One day changes everything for 49ers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — One day changed everything. One day, and the 49ers were winners, the Seahawks losers and a championship, while still as far off as December is from September, became not only imaginable but very possible.

Things had started so poorly for the Niners, that rout in Seattle, that surprise at home by Indy. Three games into the season, and already the Niners were two behind the Seahawks, who seemed unbeatable if not invincible.

But Sunday there was a change. Sunday the Niners looked like the Niners, and the Seahawks dropped their first game.

That was in the afternoon, at Indianapolis, to the Colts, and Niner fans know how good the Colts can be, having stunned San Francisco at the 'Stick.

Niner coach Jim Harbaugh said he didn’t pay attention to what happened to Seattle. He certainly paid attention to what happened a few hours later to San Francisco.

The 49ers, as if shot out of a cannon, mentally if not physically, grabbed a 7-0 lead just 1 minute, 30 seconds after kickoff, when Tramaine Brock intercepted a pass by Houston’s Matt Schaub and turned it into an 18-yard touchdown.

Four straight games Schaub has thrown a “pick six.” The romp was on. Final score, Niners 34, Texans 3.

“A huge play,” said Harbaugh, emphasizing the obvious. “A great play by such a great guy. He was in perfect position. Played the coverage perfect and then finished the play.”

A play that helped re-establish an identity that the Niners, a Super Bowl team last year, may have lost, if only briefly.

“I think for us,” said quarterback Colin Kaepernick, “we needed to get back to playing our style of football. Hard-nosed football.”

Football that succeeded even though, from the end of the first quarter to the start of the fourth, Kaep had 13 straight incompletions. Then, as happens for excellent players on excellent teams, he hit one — for 64 yards and a touchdown to Vernon Davis.

Schaub is Houston’s problem. Schaub is Houston’s story. Still, he’s an important part of the mix for the Niners. Brock intercepted him a second time.

“I just came in and did my job to step up in the place of the nickel back,” said Brock, referring to Nnamdi Asomugha. “I’m not a guy to talk on microphones. I love football and just want to play football.”     

Tony Jerrod-Eddie, another backup, at defensive tackle because Ray McDonald incurred a bicep injury earlier in the game, made it a third pick.

“We got points off all the turnovers,” said Harbaugh.

It’s a given that you'll win, or at least tie, when the other team doesn’t score a single touchdown. When’s the last time an NFL game ended 3-0?

The last time someone asked Schaub, who had a passer rating of 32.2 (Kaepernick’s, even with the misses and drops, was 89) about his confidence was immediately after the game.

“It’s tough right now,” said Schaub, not explaining exactly what he meant.

Three weeks ago we were questioning Kaepernick about his confidence, about the team’s confidence. No longer, and after consecutive victories (the Niners are 3-2) the familiar question arises: Does winning breed confidence or does confidence breed winning?

The Niners again are who they used to be, and in this case the past very well may be future.

“The season is forged by how you play in these early games,” said Harbaugh. “I don’t know if it just necessarily picks up from one year to the next. Every year is a new year in establishing what your identity is.”

Even if for a while the most identifiable players are missing.

Patrick Willis, the all-pro, was out. Asomugha, once an all-pro, was out. These Niners, spurred by the quiet man, Brock, storm on. It was defense that won for the Niners in Harbaugh’s previous two years, and — along with Frank Gore and Kaepernick moving the ball — it will be defense that will win again. If the Niners are to win again.

“When we get everybody back,” said Michael Wilhoite, who started in place of Willis, “we are going to be two, three deep at every position. That’s what you need.”

The Niners also need a sharper Kaepernick, yet in the NFL no one — Peyton Manning perhaps the exception — is great every week.

Tom Brady struggled Sunday, in a downpour at Cincinnati. Colin Kaepernick appeared to struggle Sunday, in rare high 70-degree weather at Candlestick.

Kaep completed only 6 passes in 15 attempts, four of them on the first drive.

“We have a great defense and a great running game,” was his response. Then, asked if he was aware that he didn’t have a completion in either the second or third quarter, he said, “No, I was aware that we’re up, and that we needed to run to keep our offense on the field.”

Did he notice the Seahawks lost?

“We,” he said sternly, “are worried about us winning.”

That is the essence of focus.

Defenses have figured out how to stop 49ers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Jed York gave the straightforward answer. Jed York, who doesn’t draw up game plans or carry the ball, but in effect as 49ers team president carries the responsibility of having everything done properly, explained what would be done about Aldon Smith.
  
