Are Giants Too Reliant on Manning Magic?

A capsule look at the Giants’ 27-20 loss to the 49ers on Sunday:

Key Performance
One week after booming a critical punt late against New England, Steve Weatherford drew Tom Coughlin’s ire for shanking a 29-yarder at the end of the third quarter. That gave the 49ers excellent field position, and they quickly took advantage, scoring three plays into the final quarter to take the lead for good.

Notable Number: 9
The Giants held the ball for nine more minutes than the 49ers, but they could not take advantage. The Giants also recorded 95 more yards of offense than San Francisco but were hurt by untimely mistakes and an inability to finish long drives in the first half.

Talking Point
After another week without a 100-yard rusher (Brandon Jacobs led the Giants with 55 yards on 18 carries), are the Giants too reliant on Eli Manning’s late magic to lead them to victory?

Week 10 Quick Hits: Giving 49ers and Alex Smith Their Due

A quick tour of the games in Week 10, including some terrible tackling, an Eagles team that can’t close and Tim Tebow’s (count ‘em) two pass completions in a victory:

49ers 27, Giants 20

Few prognosticators would have predicted a 49ers victory if told beforehand that Frank Gore would rush for 0 of his team’s measly 77 yards against the N.F.C. East-leading Giants. Take away the run game, you take away the entire 49ers offense. Or so we thought.

Alex Smith had his best outing of the season, regardless of what his good-but-not-great numbers might say. He was able to sustain offense through the air early and late, with no critical turnovers against a typically fierce Giants pass rush. The victory can also be attributed to a handful of big second-half defensive plays, including Carlos Rogers’s second interception. It was a wide-open pick, as the ex-Redskin had perfect underneath positioning against a route that Mario Manningham, much to the surprise of Eli Manning, broke off. Patrick Willis erupted in the fourth quarter, perhaps after hearing all week that the second-year star Navorro Bowman had become San Francisco’s best linebacker. Willis was quick to diagnose and close in on tackles, and he was effectively physical in coverage.

Seahawks 22, Ravens 17

The Ravens have become like a top-tier N.B.A. team. They show up in full force for rivalry games and take their foot off the gas for the presumably easy midseason road trips. Baltimore’s three losses this season: at Tennessee after blowing out Pittsburgh in the season opener, at Jacksonville after destroying Houston and, Sunday at Seattle after another win over Pittsburgh.

One commonality amongst the three losses is the disappearance of Ray Rice. His stat line in losses reads: 13 carries for 43 yards, eight for 28 and, most recently, five for 27. The headlines say that Marshawn Lynch rushed for 109 yards against this stingy Ravens D. But it took him 32 carries to get there. Credit Lynch for his tenacity – he iced the game with broken tackles down the stretch.

But also credit the outcome in part to Ravens kick returner David Reed. He lost two fumbles and drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the first half. That led to six easy Seahawk points. Those are the types of mistakes that division-round playoff teams, not Super Bowl teams, make in trap games.

Bears 37, Lions 13

Just one of those games that got away from the Lions. They’re now considered the third-best team in the N.F.C. North, and the tease for their Thanksgiving showdown won’t be about possibly catching the Packers but instead about fighting for a wild-card berth.

Seeing the Bears post 37 points with methodical offense and crazy return touchdowns feels comforting and familiar – like the aroma of your mother’s best recipe or memories of summer camp. Back-to-back pick-sixes to open the second half and Devin Hester’s 82-yard punt return score before that gave Chicago a league-high seven touchdown returns on the season. That matches their combined total of the ’09 and ’10 seasons. In ’08 the Bears had seven touchdown returns. (In ’07 they had eight and in their Super Bowl ’06 season they had nine.)

Saints 26, Falcons 23

This game  lends more evidence to what Greg Cosell, the executive producer of the “NFL Matchup Show,” has been saying for years: the biggest myth in football is that you must establish the run in order to set up play-action. In truth, well-executed play-action works regardless of how a team is running. New Orleans gained just 41 yards on 16 carries in this game. Yet according to ESPN’s Stats and Information, Drew Brees completed 17 of 19 passes for 212 yards and 2 touchdowns after a play-action fake. (For more on this game, see this separate post on the Falcons’ controversial decision to go for it on fourth down in their territory in overtime.)

Steelers 24, Bengals 17

Mike Wallace is widely regarded as a top-10 wide receiver. Hines Ward is on the decline but still venerated for his blocking and pedigree. Heath Miller is the steady, perpetually underrated tight end. And last season, Emmanuel Sanders started to emerge as the long-term No. 2 wideout. But right now, the fastest-rising stock in Pittsburgh is that of Antonio Brown. The sixth-round pick from a year ago has 39 catches for 540 yards in nine games. He led the Steelers with 86 yards on five receptions Sunday, thanks to a three-catch, 57-yard outburst on the final drive of the first half (which culminated with a field goal).

Ravens corner Lardarius Webb recently said that Brown is Pittsburgh’s best receiver. Mike Tomlin calls Brown the hardest worker on the team. He’s a quick, polished route runner who can gain yards after the catch and locate the soft spots deep in a zone. Ben Roethlisberger loves to go to his inside receivers on third down and in spread formations. Expect Brown to align inside more and more.

