Monthly Archives: February 2012

49ers Face Toughest Test

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Published November 11, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

First of all, I want to acknowledge what many 49er fans are feeling this week, which is that old feeling of anticipation about a game on Sunday. This season has been a wonderful ride, but because of the nature of today’s NFL, there haven’t been many Sundays when you had that feeling in your stomach and couldn’t wait for the game.

There are milestones that teams must pass on their way from where the 49ers have been to where they seem headed, and one of them presents itself this week.
The New York Giants represent a rarity in today’s NFL: An historically good team that’s playing well this season. There are six teams with two or fewer losses, but only three — the Giants, the Packers and the Ravens — have been consistent playoff teams over the past several years. The rest are upstarts — the 49ers, Bengals and Lions.

You can make a case that the 49ers are the best team in that latter group. They beat both of the other teams on the road, and while the margins were slim, both wins were, you guessed it, milestones for an improving team. The Cincinnati win was their first in the Eastern Time Zone in recent memory, and the Lions were 5-0 when the 49ers showed up.

The Giants haven’t been dominating this year; they lost to the Redskins in their opener, and somehow lost to Seattle at home. They barely beat Arizona and Miami after trailing for much of those games. But they have three quality wins, Philadelphia, Buffalo and, last week, New England in Foxboro and a lineup that features a QB and several other key players who won a Super Bowl.

You could probably make a good argument that the 49ers should win this game two weeks ago, but the Giants’ win over the Pats last week makes a huge difference. More important was the way they won, coming back after Tom Brady threw for what seemed to be the winning TD, with Eli Manning moving them right back down the field for the win. They’re a team coming into Candlestick Park with an impressive combination of confidence and talent.

I’m not saying that the 49ers are outclassed in this matchup. I think they can win, and Las Vegas agrees with me. It just seems as if 49er fans have a newfound confidence in their team that has gotten a little out of hand, in my opinion, and I don’t hear the Giants getting the respect they deserve.

The 49ers have made big steps — first, beat somebody, anybody! Then come back from a devastating loss. Next, win a road game in the Eastern Time Zone. Now do that again, but against a better team, and let’s spot them, say, a 20-point lead. The win in Detroit was crucial, too. Alex Smith delivering the pass on fourth down was a personal milestone for him, and provided the team one as well. They had beaten an undefeated team in Week 6, and even if Detroit’s schedule was a little soft to that point (and it was), very few teams make it to 5-0 no matter whom they play.

After a bye week, there was another milestone.  To be considered a very good team, you need to beat lousy teams without drama. The 49ers did that not once, but twice in the past two weeks. Cleveland is terrible in every way, and the Redskins aren’t much better.  The only complaint 49er fans could have in either of those games was that the score didn’t reflect the extent to which they were the better team. They moved up and down the field at will, but stalled in the red zone, and that is evidently going to have to be a future milestone because they’re not ready for it yet.

Red zone frustrations aside, neither Cleveland nor Washington were ever a threat to beat the 49ers, and that is a remarkable thing to say about the season this football team is having. San Francisco has practically locked up a playoff berth, so what remains in the regular season is to beat one of the following teams: Giants, Steelers, Ravens. If the 49ers can do that, and win even four of their remaining five division games, they’ll have carved out a 12-win season for themselves, possibly a first-round bye, and the confidence of knowing that they can play with the best teams in the NFL.

And that, 49er fans, is why you’ve had that feeling in your stomach all week. Might as well get used to it, your team is going to play some very big games this year.

Al Davis’ Training Wheels Have Come Off for Hue Jackson

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Written October 24, 2011

The guy facing the most heat today in the Bay Area is Hue Jackson, rookie head coach of the Oakland Raiders. Just last week Jackson seemed in total command of the situation, having dealt firmly and swiftly with a crisis, and he was enjoying playing games with the media regarding his starting QB for Sunday’s game.

That game, of course, was a complete disaster, made worse, in my opinion by Jackson’s decision to throw Carson Palmer to the wolves in the second half with the game already on its way to defcon 5. Worse yet, the post-game press conference revealed that Jackson and Palmer might have been on the same bus, but each was open to the idea of throwing the other under it.

Friday, we learned (courtesy of The Game 95.7 FM) that Jason Campbell learned of Palmer’s acquisition via texts from his friends. Two days after his injury, and one after his surgery, and no contact from the team regarding its decision to essentially end his days as the starting quarterback.

After the events of the last week or so, I started thinking about Al Davis. When Al hired a coach, he almost always hired one without experience. Sometimes they were young men (Madden, Gruden, Kiffen), and sometimes they were not (Shell, Callahan, Shanahan), but they didn’t have head coaching on their resumes. Obviously, Davis was a control freak, and there was a trade-off going on. Davis was going to put training wheels on the bike, and the coaches were willing to put up with that in exchange for the opportunity to be a head coach.

The problem, of course, would come when Davis and his coach would disagree about when it was time to take off the training wheels, which happened every single time.  Sometimes those disagreements ended with a bang (Cable, Kiffin, Shanahan, Gruden) sometimes with a whimper (Callahan, Shell, Shell).

