Impressions after today's game

I want to know why we keep faking handoffs on the wrong side.

Originally posted by jreff22:
I want to know why we keep faking handoffs on the wrong side.

Our confusion is a distraction for the defense. It's like an optical illusion.

Got to love HarRoman. f**king brilliant.

Originally posted by jreff22:
I want to know why we keep faking handoffs on the wrong side.

On the TD pass to VD, Gore had to 'abandon' the play action to pick up a weak side blitzer. Kap ended up play faking to no one.

Originally posted by SofaKing:

Originally posted by jreff22:

I want to know why we keep faking handoffs on the wrong side.

Our confusion is a distraction for the defense. It's like an optical illusion.

Got to love HarRoman. f**king brilliant.

I'm not sure how that would confuse anybody, let alone a professional athlete. It looks like pee wee kids messing up a play.

Originally posted by Karma:

To respond to a few of your points:

• I have been saying it for weeks. Tony Jerod-Eddie will stick with this team. He has improved dramatically from last year and I think he is definitely ahead of Tukuafu. Stupar might get cut before Tukuafu to make room for Dobbs, but I think Dobbs and Tukuafu will be gone when Carradine and Dial are ready.
• I agree completely with the clock awareness. That is one weakness that has carried over fom last year.
• Hunter looks MUCH better than I thought he would, but don't underestimate what Gore brought today. I still think this is Gore's last year with the team. It only makes sense when you look at the talent we have at the position and the contract extensions we have coming, but Gore had about four runs today that would have been no gains for anyone else, but he managed to squirt through for five. I have never seen a guy get something out of nothing like Gore.

Gore is gonna finish his career a niner.

Originally posted by fip24:

1) this O would be impossible to stop if Crabs was healthy. With that said, we need someone to step up in the #2 wr spot. I would go w Patton

2) I thought the d played pretty well today. I don't think enough is being said about the game our CB's played. There weren't very many wide open WR ( some tough catches made by Nelson).

3) Whitner made a huge hustle play by racing back to keep Cobb from getting out of bounds on the last drive. With that said, I'm still not nuts about donte's game. He seems to make a lot of flashy plays/hits but only after he has given up a big play( not talking about the Cobb play, just in general)

4) I am a but nervous that we are going to go away from designed runs for Kaep.. I do think that is an essential part of the O

5) the Niners O line did not run block well at all today

6) Eric Reid looked like a stud. The kids hits hard all of the time. IMO he will be a huge upgrade over dashon by years upgrade

Regarding #4, the Packers made it very clear that they were not going to allow Kaep to run. So, he threw it. I was just talking about this with my buddies last night. Even predicted a 400 passing day for Kaep (over beers, of course).

It was obvious the Packers focused on the run and the Niners knew they would. It would have been dumb game planning if they went with designed QB runs knowing the Packers are focused on exactly that.

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by Rascal:

• As mentioned before, the thing that stuck out most in this game was Kap's continuing issue of getting the snaps off. I think Harbaugh tried to protect Kap a bit by saying it was the coaching staff's fault for getting the plays in too slow. From what I saw, it seemed to me Kap was trying to show he is more experienced and less frantic by taking a more relaxed approach while not being aware of the play clock. On top of that, it looked like he was trying to audible and keep changing plays. That's all cool if you can do it in a timely fashion, but based on my recollection the clock pretty much always ran down to 7 secs before he started the snap count. That to me is way too tight, not to mention the countless timeouts called and the delay of game penalty. Also, there doesn't seem to be a varriation in the snap counts and it doesn't help based on the one that he uses is a somewhat lengthy one. If you can't do it comfortably in a home game with an open roof stadium, you are going to be having serious problems when you are on the road. This is a glaring issue and frankly has been lingering ever since Kap started and something will have to be done about that.
• Another thing about Kap today was he seemed to have preferred to stay in the pocket longer than before. He seemed a little reluctant to start the scramble once the plays broke down. Personally, I didn't like it, I felt at times he left it too late to scramble and was stuffed. I would have preferred to have him play more instinctually like he did before. You can still make throws even if you are on a scramble and it will keep your options open.
• Another thing to note about the QB run was I felt we could have schemed a lot better with the protection. The blocking on the edge today just wasn't sufficient nor effective to give Kap a legit chance on a designed run.
• I didn't have a problem with the Pistol and the fakes other than that they just weren't done in a polished way. We had the same problem last year when there were miscommunication issues on the handoff in syncing with the RB. If is going to be on the left then make it on the left and if is going to be on the right then make it on the right. If the opposing D is already paying hightened attention on the handoff, you got to make the fakes perfect. RG3 and Alfred Morris do it really well. We need to perfect that.
• Also, since the Packers stuffed our run game today, I felt at times we wasted too many downs trying to run the ball which resulted in a lot of 3rd and longs and thus hampered our 3rd down conversion somewhat.

