SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS vs BALTIMORE RAVENS - Week 13 PREGAME

Originally posted by PA49ersfan:

Originally posted by IHATELOWELLCOHN:
Normally the early start time and my natural pessimism would lead me to believe this game is an L. However this is no normal season and this team is special. Not just on the field but watching the defense interact with the offense in the lockeroom during the postgame speeches. The way that every single player deflects attention to teammates consistently. It's a nice change of pace during the build my brand era we currently live in.

They laid the foundation for two years and it all came together this year. Whether they win this weekend or not this team is going a long way this year (health permitting). It will be a tough game but they'll be ready to go. They have a tough schedule the rest of the way but they they will be battle tested come playoff time. Iron sharpens iron. Time to get some. They're gonna be physical and run the rock. They're gonna punch us in the face but we'll punch harder. Let's get it boys. Can you feel it??? It's in the weather and I can smell it. Love this time of year. Playoffs are coming!!! I don't care if it's at home or on the road this team is coming to put a foot in yo ass.

Nice.

With a 10 win season, I think playoffs are pretty much in the bag. Now the question is how do you get past the playoffs and into the super bowl? It's defense, pass rush, and a good ball control offense. We have all the ingredients, Baltimore (I think) is missing the all important pass rush ingredient in my opinion. I think if we can get Lamar into 3rd and long and force him to pass or if he runs out of 3rd and long in an RPO, if we can get a good solid hit on him and he loses some yardage or if he gains some yardage, that goes a long way to intimidate them - in a sense.

Originally posted by CatchMaster80:

Originally posted by Giedi:
Just personally, if this is a preview of the super bowl, I wan to win this game, from a mental standpoint. I want them at a mental disadvantage when we face them in the playoffs. I want every edge I can against any of the playoff teams.

I can see that but you can also look at it from the losing teams' view. They might learn a few things in a loss and go into a rematch with a revenge motive. The Ravens might be overconfident. We have to get there first. Even the ravens aren't a sure thing since they will have to get past the Patriots. I never under estimate Belichick in the playoffs.

Well I'm just going by our 1981 season. We beat the Bungles in regular season and we killed them in the super bowl.

Having said that, of course, a loss against Baltimore in the regular season doesn't mean we can't beat them in the super bowl.

Originally posted by Rascal:

Let's just hope so. But, if you have watched the game last night, they have improved substantially from earlier on in the season.

And the most worrying part is Saleh still doesn't have a clue how to defend against mobile QBs. May be is indefensible. How many DCs have they smoked now? Belichick and Wade Philips are probably top of the bunch. Think of it this way, in 2012 when we had Kap and Greg Roman, we also ran the read option via the pistol formation, we smoked Belichick and Brady too.

Get this, they scored in every single one of their 6 drives last night!! Aaron Donald was reduced to a scrub by double-teaming him. It was a case of total domination.

They seem to get better each week, they are scary good right now.

As for mobile QB's, most teams struggle to contain and defend against them for 4 quarters. Neither of the 2 mobile QB's we faced had more than 60 some yards against us with their legs, but they both managed to make a play or two against us with their legs. Murray had 30 some yards in our first meeting with AZ.

Jackson has been held to less than 60 yards rushing only twice all year. Once against Miami in a game where they smoked the Phins and he threw for 300+ yards and 5 TD's and once against KC where he had 40 some yards rushing. He had 100+ yard game VS Seattle and 60 some against the Pats.

Originally posted by evil:

Originally posted by Rascal:
Let's just hope so. But, if you have watched the game last night, they have improved substantially from earlier on in the season.

And the most worrying part is Saleh still doesn't have a clue how to defend against mobile QBs. May be is indefensible. How many DCs have they smoked now? Belichick and Wade Philips are probably top of the bunch. Think of it this way, in 2012 when we had Kap and Greg Roman, we also ran the read option via the pistol formation, we smoked Belichick and Brady too.

Get this, they scored in every single one of their 6 drives last night!! Aaron Donald was reduced to a scrub by double-teaming him. It was a case of total domination.

