A wild win for Niners in wild card

January 14, 2023 by Art Spander in articles, football

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Or then, perusing history, maybe it was. After all, the words “wild card” can be interpreted any way you decide.

And the prevailing wisdom about the 49ers was that their game against Seattle wouldn’t be as wild as it turned out to be.

The Niners had defeated the Seahawks in both regular-season games this fall and winter, but as has been pointed out quite accurately, it’s difficult to beat another team three in a row in the NFL.

Unless they are mismatched. Which, in a second half that began with the heavily favored Niners trailing by a point, ultimately turned out to be the situation.

San Francisco, with its top-ranked defense taking control as it has so often, scored 25 points before the Seahawks got a touchdown, with three minutes remaining, that didn’t matter.

So the 49ers won 41-23 on Saturday and are into the next round of the playoffs, for a game that will be played, as was this wildest of cards, at Levi’s Stadium against a yet undetermined opponent.

And most likely, not in the rain that has been punishing the Bay Area and returned in the third quarter, as seemingly did the Niners.

Yes, for those of a certain age, it brings back memories of 1981, when the weather was inclement and the results were inspiring, San Francisco beating the New York Giants on a Candlestick Park field barely playable — remember the sod squad? — and then on the Montana-to-Clark pass taking down the Cowboys and going to the Super Bowl.

Where this journey concludes is unpredictable, but at least the Niners are still a presence, and head coach Kyle Shanahan is still a happy individual — after being less happy at two quarters into the Seattle game.

The Niners were doing virtually everything they needed to do in the first half, other than getting people into the end zone, a rather significant problem.

“You’ve got to score points,” said Shanahan, and then someone reminded him the Niners gained more yards in this game, 505, than in any this season.

“We only had 13 points until late in the first half,” said the coach.

Rookie quarterback Brock Purdy threw four touchdown passes. Not quite a rookie after playing six games — and winning every one — he was under pressure early. Sure, he was unbeaten and had performed remarkably for a man taken last in the draft (actually for anyone taken anywhere in the draft). But this was his first postseason game. Ever.

Under pressure from a pass rush carefully crafted by Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, Purdy, a righthander, kept running to his left before throwing an incompletion.

Asked if he thought Purdy was nervous, Shanahan said, “No, the deficit made me nervous. I appreciate what he’s doing. I was wishing he could have had a couple of touchdowns.”

They got one quickly after Niners defensive lineman Charles Omenihu knocked the football loose from Seattle QB Geno Smith. The 49ers recovered at their own 19 with some three minutes left in the third quarter. That did it for the Seahawks.

“The ball hit the ground,” said Shanahan. “I saw it bouncing and kept thinking, ‘Grab it.’ He scooped it up.”

And San Francisco was about to scoop up a win that shouldn’t have been as difficult as it became.

Will third time against Seattle be a problem for Niners?

January 09, 2023 by Art Spander in articles, football

The thinking in the NFL is that you don’t beat another team three times in a season. Which means the 49ers might have a problem. Or that whatever people say doesn’t mean as much as how people play.

The first round of the playoffs, a wild card game on Saturday at Levi’s Stadium, will be the third between the Niners and Seahawks. San Francisco won the other two, one at home, one up north.

Sure, the Seahawks may have figured out by now what they must do to beat the Niners, but so what? The personnel hasn’t changed — although the Niners have used two different quarterbacks, so why should the results?

San Francisco has the longest current winning streak in the sport, 10 in a row, topped off Sunday by a 38-13 win over the Arizona Cardinals.

But a rather mortifying 3-4 start to a record that at 13-4 is their best in a long while, left the 49ers a game behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC standings.

Philly earned the bye, the week off, which can be a refresher for any athlete who’s been pounding and pounded on since training camp in July. But what matters is qualifying for the tournament, the postseason, and that’s what San Francisco has accomplished.

What any team needs is to be playing its best football in January. The current longest win streak in pro football is an indication that the Niners are doing just that.

Somehow, by planning or fate, the guys who run the league have the ability — or the fortune — to keep us fascinated until the final moments of the final regular season game. That happened Sunday night

Detroit at Green Bay, former Cal quarterback Jared Goff, a No. 1 overall pick, against former Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who should have been a No. 1 overall pick. The game was in the chill at Lambeau Field. The Packers were ahead.

But Goff and the Lions won. The Packers, the probable Niners opponent in the wild card, were done. So perhaps is Rodgers, age 39.