In Jackson’s case, however, the damn things just fell off, leaving him to fend for himself. Like most first time riders, when you first let go they do okay, but the further they go, the wobblier they get, and that’s exactly what we got from Jackson. The day after Davis’ passing the Raiders were still the “Pride and Poise Boys.” The week after his passing, they said and did everything right. It was interesting, though, that Campbell’s injury came just a few minutes before the halftime ceremony honoring Davis, and suddenly that bike was careening down the sidewalk.

The Raiders almost lost that game to Cleveland, due in part to an inexplicable decision by Jackson to pass up a field goal that would have iced the game.  Immediately after the game, the Raiders started examining their options at QB, decided on Palmer, and started negotiating with the Bengals. By Tuesday, the deal was all but done, and the price was steep. Most observers doubted whether Davis would have signed off on that deal, and many of us (myself included) thought that was a good sign for the team.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday came and went, and all we saw was Jackson holding court with the media, playing coy about whom he would start. We found out Sunday after the game that Boller was the starter all the way, and that Palmer, according to comments he made, didn’t make a pass in practice with pads on all week.

Okay, hold on here for a minute. I enjoy the cloak-and-dagger part of football as much as the next guy, and lord knows Al Davis would have loved it, but when you have a QB that doesn’t make a pass with pads on, that guy doesn’t play on Sunday! You can actually make an argument that if he’s that far away from being ready to play, you shouldn’t have given up a 1st and 2nd round pick for him in the first place, but all that aside, there’s no way he plays that week in the game.

The Raider fans were rightfully shocked and dismayed with the outcome of the game, although I feel that the post-game revelations were far more concerning than what happened on the field. Palmer was saying that he didn’t expect to play. Jackson was saying that getting Palmer in the game was part of the plan all along. Let’s examine that for a second. What were we told was the reason why this move was destined for success for the Raiders? Why, it was the close relationship between Jackson and Palmer, wasn’t it? Jackson recruited Palmer to USC, and the two were both survivors of that toxic Bengals situation. That can form a real bond between people!

So tell me again how just a few minutes after the first game of this grand new venture these two men can be telling the media completely opposite accounts of their expectations regarding the plan? To me, that communication breakdown, combined with the failure of the team to be forthright with Campbell, are red flags for me concerning Hue Jackson.

Jackson was exposed last week as a rookie coach who thought he was bigger than the moment, and it turned out he was wrong. He careened down the sidewalk, and the bike overturned in the street. Luckily, no cars were coming, while he got pretty banged up, he gets to ride again.  I think it’s also pretty clear that Amy Trask and Mark Davis need to get a football guy in there as soon as possible to help Jackson. He’s learning how to be a head coach, and to have him also managing these kind of situations is like asking your kid to learn bike-riding and juggling at the same time…without training wheels.

America’s Tebow Obsession

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Published November 18, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

This is not about football. I thought I’d better start with that, this being a sports website and all. I would have hated for someone to read the whole thing and then feel ripped off because there was nothing about “release points” or “technique.”

This is an attempt to explain why Tim Tebow is the most polarizing figure in sports today, and maybe outside of sports as well.

First of all, I’m going to give Raiders fans a pass on the whole Tebow thing. While most of America is grappling over the issue, for Raiders fans it’s pretty simple. The guy wears a Broncos jersey to work. That’s pretty much game over for them.

The fact that he’s apparently revived a division rival that seemed to be dead on the side of the road, they don’t like that very much either. Throw in the way he ran through, around and over the Raiders a few weeks ago, and you can bet that the mere sight of No. 15 is enough to get their blood boiling.

OK, the Raiders fans are sedated and in the other room watching the Super Bowl XI highlight video. Now we can get down to the topic at hand:

What is it about this guy that makes him so easy for critics to dismiss and deride, yet there are also people who would “Forrest Gump” him at the drop of a hat (meaning run behind him from one end of the country to the other for no reason).

Most people aren’t trying to answer this question, by the way. They’ve picked their side, and now they’re rooting like crazy for him to succeed or fail depending on their choice.

There’s another question, however, that is beginning to work its way through the minds of America’s sports fans, and it’s being discussed around thousands of water coolers today: How in the world does he do it?

How does he win these games? How can he play like Clark Kent for 55 minutes, and then turn into Superman for the last 5 (plus overtime, if necessary)? And especially, why do defensive players and special teams guys seem to play so much better when he’s the quarterback, even though they don’t occupy the field at the same time?

Here’s my theory, and it’s pretty simple, really. He’s a really, really good guy. OK, that’s not a news flash, even his detractors always mention it. Here’s why it’s significant, though, in my view: Goodness is very easy to deride and demean, but only from a distance. When you actually come face-to-face with goodness, it’s much harder to have such a negative viewpoint about it.

That’s why the people who believe in Tim Tebow the most are the ones who actually know him. The ones who have looked in his eyes, either in the locker room, on the practice field, or, the past few weeks, in the huddle and on the sidelines. They see the goodness up close.

