Rank our skill position on Offense

I wonder if we will run some Wildcat plays with Hunter as QB, Gore in the backfield and James in motion ?? ...

This year I'm sure we will see some 5 WR sets with Moss, Crabtree, Manningham, Jenkins and Davis

Lot of options next year

Originally posted by DirtyP:

Originally posted by unst4bl3:
Wasn't this season like in his top 3 for rushing yards?

BTW: he just looks to be on the decline, he seemed at times to have less power, couldn't find the hole like barlow, and could not break away from anyone.

5 straight games with 125 yards and a touchdown. That doesn't happen very often. Also averaged over 5.5 yards per carry in the playoffs. I can't wait for Frank Gore to prove everyone wrong yet again next year

I hope he has another great year, but this will be his seventh season as the incumbent bell-cow back. He's had 200+ carries for the last six seasons, including 282 last season. Aside from his rookie season his total production from the L.O.S. in 2011 was the 2nd lowest of his career (which was still pretty damned good). I love the Frank but we're running the tread off the guy and his total production will continue to diminish, especially considering the talent Baalke has brought in to challenge and take away touches. We're simply watching the inevitable unfold before us. I think this will be the last season where Frank is considered the clear-cut incumbent half-back.

Originally posted by NeeJ49er:
I wonder if we will run some Wildcat plays with Hunter as QB, Gore in the backfield and James in motion ?? ...

This year I'm sure we will see some 5 WR sets with Moss, Crabtree, Manningham, Jenkins and Davis

Lot of options next year

I doubt we see any wildcat plays, it doesn't sound like Harbaugh style. Would be cool and who knows maybe our half back is a better QB than Alex is and he can just start as QB...lmao

Just the thought of 5 receiver sets on the 49ers gives me a huge boner. lol

Originally posted by SonocoNinerFan:
I hope he has another great year, but this will be his seventh season as the incumbent bell-cow back. He's had 200+ carries for the last six seasons, including 282 last season. Aside from his rookie season his total production from the L.O.S. in 2011 was the 2nd lowest of his career (which was still pretty damned good). I love the Frank but we're running the tread off the guy and his total production will continue to diminish, especially considering the talent Baalke has brought in to challenge and take away touches. We're simply watching the inevitable unfold before us. I think this will be the last season where Frank is considered the clear-cut incumbent half-back.

I don't. He is still clearly the most complete back on our roster and other than losing a bit of speed I think he looked excellent last year. Top 6 in rushing yards and of the top 6 rushers he was right there with the rest in YPC. I expect 2 more stellar seasons from Frank Gore despite the popular belief that he was on his last leg last year. As I said, can't wait for Gore to prove everyone wrong as he has every single year he has played the game of football.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by NCommand:
Great posts everyone.

My big concern is Roman himself. With all these weapons, can he use them? Can he exploit weaknesses? Last year against the Giants, we only took 3 deep shots (2 for TD's) against a team who was CLEARLY crowding the box with 9, even 10 and run blitzing between the tackles. You could have destroyed the Giants with deep balls all game long, even with just VD & Williams and Crabtree underneath. Deep balls would force the S's out of the box and open up the run game. In addition, I thought ALL year we could have used Hunter in a Sproles-like role but rarely used him. Crabtree is best in the slot with two and even three other real threats in the passing game (see his entire career in the spread).

We have legit deep threats in Moss, Manningham and Jenkins and VD. We have not only Hunter but now James too. Ginn is still a burner and teams clearly respected his speed and his loss (deep threat) really hurt Crabtree in the Giants game. We have a mobile QB who can run very well. We have two bruisers in Gore/Jacobs. We have all these weapons and really, this will be the first year Roman and Alex have these...under the same playbook. So all looks up. Right?

Roman was a BIG part of us losing to the Giants. We played a vanilla offense last year that never really evolved or progressed. But now, with all these weapons, can he game-plan better, make adjustments at half-time, use all our weapons AND keep everyone happy?

Agree totally! I love Harbaugh and Roman but the game plan seemed really odd against NYG. They need to get away from the pounding into a brick wall and I hope that was only because of the limited TC.

I will believe he can use the weapons until he shows he can't. The benefit of the doubt due to TC, injuries, new offense, no WRs and sketchy line play.

