SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS VS. HOUSTON TEXANS GAMEDAY THREAD (Preseason Wk 2)

It at least provided good teaching moments

I thought this was a great game. I thought we looked really good.

Let's not forget how we looked last season at HOME against this same team. Their starters embarrassed us last year. This time, sure we had some mental mistakes, but for goodness sake we were blowing them off the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense. Their starters only did anything against our SECOND string players. As I was watching the game I thought, "I would be embarrassed right now if I was the Texans".

I thought Alex Smith made some really nice aggressive throws. He played with a swagger I haven't seen before. Then he almost threw that INT and then starting looking nervous again, then overthrew an out route.
Thing is, he is so worried about INTs, that he has forgotten how to just play the game and have fun. He was doing that for a while there though. Throwing the ball off-balance with accuracy.
I think all of our quarterbacks did some great things.

We were so much better this time (on the road) against the Texans then we were last year. I am surprised fans / media are acting like something bad happened. The injuries are the only thing that I would take as a negative from this game.

Originally posted by 5280High:
Outta the country and couldn't watch the game... Did this have the feel of a game where after Jacobs went down the team looked more interested in getting it over with and off the field rather than executing?

Even though it sounds like a less than stellar performance, this seems like a good "bring Em down to earth" game... Going 4-0 in preseason is like the kiss of death for the regular season, would rather have some weak performances to light the fires under some players butts if we plan on being ready for green bay right off the bat.

It was not a weak performance. Last year was a weak performance.

The Texans scored a touchdown with their first string offense late in the second quarter against our BACKUPS.
Then they scored another touchdown on a special teams punt return against BACKUP special team players.
That's 14 of their 20 points.

Our offense was able to move the ball pretty well. Our O-line was physically excellent. The sacks came from linebackers beating running backs. That is just scheme. We also had some mental mistakes. Physically, our line was blowing them up and our running backs were breaking tackles and our WR's were getting open.

Apparently, I saw a different game from some, but I thought we were 300% better this year against this team then we were last year.

Originally posted by FredFlintstone:
X-ray doesn't mean squat to me, it's the MRI that I care about.

That's right.

Originally posted by BrianGO:
I thought this was a great game. I thought we looked really good.

Let's not forget how we looked last season at HOME against this same team. Their starters embarrassed us last year. This time, sure we had some mental mistakes, but for goodness sake we were blowing them off the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense. Their starters only did anything against our SECOND string players. As I was watching the game I thought, "I would be embarrassed right now if I was the Texans".

I thought Alex Smith made some really nice aggressive throws. He played with a swagger I haven't seen before. Then he almost threw that INT and then starting looking nervous again, then overthrew an out route.
Thing is, he is so worried about INTs, that he has forgotten how to just play the game and have fun. He was doing that for a while there though. Throwing the ball off-balance with accuracy.
I think all of our quarterbacks did some great things.

We were so much better this time (on the road) against the Texans then we were last year. I am surprised fans / media are acting like something bad happened. The injuries are the only thing that I would take as a negative from this game.

Agree 100% I think there were positives to take from this game, particularly for our starters.

Our starting D definitely kept Houston's vaunted running attack in check. Foster and Tate were getting nothing against our Front 7. They made some plays in the passing game on the 1st drive, but after that we kept them in check.

I have a similar take on Alex. I thought he looked confident, and made good, quick decisions. Throws were accurate. Didn't see Moss streaking downfield for an easy TD on that first drive, but other than that a solid performance.

The starting offensive line was a negative. Had trouble dealing with Houston's blitz packages, but I think you have to take into account our staff doesn't really do much gameplanning for pre-season games. They controlled the line of scrimmage in the run game, so that's a positive. Gore, Hunter, Jacobs all had big holes to run through.

The Mason - Dixon line is getting old.

It was obvious that the Texans did a lot of scheming and really wanted to win this game. They were throwing some exotic blitzes at us, which will actually benefit us because it alerts us to an area we need to improve on. For the most part our line wasn't getting beat physically, just schematically imo.

AJ Jenkins looked really goo out there. I think come 2013 with a year under our belt we could have a special player.

