Nice win, some positives but......

Nice recap, Patrick. It came on late here (Italy), so didn't see but a few mins of the 1st qtr. I did see Justin Smith being the beast he always is...you're right, nice to see him get rewarded. Agree on the holes...DL for the most part has been good all year. It'll be interesting to see how hard they go after Franklin. If we could get another dominant DE, we could really have something. Hmm...maybe we could trade w/someone to get Suh...wouldn't that be cool. Agree about missing Clements...he's one of the best tackling CB's in the league. Also agree we need a real playmaking FS back there. By now, Goldson should've been contributing more...but I continue to see him allowing way too many plays in front of him. LB's played great...Spikes and Willis are quite the tandem. Wilhelm was still a great pickup and they'll hopefully re-sign him.

Offense was solid...would like to see some deeper routes called, though. Alex can get it there...another reason I want to see Brandon Jones do more than return punts. He's the fastest WR we have...so, maybe now that Raye/Singletary have apparently "seen the light", that'll happen. OL must be major off-season focus...some top draft picks and a FA or two. Would like to re-sign Pashos, for sure. I'm thinking they'll let Baas walk...unless he's willing to sign for less and maybe be a b/u, but then we have Wragge. There are three big RB's I've seen, any of which would really robust up our RB corps. They are Harvey Unga (BYU), Toby Gerhart (Stanford) and John Clay (Wisc). All are @ 240ish, and run with consistent power and purpose. I know there's the big kid Dixon at Miss St., but I haven't seen him play. All these guys can all catch, too.

Another big game for Vernon...if he keeps this up, there's no way they can keep him out of the Pro Bowl. Nice indeed to finally see Walker get some balls his way...for the life of me I can't figure out why this hasn't happened long before now. Love the distribution...that's partly on Alex and partly on Raye. Good Alex is becoming more assertive, as well as his receivers. Better yet Raye's actually listening to them. Maybe there's hope for this offense yet...too bad it took 12 weeks to figure it out...hopefully it's not too late.

Originally posted by PatrickJira411:

Originally posted by excelsior:
Under the "but" portion of this thread, I noticed that the SD Chargers just announced signing Jon Runyon. Thoughts?

I thought he was running for office in New Jersey

They signed him last week. Runyon is a risk, but if it works out, good for San Diego.

Dude is coming off microfracture surgery. This is such a hit and miss procedure I wonder sometimes why it is still used. Chris Webber had this surgery when he blew out his knee with the Sacramento Kings -- and he was NEVER again the same player.

Basically, you get this procedure when the knee is devoid of any useful cartilage. It's been all used up. It involves, from what I understand, drilling small holes in the kneecap. The resulting blood from the procedure is used to create a useful barrier between joints -- to stop them from rubbing together -- which is very painful.

Granted -- there are some young NBA players who have had this surgery after very serious knee injuries and they have rebounded nicely. But the success rate goes down dramatically with age. If you're an athlete over 30 -- well -- chances of success are nil.

Microfracture surgery robs you of your explosiveness and speed. Runyon won't necessarily need speed at the tackle position -- but he will need explosiveness.

We'll see. This is a calculated gamble. I hope it works for San Diego's sake.

No one has been harder on Smith than DaNiners. That said, yesterday he definitely looked like a strong starting NFL QB. Now, before all you boneheads spout off and decide he is a franchise QB (like you did after the Houston game), let's see him do this over the next several weeks. That was the first game he has played well from start to finish.

At the end of the day, the QB position is the most critical issue for us going forward. If we solve that problem, things will be much, much different next year. You can find OL, or DE's, corners or safeties through FA or the draft, but rarely find franchise QB's. To be the Niners QB, that is what you have to be and what Alex Smith needs to prove he is. As I stated, this team WILL NOT go another year without one, whether it's Smith, Davis or someone else from the draft. The Niners will have this thing figured out by the end of the year and that is in fact, progress (for five years we have not known what we have).

So, let's show some restraint and football IQ, and not get too excited over Smith's first full game where he played like a stud. Let's see what he and the team do over the next several weeks before deciding that we have solved our most critical issue in terms of moving forward.

