For those that saw the SF/Seachickens game… what happened?

[Thews40]

Just curious?

[Menudo]

I'd be interested in this as well. I was very surprised by the results, and I was obviously not giving the Seahawks enough credit. I was also likely giving San Francisco too much credit. I have extremely high hopes for Crabtree, and hope this game will be the exception for him, and not the norm.

[keggerz]

didn't see the game but will say that Seattle is never an easy place to play in for the opposition

[Rovers]

I read a blurb that said Crabtree was at fault for both of Smith's INT's. Is that true?

[BearBroncos]

It's Week 1 and we haven't seen Pete Carrols scheme in a couple of years so nothing to prep for. That and one very niosey stadium.

[BearBroncos]

Just remember McDaniels 6-0 start. Once other teams figured him out, it was lights out.

[MrTed46]

To be honest, SF went for it on 4th and 1 (three times I believe all in the first half) and I said to my friend that SF isn't giving Seahawks enough credit and they are taking them lightly. I remember the score was 6-0 when they did go for it. Then SEA just turned it on then it was too late.

 

SEA played great and earned the victory but I think in the beginning SF took they lightly and then it was too late. I expect the 49ers to come back and play better than that.

[Valhalla]

I read a blurb that said Crabtree was at fault for both of Smith's INT's. Is that true?

 

I had asked about this in another thread and the poster responded they were horrendous throws by Smith but...after the 2nd pick there was no involvement by Crabtree (as far as targets) whatsoever so...hard to say. I am very leery about starting him next week..even in the flex. It seems like he's p'd off the team. That's the feeling I get anyways.

[bushwacked]

San Francisco dominated the first half of the game, at one point late in the half, time of possession had to be about 10 to 1. It had the feel of a blow out early on, but in the other direction, San Fran only put 6 points on the board. Alex Smith played horrendous, It looked like he had regressed.

 

Seattle had trouble getting the running game going all day, but the passing game looked quite good, once they got rolling. Seattle's D was very impressive all day long, from the early bend but don't break to completely shutting the 49ers down. I'm asking the same question, even though it's never an easy place to play, they hadn't looked this good against anybody anywhere since the 2007 season.

[bushwacked]

I read a blurb that said Crabtree was at fault for both of Smith's INT's. Is that true?

 

Very well could be, someone in the 49er camp might know that. I know that when he overthrew a wide open receiver for a 5 yard dump TD and intentionally grounded on a 3rd down with minimal pressure from the D, it was Smith's fault.

[champ48win]

The 49ers were waaaaaaay to over hyped in the preseason and now we see who they really are. Now to a 2nd question just how bad is the NFC West you got the 49ers who got torched by the seachickens, the Rams who are just speed bumps, no-one knows what to think of Arizona, and where do we start with the Seahawks, I dont think they are good at all just better than the 49ers at this point.

[Down Goes Frazia]

San Francisco dominated the first half of the game, at one point late in the half, time of possession had to be about 10 to 1. It had the feel of a blow out early on, but in the other direction, San Fran only put 6 points on the board. Alex Smith played horrendous, It looked like he had regressed.

 

Seattle had trouble getting the running game going all day, but the passing game looked quite good, once they got rolling. Seattle's D was very impressive all day long, from the early bend but don't break to completely shutting the 49ers down. I'm asking the same question, even though it's never an easy place to play, they hadn't looked this good against anybody anywhere since the 2007 season.

 

 

bush pretty much covered it. I was there... in fact I was in a red zone suite in the north end zone. At any rate..... the hawks got their asses kicked the 1st half but the D looked great. Gore didn't do crap the whole game. As for the Hawks... Mike Williams stood out.... guy's a beast.

 

And oh yeah..... the noise. Haven't heard that place as loud since the NFC championship in 05..... crazy.

[Vote Quimby2]

Clock management was horrible by the Niners. Their coaching staff was slow to react to everything and burned through their time outs. I know it's only game 1, but when looking at the rest of the conference Seattle has a legit shot at the West. I know that's just being the tallest midget, but it's a lot more than I expected going into this season.

[Vote Quimby2]

bush pretty much covered it. I was there... in fact I was in a red zone suite in the north end zone. At any rate..... the hawks got their asses kicked the 1st half but the D looked great. Gore didn't do crap the whole game. As for the Hawks... Mike Williams stood out.... guy's a beast.

 

And oh yeah..... the noise. Haven't heard that place as loud since the NFC championship in 05..... crazy.

 

 

Yeah, Mike Williams definitely stood out to me as well. So is it too early to start comparing him to Brandon Marshal?