And the NFL needs to get this ref situation straightened out before the regular season starts. The NFL can't afford to have the replacement refs blowing games on a consistent basis. It will be an absolute s**t show and an egg in the face for the league.

I think when the full team plays it will be much different. The one thing disturbs me is Kaep seems as not making any progress. If Tolzien had better tools to work with he would certainly do better. The OL was mismatched by too many bad players. I think in a coordinated offense Tolzien could make it work. Kaep, I think he needs a pistol offense and little else as he can't adapt. As for reserves, I feel the receivers to cut are Kyle Williams and Ginn. Keep Owusu and Palmer or Tyms. The second OL seemed disjointed as if they were unused to one another. I think the niners sorta stayed away from their successful run plays and played more for experience. I think if the 2nd OL were filled with Looney, Davis, Kilgore, Slowey, and Natter, they might play better but they had some real raw guys out there. They need to size up their reserves and cut the weak links. When Aldon, Brooks, Bakhtiari are playing along with Cam Johnson, the defense should be much stouter. I think Parys Haralson really is too slow for the job now and they need to replace Gooden with Wilhoite or Holland.

How did the Texans fan base feel about this game? I wonder it they were happy when their first stringers scored on our bench.. Anybody got a link to their forum??

Originally posted by AllTimeGreat:
It was obvious that the Texans did a lot of scheming and really wanted to win this game. They were throwing some exotic blitzes at us, which will actually benefit us because it alerts us to an area we need to improve on. For the most part our line wasn't getting beat physically, just schematically imo.

AJ Jenkins looked really goo out there. I think come 2013 with a year under our belt we could have a special player.

And the NFL needs to get this ref situation straightened out before the regular season starts. The NFL can't afford to have the replacement refs blowing games on a consistent basis. It will be an absolute s**t show and an egg in the face for the league.

Been thinking about this tonight, seems as if they were looking at us like an ultimate 'practice' challenge; people forget that teams like us (win or lose) coming of of Championship games really do walk around with 'targets' on their back. Teams wanna test their will against us (even if it's a late-summer scrimmage), and show their best as a confidence builder.

Originally posted by SofaKing:

Originally posted by BrianGO:
I thought this was a great game. I thought we looked really good.

Let's not forget how we looked last season at HOME against this same team. Their starters embarrassed us last year. This time, sure we had some mental mistakes, but for goodness sake we were blowing them off the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense. Their starters only did anything against our SECOND string players. As I was watching the game I thought, "I would be embarrassed right now if I was the Texans".

I thought Alex Smith made some really nice aggressive throws. He played with a swagger I haven't seen before. Then he almost threw that INT and then starting looking nervous again, then overthrew an out route.
Thing is, he is so worried about INTs, that he has forgotten how to just play the game and have fun. He was doing that for a while there though. Throwing the ball off-balance with accuracy.
I think all of our quarterbacks did some great things.

We were so much better this time (on the road) against the Texans then we were last year. I am surprised fans / media are acting like something bad happened. The injuries are the only thing that I would take as a negative from this game.

Agree 100% I think there were positives to take from this game, particularly for our starters.

Our starting D definitely kept Houston's vaunted running attack in check. Foster and Tate were getting nothing against our Front 7. They made some plays in the passing game on the 1st drive, but after that we kept them in check.

I have a similar take on Alex. I thought he looked confident, and made good, quick decisions. Throws were accurate. Didn't see Moss streaking downfield for an easy TD on that first drive, but other than that a solid performance.

The starting offensive line was a negative. Had trouble dealing with Houston's blitz packages, but I think you have to take into account our staff doesn't really do much gameplanning for pre-season games. They controlled the line of scrimmage in the run game, so that's a positive. Gore, Hunter, Jacobs all had big holes to run through.

Watched the game again. Focused on the starting O-line. They were dominant.

