Frank Gore's 51-yard run helped earn the Niners a key win
Penalties, two big red zone sequences and one run decided this game.
In the first half the Seahawks consistently extended 49er drives with a series of holding or P.I. calls. From what I saw, all were called fairly.
In the second half it was something much more avoidable.
San Francisco were rolling before Byron Maxwell’s interception, and it was a chance to regain momentum and swing things back in Seattle’s favour. It was never going to be easy driving from the 2-yard-line, but a time-consuming scoring possession at that stage could’ve been decisive.
Things started well. A favourable unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Donte Whitner gave the Seahawks some breathing room.
Then, boom.
Marshawn Lynch broke off a big 20-yard run. Seattle had 1st and 10 at the San Francisco 42.
But no.
Michael Robinson got a handful of facemask. It was a fair call — the type we’d all call fair if it benefited the Seahawks.
Instead of 1st and 10 at the 49ers 42, it was 1st and 25 at the Seahawks 23.
It killed the drive and Seattle punted (after wasting a time out — more on that later). O’Brien Schofield then interfered with the returner. Another 15-yard penalty.
That sequence just about sums the night up. The Seahawks couldn’t get out of their own way.
Here’s an interesting stat. Seattle had 64-yards of total offense and lost 45-yards on penalties in the third quarter.
They ended the night with nine total penalties for 85-yards.
Stuff like that gets you beat.
Apart from the sea of yellow, two big redzone plays had a major impact — giving the Niners an eight-point swing.
RED ZONE PLAY #1
Vernon Davis’ touchdown before half time was avoidable and costly. Seattle appeared destined to restrict San Francisco to a fourth field goal, taking a 14-12 lead into the break. K.J. Wright left the game with a broken foot, leaving Bobby Wagner covering Davis. Wagner reacted slowly and didn’t get any help.
Touchdown.
It was a sloppy redzone score. As good as Anquan Boldin and Michael Crabtree are — Davis is a killer redzone target and demanded more attention in that situation. It wasn’t a shock he was the intended target.
14-9 Seattle became 16-14 San Francisco. And it stayed that way until the fourth quarter.
RED ZONE PLAY #2
Clinton McDonald’s sack and the subsequent punt return from Golden Tate looked like a potentially game-defining moment in the fourth frame.
Seattle began to move the ball, edging closer to a crucial touchdown and moving into the redzone. A 21-16 Seahawks lead would’ve forced the Niners to go after a touchdown to win.
Instead they kicked a field goal. Settling for three instead of seven was big in hindsight and led to the second four point swing of the game.
(In fairness, Aldon Smith should’ve been called for a face mask on Zach Miller on the failed third down conversion)
It would’ve been really interesting to see the 49ers deal with a decent fourth quarter deficit. At home against Indianapolis and Carolina — they imploded and lost on both occasions.
When Seattle failed to punch it in you felt they’d need another drive to win. And so it proved.
This was a small margins game. In the two big redzone sequences that ultimately decided it, the 49ers won both situations.
TD Niners. Field Goal Seahawks. Eight points. Home team wins.
GORE BREAKS IT OPEN
San Francisco couldn’t run on the Seahawks. They had 3.5 YPC before one big, 51-yard effort by Frank Gore.
A play that put the Niners in position to win.
The blocking up front was perfect, but Earl Thomas took a bad angle on the tackle and struggled to catch Gore in the chase. Richard Sherman sprinted past Thomas (surprisingly) to make the play.
This was a heavyweight contest figuratively speaking. The Niners jabbed all night but landed the knockout blow in the last round when it mattered.
QUESTIONING THE TIME OUTS
The 51-yard run by Gore might’ve actually helped the Seahawks initially — it prevented a slow death via manageable field goal and gave them a chance to get the ball back with time on the clock. If they weren’t going to get an outright stop, a big play in that situation wasn’t totally back-breaking.
