Week 13 - 2014: Thoughts after rewatching the game (2nd try)...

This goes back to the preseason of this year. Something was wrong right out of the gate. Remember Harbaugh saying "We're out of sync right now." Probably the most negative thing he's ever allowed to cross his lips in public. Except the "out of sync" never went away. We are all trying to figure out what it is. I never believed in "a combination of things." There's one reason, one thing that appeared this year that threw everything out of sync. What was it? Why did Kap regress? Why did the media start acting like a lynch mob? Who was the "cancer"? The team came out flat as hell on their first home game. Could it be that the 49ers lost their home? The move to Santa Clara was done for greed, clothed in high-tech silliness and without respect for the identity of the team. It was done to please some high-rollers who don't care about the team or their city: San Francisco. They became a team of roaming mercenaries with no allegiances, more comfortable on the road than in the high-tech refugee camp they were exiled to.

I say this not as an analyst, but as a fan who is sensitive to the mood and attitude this team projects. It is there in the deadness of Kap's eyes when he talks to the press, in the permanently foolish-little-boy look on the face of its owner, in the camouflage of verbiage that Harbaugh protects himself with, in the un-forthright b******t that comes out of Roman' mouth, Baalke's sharks-teeth grimace, the mere presence of the sulpherous Mangini and in Vernon's flabbergasting loss of his soul. Others, like Fangio, Gore, J.Smith weren't affected. It's just a theory, but like everyone I'm looking for the root cause. Sure the team has had its chronic problems over the years, but the peculiar atmosphere this year must have a single root cause.

double

Originally posted by audick:
This goes back to the preseason of this year. Something was wrong right out of the gate. Remember Harbaugh saying "We're out of sync right now." Probably the most negative thing he's ever allowed to cross his lips in public. Except the "out of sync" never went away. We are all trying to figure out what it is. I never believed in "a combination of things." There's one reason, one thing that appeared this year that threw everything out of sync. What was it? Why did Kap regress? Why did the media start acting like a lynch mob? Who was the "cancer"? The team came out flat as hell on their first home game. Could it be that the 49ers lost their home? The move to Santa Clara was done for greed, clothed in high-tech silliness and without respect for the identity of the team. It was done to please some high-rollers who don't care about the team or their city: San Francisco. They became a team of roaming mercenaries with no allegiances, more comfortable on the road than in the high-tech refugee camp they were exiled to.

I say this not as an analyst, but as a fan who is sensitive to the mood and attitude this team projects. It is there in the deadness of Kap's eyes when he talks to the press, in the permanently foolish-little-boy look on the face of its owner, in the camouflage of verbiage that Harbaugh protects himself with, in the un-forthright b******t that comes out of Roman' mouth, Baalke's sharks-teeth grimace, the mere presence of the sulpherous Mangini and in Vernon's flabbergasting loss of his soul. Others, like Fangio, Gore, J.Smith weren't affected. It's just a theory, but like everyone I'm looking for the root cause. Sure the team has had its chronic problems over the years, but the peculiar atmosphere this year must have a single root cause.

Dude it's not Lord of The Rings, Sauron is not raising an army of orcs in the back fields of Santa Clara. I think Harbaugh is just stubborn and wants to prove he's more of a man than the opponent even if that means running into a brick wall till he kills himself.

First post here, but lurked for years now. I was at the game and it was very frustrating to watch. Fans were looking for something to cheer for but there was nothing.

Obviously, Kap had a terrible game. I don't understand why he was forcing throws that weren't there? Is Roman not telling him to check the flat where Gore was wide open a few times? I probably missed something since things are sometimes shown better on TV than when you're at the actual game itself.

I would be surprised if Roman is still around next season. I hope JH will make that tough decision to change OC in the offseason because I'd hate to see him go too. One play that was very frustrating was being down 10-0 (or 13-0?) in the second quarter and it is 3rd and 15. Why run a running play? Why not at least a screen pass to Gore or Hyde to at least have a chance for a chunk play?

Defense - I agree, this game showed why we miss Bowman and Willis. At the game, it felt like the Seahawks did the same 4-5 plays for crucial 1st downs when it we had them at 3rd down. I felt like Bowman or Willis would've been on top of it to make it into a 4-5 yard game compared to 10-20 yard gains. I swore I called it every time when we put them in 3rd down that they would call a play action pass and it would be a pass on the flat to the fullback, TE, or RB.

Originally posted by Buchy:
Dude it's not Lord of The Rings, Sauron is not raising an army of orcs in the back fields of Santa Clara. I think Harbaugh is just stubborn and wants to prove he's more of a man than the opponent even if that means running into a brick wall till he kills himself.

Well s**t. If that's all it is, it's just boring. I'd rather have orcs.

Originally posted by Jcool:

Can we stop with the Ravens talk. Everyone always brings them up as the reason you chance the coordinator. Yes it worked for the Ravens. But for every Ravens there are 15 teams it didn't work for. Sure it could work and fix things but the more likely outcome is nothing changes if we fire Roman.