There was nothing not to like last night about Tebow. He stood up on the podium after the game, complimented his teammates and coaches, explained in considerable detail what went into the winning play, smiled a lot, and seemed very happy to be Tim Tebow.

In another time, Tebow would be a national hero, not a controversial figure. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we live in a world in which cynicism is often rewarded. Our entertainment is largely watching “real people” on TV doing things that allow us to laugh at them, not with them. Here’s a clean-cut, religious, polite, humble guy who, by the way, wins football games in bunches and always has.  What’s not to like? What part of that package would you not show your child and say, “That’s how it’s done?”

But we’re cynical, remember? So we don’t trust Tebow. There must be something wrong with him, right? Nobody’s that good, not even Joe Paterno, for goodness sakes! We are not going to fall for whatever he’s selling, so we can feel good about ourselves when he has his inevitable fall from grace. That’s part of being human, and it’s why we protect ourselves with all manner of defense mechanisms to keep from getting hurt or disappointed.

Here’s the crux of the matter: Goodness is attractive, but it’s also threatening.  Everywhere this guy goes he draws people to him, and he makes them feel better about themselves. Any success expert will tell you that’s at least half the battle, whether you’re trying to sell copiers or win football games.

If you don’t know him personally, though, it’s very easy to see the goodness as arrogance. We assume he thinks he’s better than us because maybe deep down we think he might actually be better than us. That gives us two choices, rise to his level or bring him down to ours, and it doesn’t take long to figure out the path most of us will take given those options. So we pick away at him, even while he goes about the business of winning football games.

I think what it boils down to is that what we think about Tim Tebow says more about us than it does about him. He gives us the opportunity to feel good about someone who is genuinely good, and as time goes on I believe more and more people will take that opportunity.

There will always be people, though, that can’t give in to that, who won’t allow themselves to let their guard down even for a minute lest they be taken for naïve, gullible, or foolish.

Then there are the people who can’t get past the Broncos jersey. That’s OK, Raiders fans. I don’t think even Tebow would want it any other way.

If The NCAA Can Get Replay Right, How Hard Can it Be? MLB, Pay Attention!

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Published on October 24, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Baseball’s refusal to take instant replay seriously has evolved from a minor nuisance to a full-blown disaster over the past several years, and it reared its ugly head again in Game 3 of the World Series. Well, actually, it sent a little warning shot in Game 2, as well.

The Game 2 play I’m referring to was the ball hit by Adrian Beltre in the ninth inning that looked from every replay angle like it changed direction after hitting his foot, before caroming out to shortstop. The ball was ruled a fair ball, and Beltre was an easy out at first base. Fox’s new  “TSA Scan-Cam,” as I like to call it, showed a small white dot on Beltre’s toe, in case the physical reality of a ball hit down and to the left that suddenly went to the shortstop wasn’t enough evidence of the ball’s foul-ness. Readers of a certain age will recall the Warren Commission report on the JFK assassination as using similar logic to that of the umpires on Thursday night.

That play was fairly quickly forgotten, because, after all, the best Beltre could have gotten out of the situation was another pitch to hit from the Cardinals’ flame-throwing closer, so you can’t make a concrete case that the call changed the outcome of the game.
Besides, on Saturday night the umpiring crew, allegedly selected on merit these days, presented proponents of instant replay with some real honest-to-goodness ammunition. They blew a call that prolonged an inning that produced four St. Louis runs, an excellent head start in a game the Cards wound up winning 16-7.  Many baseball experts have attempted to make the point that the call didn’t cost the Rangers the game, but I don’t see how you can definitively say that. Get that call right, and there are two outs with nobody on, which the percentages tell you is a big difference from one on, one out.

Rangers pitcher Matt Harrison, who had been pretty effective so far, got the next batter to top a ball toward first. With two out, that’s an easy play to second or first, but Mike Napoli tried to get the runner at home and threw it away, allowing two runs to score. Harrison, who should have been on the bench watching his team hit, then allowed a single and a ground-ball out (the fourth out of the inning, by my count, but only the second official one), and was removed by Ron Washington.

So not only did the Cardinals get four gift runs from the blown call, but they got the Rangers’ starter out of the game, and there’s no way to know how that impacted the outcome. This was not just any game, it was Texas’ first home game, and the game after the Rangers had wrestled home-field advantage away from St. Louis. They had it, if not taken away from them, made a much more difficult task than it would have been had MLB had any kind of decent instant replay system.

We know these things have happened in baseball for years, and one of the most ironic things about Game 3 was that the beneficiary was the St. Louis Cardinals, the team that got the worst hose job of all time in 1985. They were in the process of putting away the Kansas City Royals in Game 6 when Don Denkinger went to sleep on a play at first base, opening the door for a Royals rally that not only won that game but carried right through Game 7.

