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My Week 1 Take On The 49ers

Posted on: September 8, 2008 1:26 am
Edited on: September 8, 2008 1:28 am
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I mentioned on a previous post that the defense and the red zone offense had worried me. My fears are confirmed...along with the 5 turnovers.<o:p></o:p>

Offensive Woes - The offense showed signs of life. It definitely looks a lot more promising compared to the same time last year. Frank Gore broke a 41 yard TD run in the 1st quarter to set the tone. Although we saw some sparks from Vernon Davis and Bryant Johnson, Gore was clearly the star today.<o:p></o:p>

1) TURNOVERS! - The offense turned the ball over 4 times. 5, including the one on special teams. Our TO differential is minus 5. Teams don't win games with this type of stat line. The Cardinals defense made good plays but I felt that 2 of these could've been prevented on offense...the interception by Adrian Wilson and JTO's fumble in the 2nd quarter (he held on to that ball way too long).<o:p></o:p>

2) J.T. O'Sullivan - There times I felt that JTO held onto the ball for too long. It seemed like he was locked on the deep ball. I thought he should've checked down more. There were not enough plays to Frank Gore and Vernon Davis, the team's top 2 weapons on offense.<o:p></o:p>

Defensive Woes - Overall the defense did OK considering the average field postion that the Cardinals had to work with. But there are areas of concern.<o:p></o:p>

1) Physicality - The defense was able to pressure Kurt Warner and bring him down a few times. I must credit Warner's resiliency. This tells me one thing. The D didn't hit him hard enough. We know Warner is brittle, so don't be nice. Bring the heat. I'm not one to suggest that we injure a player. But you have to rattle Warner a little bit to make him uncomfortable. Warner looked like a QB playing at home. I also felt that the Cardinals played tougher than we did...especially on defense.<o:p></o:p>

2) Defense didn't force enough turnovers. As a matter of fact, the defense didn't force ANY turnovers. The inability to produce game changing plays will keep the team from sustaining or build any kind of momentum.<o:p></o:p>

3) The Secondary - Remember when I said I was worried about Steve Breaston? His 40 yard catch set up the Cardinals 1st TD. We couldn't stop Anquan Boldin in the 2nd half where he rolled up 81 yards.<o:p></o:p>

All these factors (in addition to the 5 turnovers) allowed the Cardinal's to rack up over 37 minutes in TOP. <o:p></o:p>

We should've had this game in the bag. I'm actually surprised the Cardinals didn't score more than 23 points considering the average field position that they had. Our special teams, which was an area of strength last year, clearly struggled in the return game...even with the bad bounces on the Cardinals punts. The 49ers schedule doesn't favor them for much of the season. If this is a sign of things to come, then we are in trouble again this year. Let's clean up the sloppy play Nolan.<o:p></o:p>

 

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Category: NFL
Tags: 49ers
 
Comments

Since: Aug 12, 2008
Posted on: September 8, 2008 8:26 pm
 

My Week 1 Take On The 49ers

I agree completely. You are correct in every aspect of the critique of Week 1. My main take was the turnovers of course. No matter what, a team cannot give up 5 turnovers while having none of their own and expect to win. It just is not going to happen.

The 49ers lack to keep the ball with the offense was no surprise to me. They looked bad and played bad. Once again, for the 6th straight year, we lack the fire and passion to move the ball down the field as a team. I dont care that Mike Martz is their coordinator. He is not on the field playing. In a previous blog comment, I explained that Joe Staley and the O-Line were the key factor to the Niners being successful. If you have any examples of good play from any of those guys, please feel free to tell me I am wrong. JTO had some time to move, which was kinda neat to watch. The line still got beat and we couldn't come through.

Frank Gore was non-existent in the second half, as was the rest of the Offense in general. The Defense did a good job containing Anquan Bolden and Larry Fitzgerald. You were right on with Steve Breaston, even though he was quiet for a majority of the game otherwise.

My 3 points I thought the 49ers could have done a much better job at:

1. FIELD POSITION - um, hello? Did you see that the Cardinal's average (yes AVG) starting field position was at the Niners 48 yard line.

2. Time of Possession - it seemed as though the 49ers didn't play offense in the second half, and I don't even remember the O taking the field in the 4th quarter... (oh yeah, wait a minute, I remember JTO fumbling the ball on our own 20 to help AZ kick the field goal to secure the game). Possession is crucial to give the Defense a break - it wasn't there so the end result not in the 49ers favor.

3. HEART - step up or step out. The Cardinals wanted it more, you could see it. the 49ers need to show everyone that they want to win as bad as us fans want them to win.

Even though we lost and our record shows 0-1, they beat themselves at almost every aspect of the game. Even our darn punter Andy Lee was inconsistant - botching a snap which lead to even better field position than the average.

We are truly die-hard fans. We have been way too spoiled to see Joe Montana and Steve Young lead the Niner Nation to the promise land. I hate to rip on the team, but we are not going to be a successful football team this year. 6-10 was a stretch and I predicted that record. I also thought that the ONLY way the 49ers could go 6-10 would be that we would have to clearly dominate our own division.

One game down and 15 more to go. I really want to throw that game in the trash, but of course - we had to watch their failures happen in Week 1 (not in pre-season).

Mike Nolan better light a fire, heck - a volcano- up the rumps of every 49er on that roster. He too has got that flame glowing - but its about to burn out...
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