Niners/Cowboys Postgame

[NinerSickness]

I wonder where Sick stands on his "extend Iupati" soapbox? Is he hiding under it now?

Nope. My position remains unchanged. I didn't watch the entire game, so I'll take your word for it that he played poorly. But it was the first game for a new center, so that may have had something to do with it.

I want the dude back, but I'm 85% sure this is his last season in SF. He's not irreplaceable (Thomas was one of my favourite players in the entire 2014 draft), but I still want Iupati back.

[49rangER]

I'm glad Boone got paid. Way better than iupati.

I feel the staff punished Boone tonight.

Either way. Iupati will cost too much. When we can easily rely on looney/Boone.


(previously h0ckeysk83r)

[arich35]

I'm glad Boone got paid. Way better than iupati.

I feel the staff punished Boone tonight.

Either way. Iupati will cost too much. When we can easily rely on looney/Boone.


(previously h0ckeysk83r)

He should be punished. I am glad he didn't play. Shouldn't be able to come in the week before the first game and start like he is some superstar.. Looney has been putting in all the work for the past couple months so he deserved it.

[CalamityX12]

Good win for the obvious.

I think its fair to say that we saw improvements in the offense, terms of Kap's progression(coming back at least), not panicking and to the most part accurate throws.

Running game looks like its getting back, we saw an explosive force in Hyde and a resurgent Gore? Gore may be taking it to the next level due to Hyde's "there it is" debut.

What worries me?
Battles at the LOS. Offense has an excuse as they are without Boone(most) & Davis. Throw in a new C, that's a lot to gel. So in time this will get better. Also Iupati, hope he gets his head back in the game.

DL is going to get blown up... didn't look good at all vs the run, our NT got pushed a lot and the Dobbs/TJE weren't really helping. I'm for TJE being active and playing, felt he earned it but Dobbs? Gimmie Tank now or at least Dial.

LB unit coverage is giving up a lot of underneath which results big gains or first downs... Willis n Whilhoite need to work on that.

Pass Rush was FUGLY.... didn't like it for our own standard, this needs to be improved.

But good win! lol

[imac_21]

I wonder where Sick stands on his "extend Iupati" soapbox? Is he hiding under it now?

Nope. My position remains unchanged. I didn't watch the entire game, so I'll take your word for it that he played poorly. But it was the first game for a new center, so that may have had something to do with it.

I want the dude back, but I'm 85% sure this is his last season in SF. He's not irreplaceable (Thomas was one of my favourite players in the entire 2014 draft), but I still want Iupati back.

He was horrible in the preseason too. And it isn't as if his mistakes are communication errors where he's blocking the wrong guy or anything like that. He's flat out getting beat. Liuget destroyed him in the preseason, and look at the gif from yesterday that I posted. He barely even touched the guy. Gore stopped him cold, thankfully.

[CalamityX12]

I wonder where Sick stands on his "extend Iupati" soapbox? Is he hiding under it now?

Nope. My position remains unchanged. I didn't watch the entire game, so I'll take your word for it that he played poorly. But it was the first game for a new center, so that may have had something to do with it.

I want the dude back, but I'm 85% sure this is his last season in SF. He's not irreplaceable (Thomas was one of my favourite players in the entire 2014 draft), but I still want Iupati back.

He was horrible in the preseason too. And it isn't as if his mistakes are communication errors where he's blocking the wrong guy or anything like that. He's flat out getting beat. Liuget destroyed him in the preseason, and look at the gif from yesterday that I posted. He barely even touched the guy. Gore stopped him cold, thankfully.

I'm going to miss those moments

[dr3am]

http://football.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ ... t_stadium/

[DoobieKeebler]

This has probably already been said already, but Iupati is going to make a non Niner GM & QB really mad in 2015.

[Jikkle]

Hard game to get a real feel for since we got up by so much so quickly so that to me influenced the way we approached the rest of the game on both sides of the ball.

