My thoughts on the Lions game.

[Hangman]

Culliver did really well one on one against CJ a few times. Always in great position.

Hunter had a few good runs.

The whole line played fantastic against a very good defensive line. I thought Smith would get sacked all day long. Smith looked elusive in the pocket too. A few times the pocket broke down and he evaded rushers to get some positive yards.

Smith for the sack is going to be nice to say. Both of them on the same side is great. They are working well together and a couple of stunts they had going on freed one of them up for a hurry or sack.

9ers had more total yards than the Lions even after having almost 70 yards more in penalties and 10 less plays.

Special teams are playing well both ways. Ginn did call a fair catch a few times when I thought he had plenty of room in front of him, but it is sometimes better to be safe than sorry.

If Walker and Crabtree catch those 2 touchdowns Alex Smiths QB rating for the game would have been 101.3 instead of 60

Vernon Davis was where?

 

[CalamityX11]

Vernon Davis was where?

Blocking? Thought we would use him more, but combo of blocking and Smith not finding him in time.

Davis was open on the freaking play that Alex escape like 2-3 sack attempts when he eventually scrambled out..(can't fault him since he was running for his life, but had he had time, Davis literally up the middle beat the LB and was golden)

 

[arsenal6106]

I need to see that Crabtree catch again. From what I remember, he only got one foot down. I do believe the ball crossed the goal line before he got his second foot out of bounds.
Can you score a touchdown with just one foot being in bound?

 

[1911Alaska]

I need to see that Crabtree catch again. From what I remember, he only got one foot down. I do believe the ball crossed the goal line before he got his second foot out of bounds.
Can you score a touchdown with just one foot being in bound?

He did only get one foot down, but he got it down twice, meaning he caught it got his left? foot down then hopped and got his left down in bounds and the right out of bounds.

And yes I believe so as long as the other foot comes down in bounds and the ball crosses the goal line but correct me if I am wrong.

 

[CalamityX11]

The ball crossed, but it didn't count since both feet didn't touch.... trust i was arguing with my brother about it lol

 

[deep9er]

I'm going to get it out of the way right now. The officials sucked in this game, right from the start. Calling a False Start on the 49ers because Walker goes in motion and the Lions guy jumps offsides? That pretty much set the tone for the officials all trying to one-up each other with crappy calls. I don't really care about that Burelson catch being ruled a TD, because at this point, I have no idea what a catch is anymore. I think that should be a TD with his feet down, but my interpretation of the rules is that it's not a TD because they've ruled situations similar to that as incomplete passes... so, whatever with that one (Plus, it didn't end up making the final score a 49ers loss). They gave the 49ers a few too, like that weird horsecollar and the chopblock one, so it wasn't a one-sided suckfest by the officials.

Frank Gore was the man today, he was the offense. Without him this probably would have been an ugly loss. He's making me feel guilty for being so hard on him after the first three games. Alex Smith is starting to slip, he's throwing those high dangerous balls again and luckily only one of them was intercepted. Smith's performance took a bit of a hit because Crabtree didn't get his 2nd foot down and Walker somehow dropped that open TD. So as bad as Alex Smith was, you throw in that missed opportunity and it would probably have been easier to forgive his inaccuracy this game. Alex Smith needs to seriously focus on this over the bye.

The offensive line played good today too, if you turn a blind eye to all of the false starts and illegal formations. Apart from the penalties they did well, only 2 sacks and 6 QB hits... plus opening up some big lanes for Gore and Hunter. Sando says that Snyder was injured sometime in this game with a stinger with Rachal taking his place. Props to Rachal for playing well enough that I didn't even notice he was playing with his usual false starts, holding and horrible blocking. They did a hell of a job of not getting intimidated by the Lions tricks on D-Line, and Anthony Davis did a good job of not getting caught up in their attempts to draw flags from him as they kept hitting him down well after the play was over.

