All I can saw is wow! I did not see this coming!
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Those guys have really bought in to what their coach preaches. What a turn around this season. I thought the Niners had a shot being at home and the Saints dont play nearly as well outside the dome. But wow this start is crazy. Its going to take some fireworks for the Saints to get back in this one.
Don't give up on the Saints. They weathered the initial storm and certainly have the offense to pull this one out.
No doubt about that Husker.
Exciting game!
Oh, when the Saints
Go marching in
Oh when the Saints go marching in....
Come, on...EVERYBODY...
When you watch those goes it just seems like it is a matter of time.
Go marching in
Oh when the Saints go marching in....
Come, on...EVERYBODY...
When you watch those goes it just seems like it is a matter of time.
You may have started singing the song a little early Tx-Husker? We'll see what Brees & Company can do with two minutes remaining. I love the playoffs...Fun Game!
Great game. Both teams playing extremely hard. They might regret scoring that TD with so much time on the clock. We will see real soon.
Great game. Isn't this 49er QB the guy everyone was saying should be cut and didn't belong in the league a season or two ago?
2:11 for Brees and crew...is a lot of time
2:11 for Brees and crew...is a lot of time
Yes he is. Perhaps the fact that he's gone through 7 Offensive Coordinators, may have hurt a little? Who Knows? But I agree with you...2:11 is plenty of time for Drew Brees to bring his team back.
WOW!!!!!!
34 seconds....BAMB
awful play by #31 of 49ers to go for the ball rather than the hit/tackle in that situation.
awful play by #31 of 49ers to go for the ball rather than the hit/tackle in that situation.
quote:Originally posted by Tx-Husker:
34 seconds....BAMB
awful play by #31 of 49ers to go for the ball rather than the hit/tackle in that situation.
I agree. Now we'll see what Alex Smith is made of...and don't forget, Akers is one of the best kickers in the NFL.
Smith to Davis has been a problem for the Saints all game. WOW 4 lead changes in the last 4 minutes of the game.
Well...I guess Smith answered that question! Vernon Davis is pretty darn good too!!!
This is crazy stuff. What a game.
Tebow Time, maybe time for a new Tebow thread as well!
We'll see what Tebow can do at New England? If he can pull this out versus Brady and Company, forget about starting a new thread...we'll start a TEBOW FORUM. 
Of course, we may have some opposition from one or two people. 
It's going to be tough...Brady to Welker already!
I don't know if Broncos/Patriots can live up to the early game...if they can, Great.
Of course, we may have some opposition from one or two people. It's going to be tough...Brady to Welker already! I don't know if Broncos/Patriots can live up to the early game...if they can, Great.
Who Dat? 49er' Dat!!!!
Worst possible start for Denver... They better be careful or this game could get away from them early.
As good as the early game was, this late game has been awful.
As good as the early game was, this late game has been awful.
If you repeat the same play over and over (especially against the Pats) you aren't going no where. 
I turned on the 49rs/Saints game just before Smith ran for the touchdown with about 4 min left.
What an awesome 4 min to watch!
What an awesome 4 min to watch!
I was very impressed with Alex Smith's to late drives. I thought for sure SF was finished. Very Eli Manning-like in crunch time.
I'm looking forward for some revenge against the Packers today and hopefully this time the refs will eat the whistles and not do everything they can to hand the game over to Rogers that day in a game the Giants should have won and that was without a healthy defense, then avenge the earlier loss against SF.
And yes, Giant fans have a legitimate beefs with the refs in that last GB game and the refs calling this game apparently are trigger-happy which will favor GB. I sure hope they call it straight up and let both teams play the game and the best team will come out on top.
Giants hope tomorrow doesn’t become flag day
I'm looking forward for some revenge against the Packers today and hopefully this time the refs will eat the whistles and not do everything they can to hand the game over to Rogers that day in a game the Giants should have won and that was without a healthy defense, then avenge the earlier loss against SF.
