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| from 49ers.com |
It is always good to win. It is especially good to win
against the Cowboys. And it is especially, especially
good to win against the Cowboys in Dallas (Arlington…whatever) in a dominating
fashion. Very few things tickle my fancy quite like watching Tony Romo look a
fool. Though it happens with a fair bit of regularity, his dejected, eyes down,
head-shaking walk back to the bench after an absurd decision turned
interception has yet to lose its luster. It’s brilliant television.
But this win means a little more to me—had a little extra oomph—than every your typical win
against the Cowboys, who, if we’re being serious, aren’t really our rivals
anymore. They are in a traditional, nostalgic sort of way, but it’s hard to
take a team seriously when their only great triumph over the last decade is an almost
anomalous adherence to mediocrity. No, this wasn’t a great win because it was
against the Cowboys, but because this game was a cymbal crash in the ears of
every moron who’d been whispering the coming of the 49ers demise. Do you hear
the ringing in your ears morons? That’s the sound of the glorious truth: The
49ers are really, really good at football.
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| from ifc.com
The 49ers are as good at football as this guy is at being really, really, really ridiculously good looking.
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WAIT A SECOND
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| The resemblance is striking...but Pete Carroll can dere-lick my balls, capitan |
As any typical naysayer will tell you, the game could have
gone in a very different manner. Our run defense was the worst it has ever been
in the Jim Harbaugh era (and probably extending back to the Singletary era
too). Without the turnovers, we probably would have been under a lot more
pressure…
But this is revisionist nonsense. You can’t really play the
“if” game in any major sport, football especially so. Teams are responsible for
making their own opportunities and taking advantage of those opportunities. A
game of football is, at its very core, a summation of the plays each team
makes. It’s so stupidly obvious that most people overlook this extremely
important fact. It’s useless wondering what the game could have been like if
the 49ers didn’t start the game off with a fumble recovery for a touchdown. Or
if Kaepernick hadn’t kept his footing for the TD strike to Vernon Davis. Or if
Eric Reid didn’t follow that with an interception returned to the 1-yard line,
setting up an easy third touchdown.
The fact is we made those plays. Dan Skuta did muscle the ball out of Demarco
Murray’s hands. Chris Culliver was in
the correct position and did use sure
hands to pick up an awkwardly rolling, egg-shaped object and then sprint
30-yards to the endzone with it.
The offense did open up the game on fire, Colin Kaepernick
gutting the woeful Cowboys secondary with absolute lasers (ABSOLUTE LASERS!) to
Anquan Boldin and Davis.
Eric Reid did read Tony Romo’s eyes and come back across his
zone to make a leaping interception, which he then brought to the one-yard line
with an impressive, meandering, tackle-breaking return.
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| from 49ers.com |
So, sure, I guess if we didn’t come out of the barrel making
amazing, intelligent football plays we could have been in a much tighter game.
We also could have held a Cowboys offense that last season ranked fifth in the
league in points scored without a touchdown if the referees didn’t make two
ticky-tack pass-infraction calls against Craig Dahl and Jimmy Ward on third-downs,
twice extending Dallas’ first drive to end in a touchdown.
(In all seriousness, while every game I was able to watch
this weekend featured more illegal-contact and holding calls against defensive
secondaries than last year, our game was head and shoulders above the rest for
flags thrown on these infractions, and for the ridiculousness with which these
calls were made. Craig Dahl literally laid
a hand on a receiver at the 5-yard limit, not impeding his route or forcibly
contacting him in any way, and he still got a flag for it—leading former Dallas
quarterback and admitted Cowboys homer Troy Aikman to comment, “Well the league
office isn’t going to be happy about that one.” Jimmy Ward’s penalty was
equally marginal, though given the speed of the play and the fact that it was
on a pass actually intended for the receiver targeted, it’s slightly more
excusable.)
We could have been much more impressive in this game,
especially in the trenches. Colin Kaepernick was pressured too often, Frank
Gore was met by unblocked defenders at the line of scrimmage too often, and
Demarco Murray was getting into the second level of our defense, far, far, far
too often.
Those are things I think will be fixed. Our top three
defensive linemen barely played in the preseason, and I’m sure there was a bit
of rust. Ian Williams hasn’t played in a real game in one year. Ray McDonald
has a lot on his mind right now (let’s not go there for now, mmmkay?). The
Cowboys also probably boast the best offensive line of any team we will play
this season, so it was a tough task to begin with.
We were without the entire starting right side of our
offensive line. Getting Alex Boone and Anthony Davis back into the lineup
immediately inserts two more Pro Bowl players into the unit. The offensive line
is assured to improve fairly dramatically, and soon, when those guys are back
on the field.
Jim Harbaugh, Vic Fangio and Greg Roman are not going to
accept the kind of performance we displayed in the trenches again. Just won’t
happen. So we’ll get better there, I’m confident in that.
In all other facets of the game we looked great.
The secondary played extremely well, and that was without
our top two cornerbacks playing for the vast majority of the game. Eric Reid is
going to vie for an All-Pro spot this season. Antoine Bethea absolutely rocked Dez Bryant on a completely legal
hit, and he was sound in coverage all day. Perrish Cox is an incredibly
underrated football player. Not saying he’s a star, but a guy that versatile
and that quality should not be getting cut, and he was released by two
different teams during the course of last season (one of them being the 49ers,
who were lucky to get him back).
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| from 49ers.com |
Carlos Hyde is continuing to make general managers around
the league sick for passing on him (56 TIMES! 56 PLAYERS WERE DRAFTED BEFORE
THIS GUY! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!), especially Ruston Webster and Mike
Brown. It’s always fun watching a young guy come into the league and know
with complete certainty that he is going to be a star, especially when said
guy is drafted by the 49ers. It was almost a given he would come in immediately
and run the ball hard, but his vision, balance and quick feet continue to amaze
me, and even more surprising, he was solid as a rock in pass protection.
I’ve saved the passing game for last, because I really want
to gush about Colin Kaepernick. There has been more idiocy, negative myth and
bullshit around him than any other quarterback in recent memory (Johnny Manziel
included). They say he can’t make reads or throw accurately. They say he can’t
manage a game or make the right decisions.
Do you know what I
saw— granted this was against a terrible defense—from Kaepernick all game? I
saw a quarterback going through his progressions and making all the right
reads. I saw a quarterback decisively firing passes into tight windows for
third down conversions. I saw a guy maneuvering inside the pocket and
courageously taking big hits to wait for receivers to gain separation and find
throwing lanes. I saw a quarterback with leadership in the huddle, laser-eyed
focus, complete control at the line of scrimmage, and pin-point execution after
the snap of the ball.
And I saw a guy who can easily burst out the pocket to elude
rushing defenders and with a flick of his wrist THROW ABSOLUTE LASERS. Colin
Kaepernick throws absolute lasers.
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| This guy throws them |
To quote coach, “I mean, in my estimation there’s only two
people that could make those two plays [the 37-yard completion to Boldin and
29-yard TD to Davis on the opening drive], one is Colin Kaepernick and the
other has an ‘S’ on his chest.”
To put it into glorified terms: I saw a guy worthy of
playing quarterback in the red and gold, and as you—my fellow faithful—know, that’s
a higher standard than any other team can lay claim to.
In Kaep I trust.
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