2013 - Week 1: Thoughts after rewatching the game...

MAN its great to be back in the regular season again.

1) Kaep (and I know the Kaepernicks say Kap...I just can't bring myself to do it...lol): CAREER regular season statline as a starter - 8 starts, 147 comp, 231 att, 63.6 comp%, 2012 yards, 8.7 YPA, 13 TDs, 3 INTs, 104.75 QB Rating. Not bad for a kids first 8 starts. Add in the Postseason and it looks even better. He wasn't perfect yesterday though. He's still having issues with the play clock. I think some of that is the coaching staff not getting the play in there in time, but I only once saw him call timeout before the clock expired. He's not seeing the clock as much as he should and Harbaugh is the one who's having to call TO.

2) Packers defensive scheme: Interesting. It looked to me like the DE's and OLBs of the Packers would rush up the field and stop once they got parallel to Kaepernick. At that point they'd stop and try to loop under or at least close the gap so he couldn't escape. This seriously limited his ability to scramble. Additionally, they played the CBs close to the line so that while the OLB would run right at the mesh point on any read option play, the DB would come up and make a hit on the QB if he kept it. Smart. Decent plan. What they did is force Kaepernick to stand in the pocket and beat them with his arm. Unfortunately what they also did was give him extra time in the pocket by altering the rush of the DEs and OLBs and forced the safeties into really bad situations. I give Capers credit for making sure what happened last year didn't happen again, but unfortunately for the Packers Kaepernick can beat you from the pocket just as well as he can do so with his legs.

3) The "bad call": National Media just STOP. Much ado about nothing. This one is so freakin easy to rip apart it isn't even funny. YES, they screwed up enforcing the call. Boo-hoo. They ALSO messed up flagging Staley to begin with and messed up by not ejecting Clay Matthews when he threw 2 punches. Bottom line is that the Niners got a do-over on a 3rd and 6 when they in fact SHOULD have had 1st and goal. B***h all you want Packer fans, but the reality is that the Niners got shafted in that exchange, not the Packers. Hell...this whole thing happened because Clay tackled Kaep SIX YARDS out of bounds. Kinda hallow to b***h about an offsetting penalty when it was all started by a clearly dirty play to begin with. The 49ers just made it a moot point because they scored a TD on that 3rd and 6. Moreover, the Packers lost by SIX. Not by 4. Clay should ALSO have been flagged for taunting later in the game after tackling Kaep for a loss and that would ALSO have given the 49ers a 1st and goal. They didn't seem to have too much trouble pulling out the flag on Bowman on the Packer sideline.

4) Running Game: Not worried one bit. Packers clearly sacrificed pass coverage to kill the run game. They thought that the best way to win was to force Kaep to play QB. He did. They lost. Period.

5) Eric Reid: Really encouraged. Missed a tackle but largely played well agaist possibly the best QB in the league. Made some plays out there. Hitting people all over, even on special teams. Great catch on the INT and great D on the Free Play. Most of all tho, I didn't see Rodgers victimize the rookie. Good start.

6) Run D: Yup...the Run D is back. :) Great to see Justin in there at full strength again. Also interesting to see them subbing him out more than I've seen in the past. I kept seeing Dorsey in there and kept getting nervous because I was worried Smith was hurt. Looks like they are just trying to keep him fresh and finally have guys who can give him a spell. Will be interesting when they get Carradine back what happens.

7) Nnamdi: Eeks. Not sure what to think there. Was in position to make a play and didn't on a few. Not sure why he was standing 5 yards into the endzone on the last Packer TD. One of those missed tackles was ugly. He did tho make a good play on one of those third and longs. I'm not sure if the issue here is Nnamdi or if it's just Rodgers being Rodgers. Some of those throws and catches...wow.

8) Roman: I know there are many out there who don't like him, but I am going to be really sad to see Greg Roman go. He consistantly outschemes his opponent and he did so again yesterday. He knew exactly how to attack GB when they over corrected to stop the run and the read-option. He didn't change midgame. He was throwing the ball right out of the shoot. They PLANNED on putting the game on Kaeps arm. Even with Anquan (and more on him later) being a speed challenged player he was able to scheme him getting WIDE OPEN on some of those receptions. It's NUTS.

9) Vernon: Gotta feel good for Vernon. He's a weapon again. A big one. That has to terrify defenses. A QB who can run and a monster O-Line. You counter with LBs and then you have this freakish TE that can outrun your corners down the field. How the hell do you stop that? You counter with DBs and they just run it down your throat. Wow.

10) Boldin: Saved him for last. INCREDIBLE move by Baalke...even though we could give most of the credit to JOHN Harbaugh for picking up the phone to call his brother. Baalke gets credit for saying yes. I've spent most of the offseason on Seattle Seahawk boards. All I heard all offseason was that Boldin was an old-man and he doesn't get separation. I heard that it worked in Baltimore because Flacco trusted him to throw it when he wasn't really open. I heard that Kaep wouldn't do that. Yeah. OK. Well first off Roman schemed ways to get him open and even when he wasn't Kaep put the ball right there anyway. I don't expect him to go over 200 yards again (especially this week), but he was one hell of a pickup and I can't imagine where we'd be had that deal not been done. Just wait till Crab comes back...wow. I'm just hoping they can find a way to extend Boldin for a few years for not too much $$$ ala Justin Smith.