Back in 1985, however, instant replay was still considered a technological marvel, and we all had kind of a Star Trek “don’t change the course of history” attitude toward it. There was the “human error has always been part of the game” argument, which is one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said. The NFL was still years away from getting its act together, and I don’t remember anyone suggesting that baseball should start using replays to get calls right.

But time marches on, and the NFL, college football, the NHL and the NBA have incorporated some form of instant replay. The best MLB has been able to do is to look at replays to determine whether home runs were actually home runs, which comes into play a handful of times per year. Other fair/foul calls and outs on the bases have been distinctly excluded from review, leaving the umpires to just “do their best,” which has never really been good enough.

The folly that is MLB’s stance on replay was made clear just about two hours after the blown World Series call. Wisconsin and Michigan State had played 59 minutes and 56 seconds of inspired football with tons at stake for both schools. Wisconsin was playing to remain undefeated and a candidate for a BCS championship game berth, and Michigan State was playing to stay in the hunt for the Big 10 Championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

With :04 on the clock and the score tied, Michigan State launched a Hail Mary pass that wound up in the hands of one of their receivers on the 2 yard line. He immediately put his head down and tried to get in the end zone, but was thrown back by two defenders. The referees called him down on the 1, and the game was going to overtime. Except that every play in every college game is reviewed by a replay official, and after a very short period of time the announcement came that the call had been overturned and it was indeed a touchdown.

In real time, it looked like the refs had gotten it right, but the first look at a goal-line replay showed that the ball had broken the plane of the goal line ever so briefly. If the Badgers had gone on to win in OT it would have been a faulty verdict, and should they have played for the BCS championship the whole season would have been a sham. Because of instant replay, that won’t happen.

There’s no way that college football can do this and Major League Baseball can’t. I could go on and on about the reasons they’ve given in the past, but the debate is over.  Human error on the part of the players we can’t fix, but we can help those human umpires, and we need to.

Al Davis’ Passing Means I’m Free to Root for the Raiders Again!

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Warning: This column will be seen by some as politically incorrect. Anyone sensitive to references to people no longer living that are not 100% gush may want to move to the next link.

I didn’t like Al Davis. There, I said it. Like anyone else who’s been paying attention the past 40 or so years, I understand and respect his impact on the game and the society around the game, but as a human being, the man had flaws like everyone else. Actually, like his talents, even his flaws were bigger than most people’s

First, here’s a little background about me, just for context sake. I grew up in San Francisco, rooting in equal measure for the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s and Warriors. (Sorry, Seals, I tried, but you weren’t on TV enough for me to grasp your game). I felt that all of those teams were “mine,” and felt the joy of victory and pain of defeat as each of them moved through the highs and lows of the 70’s and 80’s. There were some great days, of course, but the worst was “Black Saturday,” the day the Raiders lost on the Immaculate Reception and the 49ers blew a 3-score lead to the Cowboys on the very same afternoon.

Unfortunately, my love for the Raiders was not enough to keep them in Oakland. Al Davis moved the team to Los Angeles. I was angry, and unlike many Raider fans, I never got over it. When he brought the team back, it was even worse, like having someone you used to love deeply move back to town and act like they never tore your heart out.

Over the past several years, I have enjoyed how the team devolved into a dysfunctional mess. To me it was obvious that Davis was way past his “sell by” date as a general manager, and his press conferences each time he hired a new coach proved my point.  The highlight was the “Lane Kiffin Period,” as I like to call it, and if there were ever two people in football who deserved each other more, I don’t know about it. My opinion is that Al Davis was keeping that team from succeeding, just as surely has he had made it succeed 20 years earlier.

This season, however, started off a little differently. I’ve followed Hue Jackson’s career since he was an assistant coach at UOP in the mid-80’s, and while I was glad to see him get the opportunity to be an NFL head coach, I felt that his tenure would be marred by the usual series of strange decisions and events that torpedoed Cable, Kiffin, Callahan, and every other head coach since Tom Flores. The first few games of the season looked very familiar. Underperforming team, blow a big lead in Buffalo, piling up penalties, you know the drill.

Then Al Davis passed away. Let’s look at what’s happened since: Big win on the road in Houston.  Withstood the loss of the starting QB and beat Cleveland. A blockbuster deal, one that Al Davis would not have made, to fill that QB hole.  They’re playing exciting football, and making exciting moves to try to win this season. What’s not to like?

The Raiders also are working behind the scenes in the NFL to try to get the league to tone down the violent image it conveys to TV audiences. They have begged/cajoled/pressured the TV networks to show families at their games having a good time, not just the psychos in the “Black Hole.”   In my opinion, the NFL’s decision to jettison Hank Williams, Jr. from the Monday Night telecast was more about the “rowdy friends” image from which they’re trying to move away than anything he said about the president. I give Amy Trask and the Raiders some credit for that.

The irony is that I’ve spent the last ten years in the belief that Al Davis was holding back the Raiders. If I was right, they need to win now to prove it. That’s not the best reason ever to root for a football team, but it’s good enough for me. I’m on board the Silver and Black bandwagon from this point forward. One thing, though: I’m going to need a bigger seat than I had back in 1981, so scoot over, wouldja?