Rams 13, Browns 12

Let’s none of us pretend to have watched this game. Perhaps we could have watched it if the N.F.L. hadn’t scheduled 10 early window games and just three late window games. The league has been good about balancing early and late window schedules in recent weeks, but every so often it gets caught up in catering to the local markets and forgets about Red Zone Channel viewers and Sunday Ticket subscribers. If there had been, say, only eight early window games and five late window games, or an even more balanced seven-six split, then all of the matchups – including awful ones like this – could at least be acknowledged. Instead, we’re left to wonder because there just wasn’t room to turn to this channel on Sunday.

Dolphins 20, Redskins 9

See gripe above.

Cowboys 44, Bills 7

The Bills topped (or bottomed) their season-worst performance from last week (a 16-point loss to the Jets) by three touchdowns Sunday. Their return to earth is hastened by a defense that is a pass rusher shy of having sustainable big-play capabilities.

DeMarco Murray has given the Cowboys the potent ground game that this offense, at its core, is built around. Think about it. Jason Witten is a possession tight end. Dez Bryant is an explosive home run threat with iffy fundamentals. He can blow the doors off  single coverage (see his 34-yard first-quarter touchdown in which he snagged the ball from behind cornerback Leodis McKelvin, who had perfect positioning but, unfortunately, just “good” athleticism, not “otherworldly” athleticism). But Bryant is not polished enough to headline a pass-happy attack like a Calvin Johnson or a Steve Smith. Tony Romo is a creative third-down improviser and play-action passer, but he’s not a consistent spread and progression-read type quarterback. What’s more, as the Bills found out, Rob Ryan’s defense is stingy and dynamic enough to conjure a few big plays of its own.

Dallas’s identity is that of a balanced, traditional run-pass team. Murray’s emergence has allowed them to find that identity.

Jaguars 17, Colts 3

Curtis Painter was benched for a second straight week — after two interceptions, three sacks and just 94 yards on 19 attempts. More concerning to the Colts were the two interceptions and lost fumble that Andrew Luck had against Oregon the night before.

Broncos 17, Chiefs 10

By now you’ve heard, Tim Tebow completed 2/8 passes for 69 yards and a touchdown at Kansas City. Some of the headlines will laud Tim Tebow for his latest miracle. Believers will smugly tell Tebow-doubters (a k a scouts, coaches, players and expert analysts) about how there’s no arguing that Tebow is a winner. If those believers are really cocky, they might even praise Tebow for posting a 102.6 passer rating and a stellar 8.6 yards per pass attempt Sunday. They’ll definitely praise him for 43 yards rushing and a touchdown.

The real question is, How in the world did the Chiefs give up 95 yards on 16 option plays a week after the Raiders revealed to the entire league every possible mistake a defense can make against the option?

Give credit to the Broncos for going with the run-oriented, Tebow-friendly game plan. John Fox knows that the option is Denver’s best bet on offense. And allowing Tebow to be a runner week in and week out is the only way the option can have any teeth. Most teams would not accept all the risks of allowing their young first-round quarterback to run on a regular basis. But that’s only because most teams feel that their young first-round quarterback has an arm worth protecting.

Cardinals 21, Eagles 17

If the Eagles were a hockey team, they would be living up to Dream Team expectations. They’re 7-2 in games ending after three periods. Unfortunately, they’re not playing on Broad Street. A minus-47 fourth-quarter point differential has left them at 3-6 and all but out of playoff contention.

Football America has blamed the wide-9 defensive scheme, Dream Team hype, young offensive line and, naturally, Andy Reid for the Eagles’ 2011 futility. Perhaps it’s time to blame the “$100 million” quarterback. With top receiver DeSean Jackson out because of a good old-fashioned grounding from Reid, and with Jeremy Maclin missing time with  a shoulder injury, Michael Vick looked stumped in the pocket. He finished  16/34 for 123 yards with  two interceptions. His drop-back timing, anticipation and post-snap coverage reads have been poor this season. There’s no arguing that he’s a remarkable talent, but clearly, opponents have picked up on a lot of his flawed tendencies now that there’s a library of recent film on him. Entering this game, Vick was  3-7 in his last 10 starts, with 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Texans 37, Bucs 9

The perennial preseason breakout team is finally breaking out. Most impressive is the way the Texans, without their best player (wideout Andre Johnson), are thoroughly pummeling inferior clubs. They ran the ball down Cleveland’s throat for a 18-point win last week. This week, they got ahead on a young and, lately, sloppy Bucs team early and gradually applied more pressure to the neck as the game wore on.

For the Bucs’ defense, it’s a tossup between which long touchdown surrendered was more inexcusable. The 80-yarder to Jacoby Jones featured poor angles by both safeties and general unpreparedness by an entire unit that reacted poorly to the naked bootleg that Houston’s offense does all the time. The 78-yard touchdown to Arian Foster, on the other hand, featured atrocious tackling (pathetic execution by Aqib Talib in the flats on the play).

