Newsday (N.Y.): Colin Kaepernick, 49ers offense expect to do better against Panthers

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — While so many look ahead to Sunday afternoon's NFC divisional-round game at Carolina, the San Francisco 49ers, particularly quarterback Colin Kaepernick, will not forget the immediate past — a loss to the Panthers in Week 10 in which the Niners couldn't score a TD.

Carolina won that one, 10-9, on Nov. 10 at Candlestick Park as the 49ers had their fewest net passing yards (46) in eight years. They didn't score a point in the second half and finished with only 151 total yards.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.

The Sports Xchange: 49ers clinch playoff bid, say goodbye to 'Stick

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange

SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe it wasn't the last goodbye. 

Maybe the San Francisco 49ers, if circumstances are ideal, will hold a playoff game at Candlestick Park, a second farewell. 

Regardless, the 49ers made a bit of history in their regular-season finale at the old stadium, beating the Atlanta Falcons 34-24 to clinch a spot in the playoffs. 

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 The Sports Xchange

Harbaugh: Somewhere, Bo’s up there smiling

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Time had gone backwards, unlike the persistent runs of Frank Gore. There we were, back in the 20th century, the fans at Candlestick Park doing the wave — in this final year of the old stadium, anything is acceptable — the 49ers employing a pound-it-out, eat-up-the-clock offense.

A fourth-quarter drive that covered 89 yards and nine and a half minutes, old-fashioned but wonderfully effective, as 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh agreed.

The sort of drive, with eight straight runs in one sequence, that Harbaugh’s coach at Michigan, the late Bo Schembechler, would have loved.

“Yes,” said Harbaugh, “he would have. He would have loved it very much. Somewhere, he’s up there smiling.”

And then Harbaugh, already feeling good after the Niners on Sunday won their third in a row, defeating the Arizona Cardinals, 32-20, began to smile himself.

“It was a huge win,” he said gleefully. “Grinded some meat, playing tough, hard-nosed football, grinding out the running game.

“That was a line coming off the ball, and Frank was determined, and the whole unit, they were determined to move the football and keep the defense off the field that had played so well in that ballgame.”

The Niners ran for 149 yards against the sixth-best rushing defense in the NFL.

They were playing smack-you-in-the-chops football that made Schembechler and Woody Hayes winners in the old Big Ten, a style defined as three yards and a cloud of dust.

Harbaugh, sure, was a quarterback, at Palo Alto High, at Michigan, with the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts. But he despises finesse football. It is his nature. It is his training.

"When I got my first coaching job at the University of San Diego, I called Bo Schembechler and told him,” Harbaugh has explained. “Before he said congratulations, he said, 'Jimmy, tell me you are going to have a tight end that puts his hand in that ground on every snap. Tell me that you are going to have a fullback that lines directly behind the quarterback, and a halfback in the I-formation.'

"'Yes, coach, we will have that.' 'Good, congratulations on getting your job.'"

Now, with the Niners, Harbaugh also has a quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, who can run (18 yards on four carries) as well as throw (16 completions for 252 yards and two touchdowns).

He has a tight end, Vernon Davis, who doesn’t necessarily put his hand in the dirt on every snap but certainly puts his hands around the ball (eight catches for a career-high 180 yards and two TDs).

And most of all, in crunch time, Harbaugh has Gore, who carried 25 times in all, for 101 yards, and seven of the 18 plays on the drive, five of those in succession. That Kendall Hunter powered the final six yards was fine with all concerned, especially Gore, who doesn’t worry about personal statistics.

“Three years with Frank,” said fullback Bruce Miller, “and I just feel he’s getting better and better. He has a passion for the game. He loves the game. He loves the team.”

He definitely enjoys dashing through the gaps or going around the edges, whatever is needed to pick up yardage.

“It felt good,” said Gore of the drive and his contribution. “Especially when their defense knew that we were coming to run the ball at that moment, and we did it. Our O-line made good blocks, our fullback made a good block, the receivers outside made good blocks, and I ran hard.

“When I get in rhythm, I just feel like I can do whatever I want.”

Early on, the Niners couldn’t do what they liked or wanted with the Cardinals, who came into the game with a 3-2 record, as did San Francisco. The Niners, without a first down until there was only a minute left in the first quarter, and then only on a penalty, led only 22-20 into the fourth quarter.

Then 9 minutes 32 seconds and 18 players later, they had the touchdown that meant the game.

“The score was 22-20,” said Darryl Washington, the Arizona linebacker. “We had a chance to get that momentum. We were stopping the run, getting pressure on Kaepernick, but those guys made more plays than we did at the end of the day.”

Kaepernick threw an interception, a tipped ball. Kaepernick lost a fumble when he was sacked. But when required — dare we call it crunch time in the sixth game of the season? — everything worked, especially on that long drive.

“It was huge,” said Kaepernick, a bit more talkative than he's been recently. “We drained the clock on that drive. We had a lot of third-down conversions, had the big fourth-down conversion (a yard by Miller). We said in the huddle, we have to go down and score right now.”

They did. Only in this situation, "right now" means 9 minutes 32 seconds.

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.