Harbaugh-Smith Relationship has Precedents

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Published October 6, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Sports fans in the Bay Area have been fascinated by the Jim Harbaugh-Alex Smith relationship since the day the new 49ers coach was hired.

One of his first actions was to announce that Smith would return as QB, much to the disappointment of The Faithful.

After watching Smith struggle for six years, fans were  convinced that he just couldn’t play in the NFL, and the talk shows were full of anger and frustration at the thought of watching No. 11 fling the ball all over Candlestick Park for another season. People just couldn’t imagine that the new coach, a former QB himself, couldn’t see the disaster right around the corner!

Now, with the 49ers at 3-1, with Smith’s performances ranging from “not horrible” to “pretty damn good,” 49er fans are starting to come around to the notion that Harbaugh may have known what he was doing.

You don’t have to look very far to see examples of QB-coach relationships in similar circumstances that worked out pretty well. One took place in Oakland, where Jim Plunkett, who had suffered through 10 nondescript seasons, hooked up with Tom Flores, a former QB himself, and the two combined for two Super Bowl championships.

Had there been a sports talk radio community in those days, it would have been very interesting how the Plunkett signing would have played on the air.

I had the opportunity to talk to a QB who had an experience like this. Sonny Jurgensen is a Hall of Famer, but looking at his career stats you have to feel for the guy.

He led the Eagles to a 10-4 record in his first year as an NFL starter (he was 27, by the way, that’s how it worked then), then suffered through eight non-winning seasons with Philly and Washington. He had good stats, mostly because his teams were always behind, but had played for a succession of coaches who didn’t “get” the passing game. One of those coaches, ironically, was one of the greatest QBs ever, Otto Graham.

That all changed in 1969. The legendary Vince Lombardi, who had retired from Green Bay after the 1967 season, was ready to go back to coaching. The Redskins hired him, and Jurgensen told me, “People know Lombardi for the Packer Sweep, and the defense, and the toughness, but what I learned was that he really was a master of offensive football. I had open receivers all over the field for the first time in my career. It was like the sun came out.”

Jurgensen led the league in attempts, completions, and passing yards. The Redskins went 7-5-2, their first winning season since 1955. Unfortunately, Lombardi was stricken with cancer, and died before the ‘Skins could build on his success. After one year with an interim coach, George Allen was hired and his defensive mindset propelled the Redskins to Super Bowl VII, but Jurgensen’s days of leading the NFL in passing were over.

Steve Young is another player who spent a couple of years in the USFL, played in the NFL for a terrible team, then came to the 49ers, where the QB position was the center of the universe.

He made a very interesting comment about Harbaugh and Smith on KNBR the week before the season’s first game. He was asked point-blank whether he could see Alex Smith hoisting the Super Bowl trophy, in a 49ers uniform. Young paused for about five seconds, and then said “I can.” He went on to explain that as a guy who played several years for coaches who didn’t understand the QB position and didn’t know how to call plays, he knows personally the difference when you get to a situation where the coach and the system are conducive to quarterback play.

Calling plays in the NFL is a lot harder than it looks from your couch, and anyone who has watched the 49ers for any of the past six seasons knows that with very few exceptions that has been a very weak point for this team. Fans have been very critical of the offensive coordinators over the years, but at the same time they have held Smith ultimately responsible for the team’s failure to move the football.

Young’s primary concern for Harbaugh and Smith this season was that because the fans had seen six years of futility from Smith there was no margin for a slow start. He felt that if the Niners got off to an 0-2 start, the crescendo of boos from the stands would be impossible to ignore, and with only a rookie behind Smith, Harbaugh, despite his own job stability, would be off to a very rocky start with the fans.

Fortunately, that isn’t what happened. In fact you could argue that the opposite has taken place, and Smith has shown enough development in the first four games that even if he has a rough game or even two, he and his new coach will have at least a few weeks to try to work out the kinks.

So next time you see Alex Smith trying to explain what’s different about playing for Jim Harbaugh, understand that what he’s trying to say is, “It’s like the sun came out.”

Criticism of Harbaugh comes from outside

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Published September 21, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

After the 49ers collapse against the Dallas Cowboys, the focus of the talk shows was not the failure of the offense, the defense, or even the special teams. It was Jim Harbaugh’s non-declination of a penalty that has the 49er Faithful’s golden knickers in a knot.

This having happened several days ago, I’m going to assume you know what I’m talking about, and get right to my point. It seems that there’s a clear line separating the people who think Harbaugh did exactly the right thing, and the people who think he’s a pantywaist softy who was playing not to lose.

The difference? The people who have played the game are with Harbaugh on this, and the ones who have watched it all their lives are against him.

At this point, we need some disclaimers. I’m a line-crosser on this, in that I am a non-player, but I’m in Harbaugh’s camp on this decision.  I don’t always defer to the guys inside the lines on these matters (see my column last week on wasted timeouts), but I usually do, and in this case, I don’t think there’s even a question.

