HappyDays

Against a great QB mistakes are forced, not given freely. San Fran has the right defensive gameplan. Stafford doesn't look comfortable and doesn't immediately know where to go with the ball on every dropback.

A defensive struggle. Just like everyone expected.

Watching the first two drives of 49ers/Rams and this is exactly what San Fran's defense did. That strategy got them two 3 and outs to start the game. Stafford can't find passing windows and already has two almost INTs. I'm no expert on what the exact right strategy should have been but clearly we had the wrong strategy. I don't think the commonly used excuse of "the Rams offense when healthy is unstoppable" is correct. They certainly don't look it tonight. EDIT: Now three 3 and outs to start the game... 2nd edit: FOUR 3 and outs to start the game. Stafford is holding the ball unable to find anyone open. My god our defensive coaching really blew that game.

Imagine being a multimillionaire pro athlete and you get a call saying you got a snow day.

Lions 41 Bills 35 This is a bad opponent for a get right game.

Matt Parrino talked to Oliver after practice. Here were Oliver's comments: Gotta say I'm not a big fan of this response. Sounds very much like he's not taking any responsibility for his poor play this year, instead choosing to blame the players and the scheme around him.

Sure that is possible. But you're talking multiple good to great players like Taron, Benford, Bernard, Rousseau all getting completely abused throughout the day. One player can have a bad day and it is just that, but multiple players having a bad day speaks to a more systemic problem IMO.

DL was disappointing on Sunday but I don't recall many instances where Stafford was holding the ball for that long. Felt like he immediately knew where to go with it on every drop back. I'm pretty sure I also remember Belichick saying that our defense isn't that creative, that our one and only gimmick is showing one coverage then switching to another post-snap which is just not enough to get it done against smart QBs. The failed delayed blitzes on Sunday were another symptom of the same problem. They were all telegraphed and Stafford easily read them and threw to the vacated area. I accept that our defensive players were not up to snuff and that the Rams offensive players made some outstanding individual plays, but I don't accept that our defensive coaching had no part in the Rams putting up 40+ points. The talent discrepancy is not THAT stark, I mean really.

Yeah I have said that for years. When we face smart QBs with talent around them, they always appear to have easy answers with where to throw the ball. We don't disrupt the reads or make them hesitate at all.

I don't know. The only offenses we've played this year that were fully healthy and capable of elite production were Baltimore, Miami, and LA. We saw how those games went for our defense. I don't think it's a matter of the players just digging deep and finding a way. I think there are fundamental issues with the talent and the scheme that get exposed by talented offenses.

Kincaid and Coleman both should be back. I can't even imagine what this offense looks like at full strength. Hopefully they're ready to put up 50.

Meh. No defense in the league can stop this offense from putting up 30+ when it's performing as well as it has since adding Cooper. I would love to face nothing but defense-heavy teams the entire way to the Super Bowl. Denver, Pittsburgh, KC is the dream scenario. Or switch one of those teams out with LAC, same thing. I get worried when you start talking about teams like Baltimore or Cincy or even Miami where you know they can drag you into a shootout and I have zero faith in our defense and in our coaching staff to win those types of games.

Same with the 9 man punt return in this game, or going back to the kickoff in the 13 seconds game. How is everybody on the sideline not in lockstep with what the plan is ahead of time? As soon as the Rams are punting there should be 11 players ready to step onto the field either going all out to block the punt or trying to execute some kind of punt return. It just blows my mind that there are multiple situations like this over the years where there is confusion leading to a 0% chance of success. For a rookie head coach okay you accept some rough patches, but we're 8 years in and it hasn't gotten any better.

You don't notice him because he does a lot of dirty work that goes unheralded. You're just plain wrong on this one. Nacua is a physical mismatch against any slot CB in the league. Wasn't just Taron either. All of our CBs took turns getting abused by him. Sometimes good coverage got beaten by better throws and catches, and sometimes he was just sitting wide open for one reason or another.

That's a little harsh, yeah? Even great players have bad games. The scheme really hangs Taron out to dry a lot of times too, he is just so good we don't usually notice.

Yeah this is not the game to complain about officiating. Both teams got some breaks.

Meh. Quite likely the Rams score a TD on that drive anyways but take 5 minutes off the clock instead of 5 seconds. With hindsight getting the ball right back to our offense wasn't a terrible outcome and gave us enough time to try and score at the end of the half (even though we failed, we at least had a chance).

It isn't that hard. It happens to us in the playoffs every single year.

If it were up to me Ben Johnson would already be our head coach. My fantasy coaching staff is him with Robert Saleh as the DC. It's Super Bowl appearance or bust for me. McDermott has shown me nothing this year to make me think he is ever going to figure out his shockingly bad coaching in critical moments of close games and it's just impossible to win multiple consecutive playoff games with such a glaring weakness. At this point I think of it like the head coach version of Jameis Winston - you can tell he works hard and loves what he does but he is just missing a fundamental element that never develops no matter how many times he gets an opportunity. The highs are amazing but the lows are inevitable. At a certain point we have to accept who he is and move on.

Ben Johnson with a former good DC who failed as a head coach - Robert Saleh, Matt Eberflus, Todd Bowles, something like that. That formula plus an elite QB created a dynasty for the Chiefs. Time is running out for our potential dynasty. I'm worried Josh Allen will be 33 before Pegula finally makes a change and we'll always wonder what could have been.

Here's how I see it - the defense gave us like a 10% chance to win. The coaching at the end gave us a 0% chance to win. It's worth discussing both, especially in the context of those two issues being the main reasons our season ends early year after year.

Here's the play: No one got open and the IOL immediately collapsed. I think Brady needs to find some answers other than mesh. Defenses have this play figured out because we've put it on tape so frequently. Hard to be too upset with anyone on the offensive side though. Should have gone for it on 4th and 2 although on some level I understand why we didn't.

Yep this game definitely brought back my fear that McDermott's scheme is not a playoff scheme. Smart experienced QBs with smart offensive coaches have regularly not just moved the ball on us but dominated us without any resistance. QBs in those games have easy answers available to them at all times and we never make the right adjustments to slow them down. We had a similarly poor defensive plan against the Ravens. The reigning excuse from that one was that we were missing too many defensive starters to be competitive. Turns out even when all our starters are out there we are still capable of getting steamrolled like that.

Tony Romo of all people said it exactly right after we beat them - when you play the Chiefs you have to go win it yourself. So many coaches like Harbaugh tonight are playing for the Chiefs to lose instead of playing for their team to win. Like I said it's probably an ego thing. "Sure all those other coaches failed in these situations, but I'M Jim Harbaugh! I can do anything." No. You can't. Do the counterintuitive thing and give up the TD for free and then your offense has 2 minutes to go take the win for themselves.

That's exactly right. They don't need to be more talented than their opponent because they'll play better situational football than their opponent. So as long as they are within one score in the final two minutes that means they will win 100% of the time. The only game they lost this year was because they were down by two scores in the final two minutes. Harbaugh screwed up big time thinking he could stop them from executing a final drive that was all about situational football. If he had instructed his defense to let them score he would have pulled the rug out from underneath them and at least given his team a chance to win. Instead he went with his ego that told him he could just beat the Chiefs straight up. Andy Reid doesn't have that kind of ego. He just has his team do whatever gives them the highest probability of winning the game on every play.