They seem to get better each week, they are scary good right now.

As for mobile QB's, most teams struggle to contain and defend against them for 4 quarters. Neither of the 2 mobile QB's we faced had more than 60 some yards against us with their legs, but they both managed to make a play or two against us with their legs. Murray had 30 some yards in our first meeting with AZ.

Jackson has been held to less than 60 yards rushing only twice all year. Once against Miami in a game where they smoked the Phins and he threw for 300+ yards and 5 TD's and once against KC where he had 40 some yards rushing. He had 100+ yard game VS Seattle and 60 some against the Pats.

Rams were so scared of Lamar that they played zone behind a read and react 3-4. I like the fact that our Wide 9 is an aggressive defense and is very hard to defeat against a lateral type run offense - which is what I think the RPO play is. It attacks the edges and seeks for the QB to break containment, the counter to that is the inside runs that Baltimore used to counter Ram's loading up to stop Lamar on the outside. I think a key is run blitzing Azeez or Greenlaw depending on and guessing on the RPO's playside and would contain that RPO, but leaves you vulnerable to the play pass. I'd only use those against Baltimore in the redzone when you have the back of the endzone as an extra defensive back.

I think worrying about the SN implications of this game is silly. We have a LONG way to go before that. It's more important since we have the rest of the NFC breathing down our neck and we have a tough schedule.

Yeah it's cool.for fans that's it's a potential preview, but I think we should worry about winning so we can somehow hope to keep the #1 seed.

The Rams looked awful against the Ravens because they were too slow. Hollywood roasted the secondary and their linebackers were in constant chase mode. Half the time Clay Matthews was looking around and not even ready by the time the ball was snapped.

The Ravens have speed at wideout and QB, paired with power in the middle with their OL and RB. You need to be able to defend all of it.

The Ravens swept our division opponents and the Niners swept theirs. This is going to be a dogfight and I believe we have the talent to go toe-to-toe with a powerhouse like them. We have to legally hit Lamar on every single chance we get, RPO and all. Lehhss Goooo Niners!!

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
The Rams looked awful against the Ravens because they were too slow. Hollywood roasted the secondary and their linebackers were in constant chase mode. Half the time Clay Matthews was looking around and not even ready by the time the ball was snapped.

The Ravens have speed at wideout and QB, paired with power in the middle with their OL and RB. You need to be able to defend all of it.

They may have speed, but are they good at receiving? The stat machine says no. Having said that, they looked pretty darn good against the Rams. I think the key to winning this game is our offense against their defense. If we can run on that defense and score on that defense and keep pace with their offense, our DLine will eventually get to Lamar and have them go 3 and out and that's when our offense can get a jump on them and start strangling their offense with the pass rush.

Niners clinch a playoff birth with a win and a Rams loss, correct?

The one thing I'm worried about our cover three are the horizontal short routes and the Lamar sweeps. Someone underneath will need to chase that down but they are fast and we don't normally have a CB sit there like a cover 2 does.

Originally posted by maximusdecimus:
Is there any rule against posting stuff from other fan sites? Some old timer just posted how the patriots (or any other team for that matter) can beat the ravens. The ravens are running stuff from a long time ago. This is from patfanken over at patsfans.com:

What you are seeing from the Ravens isn't anything new at all. In fact it is very VERY old. The Ravens offense is just a rehashed version of the old single wing offense that was all the rage in the 20's, 30's, and 4o's, and didn't become dated until the early 50's when the wing-T formation. Back when I coached, there was still ONE team in the area that ran the wing T into the late 70's. North Quincy HS still ran it, and it was a tough thing to stop since you only saw it once a year. And as the DC it was my job to stop it.

My high school (Clovis West) ran the Wing-T until the late 90's. We were very successful with it.

we should bring in ck to help simulate what lamar does

Defense could have really used Kwon this game to help Warner when Lamar tries to escape the pocket.

I don't know if even Lamar can escape this.

Originally posted by cciowa:
we should bring in ck to help simulate what lamar does

cc will now volunteer to be taken outside and have the s**t beaten out of him