Perspective on this current 49ers team and why I am optimistic

We're only getting better as a whole. Seattle will have cap casualties soon and the power will shift. As we have players age out and retire, our cap should open up.

We showed in the NFCCG we're right there w/Seattle...now that they have Harvin healthy (for how long?), Baalke will need to acquire a speedster and hopefully a "big" WR for RZ purposes. Same deal in secondary, need size & speed. With Carradine & Lattimore coming, they'll boost DL and RB, accordingly. A healthy Bruce Miller is key to the ground game. I see them replacing Goodwin...and my money's on Looney. We've only seen glimpses of what this guy can do...I think he can strengthen the middle of our OL. Obviously re-sign Boldin & Dawson...hopefully Whitner, too. Donte bounced back to have a good 2013 & he's the leader back there. Welcome back, Culliver...he and Brock should form a dandy CB tandem...questions are depth behind them. Some good ones in the draft and possibly a vet FA for stability. Forget Josh Gordon...new Browns coach is very unlikely to part with his best playmaker. Watkins would be way too expensive to trade up that far...he could slip some, but not likely past #10. There are plenty of other impact WR's, though...would love Benjamin and the speedster from Ore St, Cooks. That's a tall order, though. There's also Landry, Beckham, Robinson & others who seem like good additions. Would hope Baalke could get Jean-Baptiste in addition to a fast CB. S's potentially available are Bailey, Bucannon, Pryor, Loston, et al. Baalke will need to nail this draft...but, that's the goal every year. When your roster's as deep as ours is, finding rookie impact players isn't that easy.

Originally posted by dfs144:
I know there is a lot of complaining about Harbaugh and Kaep lately, but lets put things in perspective.
3 consecutive years of having a real chance to bring home a Championship. The 3 previous coaches could not even produce a wining season. This team has a lot of talent. Look at Harbaugh's first year: NFC title game with Smith as QB! I think some forget how bad the dark years were.

Harbaugh is a great coach, and will only improve. Almost reminds me of Cowher and his Steeler's teams more so than the Niner dynasty years.

I do share the optimism, I think also, at least part of the picture, this year we really wasn't at full strength, missing carradine and lattimore and the influx of next years talent from the draft, the 49ers will be much improved, and if the talent comes together like it is supposed to, this can tip the power into the 49ers favor.

The way the contracts and player age are unfolding. There seems to be a "2-Year Window" created for this core group. After that some difficult decisions need to be made on currently important pieces and younger/cheaper replacements take over.

After the Ravens SB lose, I was sure we would be returning. But this time around, knowing it's Win the West or 3-straight road games again, the continued decline of the rushing attack and our defense continuing to age/Bowman. I do not feel as confident, no longer see multiple titles for this core.

I think as Kaep grows, and becomes more versatile with his game, the 49ers rushing consistency will improve. Most recently Kaep was making so many big plays with his feet that teams were required to stack the box to prevent him from exploding down field. Kaep was ranked 31st in passing efficiency, and because of that it was safer to play run heavy defense. That just kills the run game for the other guys, even though Kaep had great success. If he just increased his passing efficiency by a few points he would make the defense play against the pass more often, opening up holes for the RB's. Gore had 7/19 games with less than 50 yards, but 4 of those games were against GB and Seattle. The best two games rushing for Kaep (87 and 130 yards) were both against Seattle , and Gore was held to (16 and 14 yards respectively) in those two contests.

Originally posted by Touchdownboy1980:
The way the contracts and player age are unfolding. There seems to be a "2-Year Window" created for this core group. After that some difficult decisions need to be made on currently important pieces and younger/cheaper replacements take over.

After the Ravens SB lose, I was sure we would be returning. But this time around, knowing it's Win the West or 3-straight road games again, the continued decline of the rushing attack and our defense continuing to age/Bowman. I do not feel as confident, no longer see multiple titles for this core.

I don't think this is altogether true. Justin Smith is aging, but not our defense overall. Our secondary will actually be younger next season. We will be adding Tank Carradine to our D-line rotation and hopefully we'll draft another defensive lineman to get into the mix. On offense, Frank Gore is still effective. If we get better in pass protection, particularly in the interior of the line, I think we can become more of a passing team, which should make it easier for Frank Gore to run. Not to mention we have Marcus Lattimore coming in. Kendall Hunter has done well anytime he's gotten the ball 7 times or more a game. I'd like to see what he can do with more carries. I think we should try mixing up our rushing attack in terms of who is the featured runner, based on the type of defense we will see. I think our running game is going to improve. This idea of our team aging really only applies to two guys. Everyone else is trending upward. Those who are not (Carlos Rogers) will be cut.

Originally posted by BadgerHawk:
9/53. That's the number or pro bowlers out of our game day rosters. That is an obscene amount. There is a lot to be excited about with team. No doubt about that.

Talent (and depth) has never been an issue for us even before Harbaugh got here. We have talent coming out of our azzes...we even let some talent go as well (Cooper, Owen, Ginn, etc.). And now we'll add even more or build with basically Carradine, Hampton, Dial, Okoye, TJE, Lattimore, Marquardt, Williams, McDonald, Patton, Kilgore, Looney, Miller, etc. TONS of talent! If there is a more talented team, I'd like to know...seriously. And this is BEFORE the draft (6 picks in the first 3 rounds alone and we tend to have some success with later round picks as well) and free agency. Wow!

Talent has never been the issue and the coaching staff prior to Harbaugh is irrelevant. It means NOTHING and in no way justifies what the current staff is doing. Harbaugh is a great coach but we can't also ignore poor player development and/or usage, high school offensive game planning, poor time management, obvious patterns that have not been fixed to date, lack of situational awareness and adjustments, predictability, not utilizing our strengths fully (if at all), stubborness, etc.

