Are the 49ers anti-clutch, unlucky, or just not good enough?

I think “clutchitude” is a little hard to measure. For me, being “clutch” is so closely associated with “technical proficiency,” that it’s pretty much a moot point, anyway.

In a football game, there’s always going to be lucky breaks one way or another. I think the more important issue is whether or not your team capitalizes on its lucky breaks, and how much they do to minimize the opposing team’s lucky breaks.

IE, a “good” team (one that appears clutch) will play through their opponents’ luck. A bad team (one that appears un-clutch) will let that same luck beat them.

Of course, then there’s moments like the Farve pass, where you just throw your hands up and say, “WTF? God obviously spites us.”

the 49ers as a whole are extremely unclutch.

The 49ers lack vision and talent in the front office..You have a GM with zero track record of winning from Buffalo, a loser franchise for many years..You have a 28 year old president with zero track record of doing anything but being the owners son..When you have no one in the front office who has a clue of how to put together a winning organization, you end up losing year after year..

Until the egocentric Yorks figure out that they don’t have a clue and hire a football man like Scott Pioli(begged the team for three years to grab him before KC did), this franchise will continue to lose..

If you have good football people making good football decisions, then luck will find you..The Saints are a good example..Tom Benson for years ran the team into the ground, then three years ago, he finally hired good football people to run the team and guess what, now they are good and creating their own luck..

Atlanta is another good example..They hired good football people to run the team after the Michael Vick fiasco and now they are a contender..

This is not brain surgery here..You hire experienced, winning football people to run your franchise and get the hell out of the way..

Until the Yorks figure that out, we are doomed!!!

Right now the niners are just not making the big plays when they really need them. This is a young team and hopefully they can grow into a team that can finish games. The pieces are there, we just need to put them all together.

They are simply not good enough.

Bad coaching cost us the Seahawks game. How you do not kick in FG int he 1st quarter is beyond me and the reverse on the kick/punt return is just midn nummingly stupid.

Good teams make plays when they have to.

We’ve improved significantly over last year, but we’re just not there yet. Good teams make the plays when they need to. That last drive in Minnesota we had many chances to stop Favre before he was in range. We didn’t.

Seattle we had many chances to close it. We didn’t.

GB we had plenty of time left in the 4th to get the go-ahead score but couldn’t come up with the stop.

Indy we didn’t execute in the second half.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what this team can do with another year together.

I think we have a situation where:
1) The 49ers were perennially good for a long time (20 years almost), and 49ers fans expect good football
2) They have been TERRIBLE for the last 5 years, so when actually manage to have a near average team we think they area actually good. They are good (by comparison) but only relative to the drek of the mid-oughts

I think these two points lead to very high fan expectations this year. 2010 is going to be an important year.

But this is something that really gets on my nerves

For the baseball fans out there, the idea of “clutch” has been a cause for great debate. Some argue that statistics have disproven the notion of clutch, or at least that a player’s “clutch” numbers mimic their career numbers. Others insist that some players come up big in key situations. Whether that’s true or not is up for debate and not quite the point of this post.

No, it’s not up for debate. The debate is quite settled. No matter how you define “clutch” there is not a single player (at least in baseball, which is the easiest to measure, and the one I’ve personally examined most closely) who, over a significant sample size, outperforms their expected performance by a significant amount. The people who argue for some magical “clutchitude” are simply wrong, or, at least, enough contrary evidence has been accumulated so that the burden of proof is now on them, and I’ve yet to see anything resembling convincing evidence from that side of the debate.

-Billy Zane, Titanic"

      -Dwight Schrute, The Office

If you really know how to look at the game of football. Watch for how many penalties are called and not called. The officials determine which team is the favorite in a game.

The players in the NFL are the best of the best— they can be playoff contenders or goats— depending on who’s throwing the game.

There is more competition on a high school football field than in the NFL. The word “competition” in the NFL is an outright, misleading lie. “Competition” doesn’t exist in the NFL.

i think that would be the word… then again, there are certain things that player are accountable for. but unlucky is th eword…. unlucky to lose 6 games under 7 points!

i’d say they are all of the above, but mainly they lack the killer instinct to finish that championship teams have. you can have all the talent and luck you want, but without that you won’t win the big one

…and I’ll say it again. I think a lot of our “finishing” problems are bad luck. Please note that I’m NOT saying that finishing is “all about” luck, though I do think the concept is overrated — like closing in baseball. My point is merely that we’ve been unlucky — something I’ll bet you see show up in predictions for next year.

Also, fooch, just to clarify, no one has ever “disproven” clutchiness. The argument is simply that there is little empirical evidence for the phenomenon being some kind of skill that’s reproducible from year to year.

…some advanced stat sites like fangraphs actually do keep track of a stat called “clutch.”

Nerves act up and they can’t perform at the same level.

I think that’s a general problem with VD, he loses control of moments, ends up with false starts and drops.

In general, I’d say this year they’ve had a trifecta of bad luck, bad play, and poor decisions. So many of the big moments this year you can look at 5 seconds later and go, that was the wrong play call, or he threw it to the wrong guy, or the receiver ran the wrong route. A lot of that should be gone next year if everyone stays in the same system.

