Monday, September 15, 2008

49ers Recap Week 2

Well a win is a win, it was a fun game to watch for the most part. I tuned after the score was 14-3 Seahawks and thought we had little chance. Mostly because I wasn't sure the offense could come back from that much down. It sure was a wild game, 49ers end up winning 33-30 in OT. Nedney missed a potential game winner in regulation with :03 seconds. Here is my grades for Offense, Defense, Special Teams, and coaching.

Offense - The team did score 33 points, one TD was on Defense and a Interception set up a small field for a TD run by Gore. I sure was impressed with O'Sullivan. He can throw the ball with nice touch and also has an above average long throw. He finished 20-32 for 321 yards and a TD. He looked like he knew what to do when passing. I thought he could have taken the ball and run a few times, but overall he was pretty much perfect. He is also the 49ers first guy to throw for 300 yards since Tim Rattay in 2004, now that is sad. Gore had some troubles with a fumble (two weeks in a row!) that lead to points for the Seahawks. Bruce and Johnson looked really good at WR. Bruce kind of came out of nowhere and had some very long catches, one of which should have been a TD if he was 5 years younger. But I cannot complain, Vernon Davis did not even show up with a catch. Johnson looked liked a solid #2 WR. He was making good catches and scored a TD on a short pass. Gore also had 5 catches to go along with his 61 yards rushing and a TD. It was nice to see the niners be able to pass and pass well. If O'Sullivan can keep this up only good things will happen. 

Defense -  It was bad news/good news with this group. They made up for the points lost on offense (gore fumble) and special teams (blocked punt, led to a td) by getting key turnovers. Patrick Willis, shall I say anything else? The guy is amazing. He took a tipped pass and returned it 86 yards for a TD. Probably will be the most amazing play of the year for the 49ers (yes I DO realize they still have 14 games to go). They also picked off Hasselbeck once more and showed they could stop the pass. Of course the Seahawks had virtually no good WR's on the team. But their loss is our gain. The D-line was pretty sad. They couldn't get a push and stop the run. The Seahawks ran all over us! They had around 170 yards rushing and they Seahawks were getting 5 yards a carry in after the half. While they did only get one sack, they had enough pressure to make Hasslebeck throw those errant passes which were intercepted. I am shocked we gave up so many points, but Seahawks scored some by defense and special teams. 

Special Teams - Nedney did win the game, but he needed two tries. We had a punt blocked which lead to a short field TD, and the Seahawks had a lot of good kick off returns which gave them good field position. Add to the fact that Nedney kicked a kick off out of bounds and it was not a great day. But Nedney did make 4/5 field goals, and was able to hit on the game winner when it mattered, that alone almost makes up for the all the bad stuff that happened. Rossum had good kick off return average of 27.2 yards a return with a long of 44 yards. It was another good news/bad news situation here. 

Coaching - Nolan was terrible this week. I guess I am just a fan and don't know football but watching his decisions make me upset sometimes. He is the worst clock management coach I have ever scene.  Niners called uncessary time outs when they shouldn't have needed too. And choosing to let the clock run out with 20 seconds left and 2 time outs makes no sense, lets say they get some yards and turn that potential  game winning field goal into a 30-35 yarder instead of the 41 yarder, which was missed. I can see why he wouldn't go for it but it could have made all the difference if we didn't march down the field and get that OT game winner. Overall the coaching seemed pretty bad and I think they got lucky that Martz was able to get some points.

Overall Grade: B-

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