And yes, Giant fans have a legitimate beefs with the refs in that last GB game and the refs calling this game apparently are trigger-happy which will favor GB. I sure hope they call it straight up and let both teams play the game and the best team will come out on top.
Giants hope tomorrow doesn’t become flag day
49ers vs Saints was one of the best playoff football games I've seen in many many years. 49ers are going to be a tough out, and I can see them beating both the Giants and Packers. They are a hungry team!
I'm a 49er fan all the way back to Ken Willard and John Brodie..loved the Montana and Young days...and have been whining for 7 years for them to please replace Alex Smith. My take: great kid, just couldn't do the job.
Sorry Alex, my bad. he's the man. I wore a 49er sweatshirt yesterday for the first time in 15 years.
Next week will be very tough either way, but it's nice to matter in the NFL again.
Sorry Alex, my bad. he's the man. I wore a 49er sweatshirt yesterday for the first time in 15 years.
Next week will be very tough either way, but it's nice to matter in the NFL again.
I was in a neighborhood bar watching the Saints-49ers game as it approached game time for the Patriots game. People didn't want the station changed except for one tv. What happened to the Saints is what Patriots and Packers fans fear. A weak defense can ruin a season in just a few minutes.
quote:A weak defense can ruin a season in just a few minutes.
My view is that only applies if you feel one team "lost" the game. I happen to think, in this situation, the Niners "won" the game.
Harbaugh talked about the winning TD being a play they have not used all season. Based on film study, the coaching staff saw the zone tendency, drop of the linebacker and safety playing to keep the receiver in front on him.
The play was put in on Wednesday.
Both teams played very, very hard. The hitting was intense. The speed of the game was commented several times.
Great plays on both sides. No losers in this game.
Just a play a great coaching staff saw in film study and which an underrated offense executed perfectly.
When a team doesn't get to continue o season of high expectations it's a loss. When a team plays at a Super Bowl or bust level of play and loses before getting there it's a loss.quote:My view is that only applies if you feel one team "lost" the game. I happen to think, in this situation, the Niners "won" the game.
An offense and special teams which turns the ball over 5 times, to me, is not evidence of a "weak defense." Games are won and lost over 60 minutes.
I trust you would "blame" the Stanford kicker for the Fiesta Bowl, loss.
Personally, I agree with the way Brees and Payton handled the post game yesterday, just as I did the way Coach Shaw and the Stanford players did the Fiesta.
As Coach Payton said, they made one more play..and won the game.
I trust you would "blame" the Stanford kicker for the Fiesta Bowl, loss.
Personally, I agree with the way Brees and Payton handled the post game yesterday, just as I did the way Coach Shaw and the Stanford players did the Fiesta.
As Coach Payton said, they made one more play..and won the game.
Not a big 49ers fan, but generally root for them.
But all I know is if anyone ever wondered if a coach really has an impact or if its only about talent...
Exhibit A - Jim Harbaugh.
But all I know is if anyone ever wondered if a coach really has an impact or if its only about talent...
Exhibit A - Jim Harbaugh.
quote:When a team doesn't get to continue o season of high expectations it's a loss. When a team plays at a Super Bowl or bust level of play and loses before getting there it's a loss.
Whatever. It was the most enjoyable game I've seen in some time.
JBB Jim Harbaugh is exhibit A imo of what a coach can do. Change the attitude, change the culture and change the teams direction. There is no doubt that this guy knows what its all about. Yes you can scheme differently. Yes you can coach them up differently. But there is something about this guys personality and his ability to connect with his players that is very special. And his brother is a heckuva coach as well.
Coach,
I recently read a great story about Harbaugh. I will try and find it and link it.
One part of it talked about a player's first practice at Stanford.
It was a very, tough practice, physical and intense.
At the end, the team ran gassers. I think it was 10.
Each gasser had Coach Harbaugh right there with his team. Ran every one. Players view right then: this is a very different coach.