Biggest praise for the defense. They played great today with all things considered. They kind of hamstrung themselves by putting so much attention towards Megatron, but it paid off with Stafford not even looking his way in their four? redzone trips. That's a hell of a thing to trick a team into going away from their best weapon. First team to hold Megatron without a TD this year, and the two TDs they did allow could have easily gone the other way. Willis nearly got his hand up to block the Pettigrew TD, and that Burelson TD was nearly a dodged bullet because he didn't keep possession all the way through. The pass rush was phenomenal again. 2 sacks for Aldon, one a safety and the other a FF.. damn! 1.5 sacks for Justin Smith, .5 sack for Ray Mac with a deflected pass and he deserves as much credit for the safety as Aldon does. Some missed opportunities for the defense, Aldon dropping the INT and not being quick enough to capitalize on Aldon's forced fumble.

Willis and Bowman were great as expected. Did a good job of shutting down those short passes to the TEs and to Best and punishing those guys when they did catch it, which led to a few drive killing drops on 2nd and 3rd down when they heard the footsteps. With so much focus on Megatron, it was up to Willis and Bowman to take away the middle and short passes... and they succeeded.

Nice job by the special teams again. Great on coverage. Lee and Akers are money. Ginn makes some questionable decisions, but, with his explosiveness.. I don't mind that he takes the kicks out even if he doesn't get back to the 20, just because most of the time he does.. and there is always that chance that he can break it for the score. Great job on punt returns too, he put the offense in some great positions to start their drive through the game.

Great gameplan by the coaches on both sides of the ball. The blocking schemes they used to take Suh out of the game were a thing of beauty. The announcers even commented once that Suh was getting confused and hesitating his passrush because he wasn't sure if it was going to be a running play a few times. Not much complaint with the defensive scheme, it worked very well.

It's great to go into the bye with a win over the previously undefeated Lions.

ok fair assessment. no question our defense not only keeps us in games, but now closing games for the win.

glad you gave credit to special teams, whether kicking, coverage, or returns, nice job. they are too easily taken for granted.

the Walker false start was legit because he moved upfield. don't have an issue with the Burleson TD, to me it was a TD.

 

[deep9er]

The ball crossed, but it didn't count since both feet didn't touch.... trust i was arguing with my brother about it lol

can he stretch the ball back into the end zone from outside the pylon? don't think so cause even if two feet were down, wouldn't be a TD.

 

[Flyingiguana]

Culliver did really well one on one against CJ a few times. Always in great position.

Hunter had a few good runs.

The whole line played fantastic against a very good defensive line. I thought Smith would get sacked all day long. Smith looked elusive in the pocket too. A few times the pocket broke down and he evaded rushers to get some positive yards.

Smith for the sack is going to be nice to say. Both of them on the same side is great. They are working well together and a couple of stunts they had going on freed one of them up for a hurry or sack.

9ers had more total yards than the Lions even after having almost 70 yards more in penalties and 10 less plays.

Special teams are playing well both ways. Ginn did call a fair catch a few times when I thought he had plenty of room in front of him, but it is sometimes better to be safe than sorry.

If Walker and Crabtree catch those 2 touchdowns Alex Smiths QB rating for the game would have been 101.3 instead of 60

Vernon Davis was where?

culliver looked really good. maybe he can develop into that #1 we need. seems to have the size/speed ratio to do it

 

[deep9er]

The good thing is that Smith has two weeks to try and correct this problem. Good point though that the Crabtree ball and Walker drop could/should have both been TDs. I'd add that their defense is going to keep them in a lot of games and is a playoff caliber defense. Teams cannot run on the 49ers with Willis and Bowman in there and Culliver and Rogers have really helped the pass coverage.

Too many stupid penatlties though and Goldson made the second most stupid play I've ever seen a professional football player make.

been saying if our run defense keeps holding, Fangio should start to add pressure? today, he did send LB's and thats good.

 

[imac_21]

been saying if our run defense keeps holding, Fangio should start to add pressure? today, he did send LB's and thats good.

We blitzed once in the entire game. I don't think that's what you were referring to.