Neither head coach Jim Harbaugh nor quarterback Colin Kaepernick could be, or would be, as forthright, about another problem: the way the Niners have been playing football.
    
San Francisco lost another on Sunday, this time at Candlestick Park, where the crowd of 69,732 appeared more bewildered than irate. Maybe the 29-3 defeat at Seattle a week ago could be understood. But not getting beat, 27-7, by the Indianapolis Colts at home.
   
Two losses in a row for the first time in Harbaugh’s two-plus seasons as the Niners' coach. Offensive ineffectiveness for a second consecutive week. An indication that defensive coordinators around the NFL have figured out how to stop the read-option and thus stop Kaepernick, who was sacked three times, fumbled once and was intercepted once.
    
It’s been a rotten few days for the Niners, who last season went to the Super Bowl. First the whipping by Seattle. Then, early Friday morning, around 7 a.m., the arrest of Smith, the defensive end, on charges of DUI and possession of marijuana. Management decided he would play Sunday — a doubtful decision — and he did play.
   
The defense was satisfactory, to a point, although it never really could stop second-year quarterback Andrew Luck, who Harbaugh coached at Stanford. The offense, outgained 336 yards to 254, was unsatisfactory, out of synch, worrisome.
   
Smith is headed to a rehab center after his fourth arrest and maybe a fine and suspension by the NFL. He won’t be in uniform Thursday when in this loony-tunes schedule, the Niners, 1-2, will play at St. Louis. Some thought he shouldn’t have been in uniform Sunday.
  
There was an apology from Smith after the game, with the comment, “I also wanted to let it be known that this is a problem, and it’s something that I will get fixed, and that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that this never happens again.”
  
York said Niners executives, realizing there could be outrage from beyond, still “decided that sitting someone down and paying him didn’t seem like appropriate punishment.” As if playing him and paying him is?
   
The Niners, players and coaches, contended that they were not distracted by the Smith situation. That wasn’t the reason they lost, said the chorus. This leaves only one accounting. They were outplayed once more.
   
Kaepernick was brilliant most of the time last year as a mid-season starter. The flaws, maybe a failure to call an audible, perhaps a pass flung too hard, were acceptable. He could run. He could throw, and opponents — with the exceptions of Seattle and, in the Super Bowl, Baltimore — didn’t know how to react.
   
Now, after months of scheming, they do. The serve-and-volley game evens out. First, the offense has the advantage. Then, given time, the defensive coaches create their own edge. So the offensive coaches go to the grease board and devise something else.
   
Athletes are only part of the equation, if the major part. When the defense swarms here or drops three men there, the offense may be stymied. The Niner offense certainly has been.
 
“I think they ran a couple of read-options,” said Colts coach Chuck Pagano, “and our guys did an unbelievable job on (those) . . . We talk about plastering so guys don’t come out free on the back end once he starts to scramble. The pass rush was just relentless.”
  
Kaepernick, never very informative, retreated behind the obligatory “it wasn’t them, it was us,” or in his words, “The fact is we didn’t execute.” Why doesn’t anyone ever admit he/they didn’t execute because the other team wouldn’t let them?
  
“They put a spy on me,” Kaepernick said about a defender who follows the quarterback, “so they have one more to account for me. I have to be able to make throws downfield.”
  
Not an easy task when under ferocious pressure.
 
Harbaugh said he didn’t believe there was something technically wrong with Kaepernick.
   
“We didn’t make the plays,” said Harbaugh, sticking to the format.
    
Then a bit of honesty snuck in: “There wasn’t enough opportunity to make plays.”
    
Because of the Indianapolis defense. Because perhaps the Niners were without their best receiver, Vernon Davis, and already had lost another receiving star, Michael Crabtree, on an injury before the season began. Still, every team has injuries. The best overcome them.
 
“We got to be real,” said Harbaugh, “got to look how we can improve. We have no choice but to find our way.”
  
No choice except losing games.

SF Chronicle 49ers Insider App: On the Brink

By Art Spander
49ers Insider, San Francisco Chronicle iPad App

NEW ORLEANS – He was angry. He was proud. The call went against him, went against Jim Harbaugh, went against the 49ers. They had lost the Super Bowl. The unblemished record was no more. The dream was finished.

And yet Harbaugh saw what we saw, a football team, a 49ers team, which was dead in the water, which trailed by three touchdowns and came within a play of victory.

