"We talked about it a little bit," Cruz said after Sunday's game. "He is a standup guy. He came up to me and he understood why I do the salsa, and what it means to me. He asked me if I got the message earlier in the week and I said, "Yeah." I told him he was a real good dude for that, and we went about our way. It is always good to have a competitive game against a real good player on the other side."
Look at this quote the New York writers got from Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride, who accused Justin Smith of being a serial holder last week.
"I have ... great respect for their front and I have unbelievable respect for the guy, tremendous. But it's somebody he does," Gilbride said. "He reaches out and he grabs people. There aren't that many guys strong enough that can hold two offensive linemen. But he does it . . . I thought it was just in a litany of compliments...all of a sudden (Jim Harbaugh) turned it into a negative thing . . . It was great. All of a sudden now everybody in the country saw it. It worked well."
I watched every play, and Davis executed his assignment on just about every snap after right guard Alex Boone moved to left tackle following Joe Staley's concussion.
Leonard Davis had a critical false-start penalty when he entered the game as an extra blocker that turned a third-and-1 situation into a third-and-6 early in the third quarter. But when Davis moved to right guard, I did not think he struggled.
There was a play in which Jason Pierre-Paul lined up over right tackle Anthony Davis, and Mathias Kiwanuka was at tackle over Leonard Davis. Pierre-Paul and Kiwanuka ran a stunt. Rather than switch off, Leonard Davis' assignment was to stick with Kiwanuka. Davis could not keep up with the much-quicker Kiwanuka, and that play resulted in a sack of Alex Smith for a 14-yard loss.
In the event that Joe Staley does not get cleared to return to action Thursday night, the 49ers will have to do more switching to cut down on the room that Leonard Davis has to cover to fulfill his blocking assigments.
There was a question from @Rynormas, who asked if Daniel Kilgore might start at right guard. I don't believe so because the 49ers know what they're going to get from Leonard Davis. If he was the backup guard before Sunday, they wouldn't have seen anything to make them believe that he is not capable of starting.