The vote here goes to the second touchdown. Blown coverages and poor reads are one thing, but there’s a certain purity in defensive ineptitude that stems from bad tackling.

Titans 30, Panthers 3

The Titans are 5-4 and getting hints of production out of their star running back again. Chris Johnson has shown glimmers of his old self in recent weeks and posted a season-high 130 yards on 27 carries against a Carolina defense that has struggled all season to stop the run. The Titans’ final three games are against AFC South opponents. If their rushing attack keeps going, they could enter that stretch with an outside shot at catching Houston.

Patriots 37, Jets 1

The Patriot dynasty is back on! With Antonio Gates looking sluggish this season, a strong case could be made for Rob Gronkowski as the best tight end in the A.F.C. The second-year star has wide receiver-like ability and is one of the better run-blockers at his position. The Jets simply had no answer for him Sunday night.

Pardon the Jets if they cry foul about their schedule this week. They have a game in Denver on Thursday night. It’s patently unfair for a team to travel more than one time zone on a short week – let alone coming off an 8:20 Eastern Sunday kickoff.

Andy Benoit is an NFL analyst for CBSSports.com and founder of NFLTouchdown.com. He can be reached at andy.benoit@NFLTouchdown.com or @Andy_Benoit.

 

 

 

 

 

On Any Given Sunday, a 20-Point Lead Might Not Be Enough

Remember how the Saints poured it on against the Colts last Sunday? It turns out they had good reason to run up the score.

Via ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Sunday night:

 

 

When Ravens erased a 24-3 deficit and won 30-27, it marked a record 5th time this season a team trailed by at least 20 and came back to win.Mon Oct 31 01:42:20 via WhoSayAdam Schefter
AdamSchefter

 

 

Yes, it’s the year of the comeback. (No, relax; he’s still retired.) But the days of taking a 10-point lead and sitting on the ball may be receding into the past, especially with quick-strike spread offenses running up point totals and a lack of training camp work showing up in porous defenses.

Here’s a look at the five games Schefter was referring to:

Week 3: Lions 26, Vikings 23 With an assist from the Vikings, who blew double-digit halftime leads in their first three games, the Lions continued their unbeaten start by wiping out a 20-0 halftime deficit. Calvin Johnson caught two touchdown passes and recorded his first 100-yard game. He hasn’t slowed down since. “This is my best win ever,” said Lions center Dominic Raiola, who was 0 for 10 in the Metrodome before the game.

Week 3: Buffalo 34, New England 31 A week after rallying from a 21-3 deficit to beat the Raiders, the Bills spotted the Patriots a 21-0 lead and then roared back again. The victory ended a 15-game losing streak against the Patriots and announced the Bills’ revival. “It’s the biggest win of my career,” linebacker Chris Kelsay said.

Week 4: 49ers 24, Eagles 23 A 23-3 lead on San Francisco has been plenty for at least a decade, it seems, but this year’s 49ers are a different team. The Eagles found that out as Alex Smith went 13 of 17 for 201 yards and 2 touchdowns in the second half, and Frank Gore bulled in for the winning score with three minutes left. “It’s unacceptable to give up a lead that size in the second half,” Eagles defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins said. Take it easy, Cullen; this year it’s not.

Week 4: Lions 34, Cowboys 30 Trailing by 24 points after a Jason Witten touchdown in the third quarter, the Lions stormed back for their second straight massive comeback by returning Tony Romo interceptions for touchdowns on consecutive drives in the third quarter. Matthew Stafford took care of the rest, throwing two touchdown passes to — who else? — Calvin Johnson. “It’s crazy how it happens,” Stafford said. “When it was 27-3, we knew we had to start making plays. Once we did, we started catching fire.”

Week 8: Ravens 30, Cardinals 27 Baltimore broke the league record for 20-point comebacks in a season by rallying from a 24-3 deficit against Arizona, but not before hearing it from the home fans. “I don’t go to a lot of football games, but I probably would have wanted to boo if I was in the stands, too,” Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco said. “We weren’t looking too good.” He and his teammates responded with the biggest comeback in Ravens history: a Billy Cundiff field goal before halftime, three short touchdown runs by Ray Rice and — after Arizona  tied it with a field goal — a 25-yard winner by Cundiff as time expired.

ESPN.com’s Greg Garber wrote about the surge of comebacks after Week 5, but at that point could only make an educated guess at what was behind it:

The leading candidates are evolving offenses — aided and abetted by league legislation over the years — and the lockout. We would be remiss not to mention the Vikings, who blew leads of 10, 17 and 20 points, and Dallas quarterback Tony Romo, who helped engineer the squandering of 14- and 24-point leads. History, it should be noted, could not have been achieved without them.

Maybe that was why the Giants let the Dolphins ride in the driver’s seat for so long on Sunday. Maybe Eli Manning and Co. knew they had it all the way.

Extra point: What do you think is behind all the comebacks? Given the consequences of failure, N.F.L. coaches are famously conservative, especially late in games. So what are so many doing so wrong this season?