Defensively we weren't sharp up front outside of Justin Smith. Now in their defense the Cowboy's O line is arguably one of the best we'll see this season and once we got the huge lead the only thing that would've killed us was big chunk passing plays. So it felt like the attitude was if the Cowboys want to run and get 5 yards a play and keep burning clock then go for it.

Secondary did a great job especially since we lost our two starting DBs which should've been a recipe for disaster. All offseason we've heard about how we lost guys on our secondary but what the media doesn't seem to get is unproven doesn't necessarily equal bad and as I've said before this secondary might wind up being the best we've had in the Harbaugh era.

Lastly if it wasn't for some bogus calls on our defense the score wouldn't have been as close.

Offensively I was impressed but still had some concerns. On paper it doesn't look amazing but going back to my first statement we were up like 21 to 3 after only 5 something offensive plays so after that we clearly went into a more methodical, safer, and clock burning type of offense.

What impressed me was Kap. I honestly thought this was the most comfortable and confident he's ever looked in the pocket. He was looking to make throws instead of running when scrambling which he would've likely ran in those situations last season. He was moving his eyes and locating open receivers and throwing to them on the money. The only pass that was off was the one to Miller but offhand all of his passes were good decisions and none of them made me wonder why he threw that one or we got lucky on that one. If he continues to look like this the entire season I feel our offense is going to be pretty good and pretty scary.

Hyde just needs to get the ball more. Everyone loves Gore but Hyde is just the better option at this point as he's just plain quicker and has more power than Gore does.

Iupati is a huge concern right now. Maybe he's not completely right physically but he just doesn't look like an All-Pro out there. The most frustrating thing with Iupati for me is that after 4 years he still will have plays where he'll lunge in pass pro and get beat badly. That's a mental thing and that should've been ironed out already especially if he wants top OG money.

The interior line must pass block better because pressure up the middle gives your QB virtually no shot to make a play and it's the worst kind of pressure you can give up.

Play calling and play design was great. We frequently had guys open on 3rd downs and Kap was able to locate and hit those guys. It looks like talent is really making a difference because defenses just can't shut down everyone and if they shutdown one someone else like Boldin in this game will be open.

Overall it was a good win and to me it just shows how overrated preseason is for some teams.

[CrimsonCrew]

A lot of this has been covered, but my take:

Overall, a great start to the season. Sure, it wasn't perfect. But we were missing our two best defensive players, our starting NT (granted Williams was the starter at this time last season), the right side of our OL, and lost both starting CBs in the game. That's a recipe for disaster, and instead, we dominated. Now, will this team beat the Hawks in Seattle? I can't see that right now. But there's a ton of room for improvement before that time.

Kap looked really good IMO. He was poised, decisive, and very accurate. He was throwing lasers. His early throws on the move to Boldin and Davis were awesome. He was 16 of 23 despite the Cowboys getting surprisingly good pressure, and that includes two throw-aways and the drop by Davis. Granted he looked even better in the opening game last year, but if he can build on this, we're in business. The offense kind of petered out in the second half, but that's not on Kap. First drive, Davis dropped a perfect pass, Kap was then hit as he threw on 2nd down (phantom INT/fumble) and threw a tough but catchable ball to Lloyd on third, a totally bogus PI penalty on Lloyd negated a 32-yard play on 3rd and 7, and then we just killed the clock.

Hyde looked great. He's got some Lynch to him. Great explosiveness for a guy his size, good feet, nice vision. Gore had a few nice runs, but Hyde can make something out of nothing in a way that Gore rarely does these days. I think we've got to consider starting Hyde and using Gore more on passing downs where his blocking is more of an asset. Particularly as we no longer have a change of pace back. LMJ was the only smudge on the RBs, and I guess that's no longer an issue.

Boldin was a beast as usual. Just totally reliable. Stevie Johnson also showed nicely after having a tough preseason. If we can get Crabtree back at 100%, we're in great shape.

Davis was getting wide open, but a little shaky in terms of catching. Almost dropped the first TD, and tried to body catch that third-down ball instead of snatching it, allowing the defender to make a play. Sloppy. He's got to clean that up a little.