“We were right on the brink of winning it,” said Harbaugh. He’s not a could-have, might-have sort of guy. He’s absolute, unforgiving. This time he also was correct.

Right on the brink. Right where a Joe Montana or a Steve Young might have pulled it. Right where a Colin Kaepernick could not quite do it.

Harbaugh, after again losing to his brother John, the Ravens coach -- in 2011 in a regular season game, this time, Sunday night in Super Bowl XLVII, 34-31 -- was frustrated and disappointed, honest and, yes, angry.

They say never to let a game or tennis match, any sporting event, come down to an official’s call, because then you’re at the mercy of someone making a judgment. Yet that’s exactly what occurred.

Fourth down and goal. Fourth down and five yards from probable victory, although with 1 minute 46 seconds remaining and Joe Flacco – the game’s MVP – at quarterback for the Ravens, who knows?

Kaepernick, rolling hot after a mediocre start, a start echoed by the supposedly efficient 49er defense, threw toward Michael Crabtree in the end zone. Crabtree couldn’t get to the ball, couldn’t get there because TV replays showed he was seemingly held by Baltimore’s Jimmy Smith.

Harbaugh went ballistic. He yanked at his cap. He screwed up his face in a grimace beyond description. He shouted at the official. He went unheard, and the 49ers went winless, incurring their first loss in a Super Bowl after success the previous five times.

“We want to handle this with class and grace,” said Harbaugh, not exactly the epitome of either when displeased. “We had several opportunities to win the game. We didn’t play our best game. We competed and battled back. Yes, there’s no question in my mind that there was pass interference and then a hold on the last one.”

This was not a game we expected the 49ers to play, to get beat by Flacco on third-down passes, to turn the ball over on a fumble by LaMichael James and an interception by Kaepernick, to give up a 108-yard kickoff return to open the second half and fall behind, 28-6.

Yet, conversely, this was the game we did expect the 49ers to play, to hang in, to hold on, to wake up the echoes, and the 49ers fans among the 71,024 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. There was Kaepernick finding Crabtree, there was Frank Gore slipping into the end zone, there was David Akers kicking his third field goal of the game. Suddenly, 28-6, was 28-23.

Kaepernick, with 302 yards, joined Montana and Young as Niners quarterbacks who have completed more than 300 yards passing in a Super Bowl game. Kaepernick, with 62 yards rushing, did not join Montana and Young as Niners quarterbacks who have won Super Bowls.

There was a touch of the surreal to the game, and not only because the Ravens had the ball some five minutes more than San Francisco or because Flacco picked apart the Niners' secondary.

But because late in the third quarter there was a power outage at the Superdome, half the lights over the field and all the television sets and Internet connections going out for 34 minutes. It was similar to what happened Dec. 19, 2011 at Candlestick Park before and during a 49ers-Steelers game.

When power was restored for a Super Bowl game which would last 4 hours 14 minutes – but was one play short for San Francisco – the Niners started their rally. “We got a spark,” said Harbaugh, “and we weren’t going to look back after that.”

Others will. They’ll wonder why, after a two-week break and numerous practices, on the first play from scrimmage, a 20-yard pass from Kaepernick to Vernon Davis, Davis was penalized for lining up in an illegal formation. They’ll wonder why the final sequence was composed of three straight incomplete passes from Kaepernick.

And, as Harbaugh, they’ll wonder about the non-call. But Crabtree will not, to his credit.

“It was the last play,” said Crabtree, “and I’m not going to blame it on the refs.”

Neither will Kaepernick. “We had to score,” said the quarterback. “The fourth down play wasn’t the original option. It’s something I audibled at the line, based on the look they gave us. I was just trying to give (Crabtree) a chance.”

He gave him one. He gave the 49ers one. They were unable to take advantage of it.

Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle

SF Chronicle 49ers Insider App: It's all business with Harbaugh

By Art Spander
49ers Insider, San Francisco Chronicle iPad App

NEW ORLEANS – The mystery is the attraction. That and the success. What we know about Jim Harbaugh is that his teams, at the University of San Diego, at Stanford, and now with the 49ers, win football games.

What we don’t know about Jim Harbaugh is almost everything else, other than his daily attire – the black sweatshirt, the khaki pants – and his circuitous, indirect answers to questions other than the color of his sweatshirt or his pants.

Which is the way he wants it. And what he wants is what Jim Harbaugh gets.

