though I was referring specifically to the last Niner drive of the game in the 4th quarter.

Yes, it’s wonderful they chewed up 7 minutes of clock when there were only 9 minutes left in the game. However, it’s nothing short of inexcusable to not put points on the board there. When even a field goal puts you up 7 points, you’ve GOT to walk away with that much, at least. A touchdown clinches the game, sure, but coming up with a goose egg there gave Chicago the chance to run their 2 minute drill and try to steal the win.

I konw, everybody will say ‘BUT WTF WE WON AND IT WAS A GREAT SOLID 7 MINUTE DRIVE’ and then I’d point to the Indy game and the Minnesota game as 2 more examples of lost opportunities to finish games out.

I think both sides are doing what they can with the pieces they have to finish the game. The problem is that we are missing some vital pieces still to be able to put together a solid performance.

Our OL is not stellar to begin with and with the injury it is hurt even more which in turn means more pressure quicker on the QB and less holes for the RB which means less routes completed and less catches which means less 1st downs which means more defense on the field…well, you see where this is going. Especially if you watched last night.

I dont; think this is something that will change for the rest of the year unfortunately. Can we try and scheme it better? sure but no matter how you dress it up…it is still the same underneath.

This to me is the biggest problem for us. Even though Vernon Davis stated the DLine on the Bears were weak, I thought they did a good job of dominating our OL. Many times I saw Gore get hit behind line of scrimmage, and one play stood out to me where Davis got manhandled and missed a block. Sando stated that he hasn’t looked as dominating blocking this year and I agree with that.

Until our OL dominates the line of scrimmage we can’t “finish”. If we are forced to pass the ball when we are on a clock killing drive at the end of the game, we won’t win. We can’t put the game on Smith’s shoulders because frankly, he looks like a deer in headlights out there. Not to mention, it’s pretty obvious that Raye and Sing don’t trust him, with good reason. In order to finish, we either have to run the ball effectively when the D knows we are going to run, or we have to trust our QB to make the throws downfield and make the D pay for stacking the box inside of 4 minutes at the end of the game.

This team still cannot finish games. Minn, Indy, now Chi. Frankly, if not for the poor surface of Candlestick, Niners lose this game.

I have supported Raye (against popular revolt), particularly with his play calling in the Titans game. Not so much on this one. Could we run some play action on first down? How about a play action off the Morgan motion counter play that the team has run 3-4 times each game since Gore busted two long ones on it against Seattle? Gore had a great game, but the team must find ways to push the ball down field.

The two keys to finishing a game are having a top pass rusher(s) to stop an opponents drive and a O-line that allows you to run out the clock and/or put up a final score that wins the game or places it out of reach. We have neither. So it takes a collective effort to finish and any one mistake (INTs vs Titans, dropped INT vs MIN, etc) can be too much to overcome. There’s no one dominate phase to make up for a mistake somewhere else.

I do want to compliment Raye for the play calling on the final drive. Running out of the shotgun, utilizing Robinson wisely when Gore had played all game (no Coffee) and putting the Niners in position to run it out or at least add on points. They haven’t done that all season. One more first down gets us a FG, two more runs out the clock. It’s not is fault the line couldn’t block for Alex on the final pass play. Though the drive did not “finish” it still did more than any other in that circumstance this season and it left Chicago with only one possession to try for a win.

we wouldn’t be talking about finishing. We’d be talking about starting.

A lot of good things happen when you come out of the blocks firing. You put the other team at a great disadvantage and force them out of their gameplan. Your defense can take risks.

The Niners have an adequate defense, and Manusky strategizes pretty well. The problem is the offense, and unless Jimmy Raye can suit up and play left guard and left tackle at the same time I don’t think that there is much room to criticize the coaching.

Smith is the best option the team has at QB this year, but as long as the O line caves there won’t be much of a ground or passing game. Every game will be tough sledding because the offense is going to remain inconsistent.

And if we lost it would have been right on the coaches shoulders. The team cannot even get a first down when it needs one because they get so concerned with “we better run to make the other team use their timeouts” and that is BS! We need get a first down and keep moving in to score rather then run a running play on 2nd and 10 with about 3 minutes left. Raye doesnt know how to call the plays when we have a shot to hammer in the nail in the coffin.

Titans – 24 points off four turnovers vs 49ers
49ers – 10 points off five turnovers vs Bears

“finish” is a short-hand term that actually covers two things: executing well in the 2nd half AND taking advantage of opportunities. these two things go hand-in-hand because you can’t take advantage of opportunities if you don’t execute well when given them. what troubles me more about the CHI game (along with the MIN game, the IND game, and the TEN game) is that the Niners were given opportunity after opportunity to put the games away in the 2nd half, but failed to take advantage of any of them. They had MIN dead to rights, they had IND dead to rights, they had TEN dead to rights, and they let these teams linger rather than seizing the opportunity for a HUGE, season-defining win (@ MIN, @ IND) or a “this team can’t even hold our jocks” win (vs. TEN). I know this is a massive hypothetical, but they would be 7-2 right now were it not for their inability to seize the opportunity to finish teams off in the 2nd half. I think that’s the idea that singletary is trying to get across when he preaches his “FINISH” mantra.

It´s hard to believe that our offense was almost unable to win yesterday, after Defense brought 5 INT to the table, our last drive was just another sample of how bad our play-calling has been during the whole season, you can´t pretend to run the ball more than ten plays in a row (even though you want to play safe without the risk of turnovers and want to spent all the time) The result was that we gave Chicago the opportunity to win the game with about four minutes left on the clock, and despite the great effort of our defense we could have easily lost again, and if we didn´t was just because we were lucky at the end. Luck has always been part of the game, this time we were lucky and some other times we weren´t, so let´s take this opportunity to get better before next game, now we have to stay focused on adding more wins. The good thing is that even playing a bad game we got the win.

I think Singletary is right when he says that we can beat anyone if we don´t make mistakes to kill ourselves, because this defense will keep us in the game most of the times, but we definitely need our offense to finish games, if they don´t, we can also be beaten by anyone.

Now we have a week to work to solve the problems and adjust the offense, I still think we can be in the play-offs. GO NINERS!!

by Stevie8 on Nov 13, 2009 2:38 PM PST Comment 0 comments

but i don’t think a 1st or 2nd year coach should be judged on W’s and L’s.

Player development is the top priority during rebuiiding. Seeing how Coach Sing works with and his rapor with Vernon Davis and Patrick Willis impresses me. I give him an A+.