I understand the impulse. We’re pretty used to second-guessing the 49ers’ head coaches around here, because it’s been a really, really long time since we’ve had one that knew more than we do. We were all raised on Bill Walsh and the West Coast Offense, so the Mike Nolan/Mike Singletary years were pretty tough to stomach.  But folks, it’s time to back off.

Jim Harbaugh grew up in the game. Everybody knows by now; his father’s a coach, his brothers are coaches, he played for years in the NFL and has now paid his dues coaching at two levels in college. He completely transformed Stanford in four years. It’s going to take him some time to get the players he wants around him, and get rid of the ones he doesn’t, but he’s going to do it, and in the meantime he’s going to try to win every game he can.

So the notion that he was “playing not to lose,” which is what I heard a lot of on the radio the last two days, is ridiculous!

Harbaugh’s detractors seem to zero in on two specific reasons that they think the coach made the wrong move: 1) declining the penalty would have allowed the 49ers to kill some clock and 2) the three points he was taking off the board would have been readily available should he have needed them later.

Here’s why they’re wrong on both counts: 1) the Cowboys owned the line of scrimmage at that point, and even handoffs to Frank Gore were getting dangerous. Taking a knee isn’t a great strategy with 11:16 left in the game, so the 49ers were going to have to run some plays. Assuming they gained nothing, which seems to be okay with most of these people, they then line up for a 40-yard field goal, which, according to them, is automatic. 2) No 40-yard field goal, especially at Candlestick on a late afternoon, is automatic. Take that FG off the board, and the TD the Cowboys got could have been the tying score, and the FG that sent the game to OT could have won it.

People who have spent their lives inside the lines on the field know that nothing is automatic. Ask Roger Craig if “running some clock” is automatic. His fumble against the Giants in the 1990 NFC Championship game kept the 49ers out of their third straight Super Bowl. While you’re at it, ask any placekicker in the history of the game how “automatic” a 40-yarder at Candlestick is, and be prepared for some derisive laughter.

I’m not saying that Jim Harbaugh is perfect. He did let his quarterback burn the final timeout of the first half on a 3rd-and-19, thereby removing any chance of challenging a referee’s call, but the declined penalty? It’s time to let that one go, folks.

 

Why are five yards worth one timeout?

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Published September 15th, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

I’ve been watching sports pretty carefully for quite a few years, and while I would never claim to know everything about every sport, I have a pretty good understanding of the basics. Football teams throughout professional and college football have been making the same mistake over and over again, and I’ve decided it’s time that I help them out a little bit.

My mission here is to reduce the number of timeouts that are wasted by quarterbacks as the play clock runs down. On the surface, it seems like a good decision. I mean, nobody likes penalties, and if you can avoid them, why not do it?

Well, here’s why not. Let’s start with some math:

Average number of yards per team, per game, in the NFL last year: 336. Number of timeouts per team, per game, in any NFL game: 6

Okay, now to make the math a little easier, let’s say you’re not an average NFL team, let’s say you’re below average, and you gain 300 yards per game. A five-yard penalty represents 1/60th of your total yardage. Any one of your timeouts represents 1/6th of your allotment, unless it’s the second half, in which case it’s 1/3rd, unless you only have two or one, in which case it’s even more.

So you’re taking a precious commodity, something you have 6 or less of, and spending it to save yourself 1/60th of the yardage you can expect to gain in the game. Does that make any sense at all? If you’re an average team, or a good one, 5 yards represents even a smaller percentage of your average output.

Now, before you all lose your mind; please understand that I know there are times when it makes sense to do this. 3rd-and-1 in the fourth quarter, for instance. Sometimes your field position might dictate that you really couldn’t stand to lose the five yards, perhaps because it would move you out of field goal range. I can think of several more instances where it would pay to spend that timeout, and I’ll list a few later in the column.

My point, however, is that no QB seems to give it that much thought. Can you remember a time in the past few years when you saw a QB look up at the play clock, see it running down and just take the five-yard hit? I sure can’t! It’s reflexive now, and not just in the pros. The colleges have caught the bug, too, and now their stadiums have the play clock on display so they can waste perfectly good timeouts to save five yards.

Here’s a real-life example of what I’m talking about. Monday night, in the 3rd quarter, the Raiders burned a timeout facing 3rd-and-8. What are the percentages of making a 3rd-and-8?  About 35%. They actually did convert that play for a first down, and later in the same drive they burned their second timeout on 3rd-and-16! What’s the percentage of making 3rd-and-16? Are you kidding me?

So it’s like the Raiders made a bad bet, got lucky, and then they made one that was ten times worse. They threw incomplete on the 3rd-and 16, and wound up having to punt after burning two timeouts on the “drive.” It didn’t cost them the game, but it sure could have!

So did ESPN’s analysts say this when they were calling those timeouts? Nope. Did the Raiders’ announcers talk about it? Nope. Oh, you may hear a broadcaster lament the “clock management.” The 49ers have been raked over the coals over the past couple of years for not getting their plays in on time, but the issue is always with the sideline getting the play to the QB. The lost timeout is just considered the cost of mismanaging the clock, as if the option of taking the penalty doesn’t exist.

