Some thoughts after the tough loss

1.) We should have put this game away in the first quarter. We played so much better than them early on and didn't capitalize, we should have been up 14-0 instead of 7-7 early. Sure they got some luck from the officials (who had a sloppy game, whats new?), but we still shoulda had this game.

2.) We can still make the playoffs. I know I'm guna get shot down for this one, and after a loss to a team like Seatle maybe I should be, but if the Cards lose tonight going strictly by the schedules we have a real chance.

If the Cards lose tonight, then we beat them next monday at the 'Stick (which will be no small feat, the Cards are money on the road and latley have straight up been playing better football than us), I expect them to beat the Lams and Detroit but lose to a Packers team that should be playing for their playoff lives. I think there's a good chance the 49ers beat a Eagles team that has been just as inconsistant as us, and then beat the Rams and Lions to hopefully end on a 4 game winning streak. If this all happens, we will be tied at 9-7 with the Cards and go through on tie breakers.

3.)I'm still behind Mike Singleterry and think he is a fine coach and can grow into agreat one, but he has to learn how to stop this sloppy football. When a team uses 3 timeouts in the frist quarter, has a defensive play with 10 men on the field and makes a stupid special teams turnover there is only the coach to blame.

Sing has some leadership and motivational qualities that cannot be taught, but needs to be tuaght certain other game managment skills that he is lacking at this point. He needs to use the rest of this year, especially if we don't make the playoffs, to ready himself for next year.

4.)People need to lay off Frank Gore. It's great we have other wepons now on offense and Alex Smaith is starting to play a little bit like (knock on wood) the first round pick we spent on him, but just becuase Frankie isn't putting up numbers he has in the past doesn't mean it's time to cut or bench him.

Gore has had nothing to run behind this season, and I would argue when he does have any holes this season he is the most explosive we have ever seen him. He is faster than I have ever seen him before (in past years has always been cuaght from behind on long runs, not this year).

He is argueably the best blocking back in the league and can catch the ball as well as any HB in the league. Recently he has not heard his number called and when he does he has no daylight to run too, both things that you can't blame on Gore himself.

The fumble today was very unfortunate, but still compared to past seasons he is actually holding the ball more securely.

It would be too bad if he doesn't get his 1,000 yards on the ground for a 4th consecutive year like what's looking like is going to happen, but he is not to blame for this and he is still the Frank Gore we know and love.

Hopefully over the offseason we get Alex more comfortable under center and get our young Oline to relize some of their run blocking potential (on paper we have a bunch of mualers), and then next season we would have a chance to have a more ballanced offensive attack.

We choked when it mattered.

Alex has to get comfortable under center. I'm just not sure it's gonna happen. He's improved greatly, but this is one part of his game that if he doesn't change it's gonna hurt the team long term

Nothing wrong with being optimistic homie. i'm not so somebody else should

And I agree about Gore.

Smith played a good game today, I think more and more he's showing he can handle the job. 10 dropped passes today, and 3 in the end zone.

Soo many knock him for 300 game he got it. No ints, a few close ones but none. No qb is perfect and I'm seein wins from around the league with 300+yds in passin, and 1 or 2 td's. The rest of the points came from the runnin back and the defense.

I just say u can't say he wasn't comfortable today. How can you win with 10 dropped passes on offense? Completely negating Gores fumble.

The team and with no help from the officials lost the game in my opinion

Originally posted by Jersey9er:
Smith played a good game today, I think more and more he's showing he can handle the job. 10 dropped passes today, and 3 in the end zone.

Soo many knock him for 300 game he got it. No ints, a few close ones but none. No qb is perfect and I'm seein wins from around the league with 300+yds in passin, and 1 or 2 td's. The rest of the points came from the runnin back and the defense.

I just say u can't say he wasn't comfortable today. How can you win with 10 dropped passes on offense? Completely negating Gores fumble.

