Thoughts from Idaho

In 2011 Harbaugh was brought in to change the culture in San Francisco. To bring The Offense back from mediocrity, and to establish the most talented defense in the league as the most dominate defense in the league. The thought was, minus a few players on Offense, that it needed to be purged and reshaped into a different mold. The old mold wasn't working because of the talent level on Offense.


The Alex Smith Pre 2011-12 Mindset: Ignoring Prior coaching history, etc., The mindset of both the organization, and the fans at the arrival of Harbaugh was that Alex Smith was a bust and on his way out. They brought in the QB guru, Harbaugh, to specially find Alex's replacement. He did so by drafting the young CK, and then snagging Tolzien away from San Diego's practice squad when he failed to recruit the kid as an UDFA. Harbaugh also brought back Alex for seemingly one more year the 2011-12 season.


The Frank Gore Mindset pre 2011-12: The Mindset on Frank Gore prior to the Harbaugh era was that Frank was getting ready to lose a step. He was at the age where most backs start to struggle, nd he had the amount of Carriers, and prior injurys that were worrisome. The mindset was that we needed to bring in more backs with different skillsets and then slowly introduce them into the offense, increasing their roles over time while decreasing Franks touches in the process. The thought was that this would help spell frank, keep him fresh, and maybe lengthen his career.


WR Talent And Depth: At the start of the 2012-13 off-season it was obvious that the WR position needed to be addressed. The only two WR's worth mention still under contract were Crabtree, and Williams. Both left fans wanting more after their awful postseason performances. In free agency we went out and added two big names in Moss and Manningham, then brought ginn back as a special teamer. Still there seemed to be major anxiety over whether enough had been done to address the WR position. There was still a perceived lack of talent.


The Inconvenient Truth about Alex: Last seasons championship run proved that Alex can be an effective Passer and QB, not just a game manager. He proved he still had it at the beginning of this season by posting the #1 passer rating through 5 games. Alex Smith is not the QB he was made out to be by Fans, The Media, and the Org, prior to Harbaughs arrival. Its simply a false perception at this point, that even the most biased in the media cant hang onto. He has proved to many that he is, and should continue to be the starting QB on this team, and the offense should be built, and run, in a way that compliments his skill set.


The Inconvenient Truth About Frank Gore: Frank Gore is running like he is 21 again. He is by far the best RB on this team, and its not even close. He has not been bothered by injury's, and he is having arguably the best start of the season out of any season in his career. He is still a dominate, top ten back in this league. One of the beat writers wrote about how frank gore looked the best in camp and at one practice broke a run that was impressive. When frank ran passed the reporters he said "Im the best Dawg". Frank Gore was right. He is the best and its not even close.


The Inconvenient Truth about the WR's: This WR core is solid. Crabtree (im one of his biggest critics) is turning into the possession WR we need. Manningham is explosive and sure handed, a great addition to the offense. KW is explosive and elusive Moss is a decoy at best, but still has great hands, Ginn isaint a WR, and Jenkins is inactive. The three wr's that need to be utilized in 99% of the sets are Crabtree, Manningham, and KW. Those are the three WR's on the team that we need to gear the offense to for this season. Next year work in Jenkins and draft another rookie, extend who we need to extend, but other than that this is a really solid beginning to a great WR core.


The Youth and Explosiveness Movement: Due to the perceived need to add explosiveness to the offense, we went heavy in those areas in FA the draft, and UDFA. But by doing so, we largely ignored the fact that the other side of the ball, while dominate, was in desperate need of youth and depth to help the veterans. Key injurys on Defense would decimate this team worst than any injury on offense.


The draft: While I like most of the players drafted in this years draft, it was a failed draft. We had glaring holes at OL, DL, OLB, CB. Instead of drafting solid depth and game day contributors for one or more of those positions we drafted two inactives with #1 and #2. The argument about depth at the positions is mute because ORG should have realized that they addressed the WR position and the running back position through FA, and took BPA for positions of need. Not Drafting impact players last draft has hurt us thus far this season.