Found it..courtesy of Scott Ostler, a terrific writer:
"We'll call it the Tara VanDerveer Observation. The Stanford women's basketball coach once said, "All the great ones have a screw loose."
It's open to debate whether Jim Harbaugh has earned the "great" label, but he's on that track. When I asked Vernon Davis about Harbaugh, the 49ers'
tight end shouted, "He's a crazy (mother-)!"
Harbaugh is at least very different. When he took over at Stanford, he pledged that his team would play with "an enthusiasm unknown to mankind."
At Stanford and with the 49ers, he has coached with an enthusiasm unknown to coachkind.
Tom Thomas saw that energy when Harbaugh came to recruit Tom's son, Chase, a blue-chip linebacker. The Thomases entertained dozens of college coaches, but only one coach entertained them.
"He separated himself by miles from everyone else," said Thomas, who described Harbaugh as "Mach-1, hair on fire, very charismatic. ... When he walks into a room, there's a circle of energy radiating out about 30 yards."
Five minutes into his recruiting visit, Harbaugh was rolling on the floor with the family's golden retriever. Asked if he wanted something to drink, Harbaugh said he'd be happy to help himself, and jogged to the fridge.
Harbaugh said, "Chase, let's go see your room," and bounded up the stairs.
Then it was, "Chase, get your basketball, let's go shoot hoops."
Uh-oh, Harbaugh and hoops, that's dangerous territory. Former Stanford offensive lineman Chris Marinelli said Harbaugh will play anyone one-on-one, "and he's not going to let you score. I watched him play an assistant coach. I think the final score was 0-0, with three bloody noses."
Alex Fletcher, a former Stanford center, said Harbaugh made an immediate impression. At the end of the new coach's first practice, the team ran a killer set of five 60-yard sprints. Harbaugh ran 'em all.
"He's the most enthusiastic human being I've ever met, about anything - football, the university, his wife, his family," Marinelli said. "At first, you have trouble believing it."
Harbaugh's energy is a manifestation of his confidence, which overpowers everything, like industrial-strength cologne in an elevator.
"It wasn't his enthusiasm as much as it was his confidence," Fletcher said. "He just reeked of confidence. I don't think he'll ever lose at anything in his life. ... In 2007, we had no business being on the field against USC. He willed us to victory.
"He took a group of Stanford guys and made us believe we were the blue-collar kids. ... It's not that he gets you to drink the Kool-Aid. He drinks the Kool-Aid, too."
So maybe Harbaugh is just a hyper guy, or maybe it's an act?
"I know some people on the outside world would roll their eyes and see this stuff as corny," said Brian Polian, Stanford special teams coordinator (although he's leaving for Texas A&M), "until you're in the room and you feel the sincerity."
It was one thing to convince Stanford students that they're bad-dude street scufflers. But how do you do that in the NFL, where the players are already half-crazed Ninjas?
"I think it's wrong to make the assumption that all NFL players are tough," said Polian, whose father and two brothers have worked extensively in the NFL. "No matter what you say about the NFL, when players sense a coach wants to win as badly as they do, they'll follow that."
The current 13-3 49ers will back Polian's statement.
"He does a great job of focusing on the little details, but at the same time keeping it loose and not allowing his players to get tense about making mistakes," offensive lineman Adam Snyder said, "where in the past we've had coaches that have not done that.
"It's not so much joking around; it's more about forgetting what happened and moving forward. ... He loves the game of football, and I really think he cares about the guys. Everybody on the staff is like that. It leaks down to us and allows us to play our best football."
Harbaugh will take a show-of-hands vote of players on things like travel plans and schedules. He formed a committee of eight players to sound out the team and come to him with suggestions and beefs.
"Not too many coaches do that," said safety Donte Whitner, who played five seasons at Buffalo before signing this year with the 49ers as a free agent. "It's usually cut-and-dried. 'I'm the (boss), this is how it goes.'
"
Whitner said Harbaugh still surprises him.
"Coaches tend to disappear. They tend to not be (personally) involved with players as much," Whitner said, noting that Harbaugh sits down with players in the lunch room and jumps around on plane flights to chat with players.
