It’s not often that a football game is decided with 14:08 to go in the second quarter, but Thursday night’s overhyped affair against the menacing Baltimore Ravens essentially was. Right about the time referee John Parry announced to god and country that an apparent 75-yard touchdown pass from Alex Smith to Ted Ginn was null and void due to a ticky-tack chop block call on Frank Gore, 49ers skipper Jim Harbaugh had to be thinking to himself, “Really? REALLY? The league hasn’t done enough to us in this game, and now you’re making THAT call?”
Harbaugh hinted the whole week that he didn’t have a good feeling in his gut about the game and voiced the “competitive disadvantage” excuse again both after the game and during the next day postmortem conference call. “It’s the truth,” he said. “I’m not whining or complaining about it, but it’s the truth.”
He’s right, obviously. There’s a reason no west coast team has played on Thanksgiving since 1975. It would be one thing to ask if of the 49ers if they had a bye week the Sunday before, but without it the turnaround, having basically two whole days to prepare for the Ravens since Wednesday was wiped out by the travel, is just not enough against a squad as talented across the board as Baltimore. Very few teams outside of Green Bay have a shot in that situation.
The ironic aspect of it is, it was a scheduled “L” attributable solely to the Harbaugh hire. While Harbaugh has helped them win a handful of games they otherwise might not have this season, he was their single biggest liability against Baltimore because of his bloodlines. If the 49ers had hired any other human as their coach – with the possible exception of Harbaugh’s father, Jack – they would not have been asked to play under this circumstance and their trip to Jason Whitlock’s favorite metropolis would’ve been on a regular football Sunday.
The least the league could’ve done for the 49ers would’ve been to let them play at Washington on Sunday instead of two weeks ago, and indeed they did put that request in when the schedule was being made. Since Commissioner Roger Goodell respects his local barista more than 49ers President Jed York, they got boned. So it goes until they start winning some games in January and earning their once-esteemed reputation back.
I wrote during my game preview that the Niners would have to jump on the Ravens early before fatigue sets in to have any chance and that they would look to come out passing early and often with Alex Smith in the shotgun, and what do you know, that was exactly the plan. If that Ginn touchdown counted, all of a sudden the 49ers would've been up 10-3 and it could've been a different ballgame. That call changed everything. The Ravens, thanks to the zebras, took San Francisco's best punch and the Niners didn't have a lot to offer after that.
Frank Gore (14 carries for 39 yards) predictably didn't do much, not against a Baltimore front that came into the game allowing a league-leading 3.3 yards-per-carry and especially not after getting 24 mostly needless carries against Arizona the Sunday prior. Kendall Hunter showed a couple of flashes, but didn't get many opportunities.
The story of the game, aside from that call, was of course the nine sacks Smith absorbed. It was a surprise in the aspect that the Niners came into the game having allowed a respectable 21 sacks in 10 games, and 11 of those in consecutive games against Dallas and Cincinnati. Since replacing 2008 second-round bust Chilo Rachal with Adam Snyder midway through that Bengals game, they'd allowed 10 sacks in 7.5 games.
However, given the scheduling of the game and the opponent involved, the onslaught against Smith really isn't as much of a shock as you would think. I believe Harbaugh had the truth of it when he said about a third of the sacks were bad protection calls against the blitzes the Ravens had (you can argue that's Smith's fault), a third where guys got flat out physically beat (Rachal and Anthony Davis, repeatedly) and a third were Smith's fault for not getting rid of the ball sooner. Again, scheduling plays a huge part in this, and Smith alluded to it after the game. If the 49ers had more time to prepare, they'd have a better game plan for the various zone blitzes the Ravens threw at them. There wouldn't be as many mental mistakes and missed assignments from Smith and the linemen. It all factors into it.
Really, I could even argue Snyder's injury is due, at least in part, to having to play on a short week. It's no secret that he's the worst athlete among the seven offensive linemen the team dresses every week. Snyder gets by because he's smart, he works hard, he studies his ass off and he competes. In short, he's the anti-Rachal, in every respect. Physically though, Snyder is just not built to play twice in five days, and his body gave out on him. Harbaugh can only hope that he'll be ready to go ten days from now and thank his lucky stars that Smith is still in one piece.
