This is a game the 49ers deserved to lose. The offense was horrific aside from three big plays and they were undisciplined racking up 15 penalties. But they pulled it out thanks to a smothering red zone defense, great special teams and an amazing 4th quarter drive featuring 8 runs and one clutch pass (we won't mention that the drive was aided by the officials giving the 49ers 5 extra yards).
To steal a phrase from Hoser, I am guardedly giddy. The 49ers are 5-1 and could easily be 6-0 or 3-3. They have faced the worst part of their schedule and come out way ahead. Football Outsiders has them ranked #2 for overall team DVOA.
But good lord, that offense. It is not good.
The Good
Andy Lee: 9 punts net yards 48, 39, 40, 40, 41, 43, 39, 43, 36. Those are NET yards. Four punts inside the 20 and 1 touchback on a 60 yard punt.
Andy Lee is the MVP of the 49ers as well as the Strangest Looking NFL Player. Seriously, he looks like an elf.
Alex Smith on 4th and 6: That throw to Delanie Walker was perfect. Perfect timing, perfect placement. If Alex had been off a hair on that throw the 49ers lose the game.
The Defense: against one of the league's most potent offenses the defense played a great game. As usual, they gave up a ton of yards between the 20's but in the red zone they were vicious. Some stats from Matt Maiocco:
Another note on the defense from Michael Erler:--The Lions converted just 2 of 15 third-down attempts. If you don't have a calculator handy, that's 13.3 percent.
--The 49ers allowed just 4.4 yards per pass attempt, as they sacked quarterback Matthew Stafford five times. Stafford was sacked just six times in the Lions' first five games.
--The Lions had 16 possessions, and only one of those drives lasted longer than 3:05. Ten times the 49ers held the Lions to one first down or fewer, including eight possessions without a first down.
Special Teams: Unbelievable. They consistently gave the Lions bad field position and the 49ers good field position. You could argue that the defense and special teams were responsible for 14 of the 49ers 25 points. The safety was 2 points. Three times the D/ST left the 49ers in FG range to start a drive. All three times the 49ers' offense went three-and-out and Akers kicked a field goal. That's eleven points. The final touchdown drive started on the Lions' 35 thanks to a great Ginn return and the zebras. Split that TD between the D/ST and the pathetic offense.Defensively, the staff saw that Stafford gets rid of the ball too quickly, too often to make blitzing him worthwhile, and that most of Detroit’s big plays happened when their opponents brought pressure. So the Niners gambled… by not gambling. As Harbaugh noted during his Monday presser, the 49ers didn’t bring more than a four man rush on any of the Lions’ 78 plays from scrimmage. They just played their nickel defense pretty much the whole game, with two-man over help from the safeties (Donte Whitner and Dashon Goldson was each responsible for half the field) and let Bowman cover the back and Patrick Willis cover tight end Brandon Pettigrew.
The Bad
Andy Lee had to punt 9 times.
Alex Smith the rest of the game: 16/31, 125yds, 1 INT. That's the QB's stat line minus the heroic 4th and goal pass. Ye gods, not even JaMarcus Russell would consider that acceptable. The AYPA was 1.91 - that means the average result of an Alex Smith pass attempt was 1.91 yards.
Penalties: 15 penalties for 120 yards. A team that wins based on not making mistakes can't do that.
The officiating: Absolutely inexcusable and may well have cost the Lions the game. The only good thing the zebras did was to ignore the ridiculous Calvin Johnson rule on both Lions' TDs.
and the 49ers
Alexcuses: As usual, Alex had some solid excuses for his horrible stat line. There was nothing he could have done to avoid KVB's strip-sack. He hadn't even started his reads when KVB was on him. Delanie Walker dropped a beautiful pass that would have been a touchdown. Crabtree's inability to count to two (as in two feet in) negated another TD pass.
Frank Gore: In Fantasy Football Gore did fantastic: 15 carries, 141 yards, 1 TD. But nearly 100 yards came on two carries. For the rest of the game he was 13 carries for 45 yards and a fumble. Gore either ran into the guards' ass and fell down or else he gained 40 yards.
Harbaugh: A great win was marred by a rookie challenge (even a goofball like me knows you can't challenge a scoring play this year) and the post-game brouhaha. Yes it was blown out of proportion but Harbaugh still acted like a douche (note: Stanford was rated the 5th douchiest college in the country).
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You might notice I included Alex Smith in all three categories. I did this on purpose because I feel Alex has been the quintessential 49er during his tenure in San Francisco. Great potential, flashes of brilliance and then the boneheaded, game killing mistakes. That's been the whole team over the last 6 years.
Today Alex made the boneheaded mistakes but he made up for them in the end. Just like the rest of the team has been doing all year and did in this game.
As a side note, after watching the film (h/t Mike Singletary), Alex Smith was consistently locking his front leg on throws. That likely was causing his passes to sail high. If an ignorant guy like me can see that I'm sure the 49ers coaches can see it. I'm thinking this will be corrected during the bye week. What was really weird is Alex generally had good protection all game. In the first 5 games Alex was doing great despite horrible pass protection. When he finally got good protection he had his worst game of the season.
Side note #2: This is the first year since 2002 that the 49ers are favored over the bye week. Damn that feels good.
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Originally Posted by Hoser
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