why do we never throw the ball down the field?

the offensive line cant pass protect worth a damn...thats why

Joe staley was get abused all day long...

because we keep our best deep threat vernon davis in to block because braylon edwards got hurt but mostly because of conservative playcalling crank up the offense please Coach Harbaugh your killing us with this 200yrds of total offense 2 weeks in a row

Originally posted by nflguy49:
Alex doesn't make quick decisions on the field. That's why we rarely make other teams pay for blitzing.

Take your blinders off, I neither track the anti or pro Alex crowd in this forum so I don't know which one you are. If you watched the game (if you didn't, you might get a chance if the NFL Networks so called east coast bias holds true than the game will get re-televised), those plays in the first half didn't occur because of Alex's lack of quick decisions making. As one of the poster noted, passing long requires more time than the O-line has allowed. One of the positives out this game is the QB play not looking inept as Chicago's yesterday (Cutler being so much more superior than Smith ). I was wondering why the Bears would call for a seven step drop when their QB was getting pummeled, Martzs' genius I guess. The luxury of hindsight affords us to make calls from our couches, but Harbaugh's "questionable" call would never be so heatedly discussed if we had won that game. I am going to use this as a benchmark to see if Harbaugh learns from this and also hoping that we either come up with a remedy for our O-line or scour through the playbooks and devise a gameplan to counter this deficiency.

Originally posted by dmax:

the offensive line cant pass protect worth a damn...thats why

Joe staley was get abused all day long...

That's because the defense knows our qb can't beat them so they can play man coverage and bring blitzers on every play.
We have been cursed with poor qb play for the past 7+ years.

Originally posted by 49ersswagger:
because we keep our best deep threat vernon davis in to block because braylon edwards got hurt but mostly because of conservative playcalling crank up the offense please Coach Harbaugh your killing us with this 200yrds of total offense 2 weeks in a row

The reason Davis needs to block is because the OL can't do block worth sh*t. They can't even open holes for Frank. Frank is on pace to have a subpar year. I do however will say that not having Braylon and Crabs to throw to didn't help at all with the pressure.

I've noticed though....when Alex is in the shotgun....to me he has that nervous stance. Like he's hesitant. Like he's thinking to hard about what he's going to do next. If you have that look....the defense is going to read it. Look at him next time....sometimes you see him like trying to make himself comfortable before he takes the snap, like no confidence of whats going to happen in the next play. You can totally see the difference between lets say Alex Smith and Tom Brady. Brady looks relaxed in shotgun, confident.

And Peyton Manning running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Ya lets put some stock into how a QB composes himself before a snap.

Originally posted by 190836:
Because we are a conservative smash mouth offensive team. It has been like that for the past nine years. Because we have stupid owners who hire stupid GM's who hire stupid coaches.

Harbaugh is a Walsh-Westcoast guy. Westcoast offense is not about high fly, down the field passing game...

Originally posted by b9er37:

That's because the defense knows our qb can't beat them so they can play man coverage and bring blitzers on every play.
We have been cursed with poor qb play for the past 7+ years.

More importantly we have been cursed with piss poor pass blocking for the past eight years...coincidence?

Originally posted by b9er37:
That's because the defense knows our qb can't beat them so they can play man coverage and bring blitzers on every play.
We have been cursed with poor qb play for the past 7+ years.

True but you also have to add that no teams are scared of our slow ass wr's. That's why the box is still stacked. We've played 2 games and both opponenets are stacking the box and our WR's aren't making any big plays.

I think it's time for a new Oline coach like NOW!!!!!

Originally posted by Psinex:
Easy. Our pass blocking and in this particular game, Braylon Edwards and Crabtree being out. Not enough guys who can get open or catch the ball over DB's, stretch the field consistently. Our one known guy, Vernon, was covered like flies on sh*t. And Ted Ginn had a pretty decent game, but it wasn't enough.

I Agree top receivers were out of the game with exception to Vernon Davis, but why not try Morgan, Williams or Glenn across the middle on a slant? Delanie had a couple nice catches and a TD. It just seems like we don't utilize the talent we have......... very frustrating...........

Niners have to get this fixed soon. Games are going to get tougher as the season goes on. Seattle at home was probably the easiest they'll have.

We tried it with Ginn yesterday, the TD-pass to Williams is a proof that we can play with him and Morgan did the one or another catch yesterday.
But especially the slant route is imo NOT an option for Ginn...He would get killed by a LB in coverage and he has not the best hands in the world. That means, he would be useless in traffic.
I'd rather send him down the field with his ability to run fast. Same goes for Williams imo.

Originally posted by communist:
We tried it with Ginn yesterday, the TD-pass to Williams is a proof that we can play with him and Morgan did the one or another catch yesterday.
But especially the slant route is imo NOT an option for Ginn...He would get killed by a LB in coverage and he has not the best hands in the world. That means, he would be useless in traffic.
I'd rather send him down the field with his ability to run fast. Same goes for Williams imo.

Maybe it's me but the WCO bread-and-butter passing play is the slant. How many slants have you seen in two complete games? Not many. Why? Because Smith is not a QB who can throw timing passes without telegraphing his throw. He's not a WCO QB. This offense requires quick passes not just to RBs but over the middle. Smith rarely every threw to the middle of the field where Dallas is at its weakest - LBs covering TEs. The one TD by Walker where this happened was a formation that looked like a run where both Walker and Davis were on the same side of the field, Davis draws the double-team and Walker is ISO one-on-one. Again this wasn't a pass over the middle, it was a pass to the sidelines.

I have been a Smith supporter but it's so clear to me now more than ever that he is by far the limiting factor on this team. He simply cannot reliably throw a pass over the middle - the three-step drop slant/timing pattern to his WRs that Romo was throwing all day long. We were getting pressure on Romo all game, but he just started throwing the ball faster 3 or 5 steps (mostly 3) - timing pattern to his WRs in the open spots against our zone defense. Smith is most limited when he has to play behind center. He just doesn't read the defense well or understands what's going on because that's where most of the sacks came. When under center, he didn't change his cadence and usually audibled to a running play - never a passing play.

I'm not saying Smith is responsible for this game because clearly there were key mistakes everywhere, but you cannot ask Smith ever to put the game on his shoulders and make plays. He's just not capable. He reminds me of a Trent Dilfer type QB. However teams with those types of QBs in today's NFL aren't going very far.

The only slant play i remember seeing most recently was the one to Josh Morgan and yeah....