So it was a surprise to see all the time outs pretty much wasted.
The first was tossed away in the third quarter on 2nd and 25 (why?). The two remaining T/O’s were spent before the ‘and goal’ conversion. As soon as Colin Kaepernick converted on third down with a designed run, he basically iced the game. With the two minute warning stopping the clock anyway — the Seahawks were better served holding fire with their time outs.
It left just 26-seconds to try and get a game-winning score. It was never going to be enough. Even on the long throw Wilson attempted to Kearse (intercepted) it would’ve been nearly impossible to spike the ball with eight seconds left.
SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Losing a second game might not be the worst thing for the Seahawks. Getting a bloody nose every now and again isn’t so bad. A 15-1 season was very likely with a win today — and how many of those do you see in the NFL?
The target switches to 14-2 — and that’d still be a franchise record. It’s also very achievable against the Giants (A), Cardinals (H) and Rams (H).
The big negative though is what this win will do for San Francisco. They might be hitting their stride at the right time. And they’ll believe they can beat Seattle in the playoffs — and they can.
Even at Century Link.
I truly believe the Seahawks can handle most NFC teams quite handsomely. The Saints, Panthers, Eagles, Lions. Against all of those teams I’d expect a big win.
The Niners?
It’d be a battle, just like this. Decided by small margins, just like this.
And I’ll say this now — make no mistake, Seattle’s biggest threat in the NFC is the team they played tonight. They are the annual dangerous Wild Card team everybody fears.
A win today would’ve put real doubt in the minds of that San Francisco team. The Seahawks could say they marched into Candlestick Park and took the NFC West title away from the defending Champs… right on their own doorstep. They could’ve pushed the Niners towards possible elimination.
In that sense, it’s a missed opportunity.
I’m not a big believer in the the theory of “this could get SF rolling, this is bad”. I think SF is SF. They play good defense, run the ball and try not to beat themselves. This is the kind of game they want to play. Today also showed, they are still very much a limited passing attack and rely too heavily on outscheming their opponents.
It’s irritating we lost in the manner we did, but this loss could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe we need a little humbling after all the love of destroying New Orleans. A little refocus time.
A healthy, rested Seattle squad at home against the Niners? No fear at all.
Now it’s just about getting that win next week and getting the #1 seed.
I think ‘No fear at all’ would be pushing it.
At least, there should be some fear, even if it’s mere respect. I’m not saying people should be terrified or anything. But San Fran… out of all the teams in the NFC… are best equipped to take us on in the playoffs. They will be our biggest challenge IMO. And I suspect we will meet again.
We will see them again, and you can bet your newborn son the Seahawks will be on a mission to embarrass them.
I agree I have no fear against SanFran at C-Link. It was a very winnable game for the Seahawks when they brought there B game. Pass Rush didn’t really get going until the 2nd half and thats a huge advantage at home, also The 49ers not being able to make their calls at the line.
The one thing I would like to see improve is the run blocking. Since our starters have comeback on the O-line the pass protection has greatly improved, but the run game seems to have taken a step back.
You always wanna beat the 9ers but honestly this game doesn’t change how I feel about the Seahawks at all.
Its never a good thing in disguise to lose a highly winnable game to your uber rival at their place late year.
No matter how you slice it.
We beat ourselves for the most part.
I agree. This game made me even more confident that we would handle the Niners at home in a playoff matchup. They needed this game more than we did, they were at home, and we just came off a very emotional win on a short week’s rest and weren’t playing our best. All these factors favored SF, and they still barely eeked out a win. They may be our biggest outside threat, but the only team in the NFC that can beat us is ourselves.
Good stuff Rob. Though my only disagreement comes from the ridiculous amount of no-calls on SF OL who was blatantly holding on many, many occasions. Likewise, Aldon Smith was consistently false starting with another set of no calls. While I don’t blame the officiating, it’s getting frustrating watching SEA consistently be on the wrong end of a bunch of calls and non-calls. It’s probably their own fault for having that rep, but frustrating nonetheless.