On Schwartz, Harbaugh and Postgame Protocol

From a transcript on the Lions’ Web site: “After the game, went to shake an opponent coach’s hand. Obviously you win a game like that, you’re excited and things like that, but I think there’s a protocol that goes with this league.”
Jim Schwartz

From SFgate.com: “I was just really revved up, and it’s totally on me. I shook his hand too hard. I mean, I really went in and it was a strong kind of a slap, grab handshake.” Jim Harbaugh

Here is a look at what others are saying about the confrontation between 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh and Lions Coach Jim Schwartz, including the possibility that it might have been stoked by an incident in the first quarter.

Chris Chase, Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner blog:

Though neither of the coaches said so in their post-game press conference, the brewing discontent may actually have started much earlier, during a strange first quarter incident in which Harbaugh tried to challenge a touchdown he wasn’t allowed to challenge.

Mark Purdy, The San Jose Mercury News:

Schwartz has gained a reputation as a borderline over-the-top coach who screams at officials and taunts other team’s players, so it was amusing to hear him talk about proper “protocol” for handshakes as if he were Mr. Manners.

Clark Judge, CBSSports.com:

It’s one thing to be emotional and impassioned; it’s another to be a bad winner, and Harbaugh’s behavior will get him that reputation if he doesn’t ramp things down. I mean, look what it did for Josh McDaniels in Denver, when he chest-bumped players en route to a 6-0 start in 2009. People don’t forget, and it can be harder going down than it is going up.

Week 6 Quick Hits: Harbaugh Overshadows His Team

A quick and analytical tour of Sunday’s games:

49ers 25, Lions 19

Jim Harbaugh has a habit of overshadowing his big wins with postgame run-ins. His tiff with Pete Carroll will soon take a backseat on YouTube to his scuffle with Jim Schwartz.

Too bad, too. It’s Harbaugh’s team that deserves to be talked about. The Niners are 5-1 after becoming the first Pacific Time Zone club since the ’96 Niners to win three-straight in the Eastern time zone. The 49ers play great defense, run between the tackles and put a ceiling on their quarterback’s opportunities for mistakes by relying on a heavy dose of underneath passes. It’s a formula that many great high school teams use, which is fitting given that San Francisco plays in the N.F.C. West.

The stories of this game (game, not postgame) were defensive end Justin Smith’s 2011 breakout performance (he’s a fantastic player who had been, by his standards, somewhat quiet this season), Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman’s brilliant coverage on tight end Brandon Pettigrew, Michael Crabtree’s sticky hands (77 yards on nine receptions, seemingly all of them being either third-down conversions or tight-rope jobs near the sideline) and Frank Gore’s 47- and 55-yard runs on wham plays off right guard, with tight end Delanie Walker blocking down off motion against Ndamukong Suh. The Niners these days are riding their stars and game-planning shrewdly. Perhaps there will be many more Harbaugh celebrations during the postgame handshake.

Falcons 31, Panthers 17

We’ve been tracking the Atlanta Falcons’ search for an identity all season. With Julio Jones (hamstring) out of the lineup, they found their old one, feeding Michael Turner the ball 27 times and getting 139 yards in return. Turner, like Chicago’s Matt Forte two weeks ago, feasted on off-tackle runs against Carolina’s Jon Beason-less front seven. According to ESPN, Turner ran outside 13 times for 105. He broke tackles with regularity and got stronger by the quarter.

Jones is a fantastic talent, but as we’ve been saying all season, the Falcons need to take a hard look at how much they’re incorporating their prized rookie into the offense. This remains a run-oriented team.

Bengals 27, Colts 17

Last season the Bengals looked as if they would head into their bye with a 3-2 record. But with 25 seconds left in their Week 5 contest against the Bucs, Carson Palmer threw an atrocious pick-six to Sabby Piscitelli, costing the Bengals the game and their positive outlook on the rest of the season.

In Palmer’s place is the rookie Andy Dalton, who completed 25 of 32 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown against the hapless (i.e. Manningless) Colts. Dalton’s Bengals are 4-2 heading into their bye. They’re still yet to be truly challenged, aside from a stellar Week 4 win against the Bills, but as they say, You can only beat who’s on your schedule.

Most encouraging for the Bengals is the steady success of their rookie quarterback. Dalton continues to be poised and accurate when his pocket is clean, and he’s benefiting from the friendly play-calls – such as play-action, rollouts and underneath throws on early downs – of the first-year offensive coordinator Jay Gruden. He’s also developing good chemistry with No. 4 overall pick A.J. Green (who seems to be the real deal).

Packers 24, Rams 3

The Packers have won 12 straight dating  to last season and are 6-0 for the first time since 1965. (Full disclosure: this opening line was actually written before Sunday’s game against the Rams.)

Things have gotten bad in St. Louis, if for no other reason than things have gotten good in San Francisco, making it no longer easy to climb out of the basement of football’s worst division. Steve Spagnuolo deactivated the team’s prized offensive and defensive free-agent pickups, wideout Mike Sims-Walker and linebacker Ben Leber. Sims-Walker was struggling to get open; Leber had been playing too laterally against the run. Spagnuolo denied that these moves were made to shake things up. Then he shook things up by saying, “We just put out the guys out there that we thought would help us win the game.”