Beyond the protections, the lack of preparation time turned this into basically a preseason game as far as game planning, with nothing but basic, vanilla plays out there. I have too much faith in Harbaugh, Offensive Coordinator Greg Roman, and the rest of the coaching staff to believe that in normal circumstances they wouldn't have plays dialed up to counteract the obscene amounts of pressure the Ravens were putting on them. Where were the screens? The misdirections? The draws?
Defensively, it was much the same. The front seven were proud warriors when it came to stopping Ray Rice and the Ravens running game, and refused to allow a touchdown even when Baltimore had 2nd-and-goal from inside the 1-yard-line, but the pass rush was totally nonexistent. It's plain as day that this defense is gassed. Donte Whitner was overpowered by Lee Evans, of all people. NaVorro Bowman didn't have the legs to catch up with Rice on a flare route. Patrick Willis was outflanked by fullback Vonta Leach, a guy he can beat in a race like the roadrunner against Wile E. Coyote (beep beep) under normal circumstances. Even Justin Smith, the team's indefatigable iron-man, tapped out for a couple plays to suck wind on the sidelines. Harbaugh refused to play subs like inside linebacker Larry Grant or those young linemen he's got collecting dust, and you have to wonder what this defense will look like in December.
You look at the calls that Vic Fangio dialed up and it was as vanilla as it gets. He rushed four the whole time, never blitzing once on third down, even though it was clear the front line wasn't breathing on Flacco. The Niners spent a lot of time in zone coverage, which to me suggests fatigue and trying to protect guys from being on islands. There were plays where Baltimore's best receiver, Anquan Boldin, was being covered by Ahmad Brooks. Mistakes like that haven't happened since early in the season. You can't tell me the coaching staff put a lot of time and nuance into the game plan, I'm just not buying it. Flacco converted all six of his third down attempts when he actually passed the ball.
Call me crazy, but for all the feature stories in print and video about Jim Harbaugh's legendary competitiveness, I just don't think winning this game mattered to him as much as people would think. For the first time all season I didn't sense an edge from him going into the game and I found it curious that he was making excuses during the week. I know the hype pointed to this game like it would matter more to Harbaugh to beat his brother than any other game this season, but having observed him all year, I truly don't think he's wired that way. I think he means it when his brother is his best friend and that he doesn't have personal relationships with the other 30 head coaches. Those guys are his "enemies," not his brother. I think Harbaugh is a smart guy and a big picture thinker above all. If there was ever a situation for him to let up, it would be in out of conference game on a short week when he's got a five game lead in his division.
I'm not saying Harbaugh "threw" the game by any means, because he didn't. I'm just pointing out that the coaching staff didn't go out of its way to cram a week's worth of game planning into two days. It just looked bare bones to me on both sides of the ball, all too reminiscent of the previous regime. Once that Ginn touchdown got taken away, there was a collective sense that it wasn't going to be their night.
Going forward, I think the St. Louis Rams and future opponents will pay attention to this game and try to blitz the 49ers back into the stone age. I expect Roman to have plays to counteract that. I also expect Fangio to be a lot more aggressive on his end. Snyder's injury is a concern because there is only so much you can do to cover for Rachal.
Harbaugh's biggest problem is trying to figure out what, if anything, the team can get from Braylon Edwards, who is playing with all the intensity of Randy Moss on the Raiders, jogging through his routes and not fighting for the ball. It's one thing to not be on the same page with Alex Smith on a deep ball -- Smith threw in, Edwards went out -- but quite another to not even try to break up the pass and prevent the turnover. Harbaugh looks befuddled as to who his second receiver should be, as he's constantly shuffling through Edwards, Ginn and Kyle Williams, looking for a solution. Hopefully over the next ten days he'll have a "come to Jesus" talk with Edwards, because at this point there's got to be somebody better on the street.
All in all, 9-2 and pole position for the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye is not a bad spot to be. Way too early to panic just because they lost the toughest game on their sked. If some of the bad trends we've seen the past few weeks don't correct themselves next Sunday against the Rams, then it will be time to ask some serious questions.
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