From 1983 to 1998, the San Francisco 49ers won at least 10 games each season. They made the playoffs 15 times in those 16 years, and again earned playoff berths in 2001 and 2002.
But from 2003 to 2010, San Francisco missed the playoffs every season. Over that eight-year stretch, the team ranked 29th in winning percentage, topping only the Cleveland Browns, the Oakland Raiders and the Detroit Lions. Now at 4-1, the 49ers are fielding their best team since at least 2002 and seem destined to end their playoff drought by winning the otherwise anemic N.F.C. West. The seeds of this team were planted during a 366-day stretch in the middle of the last decade.
From there, success continued to roll on for Harbaugh, Willis and Gore. In 2006, Harbaugh guided his team to the league championship and another 11-1 record. Willis was named the SEC defensive player of the year, and he won the Butkus award, given to the top linebacker in the country. Gore had a memorable season; his yards per carry average of 5.43 remains the highest mark among players with 1,500 rushing yards and 60 catches in a season.
After Willis’s monster career at Ole Miss, he was drafted by the 49ers with the 11th pick in 2007. In his first four seasons, he made the Pro Bowl each year, and has been named a first-team All-Pro linebacker by The Associated Press in three of those seasons (in 2008, the voters made him a second-team selection). The undisputed best inside linebacker in the league wears No. 52, although it’s hard to tell exactly when Ray Lewis’s reign ends and Willis’s begins.
Gore followed his 2006 season by averaging over 100 yards from scrimmage each year from 2007 to 2010, usually plodding forward on a bad team. The 49ers went 11-29 against teams outside the N.F.C. West in those years. Only Adrian Peterson, Steven Jackson and Maurice Jones-Drew gained more yards from scrimmage those seasons than Gore.
Following Harbaugh’s second consecutive P.F.L. title, Stanford lured him from San Diego to resurrect its program. At the time, the job seemed hopeless. Five years ago, the only thing that seemed tougher than getting into Stanford was winning at Stanford. The Cardinal went 1-11 in 2006, and failed to top 10 points in 9 of 12 games. Few football charts are as self-explanatory as the one below, showing Stanford’s production in the year before Harbaugh and the four years under his watch:
Each year, Harbaugh improved the defense. Each year, Harbaugh improved the offense, usually by around a touchdown per game. His second season in Palo Alto, he pulled off one of the biggest upset in college football history, beating second-ranked U.S.C. … as 41-point underdogs. If he had 24 hours, could he save the world? John Elway never led the Cardinal to a bowl game. Bill Walsh never had Stanford ranked in the top five. No one had ever led Stanford to a top-five ranking. But in 2010, Harbaugh gave the Cardinal its best season in at least the last 70 years, and set the groundwork for a potentially magical season in 2011.
Just as amazing as the success Harbaugh achieved was the way in which he achieved it. Stanford’s academic requirements put it at a severe disadvantage when it comes to big-time college football. Some colleges have had success in recent years while dealing with significant restrictions on the recruiting trail. Georgia Tech, Army and Navy have won by using the triple option attack on offense, a rushing attack based on complicated blocking schemes that present challenges for your typical 20-year-old defender with one week’s worth of preparation.
Under Harbaugh, Stanford ran a pro-style offense — some would call it vanilla. The Cardinal won by being one of the toughest and most physical teams in the country, on offense and defense. There was nothing gimmicky: they were usually stronger, more fundamentally sound and more consistent than their opponent. How Harbaugh managed to do that at Stanford was almost as improbable as the results.
When Harbaugh came to the 49ers, he pulled a surprise by keeping Alex Smith as his quarterback. While Harbaugh was working his magic at Stanford, Smith lost his job to J.T. O’Sullivan and Shaun Hill, in between battling injuries for much of his disappointing six seasons with the team. Smith was good enough not to be released — he had that over a player like JaMarcus Russell — but that was the only bar he could reach. He averaged just 4.4 adjusted net yards per attempt from 2005 to 2010, the worst mark in the league among quarterbacks with 40 starts. But Smith is paying dividends this season.
In his first job as a pro coach, Harbaugh again shaped a team in his image.
Consider: San Francisco is the only team in the league that has not allowed a running back to rush for 65 yards in a game. The 49ers have held the opponent’s No. 1 running back — Marshawn Lynch, Felix Jones, Cedric Benson, LeSean McCoy and LeGarrette Blount — to a combined 174 yards on 58 carries, a meager 3 yards per carry.
San Francisco is the only team this season that has yet to allow a rushing touchdown. Opposing running backs have gained 14 rushing first downs in five games. Defensive ends Justin Smith and Ray McDonald are playing at Pro Bowl levels, and Navorro Bowman teams up with Willis to give San Francisco the best pair of inside linebackers in the league. In the secondary, cornerback Carlos Rogers — selected eight spots after Smith in the ‘05 draft — has done a fantastic job replacing Nate Clements. But Harbaugh’s impact can be felt on both sides of the ball.
Only three teams this season are running on at least half of their plays (including sacks as pass plays): the Minnesota Vikings, the 49ers and the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Vikings and the Jaguars rank in the bottom five of the league in net yards per pass attempt while having arguably the two best running backs in the league, Peterson and Jones-Drew. For San Francisco, the run-heavy ratio is less out of necessity than design. San Francisco ranks 15th in net yards per pass attempt, while the rushing attack has had uneven success (ranking 21st in yards per carry). But the 49ers continue to stick with the running game and have no doubts about their identity: they will be tough and physical, and are committed to running no matter what.
Most important, San Francisco looks like a team that is improving every week. In the opener, the 49ers let a bad Seattle team hang around until Ted Ginn returned two fourth-quarter kicks for scores. The 49ers outplayed the talented Cowboys in Week 2 but imploded down the stretch. The defense was dominant against Cincinnati, but 12 penalties and an ineffective offense showed that the 49ers were far from being a complete team. Then, in Philadelphia, the offense produced 442 yards for its largest output in seven years; but the defense was torn apart by Michael Vick. Finally, against Tampa Bay, it all came together. Alex Smith had a 127 quarterback rating; Gore and Kendall Hunter rushed 29 times for 180 yards, and San Francisco won, 48-3. Jim Harbaugh was given a lot of money to turn around San Francisco. He just wasn’t expected to do it this quickly. But the Bay Area should be used to Harbaugh working miracles by now.
Chase Stuart contributes to the Pro-Football-Reference.com blog and to Footballguys.com.
