But it doesn’t mean that we can’t find things to reassure us for the future in them. How many years has it been since this team would have stood a chance in Peyton Manning’s back yard? How many years since it took a Brett Favre hail mary to beat us?

I look at our record, and I can honestly say we’re about where I thought we would be before the season started. (Although I thought at Arizona would be a loss and Houston would be a win.) So I can’t be too discouraged. I’m seeing progress and it looks like the corpse of Alex Smith may still have some juice left in it.

As to your points, I agree whole-heartedly with all of them. This team is still just a couple years removed from being absolutely putrid. The personell will take time to be replenished… but our roster is much more robust than it once was.

Execution errors plague even the best teams, but the best teams find ways to overcome them. The Niners have to learn to deal with them and reduce their frequency.

There’s a new toughness on the team that the coaching staff has obviously brought on board, now they need to show that they can adapt just as well as the team showed they could.

In the end, I was just excited to finally get to see a 49ers game in its entirety. Although, not enough to want them to play Indy every year just so I can see it in my home market!

Is this team good enough to expect them to get past these moral victories and turn them into real victories. When I was watching the Colts game, even as the 49ers were clinging to their lead, I felt like it was inevitable that Manning and company would turn it on and pull the game out. Once the Colts took the lead, I was expecting at least one more TD from them. And yet the defense stood tall and gave the 49ers offense just about every chance to come back in this game. Should this team be able to pull those games out at this point?

When you go into the half leading 14-6 at Indy, and then go scoreless in the second half, that’s a massive failure. The team did not play to win in the second half, whether it’s playcalling or execution or whatever you want to point at. There’s just no excuse for not putting ANY points on the board.

1. Personnel – This argument would point to not being able to scheme out of a bad offensive line, or simply lacking an “elite” pass rusher. Often times scheming simply cannot overcome that. This argument would go towards adding players via free agency and the draft in 2010. One might argue this is the easiest “fix” of all these. You add enough talented players and maybe even the worst coordinators could look good.

Agreed. The trade deadline is gone, and there’s little chance of signing any kind of impact player now. Put the guys in the best position to succeed and hope for the best. This team is still being built, and I think more will be added this offseason.

2. Execution – This argument would point to simply not executing on the plays being called. Maybe the players aren’t fantastic, but they’re making mistakes in execution that simply require understanding things better. One could also argue this is really a problem in personnel and/or coaching. So maybe it’s that “gray area.”

In all, it wasn’t bad. One fumble, one tipped INT, a dropped pass. These things happen.

3. Coaching – This is for the anti-Jimmy Raye crowd. This argument might be that the players may not be fantastic, but the scheming is just all wrong. The coaches are not game-planning to the strengths of their players and the team is suffering accordingly.

I have to agree here. There’s simply no excuse for Vernon Davis to only have 3 receptions or for running up the gut on first down like 80% of the time.

1.Personnel- I agree that this is the easiest fix. Next year they will have a solid draft along with hopefully some key FA’s.
2.Execution- You cant execute when the defense memorizes your 1 page playbook
3.Coaching- Is doing a good job except for Jimmy. I guess that makes me anti-Jimmy

Or is 2009 going to be the year of the moral victory no matter what they do?

i think that there will be more moral victories to come, hopefully i’m proven wrong. I see moral victories vs. Chicago and Green Bay. Philly might be straight out nasty. I’m not saying that they cant win these games, I’m just pointing these teams out because the niners have problems with speedy receivers.
Tennessee is another game, that they need to contain Chris Johnson but I’m not too concerned against teams with good running games because the niners have a good run defense. The niners should be fine against the Titans and Jags.
Division games will always be hard fought games, but there’s no reason why the niners can’t sweep the division this year.
Although I think that there will be more moral victories this year, I still think the niners win the division and make the playoffs. Of course, once the playoffs start, anything can happen.
Lets all hope for a strong finish……..

But the team is improving steadily. The offense is going to take a lot of work to figure out the OL, QB, receiver morass. No use firing Raye for the GM’s failure to address the line problems, though.

And the return game—what a crock. This better be a lesson learning fast.

For improvement in moral victory category, I thought the team took a step forward by learning its opponent better, in the Colts. The coaching staff will be have to be obsessed with every game, as if a playoff game, to make the playoffs.

At least these games are moral victories; I remember many a loss the last five years of just hideous, lesson-less, disasters. Getting moral victories is itself a moral victory!

I believe(d) we would go 10-6 and that most all of those losses would be by one score, and that half the wins would be 10 points or less. We’re currently on track for that. I thought we’d be 5-3 at the half way point and with a win over Tennessee, we’ll be one game behind that.

This team is better than last season and is likely getting better efforts from their opponents, as they are not flying under the radar. This means that the blowout losses from last year become close losses, and hopefully some close losses become wins. We’ve already turned around the AZ road loss, and this year’s tight losses in Minnesota & Indy would’ve been blowouts last season, such as the games in NY & Dallas. So we’re better yet still not good enough.

The larger reasons are easy: we don’t have that one playmaker at pass-rusher. The guy who makes that one game changing play. We also have not had that on offense, but the presence of Crabtree may change that going forward.

Smaller reasons: we keep making that one mistake that turns a game against us and we’re not good enough to recover from that against the top teams. A muffed punt and blown coverage in Houston. Fumble and tipped INT in Indy, though the bigger mistake was the celebration penalty that made it easy for Indy to get in FG range.

It’s not one play or player. Or even one coach. But good teams, even with mistakes, make that one play. A sack. An INT. A third down conversion. A great call or catch. Some of those plays have been there: Bly’s dropped INT vs Favre. Even his dropped INT early yesterday. We’re not making them and because we lack a game changers, we can’t let the opportunities that happen go by since we only create so many.

