harbaugh lets his ego get in way

All this talk about us being outcoached... Do you remember Nolan/Singletary? Last I checked we don't have a Manning or Brady and this staff has won 23 games with only 7 losses. Harbaugh is rolling up his sleeves and working as hard as he possibly can as well as the rest of the coaching staff. I for one appreciate their efforts.

Originally posted by dj43:
One area in which Harbaugh's ego certainly hurts the team, IMO, is his sideline behavior with the officials. His constant baiting and complaining does not help his team. Officials will do one of two things in that situation: tune him out completely, or wait for a chance to put him in his place. All a coach can ask of the officials is the benefit of the doubt in a close call. Recent calls on the field force me to question if Harbaugh is getting any consideration at all.

I have both coached a lot of games and reffed a lot of games, and though they were not at anything like this level, I can tell anyone who wants to listen, that officials are a pretty close bunch. They know which coaches are loud mouths and which ones are very measured in their comments. In the first case, the refs tune them out. In the second case, the refs know and respect the coach so when he questions a decision, they are much more willing to listen...just giving him the benefit of the doubt.

As a coach, players get distracted by constant yelling by the coach. They don't say anything publicly but they know the game well enough to know when the coach is just running his mouth and when he shouldn't. In a close competitive game, the coach MUST be the one calm voice in a storm of emotion. Harbaugh's record in challenges in one of the worst in the league. I can't help but think that if he were more composed on the sidelines he would not have wasted as many challenges and timeouts as he has.

For a guy that says he idolized Bill Walsh, to have such a lack of composure and appropriate demeanor on the sidelines makes me question if he really listened to everything Bill told him about coaching. Seems like he needs to get his ego under control and coach the game in a more considered way.

Bad referees with huge egos who don't really care about their jobs will do that. Most of those refs don't make it past low level college games. I know a referee who coaches in D-League basketball league and they pride themselves in getting the calls right. What embarrasses them most is making a terrible call, not a coach yelling at them.

I can name you coaches who berate the refs on the sidelines and are still respected and have won Superbowls and rings in other sports. Professional refs understand getting yelled at is occupational hazard. They are trained for it. There are always exceptions, but that's what they are - exceptions and sooner or later they get kicked out.

Originally posted by BobS:

Originally posted by 49ersOnMINE:
There is no quitting in football, this is not a preseason game. Regardless of what the score is, if your on the losing end of the game you play until the end. If harbaugh pulls his players, what message are you sending your team? Injuries happen it is what it is, i would understand if your saying leaving your players there if the niners are winning, but thats not the case so you leave them and play. If he also pulls his players, there will be fans that wont be happy and this thread will probably say something like " Harbaugh quit" .

And how do the back-ups get any experience if you always play the starters till the final gun? Even when we are blowing people out some guys never see the field, big mistake if you ask me. He is risking the starters health and not developing the back-ups.

And if the backups get injured, then you have no depth. Besides Alex Smith has more than enough "development".

I agree, if it's a blowout you've got to give the starters a rest and bring in the backups. If nothing else than for morale, so everyone feels that their part of the teams success.

I'm just happy to be in the playoffs again. It wasn't too long ago when we couldn't even sniff the playoffs so instead of crying like a little girl because Seattle killed us I will just wait and hope we win the Superbowl. Its funny, that NY Giants loss in the NFC Championship game has made it a lot easier to deal with a regular season loss.

Originally posted by VaBeachNiner:
And if the backups get injured, then you have no depth. Besides Alex Smith has more than enough "development".

Yeah, but who would you rather get injured the starters or the backups?

Originally posted by ApatheticIAm:
Honestly, this was a perfect storm for the Seahawks. The 49ers were coming off their biggest high of the season by beating the Patriots in Foxborough. If you noticed the past 4 weeks, the #1 ranked teams all lost the next week. The Texans were ranked #1 week 13, and then week 14 the Patriots blew them out. Then the Patriots were ranked #1 after that, and the 49ers beat them. Now we were ranked #1 and the Seahawks beat us. It is a trend that keeps happening. The seahawks were playing at home where they never lose. Petey REALLY wanted a win against Harbaugh. The Seahawks wanted to clinch their spot in the playoffs after we already clinched ours. The intensity and momentum was all in the Hawks favor this week. Thank God we beat the Patriots because we would be fighting for a wildcard spot rather than a division title or #2 seed.