The Niners are far from done. They’ve got the best defense in the NFL — as you’ve been instructed, defense wins. They’ve got a rookie quarterback, Brock Purdy, who barely was drafted and has never lost a game; they once again have their full roster, with Deebo Samuel and Elijah Mitchell back from injuries and running wild.

And they have old mo, momentum.

The knock on the Niners is they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs and beat a lot of lesser teams like the Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams. We’ll see if it matters.

“I don’t know if I’ve had this feeling that I have right now about our team and the opportunity we have to win this thing,” said Niners linebacker Fred Warner. “We have everything we need on this team to do what we need to do.”

He was on the 2019 team that was 13-3 (the sked has since been altered to 17 games) and lost to KC in Super Bowl LIV. Comparisons are difficult, especially after a gap of three years.

Coaches believe in their system and their players but understand their plans can fail with a freak bounce or a bad throw. “It’s a relief,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said of getting to the postseason. “It was a stressful week knowing you needed a win, but you’re thinking about the (playoffs) also. So being able to pull off the win — and being able to rest some guys at the end — was great.”

For the Niners, a most unusual season

January 03, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, football

By Art Spander

So similar. And so different. The final game, and the 49ers had the lead going into the final quarter.

They couldn’t hold it a year ago in the Super Bowl, which was notably painful. Or on Sunday, in what ended a season that was as notably unusual, if only a trifle less painful.

A season with the loss of so many key players and, in a day or two, probably a key coach.

A season when a seemingly unstoppable virus, Covid-19, forced the Niners to abandon their training complex in Santa Clara, and forced the players and coaches to leave their homes and families.

A season that created as many questions — the essential one, who will be the starting quarterback in 2021? — as answers.

A season that, with a concluding 26-23 defeat by the Seattle Seahawks at State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, was both distressing, because it ended with a record of 6-10, and encouraging, because players said they gained new respect for teammates.

For the fans, the incidentals become, well, incidental. To them, it’s all about results, and if the Niners had to be transplanted, lock, stock and game plans, from Silicon Valley to the Valley of the Sun for more than a month, well, hey, it isn’t as if they were living in tents.

But sport, like so much in life, is a matter of routine. These weren’t college kids off for a fall break. They were grown men with wives and children and mortgages.

They knew there would be discipline. They knew there would be broken bones and twisted ankles. What they didn’t know until November was they would banned from practicing or playing where the Niners are headquartered — and forced to flee.

It would have been easier to say, this isn’t our year — which it wasn’t — yet in the final game, with a third-string quarterback (C.J. Beathard) with nothing at stake except pride, with thoughts that within minutes they’d be on a flight home, the Niners had a 16-6 lead in the fourth quarter over the playoff-bound Seahawks.

That should count for something, and it counted considerably with head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“I was real proud of the guys today,” Shanahan said. “I thought those guys competed their asses off in all aspects. I told them to hold their heads high. I didn’t think it was a moral victory or anything because I feel we should have won the game.”

Almost certainly Shanahan and the Niners will lose coordinator Robert Saleh, who designed the defense that held the Seahawks to only two field goals through the first three quarters. “I hope everyone is not very smart and doesn’t hire him,” quipped Shanahan.

The coach wouldn’t offer a comment about the quarterback situation, although he has said as of now Jimmy Garoppolo would be back in charge. Garoppolo only made six games because of an injury. He was replaced by Nick Mullens, who then was hurt himself and replaced by Beathard.

There basically was no replacement for Nick Bosa, the 2019 defensive rookie of the year, who tore up a knee (ACL) in the Niners’ second game of the season. The same thing happened in the same game to another defensive line standout, Solomon Thomas.

Every subsequent game, there would be a graphic on TV showing how many different 49ers were out at one time or another, running backs, quarterbacks, defensive backs — you name them.

“I’m very happy,” said Shanahan, when asked if the end brought relief, if not a championship. “Very excited. It’s the first time I’ve packed two days in advance for anything … Being stuck in the hotel for over 30 days, it does wear on you a little bit. Not just me. The players. The cooks. The equipment guys. Everybody involved with us is ready to get back home.”

And, he pointed out, working for improvement.

“Once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we were ready to move on a little bit and get to next year. But we had to finish it.”

Before it finished them.

Van Pelt works to get words from Marshawn

May 05, 2020 by Art Spander in articles, football

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

Scott Van Pelt, an expert at asking questions, was matched up against Marshawn Lynch, an expert at what he does, which is avoiding questions.