YattaOkasan

espn playoff machine says we win the next two and miami loses to the chiefs we win the division with worst case of us losing the next 2 and miami winning out. This essentially means our magic number (from baseball) for winning the division is 3.

Considering that involved games against Russ, Murray, and Herbert thats pretty impressive. We be coming.

Hes open before but just isnt the read. Its a blown coverage which is really the only way he gets open.

It aint much of a trick play since we use it damn near every game. I would have to check but this does not seem to be the play we threw to him against the Rams (that was just Ramsey leaving smith). This back line run has been caught by Kroft and Knox multiple times (we never throw to the eligible tackle this year). I have no doubt Kroft sits on that play and we get 7. The other night was great for the whole team but I do have some concerns on him being on the active roster (ffs dont cut him). On the Diggs DPI that allen pointed out I think Kroft has a decent shot at touching the paint (still would have been tough) where as Smith didnt do much with it. I missed the play where he was wide open but him not really being in the progression in the passing game is the problem. When hes in you can expect run or just put a LB on him in the passing game (hell let him be open underneath hes not getting any YAC as shown in the LAC game). I think Kroft is a better weapon and is hopefully active over him going forward. Im hoping this is a situation where they are seeing what they got with him before the end of the season (in the case they need him). We are an offense predicated on the pass I struggle with why he is active when his primary contribution is in a part of the game we are looking to attack less.

I thought they might give Baker a bone. But super happy they went with the right one

Ready is not a binary thing to me. I think that loss causes them to be less ready than otherwise. I don’t think that’s very wishful at all.

It’s not that they will be thinking of WFT on Sunday or that their routine would change. It’s that they would be dwelling on the loss that would take away from their preparation. This mental preparation is also part of the reason why it’s a week to week league.

I agree and would go so far to say it was his and Dirty Harrys best game of the season. He’s not on the active roster and I think it’s pretty clear he wouldn’t be a clear upgrade THIS season. I think we’ll see more next year.

I don’t think it’s a myth but I agree it’s a tough rebound for them. Difficult to put the screws to your players when they have so many games so soon and have had so much success. I’m hoping they just want a break (there bye came early and unexpectedly) which lets us just steam roll them.

Maybe. I do think they intend to run the clock down at the start of their 2 min drive at the end of the half to not give the other team the ball back (49ers had 3 TOs still so you cant start with an incompletion). It is more likely to look "conservative" than it is to look like it did last night, but I think thats the approach.

Thanks for the info that is good to know. I still think that we can get pressure on Ben if they decide to go after longer developing plays (last night is a great example of good DL play that forced them to throw it super quick). Claypool concerns me but I am most worried about their interior run game as that still appears to be a weakness (though Phillips and Butler played their best games of the season).

I agree not likely, just a worry (cant cure all my BBFS). We are coming and this is gonna be A LOT of fun in the coming weeks (this was my line before the bye).

Maybe. Could be demoralizing too. Oakland let one loss almost turn into 3. Also short week so any distraction helps (worry for us is we get to high on ourselves).

Thought of you last night and in the Hawks game when our returns got stopped inside the 5. Both of those were similar returns. Sorta bouncing around and almost pulling off the silly TD return.

Diggs had a sneaky good game though. He had 6 first downs (maybe not too surprising considering the 9 ypr)! Lots of them critical in the second half too.

Yeah no doubt a tough game. They are still a good team; I just think after a loss might be the best time to be catching them (thats contrary to usual).

Im sorta meh on them figuring out our red zone offense. If you replace lee smith with Kroft thats a TD on the first drive (its not supposed to go to the Tackle, we havent thrown to the tackle on that play once this year). The second time they "got us" it was more cause of that 3rd down holding call. Their run defense was good which made it hard for us.

Baseball analogy is tough to me. Hitting a pitch is like one of the hardest things to do in sports and doesnt involve the "team." If you know the play sometimes all you need is to blow up a single assignment and the play is defeated.

Maybe but some of those plays they def didnt know. The wheel to Mckenzie hasnt been run this year so I dont think they knew that was coming. Obviously on the Davis TD they thought they knew what was gonna happen. To me a more humbled tone is "even when we thought we knew what they were gonna do we were wrong." Guess I would accept "we knew they would dink and dunk and we were ok with it but that cost us when we were too aggresive."

You could be right, but I could see that loss spiraling to more than one. Lose a heartbreaker to an NFC East to break your chance at history. That can be the thing that sticks in your mind longer than it should (and theyll need all that time cause we coming).

I think I maybe understand, but yeah its was mind boggling to me all week. I knew it was a lot of money coming in on the 49ers with the way the line moved. If I had to guess why, I think people just looked at surface level numbers of Bills bad against the run and 49ers were good running last year and this years stats arent very indicative. On the other side the 49ers are good against the pass (maybe not realizing they have a losing record so those numbers are probably distorted). Thats the best I have for why it happened.

Yes but if they knew what was coming why did they let it happen I guess. Maybe im biased because of all the fawning over Saleh this week but Dabs out coached him imo.

I honestly think they got high on the coverage of their team. This shouldve been very humbling (and maybe I'm missing it) but saying you know what they were running doesnt acknowledge how soundly you got beat (1 punt ffs!).

Yeah I think its as Chris Simms would say just not thinking how the whiteboard translates to the field. On the board its "O blocks X were good." In reality it could end up being Davis trying to seal Bosa on a run. Thats not gonna work. But honestly that was an amazing game he called last night. He had a lot of answers against a defensive coach everyone was fawning over.

Agree. I think his coverage team has let him down a couple times too when he had great kicks and they got confused by the returner calling fair catch at the 10-15 yard line. I think it was getting missed last year he had one of the highest fair catch rate last year. I think hes figured out how to push it down field a bit more this year and hes gotten a bit more consistent (though i stand by my comments up thread, hes elite when he only punts once).