How important are timeouts? I guess I need to point this out, because people seem to have forgotten. You can survive on offense without timeouts in a catch-up situation, because there are several ways to stop the clock. On defense, however, you’re dead in the water without timeouts. If you’re down by two scores late in the game, and you get one back, you need your timeouts to have any chance to get the ball back. If you don’t have three timeouts, or at least two and the 2:00 warning, you pretty much need to recover an onside kick to win that game, and once again we’re talking about a very low percentage play.

Even in the first half, timeouts are important. They can be the difference between getting a field goal team on the field at the end of the half and not being able to do so. Let’s not forget that if you don’t have any timeouts, you can’t challenge a referee’s call, even if it’s obvious to everyone in the stadium that it would be overturned.

So I thought, in order to help out, I would lay out a few tips on when to take the timeout and when not to:

Don’t take the timeout if:

It’s first down; It’s second down and more than two; It’s third down and more than five; It’s the first quarter, or the first drive of the third quarter; You’re inside your own 40; It’s your last one of the half or game.

Always take the timeout if:

It’s third or fourth down and the five yards would move you out of field goal range; It’s third and less than five; It’s second and one or two; You’re behind by more than three TD’s anytime in the game, or two TD’s in the second half.

The bottom line here is that at any particular point in the game, the timeout may be more valuable, or the yardage could be more valuable. Many factor too into that, and I think coaches have just bailed out on the whole question by telling their QB’s to just call the timeout every time. I also think there’s an opportunity for teams with the patience to teach the QB just a few guidelines to go by (perhaps mine would be a good start), and let them make that decision when the time comes. I think they’ll be grateful to have those timeouts in their pockets when the game is on the line.

Agree, disagree? I’d love to hear what you think on this topic.

Giants Show Repeating is Harder Than it Looks

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Published September 7, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

I think I’m going to surprise you with my next statement. Outside of the New York Yankees, only one Major League Baseball Team has repeated as World Series Champions since the Reds did it in 1975-76. I’ll give you the rest of the column to come up with the team that did it, and I’ll bet some of you can’t.

This topic is of particular interest these days in the Bay Area, as it becomes increasingly clear that barring two very unlikely events (A D-Backs’ collapse and a Giants’ hot streak), the local lads will be added to the long and distinguished list of World Series Champions who came up short in their bid to repeat.

So what’s so hard about repeating? You’ve got great players, obviously, with the playoff experience you need and the confidence to know they can do it. That’s what the announcers always talk about when they break down a series. The team that’s “been there before” is always given an edge over a team without that experience.

Well, maybe that experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and in fact, maybe it should be looked at as a detriment! Is it possible that players who haven’t won a World Series have a fire in their bellies that goes out once they win one? That no matter how much they all talk about how much they want to defend that title, it’s just not quite as important as winning it the first time?

I think the Giants, while not a classic example of this theory, have shown some signs of it. Last year, they had less playoff experience than the Phillies, and it didn’t matter at all. Cliff Lee’s experience was supposed to give him the edge over Lincecum in the World Series, and it didn’t matter at all.

This year, the experience hasn’t helped them. When Aaron Rowand and Miguel Tejada were jettisoned from the club last week, several anonymous players told the media that their demands for playing time in the face of overwhelming evidence that they weren’t getting the job done was wearing on their teammates and the coaches.

I’m sure there are others in that locker room whose playing time was impacted by the arrival of Carlos Beltran and the other trade deadline acquisitions who have not been able to keep their frustrations to themselves, but let’s zero in on Rowand right now. Here’s a guy making a very high salary, with two World Series rings, and a long succession of terrible at-bats this season. You’d think a guy like that would be able to say to himself, “Aaron, let’s be a team guy, work real hard to get on track, and make the most of whatever opportunities come our way, and help this ballclub try to get back to the World Series.”

But he couldn’t do it … even though he did it LAST YEAR, and it worked out perfectly, except for one thing. His ego, without which he never would have made the major leagues, could not take another year of being a reserve on a good team. I think if the Giants had traded him to Houston for Jeff Keppinger he would have been very happy if it meant he would get to play every day.

I’m not saying it makes him a bad guy, either. I’m saying it shows how hard it is to get 25 guys “pulling on the same rope.” I think it also illustrates how masterful Bruce Bochy was last year at getting so many players to accept lesser roles than they were accustomed to. I think what we learned is that players will do that once, but they won’t do it year after year, even in a case like Rowand’s where he’s made much more money than his production would have indicated.

You can almost understand a player’s desire to be selfish if he’s early in his career and he hasn’t had that big payday yet, but Rowand and Tejada are not that guy. They are, however, players getting toward the end of the line, and in Rowand’s case, another ring was not going to change his life. He’s trying to squeeze as many at-bats out of his remaining days in the majors as he can, and I don’t blame him, but nobody forced him to sign that contract. That’s the one thing that kept him on the bench for the Giants this year rather than playing for another team, nothing else.