Going forward this season, I’m a believer that the lucky 50/50 plays and ref calls even out over a full season if you keep playing hard. We lost a muffed punt in the sun but couldn’t recover it when the Colts did. Our QBs tipped passes are bing INT but we’re dropping the ones we get our hands on. This will even out if the guys keep playing as they are.

All that said, I’m quite tired of moral victories and having our loss counted as some end of the day highlight because teh big-boy team still won. I want us to finish what we start and be the story of the day because we won.

we have talent. sure you always need/want to get more talent so we will surely do that in the offseason. you want to be as talented as you can be.

it takes time for it to come together. we’re making progress for sure. progress is key. Sing is saying that right now in his presser that i’m listening to. I wont evaluate coaching until there is an entire season body-of-work to evaluate.

I think our guys are trying hard, most of them, and they are getting better.

I would have to say I get a little annoyed at the lack of any risks on both sides of the ball at times. We need to play to win. The bend dont break coverage Sunday was great to stay in the game but on the last drive we needed to stonewall the Colts and get the ball back. We let them get first downs and run out the clock, up only 4 points.

Offensively we need to pick our spots and take them. Just throwing the deep ball even if incomplete forces defenses to have to play deep enough to keep WR’s honest. with our receivers, they will catch some of them too.

If we all are going to have to listen to Singletary say we are getting better then we all should get ready for the 2013 season. We go now 4 weeks on……..what? No momentum. ?Unforgiving pentalies. Mediocre QB play. Poor Oline play. We are getting better…..better at making excuses for poor execution. 8-8 at best 2nd in the division. Sorry to watch this again.

Then again, I don’t entirely get the anti Jimmy Raye stuff.

Why was Indy a moral victory? I am always conscious that other people on this site know more than me about the game – one of the reasons I love this site is because I can ask questions like this and get a sensible answer – but I do not get it. We restricted Peyton to no TD passes – is that it? Surely we just lost to a team who scored as many TDs as we did, whoever threw the pass, got down the field enough times to kick a few field goals, and used a defense which is not as vaunted as their offense to restrict us? That’s just a plain old victory for them isn’t it? I am not arguing, I just don’t see the moral victory stuff unless the refs have cheated you out of something, or another reason outside of either team’s control.

I am not really understanding the Raye stuff either. He’s slammed for run first, being stubborn, not willing to change things, so they change the QB, change the system, pass more than they run on first down, and still he’s the wrong guy? Maybe he just doesn’t have the players? Because Sing and Raye inherited a bad team and need a season or two to make it better? Didn’t just about everyone say Alex Smith’s problem before was seven OCs in seven years? We don’t want to make that eight in eight surely?

I think we’ll beat Tennessee and Chicago and things will look a little brighter then, and I’m keeping the faith. But, like I say, I could be wrong!

They want to control the clock and play keep away when they have the lead, and they cannot.

There could be many reasons for this, but I think fundamentally is that the coaches believe the team is better than it actually is. They trust their defense to ALWAYS make stops, and they want to run the ball to eat the clock and reduce turnovers. The defense is not good enough to shut out teams\* and they have to open up the offense and risk some INTs to get first downs.

*\except NFC west doormats

I have wasted a lot of time on Moral victories……try 3.5 hours times 7,12,9,7 losses in the last 4 years…= 123 hours of moral……bull crap. Play to your potential and play to win…….win anything else is a loss…. get out of the clouds and on the field. the fantasy system has got most thinking we are getting better……….lets win. We currently have a losing record. Playoffs……Playoffs? Jim Mora said it best(game we won.btw) we have to just find a way to win the game. i am sick of it

And yet the defense stood tall and gave the 49ers offense just about every chance to come back in this game.

Umm… in the two drives after the TD, the Niners D gave up 102 yards on 16 plays in two drives that ate up 8:15 of the final 11:17. That’s not even close to “giving the offense just about every chance…” They ALMOST made a few stops on that last drive, but couldn’t stop the Colts on two key 3rd downs. Sure, the offense failed at the end too, but let’s call a spade a spade. The D didn’t get Manning & co. off the field when they needed to, just like the O didn’t punch the ball in in the second half, like they needed to.

I am from Texas and now a 49 fan cause I think Mike S. is incredible. We will win a Super Bowl with Mike S. as coach. I’m also a Baylor guy and our board was nuts to pass on hiring him twice. Great head coaches are not usually great coordinates (watch Ryan at the Jets flame out in three years), see Wade Phillips and Norv Turner.

Head Coaching is about leadership and we probably have the best in the league right now except for that NE jerk guy, but he wins.

We are competitive, and will continue to be more so. I see us 9-7 at worst, 10-6 at best. It will all come down to beating Arizona to make the playoffs.’

I think we win the next two, lose at GB. Smith is for real, and the only other loss is possibly Philly but they can run hot and cold.

Here goes. I am sick and tired of watching us lose. We have talent. We have overpaid athletes. We have good coaching. What we don’t have is a winning record. We are not an offensive team. We have a false sense of hope. Hope is not a Game Plan. We need to find out how to win. Bury teams and threaten others. Full scale.

Winning is a process and a driven synergy. I am a fan that does not believe in Moral anything. You win or you lose. Kinda Win>? Kinda Lose.? BS. You give the gameball to the winning team.

Playoffs? Please………..what if the playoffs start next week…..what are we gonna say? We are getting better. ARGGGH.

Show me something players. You have a great coach, a great fanbase. Now win. Not kinda. Not sorta………

WIN

I am gonna keep watching…….but you better put a winning streak together.