no kidding. talk about a classic example of how you approach a situation. Do you whine and sit out? Or do you just show up, do your work and let your play speak for itself.
imo, it's a classic example of a young team still learning to win. when a team makes the week-to-week progress this one seems to, even with the mandatory stumbles along the way, it's hard to think they won't eventually put it all together. i wanted to give kubiak and bush 8 games - it looks highly likely that they'll be 5-3 (which was my hope all along) and rounding into shape at the turn; perfect timing. i think we're in for a fun second half. on paper, they should beat tennessee, jacksonville, seattle, st. louis and miami. if they take care of those 5 clearly inferior teams, this is going to be a *very* interesting season. the final wildcard spot, right now, is WIDE OPEN.
disagree. they're not forgetting how to pick apart a defense from half to half. they're getting vastly different production out of both sides of the ball from one half to another. i don't think that's merely youth. i think they wussed out to end the half and it carried over.
I find it interesting the way the defense has responded the recent weeks. Prior to yesterday, they were dominating the SECOND half of games. Possibly because the coaching staff was sitting down with everyone and explaining what needed to happen to counter whatever it was the other team was so effectively doing to move the ball. But yesterday, the defense dominated the FIRST half, indicating they were well prepared for what the 49ers were going to do on offense. However, when it was San Fran that came out with a different look in the 2nd half, we seemed almost powerless to stop it. The only thing that saved us on that final drive was the defensive line suddenly coming alive and getting in Smith's face pretty much every play that he dropped back. That did not encourage me because it makes me think either the coaches are unable to adapt on the fly, or the players are not sharp enough to execute any adaptations on the fly when the opposing offense changes their look. Either way, I'm with Ric in thinking that this team seems to be turning a corner, and that turn happening in the first half of the season this year rather than the 2nd half (as seems to have been the case in recent history). Perhaps we may just get some playoffs out of this bunch after all.
the offense is clearly ahead of the defense; it's been in place, more or less, for 3 years now. the defense has 5 new starters, including two rookies, working on a new scheme with a rookie DC - no big shock its inconsistent. the offense has been pretty consistently great. it's the defense that fluctuates, and youth is most certainly a major reason why. blerg. i have a hard time being too upset with the final 1:38 of a nearly flawless half of football. you're up 21; there's no need to force more points there considering a) your offense has moved the ball at will; b) their offense hasn't (and likely can't). i think points there are far outweighed by the risk of giving SF a chance to cut the deficit to two scores.
I honestly think yesterday was just a simple case of not being prepared for the 49ers backup QB. They were saying as much in the locker room afterwards. Several players flat out said "we didn't scout for Alex Smith." Now, that begs the question...do teams normally prepare for backup QBs? I honestly don't know.
they will scout for the back up if there is a chance he could play. Like Quinn and Anderson in Cleveland. But, normally I doubt it if teams scout for back up QB's. Thats why Sage could come in and kill teams then get exposed the next week.
no; nor do they scout for the, "holy crap! we're down 3 TDs and our best offensive player is a RB!" offense. that, combined with the texans obviously taking their foot off the gas, led to the poor second half. how many games - and i mean in franchise history - have the texans led by 21 at the half against an average or better opponent? getting a singletary-coached team down 3 scores is far greater than getting a cable-coached team down 3 scores. that was new territory yesterday and they'll learn the lesson and move on. no big deal.
sorry... that made no sense. *keeping* a singletary-coached team down 3 scores is *much harder* than *keeping* a cable-coached team down 3 scores.
1. no question the offense is ahead of the defense. it's still wildly inconsistent from one half to the next. 21 points in one half...3 in the next (that's happened twice in 5 games). 0 in one half...21 the next. They've done this stuff repeatedly. They're consistent in being inconsistent from one half to the next. They've given us one great half of football from game to game, aside from 2 outliers (jets and bengals). 2. you're up 21 and there's no need for more points??....uh...yeah there is. and yeah there was yesterday. there is ALMOST always need for more points. ask the Dolphins if it was enough points yesterday. or the Cardinals if they had scored enough against us a couple of weeks back.
I think they study tendencies, typically. I think if you're playing a team with an established QB, you only prepare in the event there's an injury.... but I think if you're playing a team led by Shaun Hill, you might want to take 30 minutes and talk about Alex Smith's tendencies. I have no idea if that was done or not.
I don't know, I'm not sure (without the benefit of hindsight) it would be reasonable to spend any time last week preparing for what might happen if we go up by 3 TD's and are all the sudden faced with a backup QB running a spread offense. Like I said, I tend to agree with Ric that this was just a case of a backup QB coming in and getting hot against a defense that had a 21-point lead and spent all week preparing to stop Frank Gore. I will admit that I would be MUCH less forgiving had we lost the game. As far as the offense goes, we definitely played close to the hip in the 2nd half. And I didn't like the clock management at the end of the half either. What do most teams do in the 2nd half with a 21-point lead? RUN THE BALL. Well, it just so happens that we haven't been able to establish the run all season long. Ironically, I think we played right into the 49er's hands by going up 21. Sounds crazy, but in an odd way, it's actually true.
they've done it twice in 7 games; that's far from "repeatedly." but in those 2 games, they were literally two yards away from putting up 14 additional points. it's not like they move the ball up and down the field one half and then forget how to the next. they're struggling to score consistently, yes; but it was a MUCH bigger problem last year so they've obviously improved. i'm just not going to worry about an offense that's scored 34, 24, 29, 28, 28 and 24 points in its last 6 games (winning 4). notice i said "force" - if it's there, go for it. if you need it, go for it. but the advantage of scoring there, imo, is outweighed by the risk of letting SF back into the game. i'd rather go into the half "meekly" with a 21-point lead than creating an opportunity for a dead team to get new life and only trail 21-7 because of a turnover - not that we have guys who turn it over a lot (coughcough). do i really need to point out that the saints' and texans' offenses are ever-so-slightly better than SF's? i mean, just barely... like.... thismuch, but still.... in theory, the ONLY way SF was going to make a game out of it yesterday was if the texans opened the door with turnovers. there was no reason to think points there were vital.