The Yankees have had two things going for them that helped them solve this problem: 1) Their owner never accepted not winning the World Series as a successful outcome of a season and 2) That owner would back up that stance with the money to bring in a couple (or a few) hungry veterans who wanted to get their championship ring before the clock ran out on their careers, and they would accept any role on the team to get it. It’s unbelievable that they won three titles in a row, and came within a whisker of adding a fourth in 2001.

So what team is the only one besides the Yankees to repeat since 1974? How about the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993?  There weren’t very many players who were integral to both teams, just Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar, Devon White, Tony Fernandez and John Olerud. On the other hand, here’s a list of players who were on one or the other team, but not both: Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Candy Maldonado, Dave Stewart, Tom Henke, Jimmy Key, and David Cone. Jack Morris was on both teams, and had a great 1992 season, but was 7-12 in 1993 and didn’t pitch in postseason.

So my theory is that the simple fact that the Giants won a championship last year made it harder for essentially the same club to come back and win it this year. Add in injuries to Posey, both Sanchezes, Sandoval, Wilson and about ten other guys, sign one aging veteran who turns out to be terrible, make a deadline deal that kills whatever chemistry you still had, and it’s amazing that they’re as close to the D-Backs as they are. If only those players weren’t so darn human!

Giants fans quick to boo, quick to forget 2010?

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Published August 29 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

Since the beginning of August, the experience of being a Giants fan has changed pretty dramatically. It’s understandable that there’s some angst out there, and frustration, and even desperation regarding the chances to make the postseason.

What’s surprising to me is the anger! Listen to the talk shows, read the #sfgiants posts on Twitter, check the comments here on the CSN Bay Area site and those of the local papers, and you’re bombarded with angry fans who sound like 5-year-olds who’ve had their favorite toy taken away. Oh, wait, do 5-year-olds swear? OK, 15-year-olds, then.

You’d think that the Giants were the Yankees, a perennial contender and occasional champion, who had disappointed their spoiled fans by daring to miss the postseason. Is it possible that Giants fans have gotten this spoiled this quickly? With one measly championship?

Let’s review. In 2010, the Giants were the feel-good story of the young century, finally delivering a World Series championship to their faithful fans who had patiently waited over 50 years for it. They did so with some spectacular pitchers and despite a lineup of statistically ordinary players, including a guy, Cody Ross, whom they claimed on waivers just to keep him from San Diego.

During the offseason, management was in a tough spot. The players who had brought this championship needed to be rewarded, of course, but the fact remained that they were still relatively ordinary players. Now we’ve found out that without the fairy dust that was apparently being sprinkled around last year they’ve become even more ordinary.

August is drawing to a close, and the fans have every right to be disappointed. But let’s take a step back. No Buster Posey. No Freddy Sanchez. No Jonathan Sanchez, for all practical purposes. No Barry Zito for the most part, although for three weeks he looked like he was going to help. Practically no production from Andres Torres. Miguel Tejada has done the impossible; disappoint despite extremely low expectations. Ross was hurt in spring training and has never recovered. Aubrey Huff must be the least productive starting first baseman in either league.

I could address the offense, and it’s tempting, but I’m kind of in a hurry to get to this next part. For the last two weeks, in the most desperate time for this desperate team, they’ve been without Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo, their best two relievers. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fine bullpen, but you take the top two guys out of any team’s ‘pen and make them play for a few weeks like that, it’s not going to be pretty.

Sunday’s loss to the Astros was the third time in the past two weeks that Romo and Wilson were unavailable and the bullpen gave up the go-ahead run, and it actually happened twice in that game. What would the situation look like if the Giants had won one or two of those games, let alone all three?

So, I get the disappointment. It’s obviously much more fun when your team wins all the games, or even just all the close games. But I don’t think Giants fans have any right to be angry. It may feel good to dump on Ross, but believe me, if the Giants felt like they had a better option, he’d be in there! This was a team that started off weak on offense, and then was decimated by injuries. Have people forgotten that they put six players on the DL during one 10-game road trip, and had five more miss games for minor injuries?

You hear a lot of resentment about Giants fans. They’re called front-runners, bandwagoners and worse. One of the reasons is the perception that they all just showed up last year in September, and rode the wave through the playoffs. Now, I know that’s not true. The Giants’ attendance has been excellent ever since they moved to AT&T Park, despite some pretty bleak seasons over the past few years. But when you hear fans booing a team that won the World Series last year and is only a handful of games out of first place, it’s hard to argue with their critics.

So man up, Giants fans (including the many women who follow this team). Nobody promised you a World Series championship every year. I expect to have to explain that to my 7-year-old daughters, to whom history extends back one year, but I would think that grown-ups would have a better attitude about this. Root for your team, be bummed out if they don’t make the playoffs, and thrilled if they do. After all, as we all learned last year, victory is much sweeter when it’s unexpected.