I don’t think SF is our biggest threat. Quite honestly, I think Kaepernick is actually a poor QB. He’s so extremely limited with what he can do when the first read is gone. It is really quite ugly to watch him play QB. For that reason, I am more worried about Carolina as I think Newton is Kaepernick on Steroids (not literally) and their defense (IMO) is just as good if not better.
Losing is never good, but this is a healthy loss IMO. Shot ourselves in the foot and lost to a team we hate. This could be a nice spark. As far as momentum for SF, they played like this was their SB and won by 2 at home. I can see an emotional/physical letdown over the next few weeks and if forced to play on the road, I don’t think SFs offense can do much as they are so limited with what they can do (passing game is atrocious).
On the subject of the refs, we also got a couple of no-calls in our favour, earned a bizarre holding penalty on a return, got 15 free yards because Donte Whitner said something to Marshawn Lynch (who was jawing as well), got a late hit flag on a return which looked ticky-tacky and I’m sure there were other things too. I’d say both teams suffered.
Oh no doubt we got some calls. Still thought it was lopsided (as usual). Time to move on though. Not really worried at all. We played poorly and lost by 2 on the road to a team that was in the SB last year.
Yeah I don’t think either team benefited more then the other from the officials. Bad calls on both sides and to many ticky tack calls with plenty of missed actual penalties. Just wish the officials didn’t dictate the pace of the game so much.
The Seahawks have definitely been on the wrong side of a bunch of calls this year, but I think every NFL team could legitimately make the same argument. The officiating is that bad on a week to week basis.
Regardless of the validity of the calls that went against us, I would say it was more about the no calls that went for San Francisco. I saw several occasions where our D Line were being pretty blatantly held and nothing was done about it. If you hamstring our interior pass rush like that, it really inhibits our total pass rush. I think that our initial game plan was flawed, and we should have stuck with Lynch in the 2nd when we got kind of pass happy. It was in the air that everyone was root ing against Seattle today, and I just don’t understand why. We should’ve won this game yes, but I feel that our body of work speaks for itself. Not a lot to complain about here, just a couple of plays that didn’t go our way. I do think that RW made a few poor decisions uncharacteristically, and it showed with how many times SF defenders made hustle plays to break up passes. I think SF got in his head today
Personally, I saw one or maybe two plays where I thought ‘hold’. But as noted in another reply, we also got our fair share of strange favourable calls. We’re only focusing on the ones that hurt us. The refs were bad across the board, for both teams. It had no baring on who won IMO.
I agree with you almost always on everything Rob, and I really enjoy reading your blog, but just because the ref’s made a couple bad calls against the Niners it doesn’t mean that each team had their fair share of missed calls. I would say each team had a share of bad calls with the Seahawks taking a majority stake in the bad call shares or something like that I think you catch my drift. Like Richard Sherman was saying, the bad calls against the Seahawks came on potentially momentum shifting third downs so the impact of the poor officiating was greater for the Seahawks because they came at pivotal points in the drive. They obviously still had a chance to pull out the victory had they played better, but that’s a different conversation.
I think for the most part Seattle’s penalties were fair. The one I had a major gripe with was Lane’s face mask on a punt return. That was weak. But Seattle earned a lot of their penalties on the day with poor decision making. I think both teams had a pretty even number of bad calls. I dont have much sympathy for Sherman’s assessment.
Yeah it was a very tightly called game and after rewatching it I still feel the Seahawks got the short end of the stick, which is to be expected playing away from home. With all of the ticky tack calls, like the hold called on Sherman even though Crabtree was wide open and Kaep through the ball off target, I would have been really happy to see a hold called on VD since he was yanking away at Sherman’s arm which sprung a 50 yard run instead of what should have been a 10 yard run. Bottom line is that the game was called close enough for the Seahawks to win and they’ll have to put forth a better effort if they want to beat the Niners at home.