[billay]

Looking back at the play-by play, SF had two interceptions deep in their own territory, Both were balls thrown to Crabtree; one hit him in the hands, the other looked like a poorly thrown ball. One was a pick -6, on the other, SEA scored on the next play.

[bankerboy]

Looking back at the play-by play, SF had two interceptions deep in their own territory, Both were balls thrown to Crabtree; one hit him in the hands, the other looked like a poorly thrown ball. One was a pick -6, on the other, SEA scored on the next play.

 

He had one that hit him in the back shoulder that he didn't catch. I can't remember the other one.

[Seahawks21]

Smith was TERRIBLE. Seattle did get decent pressure. San Francisco looked extremely un-interested. On TV they cut to Singletary about 50 times, and in not one shot was he talking to any of his players or other coaches. He literally just stood there the whole game with a bewildered look. Seattle had like 27 new players, several of which haven't been with the club for more than a week or two, and they looked much more organized and better coached than the 49ers did, which I thought was quite alarming. Earl Thomas makes the Seahawks back end much better early. How did the Seahawks get Chris Clemons so cheap? That guy can rush the passer. Trufant looked like he rolled back the clock. Red Bryant might be a perfect DE in a division with Jackson/Gore/Wells, considering his 330lb frame. Tatupu was absolutely everywhere.

 

The play of the game was when Alex Smith had his FB wide open in the end zone, literally just five yards away from him, on 4th down and threw an uncatchable pass. If they score on that play, we may very well be talking about a blowout the other direction. I am more than shocked. 31-6? Wow.

[skylive5]

To answer the question....

 

No... SF isn't bad, just first game disorganized.

 

No... SEA isn't good, just first game luck.

 

Guarantee that come next week SF players will all be on the same page and Seattle will come back to earth.

 

Though I must say..... Seattle may just have a heck of a D.

[Gopher]

First, you have to keep in mind that it's just one game. Second, as someone already mentioned, Seattle is a tough place to play, and the Niners haven't played well there in recent trips (lost ugly last year, as well, if I remember right). Third, the Niners failed to capitalize in the first half... four trips to the red zone generated six points, due mainly to their inability to convert on 4th down (as someone else already mentioned).

 

My gut feeling is this... At the end of the year, this will probably be looked back at as the 49ers worst game of the year. They're a different team at home, and they did pretty much dominate the first 20 minutes or so of this game... Could have very easily been 20-0 San Francisco, at that point, but as we've seen with many teams this week, a lot of offensive units are not running on all cylinders. Likewise, I don't think Seattle is going to win many more blowouts this year... this could easily be viewed, at year's end, as their BEST game of the year.

 

That said, SF fans have to be concerned about Alex Smith... once they got behind, he sort of seemed to regress as the game went on. The further they got into a hole, the further he regressed (and started making uglier mistakes). This team is built around it's defense getting stops (not so much turnovers, as much as forcing the opponent to punt), and running the football. In other words, they're built to not make mistakes, rather than take big chances, on both sides of the ball. Yesterday, they had to abandon the run, as they got behind... they're never going to be successful when they are forced to go into pass mode. When they were successful passing the ball last year, it was a result of the running game being successful first, not because they HAD to pass (for the most part).

 

I still think the Niners have a good shot at winning the division. I originally said that they would win by 2-3 games, but admittedly, that was before I looked at their schedule. Here is how I see it going down:

 

Group A (Losses): @SEA, NOS, @GB

 

Group B - Games they'll probably lose, but I expect them to pull out at least one win (maybe two) from this bunch: @ATL, PHI, @CAR, @SD

 

Group C (Wins): OAK, DEN, STL, TB, SEA, ARI

 

Group D - Games they should win, but it wouldn't surprise me to see them lose at least one: @KC, @ARI, @STL

 

I'm not naive enough to think that's how it actually WILL go down... they'll most likely surpise somebody with a win, and probably lose to St. Louis. But, at the end of the day, I don't see anybody else in the division ending up better than 8-8. Arizona and St. Louis aren't going to, and Seattle has plenty of tough games outside of the division as well (road games at DEN, NOS, and CHI, and home games against SD, NYG, CAR, and ATL). So, to me, it all comes down to two things for the Niners... Winning the games they SHOULD win, and not panicking if they start out 1-3, 2-4, etc. The start of their schedule is much tougher than the last half, so as long as they stay focused and take care of busines down the stretch, I think they'll finish 9-7 or 10-6, depending on how they do in the games from groups B and D above. If they win more from B than they lose in D, they're in VERY good shape. If they can at least keep those two numbers even (and not let losses in D exceed wins in B, they're still in decent position to end up above .500, in my opinion.