I asked Whitner if he ever thought Harbaugh was weird.
"Yeah," he said, "I always thought it was weird. I always thought it was weird that a lot of head coaches don't really speak to you and don't want to get to know you personally. And when I first got here I thought it was a little weird that he wanted to do that. ... That's why he's won the locker room over, and why he's won the organization and everyone over."
It's too early to proclaim Harbaugh a genius, but the 49ers would be wise to keep the maintenance guy with the screwdriver away from their coach.
I recently read a great story about Harbaugh. I will try and find it and link it.
One part of it talked about a player's first practice at Stanford.
It was a very, tough practice, physical and intense.
At the end, the team ran gassers. I think it was 10.
Each gasser had Coach Harbaugh right there with his team. Ran every one. Players view right then: this is a very different coach.
Found it..courtesy of Scott Ostler, a terrific writer:
"We'll call it the Tara VanDerveer Observation. The Stanford women's basketball coach once said, "All the great ones have a screw loose."
It's open to debate whether Jim Harbaugh has earned the "great" label, but he's on that track. When I asked Vernon Davis about Harbaugh, the 49ers'
tight end shouted, "He's a crazy (mother-)!"
Harbaugh is at least very different. When he took over at Stanford, he pledged that his team would play with "an enthusiasm unknown to mankind."
At Stanford and with the 49ers, he has coached with an enthusiasm unknown to coachkind.
Tom Thomas saw that energy when Harbaugh came to recruit Tom's son, Chase, a blue-chip linebacker. The Thomases entertained dozens of college coaches, but only one coach entertained them.
"He separated himself by miles from everyone else," said Thomas, who described Harbaugh as "Mach-1, hair on fire, very charismatic. ... When he walks into a room, there's a circle of energy radiating out about 30 yards."
Five minutes into his recruiting visit, Harbaugh was rolling on the floor with the family's golden retriever. Asked if he wanted something to drink, Harbaugh said he'd be happy to help himself, and jogged to the fridge.
Harbaugh said, "Chase, let's go see your room," and bounded up the stairs.
Then it was, "Chase, get your basketball, let's go shoot hoops."
Uh-oh, Harbaugh and hoops, that's dangerous territory. Former Stanford offensive lineman Chris Marinelli said Harbaugh will play anyone one-on-one, "and he's not going to let you score. I watched him play an assistant coach. I think the final score was 0-0, with three bloody noses."
Alex Fletcher, a former Stanford center, said Harbaugh made an immediate impression. At the end of the new coach's first practice, the team ran a killer set of five 60-yard sprints. Harbaugh ran 'em all.
"He's the most enthusiastic human being I've ever met, about anything - football, the university, his wife, his family," Marinelli said. "At first, you have trouble believing it."
Harbaugh's energy is a manifestation of his confidence, which overpowers everything, like industrial-strength cologne in an elevator.
"It wasn't his enthusiasm as much as it was his confidence," Fletcher said. "He just reeked of confidence. I don't think he'll ever lose at anything in his life. ... In 2007, we had no business being on the field against USC. He willed us to victory.
"He took a group of Stanford guys and made us believe we were the blue-collar kids. ... It's not that he gets you to drink the Kool-Aid. He drinks the Kool-Aid, too."
So maybe Harbaugh is just a hyper guy, or maybe it's an act?
"I know some people on the outside world would roll their eyes and see this stuff as corny," said Brian Polian, Stanford special teams coordinator (although he's leaving for Texas A&M), "until you're in the room and you feel the sincerity."
It was one thing to convince Stanford students that they're bad-dude street scufflers. But how do you do that in the NFL, where the players are already half-crazed Ninjas?
"I think it's wrong to make the assumption that all NFL players are tough," said Polian, whose father and two brothers have worked extensively in the NFL. "No matter what you say about the NFL, when players sense a coach wants to win as badly as they do, they'll follow that."