Forcing Change and youth Into The Offense: Since the beginning of the Harbaugh era the coaching staff and ORG have been pushing for a more explosive offense, and the perceived way to get a more explosive offense is to inject Youth and outside influences into the offense. They did so by drafting two offensive players with the first two picks in the draft last season. They also went out and grabbed some veterans that could fit the perceived holes that we had on offense. But instead of injecting those players into roll playing scenarios within the offense, they placed them as inactives, Misused the veterans brought in and have instead tried to inject youth, and explosiveness through the young "explosive" backup QB.


Creativity channeled in the wrong direction: Harbaugh and Roman are offensive masters, who have more formations and plays than most of us can imagine. Creativity and freedom of play calling are good things, but when let to get out of hand can be very damaging. Lately the creativity in game planning and play calling has been channeled in an attempt to get more players on the field that are perceived as more "explosive". Instead of trying to get the most out of our players atop the depth chart, we have been trying to get everyone involved and that IMO has been damaging. Instead of creative plays and packages to get everyone involved, we need to go back to designing plays that will get the most out of our starters, not the role players. Go back to creative run formations, and play action passes, etc. Misdirected Creativity is hurting us badly at this point.



Personal Conclusions/Summary: There was a misconception that this team needed an offensive overhaul. It didnt. It needed a competent coach to use and develop the talent that was already there.


Frank Gore is the blood life of this team, and the offense needs to function through him. Alex is a NFL Caliber starting QB, and we need to gear the offense towards him. I like the talent we brought in, but a lot of the resources to bring in those players could have been used elsewhere. A #1 and #2 draft pick that are inactive and a big name backup running back that is inactive, is resources that could could be better served on this team.


The creativity on offense needs to come through the run game and play action passes, Not in gimmicky packages and formations, that take our best players off the field. Crabtree, Manningham, and KW are the WR's we need to be using the most of. We need to go back to what was so effective last year, and by doing so we will be a much more explosive offense just based on chemistry and familiarity alone.


This offense will be scary if we go down that path, but it wont be a 300 yards a game passing team. It doesn't need to be. This is a pound the ball down your throats and throw for 200 yards a game offense, that simply makes defenses hate life and not want to play anymore. It makes defenses quit. This offense that we are attempting to evolve into has no benefit to the team other than maybe a few WR's get more yards, and fans stop b***hing about "boring" and start b***hing about other things, and is in fact hurting us tremendously. Go back to what is proven.


This coaching staff needs to make a decision right now on what direction they want to take with the offense and make the switch and do it now without any hesitation. What direction that is I don't know but its time to decide.

This coaching staff needs to make a decision right now on what direction they want to take with the offense and make the switch and do it now without any hesitation. What direction that is I don't know but its time to decide.

grant cohn writes that 16 of the 1st 22 plays were from the shotgun....Alex and Kaepernick both had success in the shotgun formation in college (Kaepernick in a modified shotgun, the pistol)
should the shotgun and more spread philosphies be incorporated into the offense?

Originally posted by hofer36:
This coaching staff needs to make a decision right now on what direction they want to take with the offense and make the switch and do it now without any hesitation. What direction that is I don't know but its time to decide.

grant cohn writes that 16 of the 1st 22 plays were from the shotgun....Alex and Kaepernick both had success in the shotgun formation in college (Kaepernick in a modified shotgun, the pistol)
should the shotgun and more spread philosphies be incorporated into the offense?

I dont think so. IMO Alex does have more success passing out of shotgun, BUT, is also easily rattled if teams make adjustmenst to us not running the football. We do much beter when we establish the run first and then use the shotgun in adventagous situatiions. i would save shotgun formations for certain senarios such as two minute drills, or secenarios when we are in a shootout type game. This team needs to go back to two back formations IMO and beat the s**t out of defenses that way. The biggest problem IMO is not establishing the run first. Once we establish the run e can run any formation and be sucessful.

*cricckets* Too long i guess?