In fact, I remain positive that we'll get to the playoffs every year on talent alone...but I'm also a realist and have little faith that talent will somehow overcome all the other issues we perpetually have (and proven now for 3 straight years) as real roadblocks. If I were to focus on old coaching regimes I'd be happy with where we are at...but after 3 years, I think it's time to have a higher standard b/c no doubt, the talent is there to win it all.

Our window is not shutting in any shape or form , yes we have players coming to the end of their careers, but we can add some pieces in this draft to make sure our roster is strong for seasons to come

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
We'll get over the hump this coming year in Phoenix. We need to win the offseason Draft better impact players. Enough of this" depth" crap. Draft IMPACT players. Be daring. Jump up and trade for a Sammy Watkins or a Josh Gordon. Loosen up.

This is a GREAT point! We can lose a Willis and Bowman and Aldon and Ian Williams and not miss a beat. What we NEED now are upgrades over current starters; not depth anymore.

I do want to focus on the positive. The thing that had me VERY happy about was the teams focus down the stretch. Think about this for a second. From Week 14, we had 6 straight playoff games and won:
Week 14 - Beat Seattle in SF and then...
Week 15 - Traveled to Bucs (who were playing better then and let's not forget, we're the most traveled team yet again [London])
Week 16 - Falcons (who played their game-of-the year) and a historic finish at Candlestick
Week 17 - To Cardinals (a HOT playoff contender)...and then, oh yeah, the actual playoff route we had to take from there (eff you Neck Gate!)

Playoffs: No rest...
TO Green Bay in sub-20 degrees (total B.S.), then TO Carolina (top 3 defense in the game and a good offense) and then TO Seattle (and literally, gave that game away in the final 3 possessions).

Now, if someone can come up with a less brutal schedule than this in NFL history, I'd love to review it! This team has character and heart (Bowman's play alone signified our entire season in one play...heart, character, play-making, within the rules, goal line stand, critical moment and then...ultimately getting screwed in the end for it...but they never gave up, overcame a brutal injury again and STILL almost pulled it off somehow).

We'll be back!

Originally posted by NCommand:

I do want to focus on the positive. The thing that had me VERY happy about was the teams focus down the stretch. Think about this for a second. From Week 14, we had 6 straight playoff games and won:
Week 14 - Beat Seattle in SF and then...
Week 15 - Traveled to Bucs (who were playing better then and let's not forget, we're the most traveled team yet again [London])
Week 16 - Falcons (who played their game-of-the year) and a historic finish at Candlestick
Week 17 - To Cardinals (a HOT playoff contender)...and then, oh yeah, the actual playoff route we had to take from there (eff you Neck Gate!)

Playoffs: No rest...
TO Green Bay in sub-20 degrees (total B.S.), then TO Carolina (top 3 defense in the game and a good offense) and then TO Seattle (and literally, gave that game away in the final 3 possessions).

Now, if someone can come up with a less brutal schedule than this in NFL history, I'd love to review it! This team has character and heart (Bowman's play alone signified our entire season in one play...heart, character, play-making, within the rules, goal line stand, critical moment and then...ultimately getting screwed in the end for it...but they never gave up, overcame a brutal injury again and STILL almost pulled it off somehow).

We'll be back!

You've also got to like the way the D-line depth is starting to pan out. Dorsey had the best year of his career and turned into an important player. Next year, they've not only got Ian Williams coming back, but they've got Dial and Carradine. And the other guy that turned into a rotation guy was Jerrod-Eddie. Now they've got big, strong players to rotate in and out much the same way as the Seahawks have been doing for a couple years now.

I'm concerned the Niners' FO is following Coach Mariucci's lead. During the late 90s, he secured playoff appearances with another conservative offense. But the team couldn't get beyond that after 1994.

I think the off-season will tell us if Harbalke are ready to add potency to the offense, for instance, with a new starting WR. Yes, with the talent already on the team, drastic measures may be necessary to get that new starter (Watkins, Evans, Gordon, whoever). Unfortunately, I don't see it happening. We're probably going to be cutting a lot of talented guys rather than packaging at least half of the picks. Seattle is the obstacle. But without some change, they will be favored when we play up there.

Question for folks...

In watching some film, can someone theorize as to why we don't go with a predominant or even half-time pro style spread offense? I noticed when CK was in shotgun (ala Brady) and there were 4 or even 5 true receiving options (all running hard to get open) and he was allowed to stand back there, scan and find his man, he was terrific. Wouldn't this suit our personnel much better as well?

QB: CK (we let BJ Daniels go)
RB: James and Hunter (maybe Lattimore out of the Q formation AND in power sets); Gore is an excellent pas protector and when used on a regular basis, has good hands
WR: Patton and Crabtree (I'm sure Boldin can play in any offense); not sure about Baldwin and others
TE: VD and esp. McDonald (Carrier)
OL: Boone, Staley, Kilgore (lighter but more mobile and athletic)

NCommand, if we see them add a couple receivers, especially if one of them has elite speed, I bet we see more of that formation next year. We actually saw an indication of how Seattle plays a spread when they don't have to worry about the long ball in the Super Bowl. They still have Chancellor up close and he was knocking the heck out of the short crossing routes. Just like they were doing all season, most of the game the only guy worried about over the top was Thomas. All the Niners need is one seriously speedy player on the outside to compliment V. Davis' serious speed on the inside and the Seahawks cannot play that way. In fact, it will be a lot harder for any of the competition to stack the run if the Niners are leaning on those kinds of formations.