Giants 27, Bills 24

With Brandon Jacobs out for a second straight week, Ahmad Bradshaw had an opportunity to punch in three one-yard touchdown runs against the Bills. Bradshaw finished with 104 yards on 26 carries.

Perhaps more interesting is the running back situation for the Bills. Fred Jackson racked up 121 yards on 16 carries (80 of those yards coming on one play), but backup and 2010 first-round pick C.J. Spiller got no carries. Spiller did catch five balls for 39 yards. This seemingly verifies the reports from after Roscoe Parrish’s injury a few weeks ago that the Bills are inclined to make Spiller a regular at wide receiver.

Steelers 17, Jaguars 13

The box score says this was a low-scoring, defensive slugfest highlighted by Rashard Mendenhall’s 146 yards rushing. It was. But don’t think this means we’ll see the return of black-and-blue Steeler football. A major component of Pittsburgh’s gameplan was attacking the Jacksonville safeties deep with Mike Wallace. Wallace, maybe the most dangerous big-play receiver in the game, finished with two catches: a 28-yard score early in the second quarter and a 48-yarder two possessions later. Wallace is now the first player since Terrell Owens in ’04 to have a 40-yard reception in five straight games. Make no mistake: these Steelers are still a pass-first club.

Eagles 20, Redskins 13

Rex Grossman completed nine passes to the Redskins and four passes to the Eagles. He reacted to phantom pocket pressure all afternoon, ultimately taking his jitteriness and poor accuracy to the bench in the fourth quarter. Cue Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors.

Three of Grossman’s interceptions wound up in the hands of Kurt Coleman, Philadelphia’s backup safety, who started in place of injured Jarrad Page. Don’t be surprised if Coleman keeps the starting job. He’s not a consistently dynamic player, but Page has been a major liability against the run this season. Run defense was not an issue for the Eagles this week. They held the Redskins to 42 yards on the ground (150 less than Philly’s offense generated).

Raiders 24, Browns 17

The Raiders honored Al Davis’s memory  in their first home game since his death. Team greats were on the field at halftime and  John Madden lighted a caldron in the Coliseum that will allow fans to remember Davis. Then the Silver and Black went out and finished the deal against the Browns.

The victory moved Oakland to 4-2. It may have been a Pyrrhic victory, though, as quarterback Jason Campbell left with a broken collarbone. He’s reportedly expected to miss the season. Kyle Boller, in relief, was not as impressive as his solid 8-for-14, 101-yard stat line suggests. In fact, those who witnessed Kevin Boss’s fake field goal touchdown reception might even argue for punter/holder Shane Lechler to get snaps under center.

Ravens 29, Texans 14

The Texans are now 0-2 without Andre Johnson. His absence is reflected  in the team’s stagnating rushing numbers: 70 yards on 25 carries against the Raiders, 93 yards on 25 carries against the Ravens. Running lanes tend to narrow when defenses don’t fear your receivers over the top.

As for the Ravens, expect most Tuesday power polls to have them as the top team in the A.F.C. Their defense remains nasty, and their offense is somehow producing with a quarterback barely completing 50 percent of his passes.

Patriots 20, Cowboys 16

A surprisingly low-scoring game was headlined by the stellar performance of both defenses. The Patriots may have set a template for attacking Rob Ryan’s defense. The key is tempo. The Patriots moved the ball with relative ease when they went hurry-up in the second half. Ryan’s men did not have time to communicate or mill about and disguise looks before the snap. They played reaction football, and were damaged by a few solid ground gains early in the fourth quarter and a patented Tom Brady dink-and-dunk game-winning drive late in the fourth.

Part of the reason the Patriots can make defenses hesitant is their two tight ends. Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski are  potent run-blockers (Gronkowski especially) who are also capable of beating cornerbacks (Hernandez especially). There’s no defensive personnel package that can adequately match up to them.

Bucs 26, Saints 20

Just in case you thought head coaching wasn’t important…

The Saints lost play-caller and decision-maker Sean Payton to a broken leg in the second half (Payton actually called most of the first-half action with his leg in a temporary brace and elevated on the bench). In the fourth quarter, trailing, 26-20, with over 3:00 to play and two timeouts remaining, the Saints faced a fourth-and-two at the Bucs’ 4-yard line. Assistant head coach Joe Vitt chose to go for it. Drew Brees wound up scrambling to his right under pressure, failed to see a wide-open Robert Meachem to his left and threw an interception in the end zone. A failed running play would have at least kept the Bucs backed up near the goal line.

Bears 39, Vikings 10

Here’s a question to ponder and debate with friends: what are the five most exciting plays in your  football lifetime? Not single plays, but types of plays. Example: my football lifetime began in 1994 (I was 8; that’s when I started really following the N.F.L. closely). The five most exciting types of plays for me (in no particular order): Devin Hester returning a punt/kick; Randy Moss going long; Michael Vick scrambling/buying time; Deion Sanders returning a pick; and Barry Sanders running.