The current 13-3 49ers will back Polian's statement.
"He does a great job of focusing on the little details, but at the same time keeping it loose and not allowing his players to get tense about making mistakes," offensive lineman Adam Snyder said, "where in the past we've had coaches that have not done that.
"It's not so much joking around; it's more about forgetting what happened and moving forward. ... He loves the game of football, and I really think he cares about the guys. Everybody on the staff is like that. It leaks down to us and allows us to play our best football."
Harbaugh will take a show-of-hands vote of players on things like travel plans and schedules. He formed a committee of eight players to sound out the team and come to him with suggestions and beefs.
"Not too many coaches do that," said safety Donte Whitner, who played five seasons at Buffalo before signing this year with the 49ers as a free agent. "It's usually cut-and-dried. 'I'm the (boss), this is how it goes.'
"
Whitner said Harbaugh still surprises him.
"Coaches tend to disappear. They tend to not be (personally) involved with players as much," Whitner said, noting that Harbaugh sits down with players in the lunch room and jumps around on plane flights to chat with players.
I asked Whitner if he ever thought Harbaugh was weird.
"Yeah," he said, "I always thought it was weird. I always thought it was weird that a lot of head coaches don't really speak to you and don't want to get to know you personally. And when I first got here I thought it was a little weird that he wanted to do that. ... That's why he's won the locker room over, and why he's won the organization and everyone over."
It's too early to proclaim Harbaugh a genius, but the 49ers would be wise to keep the maintenance guy with the screwdriver away from their coach.
quote:Originally posted by justbaseball:
Not a big 49ers fan, but generally root for them.
But all I know is if anyone ever wondered if a coach really has an impact or if its only about talent...
Exhibit A - Jim Harbaugh.
Counter Exhibit B Mike Singletary, Norv Turner
some coaches are a plus, others a minus, others a bigger minus
Some Owner/GMs are BIG MINUS (ie, Jerry Jones, Cowboys)
infielddad - I 'heard' another story about Harbaugh when he arrived at Stanford. Supposedly, he interviewed every single coach from the previous regime and had 1 question up front...if they answered the way he wanted, the interview continued...if not, that was it.
Q: What do you think the most important thing that needs to change here at Stanford for us to win?
A: Anything but, "We need to get admissions to change their tune and let us recruit a little deeper in the pool."
No one passed...none made it past the question.
No excuses...leadership.
Q: What do you think the most important thing that needs to change here at Stanford for us to win?
A: Anything but, "We need to get admissions to change their tune and let us recruit a little deeper in the pool."
No one passed...none made it past the question.
No excuses...leadership.
Over the course of the season the Saints has a below average defense. When it was time to defend their season at the end of the game they lacked the ability to do so.quote:Originally posted by infielddad:
An offense and special teams which turns the ball over 5 times, to me, is not evidence of a "weak defense." Games are won and lost over 60 minutes.
I trust you would "blame" the Stanford kicker for the Fiesta Bowl, loss.
Personally, I agree with the way Brees and Payton handled the post game yesterday, just as I did the way Coach Shaw and the Stanford players did the Fiesta.
As Coach Payton said, they made one more play..and won the game.
Another weak defensive team, the Packers watched their season go down the drain. Patriots fans have the same fear now that they will play teams with adequate offenses.
Over the course of the season the Saints had a below average defense. When it was time to defend their season at the end of the game they lacked the ability to do so.quote:Originally posted by infielddad:
An offense and special teams which turns the ball over 5 times, to me, is not evidence of a "weak defense." Games are won and lost over 60 minutes.
I trust you would "blame" the Stanford kicker for the Fiesta Bowl, loss.
Personally, I agree with the way Brees and Payton handled the post game yesterday, just as I did the way Coach Shaw and the Stanford players did the Fiesta.
As Coach Payton said, they made one more play..and won the game.
Another weak defensive team, the Packers watched their season go down the drain. Patriots fans have the same fear now that they will play teams with adequate offenses.