My review/thoughts on our playoff win

[Crimsoncrew]

Kap did make two bad decisions on those near INT's, but you keep blaming him for that Tramon Williams INT when Boldin was the one at fault. If Boldin runs his route to completion, William's would've never broken off of him and jumped VD's route; Davis should've been wide open on that throw.

I'm lukewarm on that. I think it was a good read by Williams. I watched a replay, and it looked like Boldin didn't let up until right around the time that Kap threw the ball. Not that I'm letting Boldin off the hook, but Kap either needed to see the defender there or get the ball to Davis faster.

Interesting that this is the game where it kept looking like Kap was putting the touch on the ball that he hasn't been all season.

 

[bvanthielriceyoung]

just a gif of an awesome play to re-live here..

 

[tomikcon1971]

One thing I will say about Kaep is if he throws a pick, he forgets about it. He doesn't seem to let it get in his head. Short memory is good.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

IDK, as many know, I've been very critical of Kap when I felt his play was poor. Today, I thought his performance was winning football. That INT was ironic IMO in that he rarely uses touch but Tramon made a play for it, it happens. He DID have lady luck on the last potential INT though.

BUT... he did move the chains with both arms n legs, found the open guy and hit him. I've slammed him for not making the checkdowns and he made two, that I can count, that resulted in first downs with the last being to gore on that last drive.

He didn't look lost in the pocket and importantly, made the decision to run it quicker than usual.

He never lost focus nor control, some luck here n there but nothing like Rodgers being bailed out with all the holds by his OL.

You make some good points, and it's possible I'm being a bit too hard on him. He did make some big plays, and the weather that probably prevented a couple INTs also limited Kap's ability to throw the ball. The offense in general has got to be a lot better next week, though. Especially in the red zone.

 

[CalamityX11]

You make some good points, and it's possible I'm being a bit too hard on him. He did make some big plays, and the weather that probably prevented a couple INTs also limited Kap's ability to throw the ball. The offense in general has got to be a lot better next week, though. Especially in the red zone.

Not sure its so much the offense in terms of players but the bloody playcalling in the redzone...

8 pts were lost when we were right there in the first two drives... that can't happen and it can't happen again vs Carolina...

 

[RedneckNiner]

The defensive plan I am not so hard on they played to contain Rodgers and they mostly did kept the big plays down but gave up a lot of the short stuff so not really going to hate on them they had a few bad missess but for the most part its nopt as bad as people are making it out to be. The offensive execution was putrid especially in the red zone. Playcalling was better than the Arizona game but again needs some improvement. Gore and Crabs were studs.. Kaep Was streaky, Boldin had one of his few bad games.

 

[Rvnight18]

I've been waiting for this post for the past 40 minutes. You know I can't go to sleep without reading RiceYoung's analysis of the game.

RV and I almost had a heart attack!

True story. My hands were shaking a good 15 minutes after the game ended. At least I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Level three snow emergency here. Illegal to drive.

 

[Jikkle]

-I thought it was a good game by Kaepernick.

His throws didn't seem to have the zip like they normally do so I do think weather was a factor in his throws. I mean Rodgers didn't exactly have a fantastic day throwing the football either and he's one of the best pure throwers in football.

I can give him a slight break for the Williams INT because in that split second it seemed like Williams wasn't going to peel back to Davis so it wasn't as egregious to me as that near pick Hyde almost had.

Overall he made good decisions with the ball especially when it came to tucking it and running with it which he needs to continue to do. You can still mature as a passer while using your God given talent in your legs to help the team win. I don't want to see him be a one read and tuck and run if it's not there Vince Young kind of QB but if there is yards to be gained on ground especially when it's enough for a 1st down take them.

-I thought the defense played great. We held the Packers to 20 points, didn't give up any huge passing plays, and kept Rodgers to 177 yards on the day. The Packers ran the ball well but we set out to stop the pass and big play so you're going to give up something to do that and that was the pass.

The Packers have a great offense so it's not like we were going to shut them down and keep this a extreme low scoring affair.

-Overall I was pleased with the team's performance. I mean it wasn't perfect by any means but when you play a team for the 4th team in two years it's almost like playing a divisional rival so they are going to play hard and the familiarity will breed ways to slow down and stop you. Sometimes you're going to have to grind out wins and I thought the team showed some mental toughness at the end to pull it out.

 

[clyde_carbon]

Hearing lots of praise of Kap. I don't know.... He came through when we needed him, but we should have won this one comfortably. I'm sure the weather played a part - even Rodgers wasn't throwing with accuracy down the field - but he made several awful, awful decisions. He's incredibly lucky he didn't throw an INT in the endzone in the first quarter, and a pick-six in the fourth. Not to mention the INT he did throw. I couldn't give him the game ball on this one, despite the plays he did make.

I don't understand why people thought this. They have an elite QB, a great running game, and strong group of WRs. Excellent offense on all levels. Defensively they're weak, but playing AT Lambeau in THAT weather in the postseason can make it difficult on most offenses.

Anyone who thinks we should've blown the Packers out of the building really needs to take a step back and look harder at the match up. I expected this game to go all way through the 4th quarter.

 

[Jikkle]

-Our oline is just over rated. We really arent that great of run blocking line even though this is supposed to be their strength. They did have some good pass protection at the end. Iupati stood out on a few plays of playing poorly.

