The Colonel: Apparently so. What a dreadful non-call. That Ravens defensive back stopped shot of stabbing Crabtree and hiding in his limo. (Sorry I had to)
49er16: The entire 4 plays were a disaster. Not exactly Harbaugh's greatest moment. One run, and it was to James, and then three passes including the third down which wasn't thrown into the end zone. And will someone throw away those fade routes to the corner of the end zones. Those plays only work with the Calvin Johnson's and Larry Fitzgerald's of the world.
The Colonel: A lot of questions that last 4 plays. Where was Gore? Why didn't Kaepernick run? Where was Vernon Davis who had a huge game? Why didn't Harbaugh use his final timeout before the final play? Also where does this game rank on the bitter scale?
49er16: It still ranks below the 2002 Western Conference Finals and a bunch of Giants losses in the playoffs. Yes the Giants have won two championships the past three years but still a few of those losses were bitter.
The Colonel: Losing to the fucking Marlins twice still gets to me, especially in 1997 when the Giants had the better record but had to play the first two games in Miami. The 2000 loss to the Mets was also painful. Literally Shawn Estes hurt himself sliding into 2nd base. And don't even bring up the 2002 World Series.
49er16: What did I say about the lack of pass rush and our secondary? Also these past few games has me worried about Aldon Smith. I'm afraid he's more of a byproduct of Justin Smith than his own talent.
The Colonel: We'll need more time to figure this out, but right now Aldon doesn't look good without Justin's support. He disappeared since Justin got hurt and it exposed the secondary badly. You were spot on in saying Flacco would tear apart the secondary deep.
49er16: That was more predictable than the sun coming up. The Niners need to address that secondary in the draft or through free agency. Chris "Gay Basher" Culliver isn't good. Carlos Rodgers was a mirage and Whitner was never that good. Goldson and Brown are keepers but they need help. Credit to Flacco though. I've always doubted him but he played the game of his life last night. Very impressive.
The Colonel: I thought for sure Flacco would throw one pick. Never happened. I thought that the best game he's ever played.
49er16: I thought so to, but instead he picked apart the defense while Ray Rice was pretty much ineffective. And speaking of ineffective, Ray "Billy Graham" Lewis was a complete non-factor. I'm glad he's gone. I always liked Lewis but his "preaching" pretty much became unbearable there at the end. He reminded me of that snake handling preacher from this season's "Justified".
The Colonel: That would have been awesome if Boyd Crowder brought Lewis a rattlesnake that wasn't milked to be handled during the postgame ceremony.
49er16: Then the snake bites Lewis and he dies on stage in front of a crying Suggs.
The Colonel: Did you watch any of the commercials? I can't remember any of them.
49er16: The commercials is when I got up and went to the bathroom and grabbed another beverage, so no I can't say I watched any of the commercials.
The Colonel: How about that Beyonce? It was nice seeing a performer during halftime who isn't old enough to be my grandparent.
49er16: Or who isn't the Black Eye Peas.
The Colonel: Oh God they were terrible. The Who was bad. I don't care much for Bruce Springsteen so I hated his performance.
49er16: I was hoping for a wardrobe malfunction with Beyonce. Once again the Niners were screwed.
The Colonel: If that happened, the entire power to that stadium would have went out.
Boger & crew sucked both ways. There were several calls that went the 49ers way as well (Culliver holding Torrey Smith, Akers flopping like Vlade Divac, the late hit on Flacco out of bounds), so let's not pretend the no-call at the end was the only questionable call last night.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as I said in the preview, the 49ers had to score TD's in the red zone, and they only managed 2 in 5 trips. It looked to me that Kaepernick really struggled making his reads & throws close to the goal line.
Going forward the Ravens are going to have some part of the team blown up & the 49ers will start 2013 as the best team in the NFL; so I'm going to go out and enjoy Reverend Ray's final sermon tomorrow.
As a neutral fan with not much stake in that game (other than hoping Ray Lewis would come face-to-face with a meteor), the officiating of that game was very poor. FootballZebras was okay with the performance which I find shocking. There were numerous missed calls in that game, and many an intelligent commentator (not talking TV blowhards) has expressed similar criticisms.
ReplyDeleteI'm not ready to say this was worse than Bill Leavy's disaster in Steelers-Seahawks, but if we are ranking officiating performances since then starting with Super Bowl XLI, Boger's performance was clearly the worst since then, and the Ravens were more the beneficiaries.
It was a tight game both on the scoreboard and the stat sheet, no team dominated, Jim Harbaugh coached what I have to believe was his worst game ever (not going for 2 at 28-12, 2nd half timeout management, and that 34-yard field goal on 4th and 2 which was the worst of the bad), Kaepernick missing some plays (not throwing to a wide open Moss in the end zone in the first half, that delay/timeout fiasco on the final drive where it looked like they would have scored easily, etc.), and the general incompetence of Culliver and Whitner in the secondary.
Of the two teams, the 49ers are probably the better of the two. But what is most impressive about the Ravens (and why I say the Niners are "probably" better) is how they did it. After beating the hapless Colts, the Ravens managed three wins against three top five teams this season, including a blowout at New England. Throughout this season, the Ravens had a consistently mediocre defense and without hyperbole one of the NFL's most inconsistent offenses and no one embodied that inconsistency this season more than Joe Flacco.
And yet, in four playoff games, the Ravens offense and Flacco came up aces each time. I still maintain Boldin was a more deserving MVP of that game, but that takes nothing away from Flacco who for the 4th straight playoff game (and 3rd straight game on the road against superior competition) was absolutely marvelous.
Justin wtf are you talking about? You never go for 2 until you have to. Why in the world would you go for two at 28-12 in the third quarter?
ReplyDelete