The biggest head-scratcher for me today was how conservative the play-calling seemed all day. I’m not a Bevell basher, but how many drives seemed to end after run-run-pass sequences? I saw few rollouts or play-action plays, no deep shots (at least none that Wilson pulled the trigger on, maybe they were covered)… Contrast that with how much success the 49ers had in the first half with misdirection, play action, and moving the pocket. At some point I kept thinking we’d recognize that running on both 1st and 2nd down was a) predictable, b) not getting much, and c) limiting Wilson’s opportunities to make plays by only throwing in obvious passing situations. You can be committed to running the ball, but after the fantastic game plan and Wilson’s recent domination I thought the offense was weirdly playing not to lose all night.
Part of the problem is San Francisco hardly ever uses the blitz. They consistently bring pressure with 4-5 rushers. That allows them to keep extra guys in coverage, which makes it harder to take your shots. Wilson actually rolled out a couple of times where you’re waiting for the usual big play… but nobody was open because the Niners can flood the secondary.
It’s a lot harder against a team like this to take shots because you don’t get much 1v1 in coverage. Essentially you have to dominate the running game and force extra guys to the LOS. That’s why I think they stuck with a lot of running on early downs.
Unfortunately Seattle never truly threatened to dominate on the ground. So the Niners just kept four or five guys rushing the passer all day. It also takes away a lot of the read-option stuff because the linebackers can sit and read.
I understand why they had a mostly conservative gameplan today and for the most part it worked. I just wish they had something as intelligent as the Baldwin TD vs the Saints on that last redzone drive.
Ah, interesting take. The Niners did a good job of not letting Wilson get to the edge all day, take that away plus the conventional run game plus stupid penalties and it was a frustrating game. Thanks for the comments.
The Niners did blitz a few times in this game and the Hawks did a nice job in protection. A small positive among the loss today.
They’re #1 or #2 in the league for fewest blitzes I think.
Their d-line dominated today. Aldon was a terror.
Lynch did have a few nice runs called back because of holding. Penalties killed momentum. I believe if the 49ers played the Seahawks 100 times in Seattle, the Seahawks would win 95 of them. In two games this season, the 49ers have scored 22 points. With the crowd in Seattle, I do not think the 49ers score 19 points like they did today. In Seattle, I do not think the Seahawks score only 17 points.
I am not as worried as you are Rob. By the way, how is the young one doing?
I think the split would be a lot closer than 95/100. The two teams are eerily similar. I would say 60-40 at best, but that’s just me.
The little one is doing well and thanks for asking. His dad’s a little grumpy tonight mind…
Love the blog and the post game thoughts! One area I have to disagree with you on is the officiating. It was a terribly called game and a few calls against were drive savers that led to points for San Fran. barely grazing a facemask shouldnt be called a penalty. The spirit of the penalty is safety…not ticky tack calls. It was definitely bad both ways and one of the worst games I’ve seen all year. But some of the questionable penalties were killers against Seattle. I think sometimes you guys are too politically correct for fear of looking like a homer(which I respect!) but I have to respecfully disagree with you today. lol
The defense for all the talking they do were still in a position to close out the game and utterly failed. The third down run by Kaep was almost more inexcusable than the long run in all honesty considering the timing and what was on the line.
Wilson played well as usual and was a lone bright spot.
We kill them in a rematch in Seattle.
I really think we need to stop with the ref blaming. It was an inconvenience, but not the reason we lost. The Niner’s had to win today and were just good enough to win.
Colin:
With respect, I usually agree with you on that. However when the quality of the ref work is this poor for BOTH teams it is a legitimate topic of discussion.
The whole “don’t blame the refs” point is usually understandable, (if not a tad bit bossy), but on THIS day, they the NFL refs WERE horrible.
Period.