The issue with our run blocking is that we're not really fooling anyone when we run the ball.

The heavy and jumbo packages are overused and while having extra big bodies in theory makes sense to match numbers with numbers and overpower smaller defenders like DBs but on the flip side bringing in extra bulk also invites defenses to bring things in tighter and crowd the LOS.

So when all that extra bulk wins it's great but if they don't win their battles it's just extra big bodies clogging things up.

I think we need to run out of other formations to keep defenses off balanced and guessing. It just seems like unlike years past we're ever really fooling anyone on defense and as someone who played Tackle in high school I can attest that if the defense knows what you're going to do it's always going to be an uphill climb to block for it.

 

[BINGO]

IDK, as many know, I've been very critical of Kap when I felt his play was poor. Today, I thought his performance was winning football. That INT was ironic IMO in that he rarely uses touch but Tramon made a play for it, it happens. He DID have lady luck on the last potential INT though.

BUT... he did move the chains with both arms n legs, found the open guy and hit him. I've slammed him for not making the checkdowns and he made two, that I can count, that resulted in first downs with the last being to gore on that last drive.

He didn't look lost in the pocket and importantly, made the decision to run it quicker than usual.

He never lost focus nor control, some luck here n there but nothing like Rodgers being bailed out with all the holds by his OL.

I would also add the pass to Anthony Dixon as a borderline checkdown as well. At least on that play it was apparent that he was going through with his progressions and decided to go with his 3rd and final read on that play, Dixon, who fought very hard to get that first down.

 

[Arete Tzu]

One thing I will say about Kaep is if he throws a pick, he forgets about it. He doesn't seem to let it get in his head. Short memory is good.

Last year there was stats showing he was very impressive in his ability to follow up turnovers with points. I haven't seen the most recent up to date stats, I don't know where to look for that stat, but I'd like to see how he's doing.

 

[Breaker99]

Its pretty hard for me to criticize anything considering the elements they were playing in. I am just happy they didn't come out frozen and flat and actually put a game together. I was very worried about our secondary, but they held up. Very impressed with our big play protection all year and this game was no different even without rogers and wright healthy. The majority of their big plays came with blatant holding, I thought we did a decent job getting pressure and was really frustrated with the no calls on their offensive line. Aldon Smith in particular was held about 10 or so times without a call and he still had a pretty good game. We need our run game to do better than that against the panthers to win next week.

 

[Jikkle]

I don't understand why people thought this. They have an elite QB, a great running game, and strong group of WRs. Excellent offense on all levels. Defensively they're weak, but playing AT Lambeau in THAT weather in the postseason can make it difficult on most offenses.

Anyone who thinks we should've blown the Packers out of the building really needs to take a step back and look harder at the match up. I expected this game to go all way through the 4th quarter.

I also think you need to factor in that this is the 4th time we've played them in two years and we've beaten them 3 straight. Beating a playoff caliber team 4 times in that stretch is actually a pretty tough thing to do.

When you lose 3 times in a row you have a lot of film of things that didn't work so the next time you game plan you're going to tweak and adjust what you do until you find something that works.

I tip my cap to Green Bay because like the past couple of games with the Falcons and Cards I thought all of those teams played really hard and really wanted to win.

 

[CalamityX11]

I don't understand why people thought this. They have an elite QB, a great running game, and strong group of WRs. Excellent offense on all levels. Defensively they're weak, but playing AT Lambeau in THAT weather in the postseason can make it difficult on most offenses.

Anyone who thinks we should've blown the Packers out of the building really needs to take a step back and look harder at the match up. I expected this game to go all way through the 4th quarter.

Maybe he meant that based on how the game started? I too would've said or will say we should've dominated them had we actually score TDs instead of FGs n jumping to a quick 14-0 lead...

we were dominating them UNTIL that INT woke up the Pack and the following ensued.

 

[CalamityX11]

I would also add the pass to Anthony Dixon as a borderline checkdown as well. At least on that play it was apparent that he was going through with his progressions and decided to go with his 3rd and final read on that play, Dixon, who fought very hard to get that first down.

HAHA, my good friend, I actually counted that as a checkdown with Gore's

 

[BINGO]

49ers 23, Packers 20: Grades | Chat49ers.com

 

[zman1527]

Hearing lots of praise of Kap. I don't know.... He came through when we needed him, but we should have won this one comfortably. I'm sure the weather played a part - even Rodgers wasn't throwing with accuracy down the field - but he made several awful, awful decisions. He's incredibly lucky he didn't throw an INT in the endzone in the first quarter, and a pick-six in the fourth. Not to mention the INT he did throw. I couldn't give him the game ball on this one, despite the plays he did make.

Holy cow, crimson, he just won the game for you. Did anyone make more big plays? Criticize if you want and some can be warranted but he just beat a great qb for the 3rd time under tough conditions. He's a gamer at playoff time, is he not? That last drive was pretty epic: not beautiful in every way, but big play when needed that resulted in a win.

 

[Breaker99]

just a gif of an awesome play to re-live here..

check out the block by Gore on that run! that gave him 30 of his 40+ yards.

 

[bvanthielriceyoung]

Anybody hear anything on Vernon Davis? On NFL gameday highlights, I think they said Vernon got dinged up and was out of the line up at the end of the game(guess I didnt even notice) I know he was getting stretched and worked on during the game at one point.