Niners' Harbaugh takes on critics and doubters

By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Jim Harbaugh was having his way a few minutes after his team had its way. There’s no direct line from A to Z with Harbaugh, whose very existence seems designed to keep everybody off balance.

With Jim you buckle your seat belt, button your lip and go for a ride that is never unexciting. Or unenlightening.

Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers were 22-17 winners over Kansas City on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, and the story could even stop right there, since coaches invariably say the only thing that matters is the final score.

If the coach isn’t Jim Harbaugh.

A couple weeks back, former defensive star Deion Sanders, now employed by the NFL Network, said publicly there are people on the Niners, in uniform, in executive positions, unhappy with Harbaugh. To which the immediate response is, “So?’’

Except every time Colin Kaepernick throws an interception or Frank Gore fails on third-and-one, the issue is tossed out there again. The idea is to get attention, right? And what gets more attention than another tale about the non-conformist leader of arguably the most popular team in Northern Cal?

Even if we’re told there’s no basis for the reports.

“All this noise, I don’t understand the whole thing,” said kicker Phil Dawson. “It’s certainly not consistent with the noise you hear outside the locker room. There is zero problem in the locker room. We believe in our coach and love playing for him.”

Dawson is in his second year as the Niners’ placekicker after a long career in Cleveland. Against the Chiefs on Sunday, he made field goals of, in ascending but not chronological order, 27, 30, 31, 52 and 55 yards, 15 points of the team’s 22.

Harbaugh, who sees his athletes as semi-mythical, pointed out that Dawson and others who contributed to the victory — Kaepernick, Gore, defensive back Eric Reid — should be so satisfied with their performance they can look at themselves in the mirror and say, "I’m a football player.’"

Of course they’re football players, or they wouldn’t be in the NFL, but Dawson, his nearly bald head shaved clean, isn’t certain he needs such self-congratulatory methods.

“At 39 years old,” Dawson said, “I don’t enjoy looking in the mirror very much. I’ll pretend to be a football player without looking in the mirror.”

The Harbaugh advice, of course, is figurative. He’s big on machismo, on individual success evolving into team success. Beat the guy across the line, and the team beats the opponent. Grrr.

The Niners are 3-2 now, and while expectations may have been for better, against the Chiefs they played effective defense and competent offense. And they’re still without two of the NFL’s best defenders, NaVorro Bowman, recovering from that knee injury, and Aldon Smith, on a nine-week suspension. If and when those two return, San Francisco might be pretty good.

Harbaugh knows what he has and what he doesn’t have. What Harbaugh himself has is an overwhelming desire to prove his capabilities. Just when you think you know the man, he’ll get you. Or his team will.

Early in the fourth quarter, the Niners, trailing 17-16, had the ball four-and-one on their own 29. They lined up to punt, naturally, but, sneaky devils, called a running play up the middle. The first down eventually led to Dawson’s fourth field goal and a 19-16 lead.

“Yeah,” said Harbaugh, tempering a boast. “Thought it was an important call, important play in the game. Strong important win for our team. Thought it was a great team win.”

It was a grind-out, we’re-stronger-physically-and-mentally kind of win that Harbaugh relishes, the sort of victory that registers not only on the scoreboard but the opponents’ psyches.

Harbaugh certainly was questioned again about the Deion Sanders contention that will live as long as the season does.

“The team doesn’t have to respond,” said Harbaugh in his own response. “The team has to do their job and play football. It’s my job to love them — those players, those coaches, everybody in our organization.

“It’s their job to love each other. They don’t need to respond in any other way than their job. The football team has done good. And the better you do, the more you do, then people try to trip you up. Whether you’re getting praised, whether you’re getting criticized or whether you’re having silence, all three have their obstacles. But also all three, any of the three, can add to the competitiveness, the determination. And our football is very determined and very competitive.”

Exactly like the head coach.