Game Ball

FEELS GOOD TO GET A WIN, DOESN'T IT? 

not just a win, but a road win, against a team with a hostile crowd, which is a phrase i often hear, and i assume it means a crowd filled with bloodthirsty murderers and rapists and machete wielding maniacs.  thank god our men made it out of there alive, let alone with a victory. 

and it was indeed a momentous victory, and with such victories comes a litany of heroes to explain the WHY.  from the mercurial isaac bruce to the voracious patrick willis to even the resilience of joe nedney, there is no shortage of medals and game balls to be awarded.  yet there is one hero who stood head and shoulders above the rest, many times before the ball was even snapped.  That's right, the real MVP of the game is none other than Jonas Jennings.

this is the kind of production that doesn't show up in the box score.  even the beat writers have buried the lead.  but you'll find it there, nonchalantly scrawled in the morass of game notes - 49ers OT Jonas Jennings sprained his shoulder late in the first half.  

This was just one of many critical plays that catapulted the 49ers to victory, but by far the most overlooked.   Not only did it immediately help shore up the pitiful right flank of the protection scheme, it was the very sight of jennings, laying on his side like an elephant in the hot african sun, that likely infuriated, no, INSPIRED patrick willis to leave the locker room in the second half. 

So as we celebrate the win this week, remember to salute one Jonas Jennings, right tackle, sackmaster, a name synonymous with addition by subtraction.  It was he and only he that understood the mathematics of the situation.  That in order to win, they first had to lose.