 

[FourBeeDen]

For me, the credit for this win goes to the coaching staff. They put together an great game plan against a very talented team. Offensively, they were able to exploit the strength of the Lions. They know that the DL of the Lions will be aggressive and that will cost some problems. So instead of trying to match up against the Lion's DL aggressive nature, they use that by letting them shoot up the field then trapping them to spring Frank Gore and Kedall Hunter. Defensively, the Niners coaching staff knows that the Lions have a very explosive offense, especially with CJ, Best, and Pettigrew in the line up. They know that they need to contain the big plays and not let Lions get into a rhythm. They accomplished this by keeping CJ in front of them and not let him get behind the secondary. CJ caught some balls and had big YAC but he did not get in the endzone. The Niners also applied a lot of pressure on Stafford. They did send more than 4 rushers a lot but they got to Stafford by disguising where the pressure will come. Stafford did not get into a rhythm and the explosive Lions offense was somewhat contained

 

[mem49er]

can he stretch the ball back into the end zone from outside the pylon? don't think so cause even if two feet were down, wouldn't be a TD.

Both feet (or a knee) have to be in bounds for a catch...once you have established the catch the ball can cross the plane of the goal from anywhere. In theory, the goal line extends to both sides infinitely. Imagine that they make a complete circle around the earth. If he'd gotten the other foot down, it would have been a TD.

 

[Kinzu]

Article 3. Completed or Intercepted Pass. A player who makes a catch may advance the ball. A forward pass is complete (by the offense) or intercepted (by the defense) if a player, who is inbounds:

(a) secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground; and
(b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any part of his body other than his hands.

They need to change the wording on this rule to
"(b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any other part of his body other than his hands."

By rule they could have ruled the Crabtree catch complete based on the fact he got his foot down a second time. That would count toward the any part of his body. I mean your foot is a part of the body right?

 

[Voltaire26]

Our pass rush was money. Detroit's O-line got abused for 60 minutes. Well, not true. They didn't have the ball for 60 minutes.

Detroit Fan ... much of what the OP says is true. As far as abusing our offensive line getting abused ... we suck. Don't feel too good about your defensive line based on their preformance against the Lions. Detroit is not yet a championship team, so don't get too excited. San Francisco is a pretty good team you should be proud ... I am proud of the way my Lions have been playing. Maybe we will meet again in the playoffs.

As for the coaches: Harbaugh is an asshole (but he's your asshole). Schwartz is an asshole as well (our asshole). Both have done a wonderful job with their teams. Good Luck to my 2nd favorite team - 49ers (every Lion fan has a 2nd favorite team, its called survival).

 

[CalamityX11]

can he stretch the ball back into the end zone from outside the pylon? don't think so cause even if two feet were down, wouldn't be a TD.

Yes, as long as he establishes the catch inbounds, even if he's body is carried over to the sidelines by momentum, if he can stretch it out over the pylon before any part of him touchs Out of Bounds, it's a TD.

Happens quite frequently...

 

[deep9er]

Both feet (or a knee) have to be in bounds for a catch...once you have established the catch the ball can cross the plane of the goal from anywhere. In theory, the goal line extends to both sides infinitely. Imagine that they make a complete circle around the earth. If he'd gotten the other foot down, it would have been a TD.

oh ok, mahalo.

interesting.........

 

[mem49er]

oh ok, mahalo.

interesting.........

Np, hoapili.

 

[tomikcon1971]

Detroit Fan ... much of what the OP says is true. As far as abusing our offensive line getting abused ... we suck. Don't feel too good about your defensive line based on their preformance against the Lions. Detroit is not yet a championship team, so don't get too excited. San Francisco is a pretty good team you should be proud ... I am proud of the way my Lions have been playing. Maybe we will meet again in the playoffs.

As for the coaches: Harbaugh is an asshole (but he's your asshole). Schwartz is an asshole as well (our asshole). Both have done a wonderful job with their teams. Good Luck to my 2nd favorite team - 49ers (every Lion fan has a 2nd favorite team, its called survival).

Thanks....would love to see a rematch in the postseason.