The team and with no help from the officials lost the game in my opinion

I think we lost it more in the beggining than the end. We let a home team stay around when we should have shut them down and shut the 12th man up in the first quarter.

The Seahawks played one of their better games today and we still should have beat them. we never took away their hope and played for it. Smith played great and the defense was very good too. The turnovers and missed opportunities early combined with ref's that affected the game lost us this one.

Vernon is supposed to be our go to guy and he dropped a perfectly thrown ball in the endzone! No excuse for that. That's what seperates good TE from great ones. Crabs gets a pass cause he's a rook.

Right now we unfortunately are not nearly as good as Arizona. We are not going to make the playoffs this year. Time to get past the denial and get to the phase of acceptance.

If even ONE, SINGLE one of these mistakes had not been made, we likely would have won the game. And that's what sickens me the most. That we had to make ALL of these to lose. We ARE a charity. We DID GIVE them the game. They didn't beat us. WE beat us. It's as simple as that.

We're not a "young" team. We're a bad team. We have good players, but one's that make just enough mistakes right along with the bad players to cost us games. How unfortunate it is, too.

-------------------------------------
TEAM MISTAKES LIST
-------------------------------------

Roman - Block in the back penalty, which was unnecessary, cost us field position. We wound up on the 4 instead of the 40. Also, a blown coverage resulting in a Seattle TD.

Gore - Fumbling in scoring position. Absolutely unacceptable.

Singletary or Al Everest - making the call to run a reverse on a return when we had the lead.

Jones and Battle - Clear lack of focus, poor exchange on a horrid return reverse call.

Jimmy Raye - 3 straight runs called from inside our own 2-yard line. "Play-not-to-lose" mentality.

Vernon Davis - 2 Dropped TD passes, 2 Dropped first down passes.

Josh Morgan - 1 Dropped first down pass.

Delanie Walker - 1 Dropped TD pass.

Keith Smith - burned by a rookie to set up Seattle's GW-Field Goal.

-----------------------------

Add others to the list as you see fit.

[ Edited by OnTheClock on Dec 6, 2009 at 18:35:28 ]

Not having any refs on our payroll.

how come noone is talking about vd drop in the endzone

Originally posted by Jersey9er:
Smith played a good game today, I think more and more he's showing he can handle the job. 10 dropped passes today, and 3 in the end zone.

Soo many knock him for 300 game he got it. No ints, a few close ones but none. No qb is perfect and I'm seein wins from around the league with 300+yds in passin, and 1 or 2 td's. The rest of the points came from the runnin back and the defense.

I just say u can't say he wasn't comfortable today. How can you win with 10 dropped passes on offense? Completely negating Gores fumble.

The team and with no help from the officials lost the game in my opinion

Great post & completely agree. Alex is comfortable under center, he just gets no time to set up when he drops back because our o-line play sucks.

We got our quarterback, I can say that for sure now. Alex Smith played a GREAT game. Vernon Davis is not a star player, he is a good player but not a superstar. He let us down when we needed him the most.

Very dissapointing loss, we outplayed the Seahawks but we still don't know how to win close games. I am encouraged about Raye and his playcalling the last two weeks and like I said we got our QB and that is huge.

I also think we should consider trading Gore next year and we need a speed, playmaking back back there and I really hope Singletary does not try to go to a power running game next year. Stick with this offense but obviously add some O-Lineman and a playmaking back.

Also kudos to Ahmad Brooks, he played a very nice game as did Lawson. I can now say the secondary is by far the biggest weakness on the defense and maybe on the team. Safety AND cornerback.

Gores fumble killed it. Then Alex gets us back in it AGAIN...only to be let down by Vernon Davis. Then Crabtree ducks. Just unreal. Alex drives us down to win the game twice and Gore, Davis, and Crabtree let us down IMO.

Why was Keith Smith left one on one on one side of the field? That was a major f up by our coaching staff while the Seahawks/Hasselbeck were smart enough to take advantage of it.