations. Norriss is stil on the team for some unknown reason. He did catch the only ball thrown to him. The passing game was a mixed bag. Mainly due to the all-out blitzing of NO in the 1st preseason game, and the horrible blocking in the Hou game. Against the Raiders and SD, the passing game was decent enough.

The newly aggressive defense inder Vic Fangio looked good at times and looked bad at times. Again, this was more the opponenets they were facing. Even still,  number 1 pick Aldon Smith looked like the real deal as a situational pass rusher. Fangio said that A Smith wouldn’t start, but would be in the rotation. This is a very good move on his part. There’s no reason to expose hin in pass coverage this early in his career. 3rd and long, 2nd and long. These are the situations to put him on. The D backs even made some picks this preseason. More than in recent history.

Again, though, all this is taken with a grain of salt as SD didn’t start 14 of their 1st stringers (including Philip Rivers), and preseason is preseason. I don’t think they are as bad as NO adn Hou made them look, but not as good as they looked vs the Raiders or SD’s scrubs. Still and all, this looks like a team that is at least moving in the right direction. Will the personnel losses and shortened preseason overwhelm the strides the team has made? Can Jim Harbaugh save Alex Smith? Is the line going to settle in and pass protect? Can the defense stop teams on 3rd down? Time will tell. This team likely faces a lot of growing pains as it makes its way through the season.