Originally posted by jonesadrian:

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

Originally posted by Jcool:

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

If Roman is fired, it means Harbaugh is gone. I HATE that is has to be that way. Harbaugh is such a good coach, I just don't understand why he can't just see that Roman isn't getting the job done and we have to upgrade that staff position.

The matchups were idiotic. It should've been Stevie on Sherman, Crabtree on the other end, and Boldin dominating the slot. The 49ers should've ran clear-out routes most of the game to pull defenders deep and then utilize passes to the backs and tight ends the way the Chiefs did to beat Seattle. We simply had a horrific gameplan and awful, predictable play calling.

If we get rid of Roman, we have a chance at the playoffs. If we don't, we will not make it. Period.

So you think Geep Chryst calling plays magically fixes all our offensive issues?

Originally posted by Jcool:

Can we stop with the Ravens talk. Everyone always brings them up as the reason you chance the coordinator. Yes it worked for the Ravens. But for every Ravens there are 15 teams it didn't work for. Sure it could work and fix things but the more likely outcome is nothing changes if we fire Roman.

You're right. We should just continue onward into failure and stay the course with what is not working, neverminding that Roman is gone at the end of the season regardless. That just doesn't make sense.

Having Geep Chryst -- or Harbaugh himself -- call the plays would do exactly what I said: give us "a chance". We've seen what we'll get with Roman. We know by now we won't get it done with him. Having a new, fresh perspective out there could change that. COULD.. change that. With Roman doing so poorly to the point where he's run himself out of town after the season already, there's no point delaying the inevitable when you have an opportunity to salvage the season by making a switch.

Keywords: "Could" and "Opportunity"

Replace what you KNOW will not work, with something that MIGHT work, because doing NOTHING only ensures failure. If you try SOMEthing, then at least you TRIED to give your team a shot at obtaining its ultimate goal. It would be like a crumbling business that is hemorrhaging money -- KNOWING what the problem is -- refusing to fix it until the end of the fiscal year. That would be utter stupidity, and right now it would be utter stupidity to let Roman continue to run this offense.

Exactly the team would rather have the offense feel it has no hope and hate the scheme than to inject life and see what it can do.
people do realize that we play seattle again and could very well knock them out of the playoffs
it isn't a coincidence that every team in the division knows exactly what we're doing and how to stop it.
they're not stopping kap or gore they're stopping this entire offense because it hasn't changed in 4 years.

Originally posted by tohara3:

Nice job Marvin49. I agree with OnTheClock that a change is needed right now, even if it means losing Harbaugh in the off-season. This team has way to much talent to be this bad on offense & a team overall.

Along with many others, I sent my frustrations to Jed York. We have to address this immediately. The season hangs in the balance right now.

Great post as usual Marvin! It must of been tough watching this one again.

Also great post by JonesAdrian as well. It makes me sad at the possibility that Harbaugh won't be here next season because of the scumbag Roman.

Originally posted by audick:
This goes back to the preseason of this year. Something was wrong right out of the gate. Remember Harbaugh saying "We're out of sync right now." Probably the most negative thing he's ever allowed to cross his lips in public. Except the "out of sync" never went away. We are all trying to figure out what it is. I never believed in "a combination of things." There's one reason, one thing that appeared this year that threw everything out of sync. What was it? Why did Kap regress? Why did the media start acting like a lynch mob? Who was the "cancer"? The team came out flat as hell on their first home game. Could it be that the 49ers lost their home? The move to Santa Clara was done for greed, clothed in high-tech silliness and without respect for the identity of the team. It was done to please some high-rollers who don't care about the team or their city: San Francisco. They became a team of roaming mercenaries with no allegiances, more comfortable on the road than in the high-tech refugee camp they were exiled to.

I say this not as an analyst, but as a fan who is sensitive to the mood and attitude this team projects. It is there in the deadness of Kap's eyes when he talks to the press, in the permanently foolish-little-boy look on the face of its owner, in the camouflage of verbiage that Harbaugh protects himself with, in the un-forthright b******t that comes out of Roman' mouth, Baalke's sharks-teeth grimace, the mere presence of the sulpherous Mangini and in Vernon's flabbergasting loss of his soul. Others, like Fangio, Gore, J.Smith weren't affected. It's just a theory, but like everyone I'm looking for the root cause. Sure the team has had its chronic problems over the years, but the peculiar atmosphere this year must have a single root cause.

Lol, this post made me smile. Thanks!

Originally posted by audick:
This goes back to the preseason of this year. Something was wrong right out of the gate. Remember Harbaugh saying "We're out of sync right now." Probably the most negative thing he's ever allowed to cross his lips in public. Except the "out of sync" never went away. We are all trying to figure out what it is. I never believed in "a combination of things." There's one reason, one thing that appeared this year that threw everything out of sync. What was it? Why did Kap regress? Why did the media start acting like a lynch mob? Who was the "cancer"? The team came out flat as hell on their first home game. Could it be that the 49ers lost their home? The move to Santa Clara was done for greed, clothed in high-tech silliness and without respect for the identity of the team. It was done to please some high-rollers who don't care about the team or their city: San Francisco. They became a team of roaming mercenaries with no allegiances, more comfortable on the road than in the high-tech refugee camp they were exiled to.

