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.

 

 

 

 

 

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.