49ers lose again: Nolan-ites can’t rejoice (but they’ll still try)
I wasn’t there at the 49ers 13-9 loss to St. Louis today. Maybe if I was there I could understand Mike Nolan’s decision to kick a FG with less than 2 minutes left, down by 7, but Buzz Ryan is the man to handle that issue.
Anyway, all good game commentary will come from Annie K, Purd, Dan Brown, Denny G, who are at Monsterstick and will be writing sublimely for your morning newsprint.
So I’ll just type a few things and get out of the way.
With those last three drives against the WOEFULLY BAD Rams defense, the 49ers got up over 200 total yards. In fact, they got 244, which is their fourth-highest this season.
I keep the numbers handy, so let’s review the 49ers’ epic offensive season in ugly detail:
Game 1 vs. Arizona: 194 offensive yards.
Game 2 at St. Louis: 186.
Game 3 at Pittsburgh: 289.
Game 4 vs. Seattle: 184.
Game 5 vs. Baltimore: 163.
Game 6 at NY Giants: 267.
Game 7 vs. New Orleans: 260.
Game 8 at Atlanta: 251.
Game 9 at Seattle: 173.
Game 10 vs. St. Louis: 244.
Oh, and that’s now 60 points in the last 7 games, all bleak losses.
I guess there’s one bonus: Thanks to the horrendous, horrendous, horrendous Rams defense and those three late drives by the Dilfer-istas, the 49ers put up their first game of 200 or more net passing yards since the early stages of 2006.
That’s Matt Maiocco’s stat, so I’ll give all credit to him and I’m sure he’ll do much more with this streak-buster than I ever could.
One more thing: THE RAMS ARE HORRIBLE.
They entered the game with the 19th-rated defense in the league, giving up 293.8 yards per game, but if you remove the 49ers from that equation, they’re giving up more than 320.
I’m sure the Rams’ ranking will get even better after this inept performance. We’ll know better.
Plus, that Rams offense? I know the 49ers defense was pretty good today–maybe VERY good, and that’s something Nolan will have nightmares about, wasting this good defense this year–but 3.1 yards per play by the Rams offense is just stunningly bad.
The Nolan-ites and probably the Nolan Buddha himself will proclaim that this game showed that the 49ers have toughness and are obviously committed to the Nolan Cult Personality.
Yes, maybe they are. I will have to give the Nolan-ites that one. They played hard. Alex Smith never took a snap, and the Nolan-ites had to be joyous about that one. I’ll bet they really, really wanted to win this one without Smith, who is giving them agita recently.
So the 49ers who played today, they played hard. For Nolan or for whatever reason. Nolan gets credit for that.
But if you play hard… you keep fighting… and you still can’t be the HORRIBLE RAMS, at Monsterstick, when the Rams are trying to give you the game…
Maybe you should just stop fighting. It’s over.
There are six games left, and it’s just over.
Tim-
You are reading the situation wrong. I think Nolan is trying to get the Yorks to fire him by kicking that late FG. The Smith-Nolan dustup really proves that Nolan wanted out.
I was totally outraged by the field goal decision, but Nolan still had two shots at winning the game after that: recovering the onside kick (which didn’t work), or using his three timeouts and hoping for a defensive stop (which did).
Now that I think about it, which was the more likely bet? Dilfer and Co. getting ten yards on fourth down? Or the defense making a stop against the awful Rams defense?
You want a mistake — I think the big mistake wasn’t the FG, it was the onside kick. Put the ball in Rams territory, three-and-out them, and their punt puts you at midfield instead of your own 11.
Many more questions, than answers today.
Was the late field goal vs. going for the touchdown, to suggest, in Nolans head, atleast if they lost, they got closer to winning? You want your players to support the coaches decision. How many 49ers, particularly offensive players would support that decision? Wasn’t the momentum certainly with the team?
Yes, they were one play short of winning…although requiring a touchdown pass from 20 yards with 4 Rams starting the last play, in the end zone!
Is 200 plus yards of passing due to more effective Dilfer quarterbacking or poor Ram defense?…..assuming offensive play calling effectiveness is similiar game to game…either way, offensive philosophy particularly passing game has to be questioned. How else would you account for extreme variance in passing performance by Smith last year, vs this. Injury is factor…but style and play calling must be less appropriate for effectiveness of Smith.
Is anemic running game, just poor play calling and at wrong time, or is it just an ineffective offensive line? Whenever I hear of scripting the first 15-20 plays, it seems to be successful and was past 49er staple. Why not try this?….. or something different, 49ers are too predictable.
Even with weak supporting cast, does Smith show flashes of brilliance, to suggest he can be the man!?
Questions, Questions, Questions!
Credit to the defense, they played hard all game long. With any other offense they would have been rewarded with a win.
Dilfer YOung and Allen should all revolt and do what they were doing when their old teams won! This BS system that NOlan talks about isnt working, isnt getting better never has worked and never will. He has no experience or any credentials to back up his opinions. He fabricates things , like the team is good etc…..I think Alex got sick of his nonsense and stood up to him in the media.
What do the guys have to lose? they already are being laughed at by the other nfl players. ( all 3 were pro bowlers) Gore cant do it, cause he will be back next year. So GO FOR IT GUYS………….BE FREE!!!!!!
It was over a long time ago!!!! WAKE UP!!!!
Go Niners!
I liked the part where they threw the ball to the other guy and he caught it
Nolan,makes one nostalgic for the good old days of ……Joe Thomas.
Appears that the Yorks are actually trying to lose as they can be more profitable with a losing product than paying for a winning product. Pretty sad.
“I knew with three timeouts, I’d get the ball back and then we’d be playing for a win rather than overtime,” Nolan said. “We had not been that effective (offensively), so if I could go for a win rather than overtime, I’d do it.”
He turned out to be right about getting the ball back.
Im Just speechless.
I don’t mind if the 49ers lose. In fact, I’m rooting for them to lose because the more games they lose, the higher the Patriot’s 1st draft pick will be next year (which the 49ers gave up in a trade).
-Pats fan
The thing I really enjoy about New England fans is that, generally, they’re 3000+ miles away.
As a Rams fan having yet another difficult year, I just want to say god bless you Mike Nolan for running off, trading, or firing all the recievers the forty- niners had that could make a clutch catch. And I hope you are with the niners for a good long time to come.
Yep…time for Nolan to do some Rollin’ out of town.
Too bad. He seemed to have his head on straight last year.
But, maybe…just maybe…it might be the Yorks we need to can. Wishful thinking.
Dilfer threw three strikes to receivers in the endzone for the would be game tying TD. Drop. Drop. Drop. Blame Nolan all you want but with receivers as inept as the ones we have, even the immortal Bill Walsh couldn’t make us a winner. AND THAT INCLUDES YOU VERNON “BUST” DAVIS.
The Niners recieving core blows. Tell me again why Owens was too big of a headache, Bryant was too much trouble and a 4th round draft pick was too much to trade for Moss? Would any of the starting WR/TE’s for the 49ers even start a single team in the NFL?