Great win and good luck Alex.

Originally posted by PatrickJira411:
I still say when Staley comes back, stick him at RT and leave Sims at LT for the rest of the season.

Oh and get Brandon Jones of punt returns for good!

Sticking Staley to RT works in Madden, yet not in the real game. Everything is opposite and it takes a lot of practice to successfully switch. Unfortunatley, that would at least provisionally fix the RT problem, it would allow Snyder to rotate with Chilo at RG. Yet that's whishfull thinking.

Sims is garbage at RT but OK at LT.

Brandon Jones is terrible at returning punts, yet we can not risk putting Morgan back there, a kickoff return is much safer than a punt return.

Two things that concern me, that is keeping us from being better right now on offense, our running game, as we all see, and our screen pass plays. Having one real running back is part of the problem, it seemed Frank didnt hit that line with any spin or elusiveness to bust out extra yards. Our screens are very poorly designed, where there are too many of our players close to the receiver where we draw too many defenders close to the play. Alex's yardage stats would be better, maybe 300 yards, if we can get a better drawn play in for screens. They need to be quicker, and on the run.

Originally posted by global_nomad:
I like how we didn't give up a sack or turn the ball over. I think more than anything that is what contributed to the win.

That being said I hope we can eliminate those 2-3 throws a game that get tipped or battled around and then fall off the finger tips of the other team to become just near interceptions.

I agree here - it was nice to see 4 quarters of more consistent play, BUT I hate to be a downer, the same problems were there. Personally I am rooting for Smith to evolve quickly into a the "real deal." But he has to eliminate the high passes that lead to deflections and interceptions. There were at least 2 of those today, but the Jags defense wasn't as good at getting under those.

The o-line is still terrible at run blocking. After watching a lot of other games, it is hard to believe our talent is that poor on the oL - maybe it is. But other teams at least seem to get okay run blocking out of mediocre lines - maybe its the coaching / scheme??

Lastly, the defense is still letting offenses move down the field in big chunks. Girrard imploded for us today (yes, we did get some pass rush). But losing Clements in pass defense and run defense is showing up. Also, where are the ball skills and big hits from Goldston??

Some stats to consider:

8/16 3rd Down Conversion - positive improvements
27/41 = 65.8% completion percentage -- positive for Smith
0 Int - a bit of luck, but a real positive for Smith
2.6 yard rushing average - a big negative for our offense

357 yards allowed by the defense - a big concern
6 sacks - big for our defense

What also really helped us was sneaking a 49er player on to the Jaguar's sideline to kick field goals for them. They missed out on 6 points right there, plus bypassed another field goal attempt for a failed 4th down attempt in the end zone. That would have made the score 20-12, and given us a game. Of course, if we needed more points, I think our O could have gotten some more, if we weren't being so conservative at the end.

Originally posted by NineFourNiner:
Most complete win of the season. We just need to keep improving.

Agree!

I said this is another thread, but one concern to me is the poor play of Goldson.

Again I saw him flying in only to miss on a few key tackles and when he was blitzing, he completely wiffed on Gerrard.

I hope that he gets it together, he's a key component of the defense.

-9fA

Yea it was a good win all around. Just gotta find a balance on offense o line and Alex great jobs

Originally posted by 9erfanAUS:
I said this is another thread, but one concern to me is the poor play of Goldson.

Again I saw him flying in only to miss on a few key tackles and when he was blitzing, he completely wiffed on Gerrard.

I hope that he gets it together, he's a key component of the defense.

-9fA

He missed a lot of tackles and he has been really good making tackles all over the field for most of the year but today he was whiffing on tackles and missed two sacks. One thing he has done poorly all year and did today again is play the ball. Neither of our safeties play the ball well and we are getting killed over the middle of the field.

D.Walker is definitely a playmaker. Have been waiting for him to get more touches since he joined the team.

Smith played well but the stats are misleading. As I recall, he should have had 3 INT's, 2 of which would have been his fault.

Originally posted by Shaj:
Smith played well but the stats are misleading. As I recall, he should have had 3 INT's, 2 of which would have been his fault.

No.