The starting O-line had one bad pass pro play when Iupati was beat badly on a swim move. Everything else was nearly flawless. The pressures were a result of Hunter failing to block a LB perfectly, and I guess the rest were due to coverage down field. Anthony Davis and Alex Boone are an awesome tandem.
The starting O-line was completely dominant in the running game, they were blowing some guys 5+ yards off the ball. It was ridiculous. There was one pulling play where the DT read the play and broke into the backfield, where Boone couldn't make the block in time, stuffing the RB in the backfield. The holding penalty called on Anthony Davis (where he made a dominant block) was pure non-sense.

The O-line was easily the most dominant unit in the game.

Originally posted by prometheus:
I think when the full team plays it will be much different. The one thing disturbs me is Kaep seems as not making any progress. If Tolzien had better tools to work with he would certainly do better. The OL was mismatched by too many bad players. I think in a coordinated offense Tolzien could make it work. Kaep, I think he needs a pistol offense and little else as he can't adapt. As for reserves, I feel the receivers to cut are Kyle Williams and Ginn. Keep Owusu and Palmer or Tyms. The second OL seemed disjointed as if they were unused to one another. I think the niners sorta stayed away from their successful run plays and played more for experience. I think if the 2nd OL were filled with Looney, Davis, Kilgore, Slowey, and Natter, they might play better but they had some real raw guys out there. They need to size up their reserves and cut the weak links. When Aldon, Brooks, Bakhtiari are playing along with Cam Johnson, the defense should be much stouter. I think Parys Haralson really is too slow for the job now and they need to replace Gooden with Wilhoite or Holland.

What is wrong with Kaep now? He made plenty of throws from the pocket. Moss dropped a beautiful pass down the sideline. He also had another nice run.
He hasn't thrown an interception yet in the preseason.

Originally posted by BrianGO:
Watched the game again. Focused on the starting O-line. They were dominant.

The starting O-line had one bad pass pro play when Iupati was beat badly on a swim move. Everything else was nearly flawless. The pressures were a result of Hunter failing to block a LB perfectly, and I guess the rest were due to coverage down field. Anthony Davis and Alex Boone are an awesome tandem.
The starting O-line was completely dominant in the running game, they were blowing some guys 5+ yards off the ball. It was ridiculous. There was one pulling play where the DT read the play and broke into the backfield, where Boone couldn't make the block in time, stuffing the RB in the backfield. The holding penalty called on Anthony Davis (where he made a dominant block) was pure non-sense.

The O-line was easily the most dominant unit in the game.

Good stuff. That makes me want to re-watch the game to check out the o-line in pass pro. While watching live, it felt like a lot of pressure was getting to Alex. I could definitely tell that they were kicking ass in the run game. If they performed as well in pass pro, that would get me really excited.

Originally posted by SofaKing:

Originally posted by BrianGO:
Watched the game again. Focused on the starting O-line. They were dominant.

The starting O-line had one bad pass pro play when Iupati was beat badly on a swim move. Everything else was nearly flawless. The pressures were a result of Hunter failing to block a LB perfectly, and I guess the rest were due to coverage down field. Anthony Davis and Alex Boone are an awesome tandem.
The starting O-line was completely dominant in the running game, they were blowing some guys 5+ yards off the ball. It was ridiculous. There was one pulling play where the DT read the play and broke into the backfield, where Boone couldn't make the block in time, stuffing the RB in the backfield. The holding penalty called on Anthony Davis (where he made a dominant block) was pure non-sense.

The O-line was easily the most dominant unit in the game.

Good stuff. That makes me want to re-watch the game to check out the o-line in pass pro. While watching live, it felt like a lot of pressure was getting to Alex. I could definitely tell that they were kicking ass in the run game. If they performed as well in pass pro, that would get me really excited.

Agreed, it felt like almost every play Alex was running for his life. I'll have to rewatch it asap. this is why I made the thread I did, that first viewing is always like this: You're too emotional and wanting to win that you don't or can't focus on the littler things.

Did anyone else notice Alex Boone look like a complete idiot on that one play where he was running like 20 yards down the field trying to pass block for Alex? What was even more idiotic is how these crap refs managed to not call illegal man downfield. Correct me if Im wrong, but I think that was an easy penalty to catch, even for highschool refs...