This discussion changes based on when one’s football lifetime began, but Hester has to be involved in plenty of them, no?

Andy Benoit is an N.F.L. analyst for CBSSports.com and founder of NFLTouchdown.com. He can be reached at andy.benoit@NFLTouchdown.com or @Andy_Benoit.

Was Schwartz Justified in Being Upset With Harbaugh?

Lions Coach Jim Schwartz chased after Niners Coach Jim Harbaugh and shoved him after what he apparently felt was an overexuberant celebration by Harbaugh following the 49ers’ 25-19 victory on Sunday.

Harbaugh rejoiced with his players, jumping up and down, as he crossed the field to meet Schwartz. Harbaugh shook Schwartz’s  hand vigorously (to put it mildly), backslapped him (again, vigorously), then continued celebrating. At that point, Schwartz snapped and had to be held back by his players after he accosted Harbaugh and jostled him a few times.

Harbaugh admitted he slapped Schwartz’s hand too hard.

SFGate.com:

“I was really revved up. That was on me a little, too hard a handshake there.” Harbaugh then said he got a jostled by Schwartz after Schwartz chased him 40 yards down the field.

“I do get emotional, I do get fired up. A lot. I not going to apologize for that. If that offends you or anybody else, so be it.”

Harbaugh has ruffled feathers before (see video below). As coach at Stanford, he had a testy exchange after a 55-21 victory over Pete Carroll’s U.S.C. Trojans. Stanford went for a 2-point conversion in the second half during the rout. “What’s your deal?” Carroll said when they met at midfield after the game.

Football isn’t a  genteel sport, but apparently Schwartz considered Harbaugh’s behavior a breach of decorum.

We’ll get Schwartz’s reaction soon. But for now, do you think Schwartz was justified in being upset?

6:10 p.m. | Updated Schwartz has been quoted as saying: “I went to congratulate Coach Harbaugh and got shoved out of the way. And then I didn’t expect an obscenity at that point, so it was a surprise to me at the end of the game.”

It’s a puzzling statement because the video doesn’t show Schwartz being shoved, unless he construed Harbaugh’s hard backslap as a shove. And there’s no way to know, for now, what he meant about an obscenity. Maybe he’s suggesting that Harbaugh used a swear word while whooping it up.

Harbaugh and How the 49ers Were Built

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.

N.F.L. Week 3 Film Review, Including Jets-Raiders

A closer look at some of the games in Week 3, via film analysis.

Jets O vs. Raiders D

The Jets came out with a very identifiable approach. In the run game, it was sweeps outside to take advantage of the offensive tackles’ athleticism and get Shonn Greene going downhill (he can be terrific when he has momentum). In the pass game, Mark Sanchez rolled out off play-fakes. This was all the Jets did through the air in the first half. The logic behind it was smart. The Raiders play almost exclusively man coverage. Play-action extends the play and forces defensive backs to hold their man coverage longer. Also, if the linebackers bite on the fake, the nature of man-defense usually carries them out of position. The Jets had a good formula, but the Raiders caught on in the second half. The linebackers did a better job of identifying LaDainian Tomlinson’s routes out of the backfield. That was critical because the corners were already stifling Jets receivers (Santonio Holmes was nowhere to be found in this one). Oakland also anticipated Sanchez’s designed pocket movement, which led to four second-half sacks.

Raiders O vs. Jets D
It was a solid performance by the Raiders in which they took advantage of favorable field position and made a few timely big plays. They finished with a somewhat misleading 234 yards rushing. Twenty-seven of those yards came off a lucky Darren McFadden scramble from an unsuccessful halfback option pass and 23 came off an outstanding improvisational scamper by Denarius Moore on a reverse. Earlier in the game, McFadden got 70 yards on one spectacular outside run (pure speed on that play). The Jet linebackers need to play better.

The Raiders’ offensive line won the trench battle, both with stellar run-blocking (center Samson Satele had his best game in years) and in identifying the Jets’ pass-rushing concepts. This was important considering the Raiders came in knowing that they wouldn’t be able to throw on Darrelle Revis and knowing, as usual, that they often wouldn’t ask Jason Campbell to make more than two, sometimes three, reads on a given play.

Vikings O vs. Lions D
You can talk about Minnesota’s play-calling all you want, but this game was dictated by Detroit’s outstanding defensive line. The Lions realized after the first quarter that their down four could readily outperform Minnesota’s down five. Thus, the Lions were able to play seven men in coverage, which allowed their cornerbacks to tighten on wideouts Michael Jenkins and Bernard Berrian (two guys who struggle to get downfield against good coverage). Detroit also curtailed Minnesota’s rushing attack by having defensive backs fly into the run front on the outside (the Vikings were running almost exclusively outside in the second half because Ndamukong Suh and Corey Williams owned the trenches). The defensive backs often did not take down Adrian Peterson, but their presence forced him to stop his feet, which is the only reason Detroit’s fast outside backers (Justin Durant and DeAndre Levy) were able to reach him. This is a great illustration of the type of problems that a meager offensive line and limited receiving corps will continue to cause for the Vikings in 2011.