I agree that this blowout does not reflect the team. The difference between 42-13 and 24-20 in either direction is probably 2-3 plays. If everything from FG tries to missed PI calls doesn't go against us its a close game. Together with the monster advantage of CenturyLink (hope the new SC stadium is designed solely for loudness), the D playing 92 snaps in an emotional win the week before, and J.Smith being out all tipped the scales. No matter how good your D is, its vulnerable when you only play 12 guys. We need depth or the staff needs to start trusting the guys on the bench.

What does bother me is that we could not run the ball and seem to have forgotten what got us to this point. That and the fact that we are going into the playoffs with no depth or real deep threat in the WR corps puts us right where we were last year except that we aren't running well and not creating the turnovers we got last year. No real fear that we will lose this week or to the #6 seed but getting through Lambeau with these problems is near impossible.

More importantly though, the game looks like a changing of the guard long term in the NFC West.

Risking injury to Kaep wasn't the issue in the waning moments. If he put Smith in the game, it would bring doubt into Kaep's abilities to keep his starting job. Make no mistake, Harbaugh has made his play and Kaep is his guy. He is not going to sabotage it even in garbage time.

Originally posted by VaBeachNiner:
The team is 10-4-1. How is he being outcoached?

I think he was out coached by St. Louis.... Niners are a far superior team but there the game plan looked predictable and somewhat unorganized. At times Harbaugh seems to over think the game - like in the Giants game, too many gadgets instead of sound football - and at other time like Sunday night, the team just doesn't seem prepared. Last year the personality was blue collar and hard work. This year with Kap as QB I'm not sure what it is.

Originally posted by VaBeachNiner:

Originally posted by BobS:

Originally posted by 49ersOnMINE:
There is no quitting in football, this is not a preseason game. Regardless of what the score is, if your on the losing end of the game you play until the end. If harbaugh pulls his players, what message are you sending your team? Injuries happen it is what it is, i would understand if your saying leaving your players there if the niners are winning, but thats not the case so you leave them and play. If he also pulls his players, there will be fans that wont be happy and this thread will probably say something like " Harbaugh quit" .

And how do the back-ups get any experience if you always play the starters till the final gun? Even when we are blowing people out some guys never see the field, big mistake if you ask me. He is risking the starters health and not developing the back-ups.

And if the backups get injured, then you have no depth. Besides Alex Smith has more than enough "development".

Not talking about guys like Alex Smith, back ups that have never or rarely see the field, like LMJ having zero carriers till Hunter went down, and Jacobs not being used.

I am still trying to figure out why we are really losing these games. I mean you have games like our last one where Bill Bilicheck was completely out coached. Then you have all of the horrid ones we dropped. I struggle to find out what is going on in these losses. If we simply didn't play well, or didn't coach well enough or wtf is going on. Just so inconsistent that I can't put my finger on the root cause.

Originally posted by dj43:
I hate to keep going back to Bill Walsh all the time but he is still the measuring rod for local media. Walsh was always pleasant and accommodating with media. Even when he didn't want to reveal something, he would politely answer the question in a way that all could understand. Harbaugh, by comparison, blatantly moves into another area completely, thereby making whatever answer he gives of no value to the press that is getting paid to try to get something out of him that makes sense to readers.

First and foremost, a well thought-out and otherwise excellent post. I only had a problem, with the otherwise portion
which I highlighted. I'm not here to argue, but to ask a question as to your source of information, on the bold comment.

Are you an ex-player of the Bill Walsh era 49ers, or a Media person, who covered the team, during Walsh' reign?
If the answer to either of my two questions is a yes, then I will have to accept/respect your opinion of/on the man,
and move on.

If the answer, to both questions I posed is a no ... then this, is where I have to disagree, with the bold part your post.

Walsh was a great coach, and a well liked person in and out of the game of football. I learned many things from him,
during my rookie season as a reporter covering the team. The most important lesson being, I'd better have my 'ish
together when he approached the Post-game interview podium.

I've seen him destroy many a reporter veteran and otherwise, for asking loaded questions, filled with agenda based
bias. So IMO, he and Harbaugh, though different beings, are not that different in that respect.

still rollin with harbaugh

Originally posted by fortyninerglory:
They're all big kids...didn't Carroll play a prank on USC once -- threw a dummy off a building or something?

But sheesh, Harbaugh, what a complete childish moronic move...gawd....we have a tard for a coach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36OoE2a9wfs

Originally posted by tarheelniner:

More importantly though, the game looks like a changing of the guard long term in the NFC West.

Where does this changing of the guard stuff come from? This isn't the first post that has used the expression. We have a young team, a young coach and we have lost a game. A week after beating one of the best teams in the NFL in their place.

And yet we are yesterday's team, handing over the baton to Seattle?

Not.