I think Harbaugh was right - the plays took waaay too long to get in and Kap must be allowed to read the D pre-snap and call the appropriate play. This isn't the first time we've heard this from this coaching staff. This was also an issue with A.Smith who talked about it. Roman sometimes gets too cute and he takes too long to get the play in - you can tell because the huddle takes too long to break and routinely broke routinely between 9 - 7 seconds left on the play clock. That's just waaaaay too long.

If that's the case, Roman will have to change his way he calls plays. I don't know how it does it, but realistically I think he needs to be at least 1 play ahead and not only to start thinking about it after the last play goes dead. Bottomline, we really will have to snuff this out cos if not I can guarantee you next week at the Clink we will be screwed BIG time !!!

We NEED to elevate Patton to #2 Kyle Williams is NOT the answer opposite side Boldin

The only DB that played his butt off was Eric Reid pretty sad the Best DB out there was a rookie the rest of the bunch Rogers, Whitner,Brown & Asomugha played like crap through most of the game.

Where was the passrush too? i was asking this the whole game

Rascal, nice post. Yeah, seemed like a few times Kap was hesitant to take off or even throw check downs. He had it there with Miller and a few times seen it but waited and waited. As of the scrambling seems like he was trying to look down field as long as he can but I agree there were times he waited too long and could have gotten more taking off right away. Also, seemed like he slid a few times too early. Maybe it was because Packers were looking to hurt him and maybe it changes against other teams. It could be that Harbaugh has said to slide and take as few hits as possible. We could have said we don't need you risking injury like last year and you are too good of a passer to risk injury running. Like I said though could be just because Packers were so keyed in on him running and intent on hurting him so could change depending on the team we play.

Well we did pass a lot more than run I believe but a few times thought Roman got a little too conservative. Seemed like we ran a lot up the middle. I'd rather have stretched it outside but can't really do that with Gore. Then again they seemed to be keyed in on holding the edge due to the last game. I would have liked to see a little more Hunter. Also, seen Snyder out there for an unbalanced line then seen Kilgore out there with Snyder for the jumbo too.

Yeah, mentioned this in my posts but we faked almost every play and doubt it's effective when you do it that too much. Not to mention most of the fakes not very pretty like a Peyton Manning fake. Not sure if opposing DL or LB can tell the difference between great fake and just a reach out to the RB. Some times might have clear view, other times not so much.

Then I mentioned in my post but Kap still having problems with the play clock. Harbaugh bailed him out at least once but I think he wants him to start being responsible for it like you said. One of the reasons is we do so many different formations and shifts and we seem to be shifting with like 5 seconds left. Also, like you said seems like a lot of long snap counts, we milk the play clock most of the time, not a whole lot of variation to keep the defense guessing. We will see if it continues, it was game one and our guys didnt play a lot in the pre-season. Also, like you guys said interesting to see if Roman isn't getting the plays in quick enough.

I agree Roman takes too long to get the calls in sometimes.

I don't know if anyone caught this, but at some point in the 4th quarter when we had the ball, there was a shot of Harbaugh on his headset and he screamed "Shut Up!". I think he was telling Roman to quite yapping and get the play call in lol. Anyone else see this?

As happy and pumped up i am by what Boldin did they cant rely him to do this every week i'm sure he could but if he carries the load like this it raises the chance of him getting injured he is clearly the number 1 receiver but they need to get others in the mix. But in the meantime Davis and Boldin made a hell of a 1 2 punch.

Eric Reid played great for his debut. Overall our secondary is suspect and again will be the weak link in this defense.

Originally posted by jreff22:
I want to know why we keep faking handoffs on the wrong side.

Gore is a football rainman. He knows defenses enough so that when they are bringing a blitz he doesnt even mess with trying to fake a handoff and makes sure Kaep stays upright.

Kap gonna have to work on getting them plays off off crisp ( and not all the way down to 5 or less seconds too) were going to Seattle !

When people say the secondary played like crap, I really wonder what do you guys expect? I mean when the pass rush is inconsistent, they are going to struggle against one of THE best QBs in the game. Do you expect to shut the Packers down? Take away the two long Nelson completions which came from the DBs having to cover all day, they did well preventing big plays. My only complaint was the missed tackle from Nnamdi on 3rd and long as well as Cox's on Finley. Heck, even Reid missed two tackles but this was game 1 so can't be too mad.

But to my overall point, the secondary did not play as bad as some think. When a great QB like Rodgers has all day, you are at his mercy.