Thing about that offsetting penalty play, it should have never happened in the first place. They had us stopped on 4th and 1 previously yet chose to take the penalty (Harbs would have likely kicked the FG).

Good stuff, Marvin. A very satisfying game, despite many penalties.

great stuff brother!

Good job. When it comes to nnamdi, I would say it was Rodgers being Rodgers. Nnamdi didn't make a ton of plays, but he wasn't burnt either. He will do much better next week.

As always Marvin, this is spectacular.

Per the off-setting penalty... we still would have won if we had just kicked the FG.

Speaking of that, I was pretty disappointed to see Phil Dawson miss a 48 yarder.. I'll chalk it up to Game 1, but we absolutely need those FGs. It would have been 9 points with 2 minutes left if he had made that. Game would've been over and not quite a stress-filled last drive by GB.

Originally posted by chico49erfan:
Per the off-setting penalty... we still would have won if we had just kicked the FG.

Speaking of that, I was pretty disappointed to see Phil Dawson miss a 48 yarder.. I'll chalk it up to Game 1, but we absolutely need those FGs. It would have been 9 points with 2 minutes left if he had made that. Game would've been over and not quite a stress-filled last drive by GB.

His kicks come off weird like knuckle balls but more times than not, they go through the uprights. Is it possible that the wind was a factor? Snap and laces looked good.

Thanks for the write-up, agreed with everything you said; ESPECIALLY the penalty. Matthews should have been EJECTED. Didn't we see a player ejected earlier in the week/day or something similar? Throwing a punch??

I'd also add that we all have to remember that even though Nnamdi didn't shut anyone down, we were playing against Aaron Rodgers and his quartet of receivers, they are going to get theirs.

Originally posted by socalniner:

Originally posted by chico49erfan:
Per the off-setting penalty... we still would have won if we had just kicked the FG.

Speaking of that, I was pretty disappointed to see Phil Dawson miss a 48 yarder.. I'll chalk it up to Game 1, but we absolutely need those FGs. It would have been 9 points with 2 minutes left if he had made that. Game would've been over and not quite a stress-filled last drive by GB.

His kicks come off weird like knuckle balls but more times than not, they go through the uprights. Is it possible that the wind was a factor? Snap and laces looked good.

It seemed to me he just pulled it left. Every single other one was high and straight as an arrow. That's why I'm chalking it up for Game 1. I just know later in the season (probably this upcoming weekend), we will need him to nail the long FGs.. 45-50 yard range.

In some defense of Nnamdi, we know he excels at press man coverage and those back shoulder throws, when done correctly, kills man coverage. He's never been a good tackler so that will continue to make us throw up our arms. He will miss more tackles as the season progresses.

Great point on Roman planning to put the ball in Kap's hands. I've seen Roman deliberately go pass first as the game plan when ASmith was the QB. One game I distinctly remember was a NYG regular season game, where they came out throwing a lot. They did the same yesterday and it made me think about the thread that was just created "Are the 49ers a pass-first team?". I think yesterday they were, by design. This game was an example of Roman staying out step ahead of the opponent. Like you said, Roman knew GB would load up against the run and force Kap's arm to beat them. The last time a team did that, Kap torched the ATL secondary.

What a dilemma for defensive coordinators! Get run over by an elite run game, or get torched by an elite arm?

Nnamdi has good position on his man, he just needs to turn around and look for the ball. In one instance if he turns around he probably has an easy pick.

Overall i am very happy with 49ers performance. Few things to complain about:
1. The timeouts used due to play clock running out has to be cleaned up. At home there is no excuse. Next week will be A LOT tougher due to noise
2. We will be playing most of season without Manningham and Crabtree. We will need a 2nd WR to emerge. Lets hope Q is healthy all year.
3. the secondary looked as good as it can vs. Rodgers. Not really any complaints here.

Very excited for this weeks game Sunday night.

Boldin was the single biggest aquisition this offseason. I can't even fathom what our offense would have looked like with Crabtree lined up on the other side of the field with VD in the middle. I guess we'll see towards the end of this season?

Unless someone important gets hurt, the Ravens gave us a superbowl ring this season. I don't see the 9ers getting out played this season.

We have a lot of complicated shifts, the delay of games are on the coaching staff. They need to get it in sooner. I think where tolzein had a big impact on this game was the looks they gave kap. They tryed to bait him in the passing game and it didn't work. They did however bait us in the run game. I think the way they were playing they would have had success against the run anyway but they definitely had looks they wanted to give us. I hope the packers keep him and nobody else picks him up.