I think people are being a little harsh on the play calling in that last drive before the 2nd half. Was it ill-advised to call a run play to start that drive when there was 1:30 left? Yeah, maybe. But I can understand doing that once thinking you might catch San Fran blitzing or find a hole. It didn't work, so they went back to the pass. Unfortunately, when they went back to the pass, the 49ers pass rush was up to the task and they sacked Schaub for a 9 yard loss. So then you are faced with a 3rd and 19 you have to convert just to bring a field goal or touchdown back into the equation with very little time left. I can't blame them at all for running the ball again and just letting the clock go down. Trying to force a long pass on 3rd down could potentially end badly and having Schaub drop back deep so he could wait for the long routes to flesh out means giving San Fran the opportunity to sack Matt and force a fumble. When you are up 21 points, just take what you got and run to the lockerroom in that situation. They made an honest attempt to go down the field and score, but San Francisco defended it well. No big deal.
Nobody seems to be giving San Fran credit in that they are a good defensive football team and perhaps they made some good halftime adjustments to slow down our offense, as opposed to our offense just letting the foot off the gas. Obviously we aren't going to come out with anything crazy/risky up 21 points, but it's not like we were running dives up the middle. And we actually did drive down the field on what could have been a game sealing score and instead turned it over with Slaton's fumble. I think their defense waking up a little bit at halftime had a lot to do with it.
I actually didn't have a problem with the play call itself. We've all seen that a running play can sometimes hit big in that situation when the defense is clearly looking for a pass. My problem was after the play when they pretty much used the entire play clock setting up the next play. No sense of urgency. But again, it's nice to be complaining about how we played during a WIN. We didn't do much of this a few short years ago.
I'm glad the Texans won. It wasn't pretty but I'll take them any way we can get them. It's nice that the Texans are above .500 for the first time since '07. With the win Sunday the Texans have now defeated five consecutive NFC teams at home. Congratulations to Andre Johnson for reaching the 7,000 yard receiving plateau. It's going to be fun watching him these next few years as he moves up the all-time list. Prior to the game he was in 110th place. There's a good chance he will be in the top 80 at the end of the season. Also congratulations to Matt Schaub for his new career high in touchdown passes. The two TD's thrown gave him 16 for the season, surpassing his previous career high of 15 in a season. Hats off to Owen Daniels for equaling his career high in TD's caught. OD now has five TD's this season, the same as Daniels' previous best year in '06. Let's go to Buffalo and stomp on the Bills.
1. the offense didn't score all those points and you mixed up some scores...they managed 20 points vs the Raiders, not 29...; they scored 21 vs. the Cardinals, not 28 2. they've done it 4 times dramatically in 7 games, Ric...that's REPEATEDLY...two times it was 21/3 (Jags/Niners)...one time it was 21/0 (Cardinals) and one time it was 20/0 {Raiders -- only points in Raiders 2nd half came from a punt return and a safety)....and they were absolutely overwhelmed by they Jets. I can not imagine thinking their offense has been consistent this season. They've been shut out of scoring in an entire half of football 3 different games -- and of course were shut out of both halves vs. the Jets. They've been held to a field goal alone in a half on 2 other occasions. So in 7 games, they've had 6 halves where they combined to score 6 points. Yet, as you point out, there are other halves where they tear it up. As I said...I find that to be completely inconsistent. 3. I don't think this is a bad offense, obviously. Quite the contrary. I think they're very, very good....and I can't imagine why they're so wildly inconsistent, aside from coaching.
If it were just in the SF game that we did that sort of thing, I don't think we'd really be talking about it.
I'll chime in about the offense just before halftime. I completely disagree with our strategy there. First off, our offense had been moving the ball quite nicely...therefore, I dont see quite as much risk in pushing the offense, since we had been relatively successful. Secondly, 21-0 is not a big lead. Thirdly, look at teams like the Colts and Pats...they are the elite teams in football. Do you think there is any difference in their offensive strategy when up 3 scores? Heck, look at the Pats against the Titans...up 52-0 in the 2nd half and Brady still looking to go deep. Our offense can rival any other offense in football...if other teams are capable of continued attack, then we should be as well. I just got rubbed the wrong way at the end of the half yesterday. They ran the ball on 1st down...then casually just walk up to the line of scrimmage...absolutely no desire to score. That mentality rubs off on players. When you start the game and you want to kill the other team...then in the middle, you decide to not go for the kill, its a lot harder to press on the gas later. Just like running. If you are running long distance and in the middle you start to walk...its a lot harder to get yourself to run at the pace you were going before taking the break. Im disappointed in the coaching. I think that mentality of saying "oh were up, we dont need to score" is detrimental to the mental make up of a team. Kubiak has repeatedly shown weakness in this area of the game.
