The 49ers continued advancement in the NFL playoffs means more and more articles about the team across national media. Sam Farmer of the LA Times put together a fun article looking at the latest "motivational tactic" by 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh. This is actually old news, as I recall seeing some stuff about this a couple weeks ago. In his Wednesday press conference, Coach Harbaugh indicated it wasn't necessarily a motivational tactic:
"Well, everything doesn't need a purpose. It was a fun thing. Justin, myself, [DT] Ricky Jean [Francois], and [RB] Frank [Gore] were having a meal and just started talking about high school recruitment and stars and what they weighed at that time. And [DT] Ray McDonald was in there as well and then one of the fellows pulled up a picture of the scout of I think it was Ray. And from there that was born the idea let's do one for everybody."
At the very least this is a way to loosen things up. In Farmer's article, there were some great lines about how Randy Moss and Leonard Davis had the only pictures that were in black and white.
"I don't think they had color pictures back then," 24-year-old cornerback Chris Culliver joked.
Given that Davis is only a year older than me and Moss is 2 1/2 years older than me, that's mildly depressing!
Speaking of Moss, his high school mention reminds me of one of my favorite Nike commercials of all time, featuring Moss and Jason Williams:
Jim Harbaugh has done a solid job coming up with creative ways to motivate the team, and also to try and keep them loose. I am not overly concerned about the 49ers being tight come Sunday, but anything that keeps the team loose and ready to go works for me!