All one can talk is offense - is that really the problem?

Look at all the threads here saying - start Alex - wait'll Crabtree - here comes Frank - etc.

I say - wha?

I say - watch the game against Atlanta. How many points were scored by Atlanta? Does Brett Favre come in here and match that - Joe in his prime - Steve running for 1st downs?

How?

Let's face the problem head-on. It's the - DEFENSE!

Sure one can talk Chilo, or Frank's return, what will Crabtree do, those low-lying shotput tosses of Hill's, Morgan celebrating, Bruce dropping, all of that. But this offense is still trying to put it together, and with an O-line that's not letting them. Even so, they're putting up points.

Defense wins games. And look how many points were scored by Atlanta. Clements goes for the ball - and there's no support. Bly gives it right back after clowning around - for which he had to offer a long, public apology today.

You could say lack of a pass rush allowed that TD off the pick. You could say Clements should have knocked it down. A shutdown corner would. But next drive, again, no pressure. Much as one can criticize Clements, a lack of a pass rush makes even a Bailey or anyone look bad. A Ryan-type will find his receivers.

At that point, it caused me to wonder that people talk about coming up with a nickname for our 'top-rated' defense - WHAT DEFENSE?

It was right then, as I posted, that Coach Sing called his infamous 'rally round' timeout. Without that timeout in the 'bank', he has nothing to use when the refs blew Walker's call.

All 'pepped up', STILL time to throw next play - AND . . td. 14-0 looked bad at that point, mostly because it all looked too easy for Atlanta to move down the field, AND score.

Oakland Niner suggested - it's all Crabtree's fault. It was meant in jest. It wasn't till the end of the game when some posters offered that as a serious excuse for the loss.

Next series Willis looked great. Smith got some pressure later in the drive. Refs gave a 'generous' spot to Atlanta. But then came the Atlanta penalty on 2nd down. Accept put them back 20. Decline - 3rd and 9. We remember what Sing did. And Atlanta threw just far enough to get the 9. Burned. And still no consistent pass rush. Still, 49ers held.

Overall, it was a frightening first quarter. It wasn't a low 14 points. It was how easily they put those up.

And it was actually ironic that the 49ers had closed to FG range after D forced a turnover - but then where a THREE man rush put us back out of Nedney's increasingly questionable range.

Then of course - Clements goes for the pick, White spins around down the sideline, no support for Clements.

Clements having a real bad game, sure. But the 49ers offense put up 10 - really should have been 14. This was 21. 21-10, just 11 points. 49ers are in it. Bad defensive day, but still their game to win or lose.

And we come to the key play, perhaps. Walker's fumble. Now Coach Sing didn't have even one timeout. The refs blew the call. Atlanta now ready to go up to 28. Not too much for the 49ers. But much more? that would put it away for ATL.

Many on the board were ready to give up. "Carl" said - all on Crabtree," but had no smiley to go with it (anticipating end of game excuses).

28 wasn't too much. Again they'd gone right through a porous D. "Chief" had it - "35-10 halftime gameover. 28-17 halftime managable." I agreed.

Mod "49erWill" had it - "they can basically do whatever they want to our D."

And then, of course. They got their 35.

I said, then - this game is over. Done! I wanted to believe otherwise and continued to watch through the third quarter.

But 49ers were done. 35 points. To me - it was the D that stood out. The offense did struggle to put up 10, after all.

the entire team sucked yesterday the offense, defense and ST. the 9ers had the 6th ranked D while ranking #2 in pts allowed and #6 or 7 in sacks. The D isn't the "problem" of this team, yesterday it was everything. Overall we need to fix our OL and get better play from our WR on offense, better KR/PR, the D is pretty good aside from yesterday.

Originally posted by matt49er:
the entire team sucked yesterday.

I don't see it that way. A bad offense - yes - managed to score 10 points . . somehow.

A - BAD, AWFUL - defense gave up 35, in the same first half.

People don't want to see this. But read above. That's how it happened. And that's what happened.

There's been too much hype, here. It was only four games into the season. Games 5-7 are where you get a better sense of where a team is going, and why.

Roman didn't support Clements. Clements had numerous bad plays, including that one. No pass rush allowed Ryan to play like Favre. And see above. It's not 'conventional wisdom', maybe. It's not what you've been told. But it's what one sees on the field.

Dude this is the poorest evaluation i have ever seen

It's one of those days..We just need to taste it, chew it, spit it out, and go forward with it

[ Edited by sixbricks on Oct 12, 2009 at 15:55:42 ]

defense played like s**t yesterday. yes they contributed to our blowout. BUT, they are not the issue with the team this season. It's clearly the offense. Up until yesterdays game, our D has been playing exceptionally well. Can't say the same for our offense. Our offense has been really bad, week in, week out.

We have the 29th ranked offense in the league. I'd say it's the problem. Defense forced a 3 and out on Atlanta's first posession of the game, but Hill gave the ball right back to the Falcs at the 20. What is the D supposed to do at that point? At that point they're backed up even though they forced a 3 and out and they're giving up points for sure. Than you have the O punting the ball, and they're on the field AGAIN with almost no rest. Of course they're going to be tired, it's up to the offense to let them rest and keep the ball away from the other team. Noodle armed QB+Bad OL= problem.

Dude the D isnt the problem.

The whole team as a whole played like s**t yesterday. If you want to pinpoint our weakest area its the O-line. That is our major problem by FAR.

Dude, its not the D

Us giving them amazing field position BECAUSE of the offense, particularly the OL.

