It’s true that the 49ers came into the game ranked 32nd – dead last – on offense, but I came away from the Bengals game more encouraged, not less. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve no doubt noticed that every week Jim Harbaugh has been given Alex Smith and the receivers more rope. Smith is getting more attempts and still completing passes at a high percentage. By hook or by crook Kendall Hunter and fullback Bruce Miller have been incorporated into the offense, which has totally given the backfield a dynamic dimension it had previously lacked. It may not seem like much, but it’s nice to have a fullback that can gain 10 yards on a swing pass and a speedy halfback you can run toss plays with. Smith has always been comfortable with Vernon Davis, but now he’s starting to link up with Michael Crabtree and Joshua Morgan. You saw the difference not having Chilo Rachal in there made for the line. In a few weeks Braylon Edwards will return and that will be another weapon on the boundary and in the red zone.
What I’ve always liked about Harbaugh when watching his Stanford teams was that you could see that he had a vision and a plan, both in the short term (single games) and the long term (the season). The guys he recruited all fit together so beautifully and Harbaugh was a mastermind at maximizing everyone’s strengths and minimizing their weaknesses; and for adding new wrinkles week after week to surprise his opponents.
I feel like that’s what’s going on with the 49ers now. Finally the team is running an offense conducive to Smith’s strengths. Finally they have a running back in Hunter to give the backfield a thunder-and-lightning dimension when for so long their idea of understudies were glorified goal line backs like Anthony Dixon and Glen Coffee, who were just bigger and slower than Frank Gore. The way Hunter is being used now is how Brian Westbrook should’ve been used last year, but the inept coaching staff had him chained to the bench.
More importantly, Harbaugh understood right away the parameters of what he had to work with, with his offensive line, his quarterback, and his receivers. His line can’t hold their blocks for long, the receivers don’t have much straight line speed and the quarterback is naturally reluctant to throw long as it is. Why force this group to run a vertical passing offense like previous regimes did, when none of the personnel is suited for it?
Instead, in Edwards, Morgan, Crabtree, Davis and Ted Ginn, the team has a nice collection of guys who can run hitches and outs and in cuts and the occasional slant to get six or eight yards at a time and keep the chains moving. It looks horrific on 3rd-and-16, but as long as the line isn’t committing a penalty or giving up a sack and the receivers aren’t dropping passes, it works. The more rhythm and comfort they gain playing within the system, the more consistently it will continue to work.
You don’t see many teams stopping the Cardinal offense now, do you?
Of course the key to it all looking easy is the running game, and it’s impossible to deny that the Eagles run defense is 15 kinds of awful. Again, the more comfort and trust Smith and the receivers earn, the less predictable they’ll be, which will open up more running lanes. It all fits together.
Smith finished the Eagles game with a 112.1 passer rating, which was a career high for him in a road start. His 291 passing yards were the most he’s ever had in a win. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the team also ran for 164 yards when he put up numbers like that.
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