I would certainly use the TC excuse for the first half of the season but by week 18 and 19, there are no playbook excuses. The injury to Morgan and esp. Ginn were very unfortunate and untimely and certainly made game-planning for us much easier for the Giants. That said, once we saw what the Giants were CLEARLY doing (all game long), we still had two deep weapons in Davis & Williams and Crabtree underneath to exploit the 9 and 10-man boxes BIG TIME! We also could have utilized a screen game with Hunter all game long on them as well as several naked QB bootlegs with Staley out in front. All Alex or Hunter would have to do is get to the edge and they are off and running for a TD (like what we saw in the Saints game). And how about some drag-passes to Sopoaga/Staley as TE's? Gore was also pretty effective esp. in the 2nd half.

This game, to me, was on a very poor game-plan and adjustments and we STILL could have won this game. Now with many more weapons, I still hold Roman-reservations but will remain cautiously optimistic for both he and Fangio to open phase two of the playbooks.

Originally posted by PSYKO5:
what about the flysweep with Ginn and James on the field. oh snap....

How bout a double reverse with them? It'd be like greased lightning!

Originally posted by NCommand:
I would certainly use the TC excuse for the first half of the season but by week 18 and 19, there are no playbook excuses. The injury to Morgan and esp. Ginn were very unfortunate and untimely and certainly made game-planning for us much easier for the Giants. That said, once we saw what the Giants were CLEARLY doing (all game long), we still had two deep weapons in Davis & Williams and Crabtree underneath to exploit the 9 and 10-man boxes BIG TIME! We also could have utilized a screen game with Hunter all game long on them as well as several naked QB bootlegs with Staley out in front. All Alex or Hunter would have to do is get to the edge and they are off and running for a TD (like what we saw in the Saints game). And how about some drag-passes to Sopoaga/Staley as TE's? Gore was also pretty effective esp. in the 2nd half.

This game, to me, was on a very poor game-plan and adjustments and we STILL could have won this game. Now with many more weapons, I still hold Roman-reservations but will remain cautiously optimistic for both he and Fangio to open phase two of the playbooks.

I agree with most but the WRs they brought in (Swain/Hastings) likely did not have the whole playbook up to speed. If Morgan and Edwards had played throughout they would have been up to speed by midyear or after.

Totally agree with the play calling no matter the circumstances. Just seemed satisfied to play a kicking game but were finally burned by that strategy. Still, they had the game in hand until the unfortunate events (bad decisions by KW).

They really have to open up the game this year, if for no other reason than the sanity of the WRs. Moss will not be happy blocking 80% of the time and then having four or five balls come his way...no receiver does. They will not have threats at every skill position--Miller, Hunter, Moss, Manningham, Crabtree, Williams, Jenkins, Gore, James...so different than last year! Edwards and Morgan were my big hope last year.

my concern is Alex , if he is not decisive with his decision making aka the Giants game NFC championship, we are screwed . i would take a while for the WR and RB get in sinck with whom ever the back up is . the D will hold

we just run the s**t out of it , excited about James saw his tape and WOW hope he plyes like that in the pros!!!!

Originally posted by cNiner:
my concern is Alex , if he is not decisive with his decision making aka the Giants game NFC championship, we are screwed . i would take a while for the WR and RB get in sinck with whom ever the back up is . the D will hold

we just run the s**t out of it , excited about James saw his tape and WOW hope he plyes like that in the pros!!!!

Agreed. Alex is the X factor for this potentially high powered offense to work. IF he can't perform. It's just waisted time and talent...

Actually they went away from the run and that's what hurt us in the Giants game. We were running the ball down their throats and then we let up. I didn't understand it.

Roman is the on the conservative side, but he didn't have all of his weapons either. If they had Ginn, he opened up a lot of lanes for Crabtree and was becoming a decent option with his speed, running a 9 and running the cb off and then coming back for the ball.

Originally posted by BOOSKi707:

Originally posted by cNiner:
my concern is Alex , if he is not decisive with his decision making aka the Giants game NFC championship, we are screwed . i would take a while for the WR and RB get in sinck with whom ever the back up is . the D will hold

we just run the s**t out of it , excited about James saw his tape and WOW hope he plyes like that in the pros!!!!

Agreed. Alex is the X factor for this potentially high powered offense to work. IF he can't perform. It's just waisted time and talent...

Somewhat agree but it will be interesting to see if the WRs and RBs play faster this year as they know the system and the team has added speed. If you are a QB and everytime to look at a WR he is covered...slows your game and you start taking sacks...or throwing picks.