I thought the officiating in the Indi game was far worse to be honest. I’ll give you this: I do think the refs caved to Harbaugh’s whining during the week, and I do think they called some tick tacky stuff today on both teams, and the refs as a whole need to be evaluated. There’s pretty much no consequence for bad officiating and it shows in why there have been very few new NFL referees in the last 10 years. But I don’t want to hear how it affected the outcome for us because it clearly didn’t. We have to make plays and avoid the mental mistakes when it matters.
If you want to take issue with the quality of the way games are being officiated, I won’t stop ya. I think it’s time the refs have come down off their arrogant perch a little bit.
Whining about the refs is an exercise in futility — there’s not much the Seahawks can do to improve the officiating. What they can do is avoid the obvious PI calls and the obvious face-mask penalties. I hope the Seahawks learn a valuable lesson from this game. There are some other good teams out there and the Seahawks can’t always win unless they play nearly error-free football.
I think the Seahawks had more focus on being physically dominant than they did on winning the game. But, they have to learn that you don’t have to resort to PI and personal fouls to establish dominance.
The holding penalties really hurt us on a few of our longer runs. Also not sure why Sherman, who is one of our best, has to grab people and tug on jerseys. He is pretty consistent in doing that and gets called a few times each game. The only frustration I had with defense was when Gore got the long run. Thank god he doesn’t have break away speed. I think if KJ Wright had been in the game he would have stuffed Gore. Losing KJ may be the single biggest problem we faced today.
Offensively we had some good plays, but overall we don’t look like a championship team yet. RW is so good, yet he seems to make one bonehead play at the beginning of each game. This time he gets tackled for a loss and loses the ball which fortunately went out of bounds. Just throw it away Russ! The blocked punt was caused by our offensive line (50?) not blocking an interior rusher, How could you!!! They put in a regular days work, SF just wanted it more,
Anyway, the game went as expected, close and tough. We do need to clean up the penalties.
In hindsight it would have been really nice for Gore to have taken that run all the way to the house.
Exactly! I’m not sure it entered Gore’s mind at the time, but getting tackled within easy field goal range was the right thing to do. As long as the 9ers had the ball, could run the clock, and could eventually end the drive by kicking an easy field goal…..
Not only were the penalties bad as I think the refs were looking for a bit too much “me” time but Good Lord… the announcing was horrid! Listening to Aikman and Buck extol the virtues of the Whiners was hard to take! They kept talking about how the whiners were finally getting healthy yet only mentioned Seattle line woes once! I hope it’s a long tome before I have to suffer through another Aikman and Buck butt smooching session… blech…
Good calls and bad calls on both sides of the ball – but we really hurt ourselves on offense with the stupid penalties. Sad to hear KJ is out 6 weeks with a broken bone in his foot. I also thought RW did not throw the ball well even when he had time. It is tough to win 7 or more games in a row and then win throughout the playoffs to the SB. They probably needed to lose a game in here somewhere, on the road, when they could have won should make them hungrier here out.
Colin did you actually read my post? I said as bad as the officiating was the reason we lost was the DEFENSE not the officiating.
I thought Russell actually threw the ball really well. He missed two I can think of and the third down throw to Tate hurt but Tate probably could of had a better effort on the catch as well.
We can blame the offense, blame the officiating, blame clock management but the truth is we were in a position to win if the defense could hold them and they made two big mistakes allowing them to win.
Rob, one thing that I don’t think was mentioned was the injuries we’ve suffered during this game; most significantly, KJ Wright and Max Unger. KJ is out for the next six weeks, and Unger is a relative unknown at the moment with the chest injury, so how much do you think this will affect the Seahawks going forward?
Losing Wright really hurt the Seahawks today — on the Davis touchdown and the Gore run. Wagner struggled in coverage vs Davis on the TD, and Malcolm Smith held his hands up for an error on the Gore run.
