By Not Fining Coaches, N.F.L. Leaves Itself Open to Charges of Hypocrisy

It’s hard to argue with this line of reasoning by Michael Silver of Yahoo Sports:

The NFL fined Packers linebacker Clay Matthews $5,000 for wearing yellow cleats with his nasty throwback uniform.

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu got docked twice that amount for borrowing a team doctor’s cell phone on the sidelines – to assure his wife he was OK after suffering an apparent head injury.

And the Jousting Jims, Harbaugh and Schwartz? After a contentious postgame handshake and bumping incident involving the 49ers’ and Lions’ charged-up coaches turned into a full-fledged spectacle at Ford Field two Sundays ago, the NFL took swift and decisive action. Get this: The league reportedly sent out a memo to all 32 teams, reminding everyone to behave at game’s end.

The decision not to fine Harbaugh and Schwartz was so puzzling that Mike Holmgren, the Browns’ president, called the league office,  according to Jason Cole of Yahoo Sports:

“Even if we’re only talking about $5,000 or $10,000, there should have been some fine,” Holmgren said. “That’s not good for our league and if my guy [Pat Shurmur] had done it, I’d say the same thing. You have tough, intense games, but afterward, you conduct yourself a certain way. [Bill] Parcells and I had plenty of tough games, but we always were gentlemen to each other after the game.”

Extra point Does Roger Goodell risk the appearance of two standards of justice in his league, one for coaches and one for players?

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.