Niners Fans, Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid
Fans of the San Francisco 49ers, of which I count myself one for many years, should be afraid after watching their beloved team appear to decimate the Seattle Seahawks 33-17 today.
Defense was strong, but against a young, weak, and injury-hampered offense run by a new, rusty quarterback. Special teams were strong but any time you see one club's special teams do well, it's almost always at least in part because the other club's special teams did poorly.
Offensively, the Niners were highly disappointing. They never hit a rhythm, never put together a convincing drive, played far too conservatively at inappropriate times, and just didn't look right. One third-down conversion all day? You're not going to win many NFL games with that kind of offense, I don't care how good your D is. And frankly it's hard to tell just how good the D really is yet. In the first half, it looked like they really disrupted Tarvaris Jackson's rhythm and schemes. He was sacked several times, hurried a lot and hammered just as he released the ball more times than I've seen in a lot of years. But that's mostly attributable not to the pass rush of the Niners as it is to the sieve-like nature of the Hawks O-line.
Frank Gore had a terrible day. In fact, the Niners running game was pathetic. And on at least two or three third-and-short situations where you'd want Gore in the lineup, he was on the bench.
It's not a huge shock that the offense would be shaky after the lockout-delayed season start, and I saw a few glimmers from QB Alex Smith today that I had not seen in the past couple of dismal years. Maybe the best quarterback ever destroyed by NFL stupidity and greed can pull his career out of the fire. I'm skeptical, but it could happen.
It's nice to start with a conference win but there's still a lot of room for wait-and-see with these guys.