OL was shaky. Iupati is probably the biggest concern as he's supposed to be our elite OG. Got to clean that up. He said in the preseason it was easy to fix. Let's do it then, Mike. Btw, I hate that attitude. Downplays his legit struggles.

DL was also pretty shaky in this one. Understandable, perhaps, against a very good OL. Particularly when Ray had a lot on his mind this week, and Ian was playing his first real game since the injury. Still, got to tighten that up. The ILBs were getting washed out of plays, too. Got to be more sound in their technique.

Cowboy was awesome, however. Looks like he's pretty much back to being a beast. Let's hope he can maintain it. He was arguably the biggest driving force behind our success in Harbaugh's first season-and-a-half.

Brooks made a few plays, but another sloppy game by him. The guy just isn't a smart football player. How many offsides penalties do you have to have before you correct the problem?

Lemonier wasn't getting much pressure. He made a few nice plays trailing, but I want to see more as a pass rusher. Lynch showed well for his first appearance, though. Now let's get Dial and Carradine more reps. Particularly if we're getting run on.

Props to the backup CBs who came in and played very well. Johnson was mixing it up like a vet (though I believe he was beaten on the last TD?), and Cox was getting in there as well. And Bethea was laying the wood. "Dehydration" is Dez Bryant's way of saying, "Antoine Bethea kicked my @$$ and I don't want to go across the middle any more." Donte who?

Got to fix Dawson. That miss was inexcusable. His head isn't right these days. Lee looked as good as ever, on the other hand.

And the officiating was just a joke. It appeared to be a blatant effort to get Dallas back in the game, and that's inexcusable IMO. Dallas got two free first downs on ticky-tacky (generously) illegal contact penalties, which directly resulted in their first TD. The holding penalty on Looney was one of the worst I've seen, and the Lloyd PI was worse still as it was preceded by obvious defensive PI. I really hope the NFL takes a good long look at this one and penalizes the crew.

[Tomikcon1971]

Call me crazy but I think when we "get the band back together" around game nine we are going to be two games behind Seattle with 2 games left against them. Think of that drama heading down the stretch.....run the table and take out the champs twice to get the #1 seed. Sounds like a made for TV event.

Also, we don't leave the West coast the last 6 weeks of the season and we only leave the Bay Area ONCE! That is a nice schedule to finish the season.

[CrimsonCrew]

Call me crazy but I think when we "get the band back together" around game nine we are going to be two games behind Seattle with 2 games left against them. Think of that drama heading down the stretch.....run the table and take out the champs twice to get the #1 seed. Sounds like a made for TV event.

Also, we don't leave the West coast the last 6 weeks of the season and we only leave the Bay Area ONCE! That is a nice schedule to finish the season.

I can definitely see this team coming on strong to end the season on a hot streak and making some noise in the playoffs. The schedule actually looks a lot easier after week one. Bears are coming off a home loss to Buffalo. If Ellington is out, the Cards don't look nearly as dangerous. The Eagles recovered, but were in serious danger of blowing one against the Jags. The Chiefs frankly look pretty bad. The Rams may be the worst team in the league. You're really looking at the Saints and the Broncos as (by far) the toughest games. Both of which are on the road, of course - thank you league office. I would hope we're right around 9-2 going into the first Seattle game.

[NinerSickness]

He was horrible in the preseason too. And it isn't as if his mistakes are communication errors where he's blocking the wrong guy or anything like that. He's flat out getting beat. Liuget destroyed him in the preseason, and look at the gif from yesterday that I posted. He barely even touched the guy. Gore stopped him cold, thankfully.

For a veteran player, preseason means absolutely nothing, so I don't care about that at all. And he had one bad game in the first game of the season coming off an offseason where he had a broken leg & dealt with a bunch of other injury issues last year; bt the OL was dominating the Seahawks' DL until he broke his leg.

I'm not going to write off a 27-year-old, all-pro'-caliber guard because of one bad game against the Cowboys. I want him back. And like I said, I fully expect him to be gone next season; I just hope I'm wrong.