49ers vs. Washington recap: Ahmad Brooks, Anquan Boldin have solid outings

The San Francisco 49ers bested Washington on Monday Night Football, 27-6. I didn't write a full recap, but we do need something of an overflow thread, so I thought I might just include some random notes from the game. I just have to say: isn't it kind of ridiculous how much better 7-4 feels than 6-5?

First, I made a couple gifs during the game (low quality, first attempt at making gifs on the fly), which you can find on my Twitter feed.

I'll post one of them here though ... the one of Vernon Davis' touchdown in the second half. I absolutely love it when a guy is completely uncovered for a touchdown, and I don't just mean when I'm watching the 49ers. To me there's nothing quite as funny as a guy just sort of releasing, turning, catching and being like "yep, that just happened..."

How great is that? Anyway, we're going to just jump to some of my random points on the day. I'll have some more things with actual substance tomorrow. Go Niners!

- Ahmad Brooks was a man on fire early on. He created pressure on three big plays in three drives, and drove Tyler Polumbus back on multiple occasions. On one play, he flashed signs of Justin Smith, barreling through Polumbus to get one hand around and grab onto Alfred Morris to make the tackle in the backfield. In the end, Brooks had two sacks.

-Aldon Smith is back! I have significant issues with the way the league in general handles DUI-related incidents but he went to rehab and he did his thing so I am reserving judgment for now. In the meantime, I'll enjoy his production on the field, including his two awesome sacks on Monday.

- I'm still kind of amazed with how effortless it looks when Anquan Boldin makes catches. From snap to catch to securing the ball to getting out of bounds or stretching for the pylon, it looks so effortless. Early in the third quarter, Colin Kaepernick found Boldin deep and he immediately twisted his body to avoid a tackle and picked up another nice chunk of yardage. He's always done that.

- Clock management. It seemed like the 49ers got to the line much quicker than in recent games, and actually had something of a snap count as opposed to "snap it with one second left every single time." Of course, right after I started writing this, they used a timeout in the second quarter, and then proceeded to run the football on second and long. But for the most part, they got to the line of scrimmage quicker than usual. Progress!

- So um ... just how tacky and uncomfortable was that Navajo Code Talkers thing? Yeah, Washington ... you should probably just stop that.

- The fact that a holding call wasn't made until late in the third quarter is pretty annoying. Now, we know holding happens often, but I think the more obvious and play-changing holds are too often overlooked. Justin Smith in particular was held big time in the second quarter, and Brooks was held a good deal early on. The referees missed a huge facemask penalty on Kaepernick, as well.

- I thought Carlos Rogers had a good game. Isn't that kind of odd? Rogers has sort of faded into the background, with a couple bad games and the rest are just "eh." But I thought he made some pretty solid plays this game and none of them really stick out as bad plays. I'm sure one of you will point out something that makes me look foolish now that I've said this, though.

- GO NINERS