But as a whole the team was horrible....it wasnt just the D. But nice try on trying to think of another thread blaming something else other than the O.

The whole team played poorly. That includes the defense. No aspect of the team is except from blame when you lose like that. Offense, Defense, Special Teams, Coaching Staff. Everyone is to blame from top to bottom.

But that's one game in a 16 game season. The trend that we've seen over the 1st 5 games definitely is that the offense is the team's glaring weakness. We can't throw the ball. We can't run the ball. We can't move the chains.

A good defense can carry us to a few wins against mediocre and bad teams like the ones we've beaten, but the defense may have been overhyped as it has played against poor offenses mostly.

This game is a reality check. Our team is not as sound as we thought. There is much work to be done to improve it in every phase of the game.

I will say this: the defense is the least of my worries. I blame the offense. We've played 5 games and I don't think Hill has had a 200 yard passing game yet. That won't get it done. If you're gonna be a "run the ball and play defense" kind of smash mouth team, you'd better be able to run the ball. The 49ers can't. And when you can't run the ball, you'd better be able to throw for more than 200 yards.

Concerning the running game, I think it's a combination of 2 things:

1. The play calls are predictable based on our formations and packages. I know Singletary isn't trying to trick anyone, but gee whiz. If you're gonna run the ball when the defense knows you're gonna run the ball, you better have a superior line. And we don't. See "2"
2. The interior linemen are going backwards on at best holding their ground, can't get any movement on the interior defensive players, and that's exactly where we run the ball.

Originally posted by SybErkRimInAL:
defense played like s**t yesterday. yes they contributed to our blowout. BUT, they are not the issue with the team this season. It's clearly the offense. Up until yesterdays game, our D has been playing exceptionally well. Can't say the same for our offense. Our offense has been really bad, week in, week out.

Originally posted by SybErkRimInAL:
Up until yesterdays game, our D has been playing exceptionally well. Can't say the same for our offense.

D had been. And offense hadn't contributed much.

What you say is true.

But yesterday - against the Falcons - the game to 'move on from', to forget, to pretend was never played - the D was not a top-ranked D. And the offense put up 10 points.

So why put this on the D? The offense had 10 points on the board. AND THE GAME WAS OVER!

The offense had 10 points by halftime - and the game was over.

That's because in the same stretch, the D allowed 35! points.

It's not the stats. It's not what might have been, could have been. It's reality - what is, what was.

This D played well against the Vikings - a good test I thought. Houston shouldn't provide such a test. If they do - point made.

But Indy? Chicago?

These are the teams for which they must be prepared. Singletary says this bye offers the opportunity to re-evaluate the 53. They've already cut a practice guy, and Rossum. They may have already swapped Wragge for Rachel, but both stay on the 53. And so on. Lewis and Ulbrich are both injured from concussion. Changes to the 53, however. Sing was also right to start by saying - if I'm not apologizing at least let me say, this one's on ME, and my coaches. And then . . it's on the players. And he's spot on. And this coaching letdown was typical of the Nowin era, as well. If you want to talk O, at least I'll give you a sort of potential equivalence here between 'Hoss' and Jimmy Raye.

Add into that the odd indifference to the game by the players themselves, Morgan trying to trot in the last 10 yards, Bly celebrating deep in his OWN territory on an INT. Guys on D standing around, or lying around, instead of 'flying around', and so on.

And what's more, we all of us made these very comments DURING the game, in the game thread. How quickly people forget.

You have to identify the problem. And yes O and ST are weak. But D was supposed to be the strength. What the 49ers have are a few particularly talented and motivated players like Willis, Spikes and Smith. I'd say Manny, too. And some others. But for most part, they let Atlanta drive right through them. And this was supposed to be the strength of the team.

No pass rush! Nothing consistent. Smith gets in there. But it has to be more. Haralson can't allow himself to get stuffed or run out of plays. I remember our coach. Tom Rathman, used to run guys right to the sideline. But Haralson can't allow himself to be similarly escorted.

Etc. But, again, see above.

Originally posted by mississippi_sam:

But that's one game in a 16 game season. The trend that we've seen

Again, the bad O put up 10 points by the half - and the game was over. It's wasn't over because of their 10 pts. It was over because the DEFENSE!!!! allowed 35. But it's the trend that worries me. We've seen this, before.

So will the players respond better to 'Motivational Mike' than they did to 'Manager Mike'? We'll see.

We've also seen a trend in this team to start with a few wins, and then tank through the vast middle of the season. It's DIFFICULT to believe they could accomplish the same - with any coach - given strength of schedule this year. I think the 49ers will have to practice . . to be awful to go less than 9-7 in 2009.

But 11-5 might be nice. And that slight difference might be the difference between fixing the D, and player attitude, or not - regardless of an offense that game by game will come together, with changes made here or there to at least help the O-line do the same.

Maybe I'll agree with you on all teams, trying to score. No quitting on the run on INT. No early celebrating. Wanna have fun? - SCORE!

[ Edited by dust-7 on Oct 12, 2009 at 16:47:33 ]

Yes, it's the offense. And as a result, the defense is starting to suffer.

Just like the San Francisco Giants.

Originally posted by B650:
Yes, it's the offense. And as a result, the defense is starting to suffer.

Just like the San Francisco Giants.

perfect example. Yesterdays' game, their first drive, we get them to 3 and out. Our first drive ends up in a pick. Now our D is forced to defend a short field.

[ Edited by SybErkRimInAL on Oct 12, 2009 at 16:54:58 ]