Lions O vs. Vikings D
Detroit spent most of the game throwing between the numbers out of three-receiver shotgun sets. They clearly liked the matchup of tight end Brandon Pettigrew (a big, plodding but effective runner) against Viking linebackers. Jahvid Best’s contributions came in the receiving department, as the Lions knew they didn’t have a powerful enough front line to move the Vikings off the ball in the ground game. Minnesota’s defensive front four was outstanding. Ends Jared Allen and Brian Robison both reached the quarterback with speed off the edge and held their ground consistently against the run. The Vikings, however, did not have a cornerback who could match Calvin Johnson’s athleticism (most teams don’t) or an answer for Detroit’s inside passing game. Over all, Matthew Stafford did a good job reading the field.

49ers O vs. Bengals D
The Niners’ victory was a product of their defense’s effort. The offense went in with a “don’t botch it” gameplan. In that sense, they succeeded; their only turnover was a Frank Gore fumble that gave the Bengals three extra points in the fourth quarter. Still, it was an unsettlingly rudimentary gameplan for an offense that didn’t even bother attacking vertically. The passing game ran through Vernon Davis, who consistently got open thanks to his ability to execute a variety of routes from a variety of alignments. That was the only creative aspect to the plan – and, as it turned out, the only one San Francisco needed. San Francisco’s offensive line must play with more consistency, and Alex Smith must make quicker (much quicker) decisions in the pocket.

Bengals O vs. 49ers D
After Cincinnati’s impressive opening drive, San Francisco’s secondary closed off the intermediate quick routes and took away Andy Dalton’s simplistic first reads. Dalton proved to be far less effective when he wasn’t able to make throws from a clean pocket. That might be a consequence of his mediocre arm strength (which is usually a key aspect of improvisational quarterbacking). Dalton is accurate, but his inexperience is showing. If the Bengals had this game to do over again, they almost certainly would not have waited until late in the fourth quarter to split out tight end Jermaine Gresham and feature him in the passing attack. He was a killer late in the fourth. Credit the 49ers front seven for another strong game. End Ray McDonald and outside linebacker Ahmad Brooks were particularly impressive. McDonald was in attack mode all afternoon and outplayed right tackle Andre Smith (who needs to get meaner and use his raw power). The agile Brooks consistently got in the backfield against both the run and pass.

Broncos O vs. Titans D
The Broncos couldn’t overcome their lack of firepower. With Knowshon Moreno out, there was no backfield speed to rely on. Virtually every time Willis McGahee took the handoff and finally got back to the line of scrimmage, he’d be met by a heap of bodies. Fullback Spencer Larsen did not get great movement as a lead-blocker, and the Broncos offensive line as a whole had trouble displacing Tennessee’s low-leveraged defensive tackles (Shaun Smith was particularly impressive). With no backfield or outside speed to work with, Kyle Orton was compelled to dink and dunk in the flats. That’s always an easy formula to defend, especially for a Titans D that has firm tackling corners and solid pass-defending outside linebackers.

Titans O vs. Broncos D
The Titans should be very encouraged by what they saw from Matt Hasselbeck. After struggling to grasp a new system in August, he has found his comfort zone. Hasselbeck was confident and efficient in his reads and benefitted from a few impressive catches by Nate Washington. It’s encouraging that Tennessee was able to move the ball respectably despite losing receiver Kenny Britt early and getting nothing out of their run game. The explanation for this week’s stagnant run game is that Chris Johnson was, for whatever reason, slower out of the backfield than usual. He’s having to see the holes before he shifts into top gear. In the N.F.L., you have to instinctively locate the hole the second the ball is snapped. Johnson didn’t have great help; Tennessee’s interior offensive linemen were unable to generate movement and power. Broncos defensive tackle Broderick Bunkley played extremely well on running downs, while Joe Mays played exactly how you want your 4-3 Mike ‘backer to play.

Ravens O vs. Rams D
With aging cornerback Al Harris and undrafted second-year pro Darian Stewart having prominent roles in the Rams’ secondary this game, Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron came out firing deep. The Ravens executed a lot of deliberately designed big plays, mainly off play-action. Rookie wideout Torrey Smith, who was not relevant the first two games this season, filled in for an injured Lee Evans and lit the world on fire. Smith has natural instincts for tracking the ball and can accelerate late in his sprint. After Smith scored three first-quarter touchdowns, the Rams rolled safety help to his side and started losing one-on-one matchups underneath to Ed Dickson and Anquan Boldin.

To give you an idea of just how aggressive the Ravens were through the air, Smith’s second and third touchdowns were both preceded by unsuccessful deep bombs in his direction. It was a barrage of deep strikes. Clearly, Cameron and Jim Harbaugh have developed more trust in Joe Flacco. Baltimore’s dynamic passing attack opened up the run game and made life easy for Ray Rice and Ricky Williams. Right guard Marshal Yanda was terrific as a playside run-blocker. As for the Rams, no players stood out – they were all back on their heels in the first quarter and, strategically, a step behind with their blitzes in the second and third quarters.