Stop with the reasonable thinking. This is Niner Talk and we are supposed to be on suicide watch and foaming out the mouth. Geez!

I agree with all most of the original post. I think the offense is still evolving, but does not need much to do so. I think the gimmicks need to go. They are a crapshoot that wont work in the playoffs when every team will be expecting. I think our offense should be mirrored to Houston and ATL. They use the run to set up the pass (ATL doesnt do it as much as they used to though). Houston makes teams respect Foster, and when they try to use extra men to stop him, they have WRs getting open down field.

Bottom line, for our coaches to completely forget that they have two good RBs to use, is beyond me. They have said that the lack of run attempts was because we were playing from behind. Last I checked, we were only down 7 at half. Should have been running the ball the entire first half like we did last year. Smith is mostly efficient, but he needs the threat of a run to be effective.

Originally posted by Travisty13:
Stop with the reasonable thinking. This is Niner Talk and we are supposed to be on suicide watch and foaming out the mouth. Geez!

Figured it was just to long for the average poster to focus on enough to read.

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
I agree with all most of the original post. I think the offense is still evolving, but does not need much to do so. I think the gimmicks need to go. They are a crapshoot that wont work in the playoffs when every team will be expecting. I think our offense should be mirrored to Houston and ATL. They use the run to set up the pass (ATL doesnt do it as much as they used to though). Houston makes teams respect Foster, and when they try to use extra men to stop him, they have WRs getting open down field.

Bottom line, for our coaches to completely forget that they have two good RBs to use, is beyond me. They have said that the lack of run attempts was because we were playing from behind. Last I checked, we were only down 7 at half. Should have been running the ball the entire first half like we did last year. Smith is mostly efficient, but he needs the threat of a run to be effective.

Yea, everything must be chaneled through the run in order for this team to be successful. The D counts on it, as well as the offense and special teams. The giants ran the offensive game plan we should have run. Pound the ball untill it works. Beat the secondary where ever you can, even if its with the #3 wr for ten yards here and there. Make the defense frustrated and tired.

Cool thoughts bro.

Originally posted by IdahoNiner:

*cricckets* Too long i guess?

Originally posted by StOnEy333:

Originally posted by IdahoNiner:

*cricckets* Too long i guess?

Gonna get the fireplace going and some hot cocoa for this one

Stand by pretty much everything i said in OP, on OCT. 15. The only thing further i will add is this draft class not being able to contribute is hurting us badly.

Also Roman/Harbaugh need to start showing some humility and take some responsibility for these blunders.

Originally posted by IdahoNiner:
Stand by pretty much everything i said in OP, on OCT. 15. The only thing further i will add is this draft class not being able to contribute is hurting us badly.

Also Roman/Harbaugh need to start showing some humility and take some responsibility for these blunders.

I don't buy the BS excuses anymore. "Well uh, we don't need them to contribute this year." Now we do, and James and Jenkins apparently still aren't ready to contribute. This draft so far doesn't pass the smell test and appears to be a disaster.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by IdahoNiner:
Stand by pretty much everything i said in OP, on OCT. 15. The only thing further i will add is this draft class not being able to contribute is hurting us badly.

Also Roman/Harbaugh need to start showing some humility and take some responsibility for these blunders.

I don't buy the BS excuses anymore. "Well uh, we don't need them to contribute this year." Now we do, and James and Jenkins apparently still aren't ready to contribute. This draft so far doesn't pass the smell test and appears to be a disaster.

agree, and have been saying so all season. The arguments against that stance are losing ground to stand on quickly.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
I don't buy the BS excuses anymore. "Well uh, we don't need them to contribute this year." Now we do, and James and Jenkins apparently still aren't ready to contribute. This draft so far doesn't pass the smell test and appears to be a disaster.

I'm starting to agree. The fact that they still can't even dress for games when injuries opened up a spot is concerning. Either they suck, or the coaches are making a big mistake by sitting them. We could really use a change of pace runner and a big play receiver right now........