Whether his absence is felt quite as much in the next three, we’ll have to wait and see. But he’s been playing really well the last few weeks.
As for Unger — he’s been in and out with injuries already and the drop off with Lem has been minimal. It’s a loss, but at least it’s not Okung again.
At the time Wagner came back Malcolm was playing extremely well so I think that part wont be as bad as you think when he has a week of practice with the starters again. Though to be honest I’d rather have KJ in the lineup versus Wagner.
The blocked puint should never have happened. There were similar brakdowns earlier in the year. It should all have been fixed properly.
One question regarding the blocked punt: Ryan was obliterated by the 9er who made the block. Does the non-contact protection of the punter end when a player touches the ball or did the refs just feel that it would have been unfair to let the Seahawks off the hook for such a poor play?
Yes, you can kill the punter (and kicker) if you block (get a piece) of the kick.
Thanks. That’s a good rule.
tough game, but one that i feel we should have won. At times i just scratch my head at Bobby Wagoner. He’s a good player, but he seems to have mental\technique lapse at crucial times or games. I thought Lynch had a bad game running the ball. He reverted back to his dancing days and missed holes all game. Not too concerned in the big picture, i don’t think San Fran can go to New Orleans and win, but they can go to Detriot and Dallas and win that prospective play off game. CLink is a different story.
Agree about Wagner. I’m wondering if the Hawks wouldn’t be better off with him switching to the weak-side and KJ playing in the middle. Wagner’s gap discipline hurts this defense far too often.
What makes me made is Harbaugh using the media to infuence the refs.
The sideline reporter said Harbaugh complained to them about Seattle holding and mugging them in the last game. The caused the reporter to ask the refs if they would look more closely at the Seahawks because they hold so much, as if it were an established fact.
The refs said they would call the game normally, but you know in the back of their minds they were going to pay closer attention to Seattle.
I’m not sure that ever has much impact. The refs are professional and used to criticism from players/coaches/media.
Everyone is affected by it. What was egregious to me was the unprofessional way in which the sideline “reporter” presented her interaction with the refs. Her bias just seethed through in her tone and manner in which she said it so I’m sure she was quite confrontational when she spoke to the ref. She shouldn’t be on the sideline for ping pong…
I’m not at all pinning the loss on ET, who is a very talented safety. But you can’t be considered elite/MVP type of player and miss the tackles he does. It will take you out of the running quickly. It’s a weakness in his game. As incredible as he is at covering ground, he is pretty terrible at making tackles upfield. He misses a lot. It’s a serious flaw in his otherwise stellar game.
Maybe that’s sacrilege, but I see it a lot. He comes up ungodly quick but takes bad angles frequently that put him out of position. I realize there’s a tradeoff there, but the position is called ‘safety’ for a very good reason.
Really?? I know that was a terrible play, but to my eye Earl has drastically improved that area of his game this season. I was stunned by how poorly he played that one run, and can’t off the top of my head come up with another play that he’s missed that badly all year.
I agree. Earl has massively improved in that department. One bad play doesn’t change that.
Lets give GORE some credit, he hit the hole, made a great cut and took off. He is still a good runner.
Thomas has always been a boom or bust tackler really. He’s made some good hits in the running game this year, but he’s also whiffed on quite a few tackles. I’m not sure he’ll ever change that, it’s who he is. The Gore run wasn’t so much a bad tackle as over running the play and before he had a chance to adjust, Gore exploded through the hole. San Fran did a great job blocking on that play. Shame.
I agree with this. I know it’s almost heresy to say it, and I still think Earl is a great player and a key cog (probably the key cog) in our defense, but it’s the one thing missing from his game. To my uneducated eye it looks like he is SO quick to diagnose plays and get to the ball that he almost doesn’t give himself that extra split second to set and tackle. He doesn’t wrap up and often misses or only makes a partial stop. You’ve got to balance that out though, because his instincts are so good and he’s so fast that he’s probably making that partial tackle 3 yards ahead of where a normal safety would. Even if he only slows the runner down and buys time for others to help he’s still more effective than a slower, less instinctive player.