I say this not as an analyst, but as a fan who is sensitive to the mood and attitude this team projects. It is there in the deadness of Kap's eyes when he talks to the press, in the permanently foolish-little-boy look on the face of its owner, in the camouflage of verbiage that Harbaugh protects himself with, in the un-forthright b******t that comes out of Roman' mouth, Baalke's sharks-teeth grimace, the mere presence of the sulpherous Mangini and in Vernon's flabbergasting loss of his soul. Others, like Fangio, Gore, J.Smith weren't affected. It's just a theory, but like everyone I'm looking for the root cause. Sure the team has had its chronic problems over the years, but the peculiar atmosphere this year must have a single root cause.

oi.

I think peeps need to chill about the stadium. It'll take time to build a HFA there, but they have needed a new building for DECADES.

That ain't the reason they are losing.

Originally posted by Buchy:

Originally posted by Marvin49:

3) Roman: That brings me to playcalling. I've defended Roman in the past...but I think the time has come. He needs to be replaced. My guess is it won't happen until the offseason and will depend on Harbaugh staying or going, but I think the time has come to make a change. The turning point to me? Somehow, it looks to me like the 49ers were under the impression that getting Lloyd on Sherman was going to be a favorable matchup. Um...wha? I can understand why they were looking for favorable matchups...but really? Running basically short passes and jump balls all night. Now there is an issue with guys getting open (more on that later), but the gameplan last night was completely uninspired and IMO doomed to fail at conception. It isn't even just that specific calls were bad...to me the entire idea behind the plan was flawed.


This is the most important part for me though. I think in order for Kap to develop further or for the 49ers to realize that he CAN'T develop further (and I think he can), they'll need a new man calling the plays and working with the QB.


4) Run Game: Absent once again. Very little read option even when those plays to Hyde have worked. I'm going to heep banging this drum. RUN READ OPTION PLAYS TO CARLOS HYDE. THEY WORK. The 49ers used to be innovative in the run game. Somewhere along the way they seem to have lost that. Perhaps its simply the league catching up with what they do. Perhaps its Frank getting older. Perhaps its the O-Line underperforming. Perhaps its a bit of all of those things. Bottom line: They are a power run team who can't run the ball. Bad Mojo.



6) WRs: Its tough to tell when watching on TV, but it didn't look to me like there were a ton of times that receivers were breaking open for Kap. I read some tweets that Celek and Lloyd were wide open on a few plays, but I didn't get the sense that they were separating and giving Kap viable targets. I'd like to see some of the All22 stuff later to see if I'm right on that one. For sure though, Lloyd should not be viewed as a favorable matchup with Richard Sherman. I just don't get the thought process on that one.


Quite a bit this season the 49ers have lived on the jump ball. They have some guy who can go up and get it. Boldin can go get it. So can Lloyd sometimes. Even Crab. The problem with Seattle is that those DBs are all like 6'2" and rangy. They'll eat those up. I saw a few of those attempts last night and the DBs were just riding the WR like a bicycle. So...if you have no speed at WR, you can't get separation, you can't win jump ball scenarios, your QB is struggling with accuracy AND your OC doesn't seem to be able to put together an adequate gameplan....


Yikes.

These were my thoughts as well on watching the game first time around, and I've made a few posts on the same topic.

It looks to me like we went to this weird game plan where we were matching Lloyd on Sherman or even the pass towards Miller in the corner of the endzone, where Kap was told not to make a read but to put the ball onto that match up and let whoever our receiver was make a play. It was remedial game planning, and Kap having a bad one didn't help, but even the commentators (here in the UK we get breakdowns during some of the US ad breaks, we had Sean Gayle and Cecil Martin) were saying that the 49er offense was predictable and lacking creativity. Also read a few things today pointing out that on many plays he had no checkdown options or alternatives.

I'm convinced that Harbaugh and Roman went back to the Anointed Receiver offense and made Kap throw it in to the designated first read and let our guys make a play. Kap has been going through progressions in games all season and there's no way in hell he's going to stop doing it for this one unless he's told to, it just doesn't make sense to me if that's not the case.

This game also highlighted our utter lack of speed on offense and Baalke needs to fix this in the draft.

Bingo. Too bad many fans can't see past one level to the source and only blame the QB. Shallow shallow thinking. CK was doomed before he even stepped on the field. Our home field. Season over.

how can you guys watch that again? you are better people than me

Wow, that was a tough game to watch.

I don't understand why they moved away from things that made them successful in the past. The threat of Kaep running, wham blocking and elephant OL formations, getting VD downfield are all gone.

Originally posted by cciowa:
how can you guys watch that again? you are better people than me

It ain't easy, but watching it again usually helps with the distaste of it all. Also helps see things for what they are with the emotion of the moment removed.

kap is like watching vick in atlanta. eye popping some of the stuff he does but its gets boring and old never watching him progress

Originally posted by crabman82:
kap is like watching vick in atlanta. eye popping some of the stuff he does but its gets boring and old never watching him progress

The thing with Vick is that he never put the time in to really improve his craft. Kap doesn't strike me that way at all.