By Art Spander
San Francisco Chronicle: 49ers Insider
The accolade was simple yet elegant. “Frank Gore,’’ said his coach, “is a football player.” From one man to another, from Jim Harbaugh, who believes in toughness and persistence, to Frank Gore, there could be no greater compliment.
A football player, a back who will run over you if he can’t run past you, a back who can block on passing assignments, a back who as time goes by never looks back and as his play Sunday showed, never looks bad.
The 49ers weren’t brilliant against Miami, but they were effective. They made enough plays to overcome both themselves and the Dolphins, gaining a 27-13 victory before the usual announced sellout of 69,732 at Candlestick Park.
Colin Kaepernick’s minor mistakes, a few overthrows that brought a few boos – hey, San Francisco fans demand much of their quarterbacks – and a fumble, were offset by a 50-yard touchdown run in the final minutes.
Rookie LaMichael James' awaited debut was satisfying, eight carries for 30 yards, some decent blocking and one reception. “It’s been a long time,” said James, the Niners’ second-round pick in April, “but great things come when you’re patient.”
The defense was the defense, allowing only a cumulative 227 yards to the Dolphins, although we’ll learn a great deal more about the Niners this Sunday night when they play the best offensive team in the NFL, the New England Patriots.
There’s not much to learn about Frank Gore but plenty to admire. His 63 yards on 12 carries, one of those over a yard for the 49ers' first touchdown in more than 96 minutes, lifted him above 1,000 yards rushing for the sixth time in eight seasons.
He’s been nicknamed “The Inconvenient Truth,” borrowed from the title of a book about global warming by another Gore, Al, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2000. But there’s nothing inconvenient about Frank, to the Niners’ thinking.
“Frank Gore had another phenomenal game,’’ said Harbaugh. “Some great running throughout the game. Blocking, everything that Frank does . . . Let me just reiterate this, Frank is a football player.”
Frank is part of the season James had not been activated. They play the same position, although at the moment very few in the NFL play it as well as Gore.
“He’s got tremendous ability and great heart,” said Harbaugh when asked about Gore’s endurance. “The assignments, the technique. He’s just on everything. He goes into every one of these games so on mentally.”
The talk is that 30 is the age of decline for a running back, who by then is starting to slow and beginning to take more hits. A man loses a step, and subsequently loses his job. Gore, at 29, won’t listen.
“When you (hear) everybody say, ‘When you turn 29, 30 you can’t do it anymore,’ when I got to 29, I told myself I’m going to overcome that. And it’s all about training, training in the off-season, working, being smart during the week. And I love the game of football. I’ve been playing it since I’ve been four, and I’m just having fun.”
The Niners have used modifications of the Pistol offense that Kaepernick played at Nevada-Reno. “I don’t like it,’’ said Gore. He laughed. “No, it’s good. Kaep did a great job reading. He made the big play. Everything came toward me, and Mr. Everything did his thing.”
Not a bad nickname for Kaepernick, Mr. Everything, although with the Niners struggling to score, leading only 6-3 at halftime, for a while Kaep looked like Mr. Nothing.
“These games are really hard,” Harbaugh said in defense of his offense, and particularly his QB. “Miami’s a heck of a team. We knew they were going to be tough to move the football on.”
Said Kaepernick, asked the obligatory question whether he was pleased, “I wish I had a few throws back, a few different decisions, but overall, yeah.”
He doesn’t wish he had different running backs, however.
“LaMichael,” said Kaepernick. "Very shifty, very fast. He opens up a lot of things for this offense. For Frank, a greater appreciation. I always knew he was a great running back. Being out there on the field and seeing some of the cuts he makes and how he protects in pass protection, I don’t think there’s another back like him in the league.”
When Gore, who went to the University of Miami and off-season lives in the Miami area, came out of locker room, he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the print of a dolphin on the front, the dolphin’s tail up and head down.
“I know we had the Dolphins on the schedule,” Gore said, then smiled. “I’m not a planner, so I said, ‘We’ve got to flip them upside down when we play them.’ I was a Niners fan.”
More than that, he’s a football player. One of the best.