There is also something to be said about “having been there.” No one on the team has been there. Even the veteren leaders like Justin Smith, Heitmann, and Spikes haven’t accomplished any team goals in the NFL. They may need some lucky breaks just in order to accomplish something the first time. Then use the confidence from that to return again and again.

I just dont buy the idea that these cats will learn to be clutch. I think its either there or it isn’t. Jordan didnt LEARN clutch. It was in him. Also, how long are we going to accept the “this is a young team” excuse? Ronnie Lott, J Rice, Joe, Steve, Bryant, etc all had a killer instinct since day one whether they were winning or losing. We have a talented 9er team, but I think MENTALLY, they’re not clutch and that’s why they’ll never be champions. You can’t teach clutch. They dont even seem disappointed when they lose. I’m tired of seeing alex smith’s monotone talking pts after every loss. Sadly, Patrick willis is starting to look like he won’t be the ray lewis-type leader that we thought he’d be. Great player?yes Great leader? remains to be seen.

“The harder you practice, the luckier you get.”

Having German/Swedish heritage means no luck – rarely a good thing in extraordinary circumstances (haha…). The breaks and unlucky aspects of so many losses this year are reminders in the L column of how far the 49ers are from being championship calibar again – the scores of those games show exactly why luck is not something to rely on, and say things like “the breaks just don’t fall our way”. For real life situation off the field, for a guy like me, that doesn’t cut it.

What does cut it though is seeing how our team can now at least hang in the games they’re going to lose, as opposed to get beaten to a pulp early and us turning off the TV even earlier. A matter of a few touchdowns spread out over a few games would mean W’s and playoffs. Thats not what happened though. Luck was not on our side, nor will it likely change. So how do you kill the significance of luck? In the Niner’s case, I say they have improved in making games closer, but luck is ultimately stifled by improving coaching and player’s knowledge and experience to finish the game. Take the luck factor out of the last few minutes and garbage plays during the game by simply growing and working harder throughout the whole game.

That’s for our Niners to implement now though, and to benefit from next season. Breaks, referees, and general “luck” cannot be leaned on for victories – they need to be done away with and buried by learning and progressing.

With most being the latter two.

Unlucky? Minnesota and Seattle. The Niners didn’t need luck to win these games, they just needed to not be unlucky which happened in both. Phantom penalites. Missed penalites. Dropped INTs in Minnesota. Dropped TD passes in Seattle.

Luck needed? One little drop of luck would’ve won the Indy or Tennessee games. Better execution, especially in the latter, would’ve also been just fine but the point of luck is that you can win when not playing your best. Niners has received none this season.

Unclutch? Houston. Defense gives up a FG in the early 4th Q when it’s a 7 point game. Then gives up a long run when it’s a 3 point game. Then while driving for the win (or at least OT), we have a delay penalty and allowed our QB to get pressured quickly when he had man open deep. That’s not getting the job done when the opportunity is presented.

Not good enough? Atlanta and Green Bay, at least on those game days.

I think when you have “issues” in the secondary, teams can attack you in the 2nd half when they are behind (and be successful some of the time).

When you an offensive line that cannot run block effectively, you cannot “ice” a game through sustained drives in the 2nd half. (Pass blocking also not great!)

These things make the 49ers W/L outcomes very unpredictable. (I think they effect betting lines as well.)

We will see next year if the team is clutch.
(I expect the answer will be yes.)

comes from confidence, I think. As billclay said above, Montana was the ultimate example. When the 9ers took over on their 8 with minutes remaining, down 16-13, in XXIII, the team knew, I knew—heck, I think even the Bengals’ fans knew—a 49er victory was at hand. Everyone’s heard the story about 16 pointing out John Candy in the audience. He was supremely confident, because experience told him that he and his teammates would get the job done. His confidence bred confidence among them. So they overcame the Bengals’ luck in that game of returning a kickoff for a TD.

Today’s Niners don’t have that confidence yet. More experience and continuity and, most importantly, success may get them there.

My vote is a resounding “NOT GOOD ENOUGH..”
On the player side:
The talent is there at a few positions all of the time, at some positions most of the time, and some positions some of time. The WILL TO WIN has been there some of the time but at the most critial times the will to win has been painfully missing.

On the coaching side:
The planed team “identity” wasn’t supported buy the talent drafted, play calling, and options needed to ensure that the plan could succeed. We sure as hell did not go and “hit people in the mouth” as the adds say, and much hyped "..smash mouth football team showed up sometimes but went soft and fell down at the critical times.

I had this team picked to be 11-5 and sweep the division. We deffinately started down the right path at 3-1 and I absultulely can get over the Farve effect, however that aside, we didn’t measure up.

And so, we lower out sites to achiveing not a play off spot, but at winning season at best, 500 at least or another losing season again. So l wait to see how the season ends..

Not matter what I remain now and always will be “A DIE HARD NINER FAN.”

GOOOO NIIINNNNNEEERRRSSS