 

All that said, they need to do a much better job of capitalizing on scoring opportunities, and keeping the scoreboard (and time of possession) in their favor. I think they'll learn from yesterday, and make sure that happens. Unfortunately, they face NOS, ATL, and PHI in 3 of the next four weeks, so they could be off to a rough start.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Gopher

[561427]

Blown coverage atleast 3 times by one of the 49ers corners led to big gains and our DEF did its job capitalizing on 49ers coaching risks. We simply played better longer than they did. Surprised that Crabtree and Davis have a bigger pissing contest on the field though. Get them more involved and dont underestimate that early after we toss a pick the first drive of the game and the 49ers will do much better.

[Gopher]

As for Seattle, they didn't exactly light up the boxscore... Running game was essentially absent, so they'll need to figure that out if they truly want to be a factor this year. Their quick scores were a result of mistakes by the Niners, and like I said, they could very well have been down 20-0, in which case those mistakes might not have ever taken place.

 

Where they did look much better than last year was on defense. Having a healthy Tatupu back is huge for them, and Milloy seems to be playing with a new-found source of energy as well. If their defensive unit can stay healthy, you never know... 9-7 or 10-6 isn't totally out of the question, I suppose. I just think winning without running the football is only going to get you so far, and yesterday's score was sort of a fluke... not in the sense that they didn't outplay SF, but rather in the sense that it was a game decided by an enormous momentum swing, from which SF simply couldn't/didn't recover, but contributed to (with their own mistakes) instead.

 

Bottom line... I liked the way their D played, but my gut says they will struggle to run the ball all season, Hasselbeck will get hurt (sooner or later), and their WR group is still a below-average unit, overall. Those things, combined, lead me to believe they're no better than .500 this season, which will probably keep them out of the post-season. If, on the other hand, Hass can stay healthy and they can find a way to run consistently, their schedule COULD allow them to win 9-10 games.

[kpholmes]

49ers are the better team - they were just outplayed in one of the NFL's loudest stadiums, by a squad that demonstrated far more discipline.

 

Four people lost this game for SF:

Mike Singletary - Horrible play calling, horrible clock management, and didn't do squat to get his team back into it. Where is the highly touted coaching we've seen from him?

Alex Smith - Nothing surprising here. Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Michael Crabtree - Stop calling for the ball and talking yourself up if you aren't going to make an effort to catch it ash-hole. Watching him was like watching Moss in Oakland. Definitely responsible for a portion of the offensive follies.

Shawnte Spencer - Got beat like a drum in coverage all day long.

 

Write it down - if Crabtree doesn't change his tune, he'll be out of San Fransisco so fast fans will be asking T.O. who?

[Menudo]

This is an important point in Crabtree's career. The dude has sick talent. He needs to decide what he wants to become. Hopefully he gets his head out of his ass and becomes the player that he can be. I traded to get him as a keeper in a 5-keeper league, and thought I made a great move. Now, I'm concerned.

[Medal of Honor]

Seachickens, hilarious, I see what you did there.

 

Anyway, I was at this game. Here are my observations.

 

1 - The crowd noise at Qwest Field REALLY gets to some QBs. Veteran guys rarely have a problem, but Alex Smith had 3 or 4 "Delay of Game" penalties, as well as a couple of costly false starts. Long amounts of yardage to convert when SF's only real success was coming over the middle of the field.

 

2 - Frank Gore was completely stuffed. Now some people may chalk this up to some sort of arbitrary SF mistake, but this was certainly an area where I just thought the Seahawks outplayed them. If you've payed any attention to the Seahawks in the pre-season, you've seen that not even Chris Johnson or AP did anything at all to them. Their D Front is really a strength of this team.

 

3 - The two picks by Alex Smith were VERY costly. One was a pick six by Trufaunt, the other was taken to the 17 yard line by Babs. This was run in on a bootleg by Hasselbeck the very next play.

 

4 - As mentioned previously, SF was only able to throw in the middle of the field, where the Seahawks gave them space. You could tell that Pete Carrol had the guys in zone almost the whole game, and tried to prevent the big play, rather than bat away every pass.

 

It put Alex Smith in a situation where he couldn't run, and couldn't go vertical for a big play. The Seahawks made Alex Smith beat him, and he just hasn't shown anyone that kind of talent.

 

 

So to answer your question, SF was overhyped in the preseason, and the Seahawks are better than people expected.

[Medal of Honor]

Another huge mistake SF made was being cocky early. When they only had 3 points on the board, they kept going for it on 4th down instead of coming away with points, getting stopped by the Seahawks twice. Pretty bad playcalling by Singletary between this and not abandoning the run earlier.

 

One fantasy note I've been preaching for a couple weeks now - Seattle's defense is for real.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Medal of Honor