“We don’t give nothing away,’’ said Niners tight end Delanie Walker.

But on the eve of Harbaugh’s first Super Bowl, Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens and his brother, John, something has been given away about Jim Harbaugh.

It wasn’t where we might expect, in the Chronicle Sporting Green or even on ESPN. Instead – and this is so perfect for Harbaugh – it was in the Wall Street Journal. So perfect because Jim Harbaugh is all business.

An article by Kevin Clark points out that Harbaugh is a disciple of Andy Grove, the 76-year-old intellectual and former chief executive of Intel who in the mid 1960's wrote a guide to keeping on top of one’s game – and we’re not talking sports – “Only the Paranoid Survive.”

Of course. Jim Harbaugh, Mr. Paranoia, Mr. “We Don’t Give Nothing Away.” Other than those two fumbles which cost the Niners a chance to make it to the Super Bowl a year ago.

“His whole demeanor is about that book,” 49ers cornerback Perrish Cox, told Clark about Harbaugh.

Is that why he is so evasive? Is that why when asked if his own experience as an Raiders assistant coach in the 2003 Super Bowl, No. XXXVII, Harbaugh responds, “I think everybody’s anybody’s experiences; we’ll use all to a cumulative affect thing”?

Is that why he hoped we’d believe back in November that Colin Kaepernick and Alex Smith both were first-string?

Brother John said Jim is merely toying with the media, that deep down there beats a loving heart, that we really haven’t seen the man he knows. There’s a reason, certainly.

Jim won’t allow us to see that man. He chooses to keep us at arm’s length, psychologically if not physically.

Jim, what have you seen from the changes to the Ravens offense since Jim Caldwell became coordinator a couple of months ago?

“Yeah, we’re not going to get into a lot of scheme talk,” said Jim Harbaugh.

“What’s new, what’s different. What we expect them to do.”

What we expect from Harbaugh isn’t exactly the unexpected but more significantly the unorthodox. Bench Alex Smith after a mid-season injury for someone who never had started an NFL game, Kaepernick? Is Harbaugh crazy? No, paranoid. And brilliant.

Jim is the son of a coach and the brother of a coach. Intensity? “An enthusiasm unknown to mankind.” Jack Harbaugh, the father said that about his sons – and daughter, Joanie Harbaugh Crean, wife of the Indiana basketball coach. And three days ago, Jim Harbaugh said it about the way the 49ers are going about their business.

Harbaugh played under Bo Schembechler, who when Jim got his first head coaching job, at San Diego, said to his pupil, “Tell me you’re going to have a tight end that puts his hand in that ground on every snap. Tell me you’re going to have a fullback that lines directly behind the quarterback, and a halfback in the I-formation.” He had that until Kaepernick and the Pistol.

Harbaugh studied the films and videos of teams coached by Bill Walsh, who led the Niners to three Super Bowl victories.

Harbaugh, we now learn, also is paying homage to the philosophy of a fellow worker from Silicon Valley – if in a slightly different sort of production – Andy Grove, who wrote, companies don’t die because they are wrong but because they won’t commit.

The Niners head coach is very committed and rarely wrong. the best example is Kaepernick, who most of us, including former Super Bowl quarterbacks turned commentators Trent Dilfer and Steve Young, believed wasn’t experienced or poised enough to get the Niners to the Super Bowl.

Paranoia? Someone dared ask Harbaugh whether he second-guessed himself after the decision to go with Kaepernick, as if such an admission ever would be made.

“I hesitate to answer those questions about that,” Harbaugh said in a Harbaugh manner. “All those questions and answers really lead to a lot of self-promotion . . . I’d rather answer those questions another time.”

Meaning, he won’t answer them.

“Life is full of bitter disappointments,” was a Harbaugh comment. He was referring to the playoff loss which ended the 2011 season. But that axiom also served as a reminder to those intent on finding out more about the coach or his team.

They don’t give nothing away.

Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle

Newsday (N.Y.): Jim Harbaugh turns tables on John Madden

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- John Madden is known for his television work and the EA Sports game that carries his name. But he also was the coach who led the Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl win over Minnesota in January 1977.

Now, living in Pleasanton, east of San Francisco, Madden has a daily morning show on KCBS, an all-news radio station. On Friday, he called 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, whose team will meet the Ravens -- coached by brother John Harbaugh -- next Sunday in Super Bowl XLVII.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.