I love Earl, he and Sherman are the 2 key guys to get locked up this offseason, but I do think this is the one thing holding him back from being a genuine Defensive MVP type player.
Pro football focus had him down as somebody who missed an unusually high number of tackles last year: something like 20 out of a possible 81,if memory serves me correctly.
Earl is the MAIN reason the Hawks are able to play like they do. I though Maxwell had a bit of trouble last night too. Getting Thurmond back will help.
A really bright spot in the game was Luke Willson. To me, this was his “coming out” party. I haven’t re-watched the game, but it looked like he left Patrick Willis shaking his head on one of his catches.
More on this point — the Seahawks’ offense has become a little more predictable than I would like. Going into the playoffs, it would be nice if they could come up with some new wrinkles for opposing teams to have to think about. If Harvin can play, he will provide some new wrinkles. I’d also like to see more of Willson. I’d like to see Christine Michael replace Turbin on some carries. I’d like to see MRob throw the ball. Etc. Etc.
Agreed. Luke Willson was very good tonight and showed his speed and hands well.
I don’t know what is going on but I just don’t see why Turbin was returning kick offs… He looked timid and slow. I can understand him getting plays on offense since he’s supposedly streets ahead of Michael in pass pro but I would really like to see Michael returning kicks as he really has that breakaway potential that Turbin does not…
I agree wholeheartedly about Turbin returning kicks. I have said that the last two games I have seen him back there returning them. I have also wanted to see how Christine Michael would do in that role.
Penalties! We rank 2nd behind Tampa Bay in the league for the most. They seem to kill more drives than the opposing defense’s we face. It also extends drives against the defense giving the other team better field position. I settle for cutting them in half if we could do that games wouldn’t be as close and I wouldn’t be yelling at my TV on game day. It’s the worst stat in the game for the Seahawks and they need to get it under control.
I would have to see a replay again for the 51 yard Gore run. But I also felt Wagner was more at fault for that big play. It looked like to me he over ran the hole by about a yard or two. Him and Kam Chancellor were literally occupying the same space on the field. If Wagner fills that whole I don’t think Gore would have gotten any further than that. But yes I was very shocked at the angle Earl took on that play. Bad plays happen. They just do. We haven’t given up huge play like that in awhile. They will get it back together and with the mindset of this team they will be focused for the road trip to the Giants this week. We will go 13-3 at a minimum I think. Go Hawks.
A winnable game we let slip through our hands.
San Fran did a great job at doing two things- Stopping the big play and limiting the turnovers.
Another concern: losing this way is very similar to the losses to Detroit,Miami and Atlanta last year. It looks like a lasting trait.
I don’t think it’s a trait to be fair. If they had the occasional blow out defeat, that could be seen as a trait. I think it’s more a case of when Seattle loses, it’s always close. That’s the sign of a good team for me. And unless they’re going to go 16-0, we’ll see a few games like that.
Seattle is 22-7 the last two seasons, which is elite. And it could easily be better. I’m not that worried about the close defeats, especially when we’re dominating teams like the Saints at home.
Good teams never lose by much, and Seattle is a good team. The common thread (‘trait’) in those losses is a big play late that ends up deciding the game; but that’s really how most close games end anyway.
Clowney trying to hurt his draft stock (but probably won’t):
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/12/09/jadeveon-clowney-stopped-for-doing-110-mph/
I wonder where he got the 300 from, eh?
The timing of the timeouts before the SF field goal were absolutely the correct call. The Niners were taking every second of those run plays whether it was before or after a potential first down that Kaepernick eventually got on third and long. The seconds count just the same on either end of that first down. If you wait and they didn’t get that first down, you’d have about 90 seconds less than what you’d otherwise had if you immediately used the timeouts.