Rams O vs. Ravens D
Just as with the other side of the ball, Baltimore outcoached and outperformed St. Louis. Physically, the Rams didn’t have an answer for the voracious and supple Terrell Suggs or the immovable Terrence Cody (the second-year pro appears to be blossoming quickly). Strategically, they couldn’t solve Baltimore’s presnap disguises. When the Rams had base personnel on the field, the Ravens played coverage; when the Rams had extra receivers, the Ravens blitzed. Both tactics seemed to catch Josh McDaniels and Company off-guard. Part of the problem is the Rams receivers don’t have enough quickness to consistently create separation on their own.

Andy Benoit is an N.F.L. analyst for CBSSports.com and founder of NFLTouchdown.com. He can be reached at andy.benoit@NFLTouchdown.com or @Andy_Benoit.

Forrest Blue, and Giving Offensive Linemen Their Due

A few thoughts about Forrest Blue, one of the N.F.L.’s best centers of the early 1970s. Blue was residing at an assisted-living facility in Carmichael, Calif., when he died last week at age 65 or 66 (There is some discrepancy as to whether he was born in 1944 or in 1945.) According to his daughter, Blue began exhibiting symptoms of dementia about 15 years ago. His brain will be sent to Boston University for further study. Andy Barall writes about pro football history for The Fifth Down.

By the 1960s, the 4-3 was well established as pro football’s dominant defense. With the two defensive tackles usually lined up directly over the guards, the offensive coaches generally used their smallest, quickest lineman at center. At the end of the decade, however, the 49ers put their biggest man in the middle. They had Forrest Blue and he was a little different.

After an excellent college career as a multisport star at Auburn, Blue was San Francisco’s first round pick in the 1968 draft (15th over all). In his second year he replaced Bruce Bosley and remained the Niners’ starting center for the next six seasons. Blue played in 96 regular-season and 5 postseason games for San Francisco, including 2 N.F.C. championship games. He was named first-team All-Pro in 1971 and 1972 and was elected to four consecutive Pro-Bowls, from 1971 to 1974. Blue retired in 1978 after spending the final four years of his career as Ken Mendenhall’s backup in Baltimore.

In 1970, Blue, tackles Len Rohde and Cas Banaszek, and guards Randy Beisler and Woody Peoples came together to form one of the N.F.L.’s best offensive lines. That year, the 49ers led the league in scoring with 352 points, and their quarterback, John Brodie, was sacked only 8 times in 14 games. San Francisco finished 10-3-1, winning its first of three straight N.F.C. Western Division titles.

Playing center in the 1960s and early 70s required more agility and body control than size and raw power. Almost all of the centers, including Jim Ringo of the Packers, Jim Otto of the Raiders, Jim Langer of the Dolphins, Mick Tingelhoff of the Vikings, John Morrow of the Browns and Bob DeMarco of the Cardinals, were in the 6-1 to 6-3 range and about 230 to 245 pounds. They were measured by their ability to execute the cutoff block on the middle linebacker or on the defensive tackle when the guard pulled to lead on the power sweep.

When the defense shifted to an over or an under front, a big defensive tackle lined up over the center would sometimes create problems for the offense. In Super Bowl 4, Tingelhoff had all kinds of trouble with the power and quickness of Kansas City’s two defensive tackles, 260-pound Curley Culp, and 275-pound Buck Buchanan. In fairness, those two were a tough assignment for anybody. Buchanan was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1990 and Culp was elected to six Pro Bowls in his 14 year career.

Blue, at 6-6 and about 260 pounds, was an unusual combination of size and mobility. He was strong enough to usually handle the nose tackle without help, quick enough in a confined area to get to the middle linebacker, and fast enough to get to the flat and lead the running backs downfield on screen passes. Blue was intelligent, competitive, and, like every successful offensive lineman, he was unselfish.

Like most of the centers of that era, Blue was also the 49ers’ long snapper on punts, field goals and points-after-touchdown. In 1971, late in the fourth quarter against New England, he returned a fumbled punt 25 yards for the touchdown that sealed a 27-10 victory.

Throughout N.F.L. history, offensive linemen, with a few exceptions, have tended to remain anonymous. As Packers guard Jerry Kramer wrote in “Instant Replay,” his diary of the 1967 season, “One of the Cleveland Browns once told me that if he ever had to go on the lam from the law he’d become an offensive linemen.”

Or this from the Hall of Fame Raiders guard, Gene Upshaw:

I’ve compared offensive linemen to the story of Paul Revere. After Paul Revere rode through town, everybody said what a great job
he did. But no one ever talked about the horse. I know how Paul Revere’s horse felt. (Paul Zimmerman, “The New Thinking Man’s Guide
to Pro Football”, Simon and Schuster, 1984)

I recall, in 2003, hearing on one of the local sports-talk radio stations that Joe DeLamielleure, the trap-blocking guard of the Bills and Browns in the 1970s and early ’80s, had been elected to the Hall of Fame. When the update person attempted to say “DeLamielleure,” it was obvious that he had never heard of him. As members of the heartbeat of the team, offensive linemen deserve better than that. That’s why Forrest Blue, and many others like him, shouldn’t be forgotten.