honest question for niner fans

Is Willis hurt? he looked slowish in coverage.

I thought that to God i hope he is not hurt. Maybe exhausted from having to coner the offense for a while now.

He had a groin injury earlier in the season that might be hampering him, he is also almost 30 years old (29) I believe so he may be slowing down a bit. Navaro usually covers TE's but they had to dedicate him to spy on Wilson. They must have adjusted something going into the second half cause they seemed to keep Seattles TE's in check for the rest of the game.

IllWill49":6w8wkiu2 said:

He had a groin injury earlier in the season that might be hampering him, he is also almost 30 years old (29) I believe so he may be slowing down a bit. Navaro usually covers TE's but they had to dedicate him to spy on Wilson. They must have adjusted something going into the second half cause they seemed to keep Seattles TE's in check for the rest of the game.

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Linebackers are a bit like running backs. 30 is a bad number.

Much respect to Willis. He has always been such a bad ass player. He just looked slow trailing a couple of guys, and I hate to see a warrior in decline.

LB's are kinda like QB's imo they can still be productive in there 30's look at Ray Lewis, Urlacher , London Fletcher etc etc. They get so good at diagnosing plays and learning from years of experience I think it can mask some of the speed they may lose with age.

It's a good question, and I agree with the assessment. I think it's a combination of four things:

1) The groin injury might still be lingering a little bit.
2) He's getting older
3) It doesn't get talked about much because he's so good, but playing in coverage has always been his weakness. Over the course of his career he has built himself up from bad to somewhere between average and slightly above average.
4) It gets talked about even less, but Willis has been the second best ILB on the 49ers for going on two years now, and maybe even three.

Yeah, Bowman has been the better of the crops for a while now.

He is getting older and slowing down maybe not the bad ass he used to be but still makes his presence know and more importantly he is a leader for the 49ers. I think he is the glue for the team as well the one that sets an example for the youngsters.

So youre implying that willis has finally set aldon straight?

Scottemojo":1opph3d1 said:

Is Willis hurt? he looked slowish in coverage.

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Willis and Willson had the same 40 time. It's only natural that Willson would burn him a time or too.

Axx":161yiany said:

So youre implying that willis has finally set aldon straight?

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No. But I would hope that he is a part of his growing up and getting straightened up.

NM

Okay, the post above was about how I wasn't sure what happened on the Wilson touchdown, but I deleted it because I still wasn't totally clear on what happened (first thought it was a cover three and it was just a great play by Wilson and a bad play by Rogers, but then wasn't sure if it was just Willis getting caught peeking into the backfield).

In any case, a day after not making that post (absolving Willis), this very good post from the webzone went up explaining the play.

It's post #30 at the bottom of the page:

http://www.49erswebzone.com/forum/niner ... ilm/page2/

Long story short I agree jonnydel and think my read from my unmade post was off (both for why I was going to make the post, and for why I edited it out. LOL).

Basically, on reflection, I don't Willis had a bad game in coverage, and I don't think he got burned. Coverage ain't his strong suit IMO, but this might not have been the best example of it.

Bowman is the faster of the two, and a better cover man. Teams do things to ensure they isolate willis on the TE however

Scottemojo":1o4jy6at said:

IllWill49":1o4jy6at said:

He had a groin injury earlier in the season that might be hampering him, he is also almost 30 years old (29) I believe so he may be slowing down a bit. Navaro usually covers TE's but they had to dedicate him to spy on Wilson. They must have adjusted something going into the second half cause they seemed to keep Seattles TE's in check for the rest of the game.

Click to expand...

Linebackers are a bit like running backs. 30 is a bad number.

Much respect to Willis. He has always been such a bad ass player. He just looked slow trailing a couple of guys, and I hate to see a warrior in decline.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about the Wilson touchdown that wasn't his guy they were playing zone and he saw that our rookie Reid bit on the play action and he gave chase and was already way behind when he noticed and started chasing.

HoRneR":5up8ps3n said:

Scottemojo":5up8ps3n said:

IllWill49":5up8ps3n said:

He had a groin injury earlier in the season that might be hampering him, he is also almost 30 years old (29) I believe so he may be slowing down a bit. Navaro usually covers TE's but they had to dedicate him to spy on Wilson. They must have adjusted something going into the second half cause they seemed to keep Seattles TE's in check for the rest of the game.

Click to expand...

Linebackers are a bit like running backs. 30 is a bad number.

Much respect to Willis. He has always been such a bad ass player. He just looked slow trailing a couple of guys, and I hate to see a warrior in decline.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about the Wilson touchdown that wasn't his guy they were playing zone and he saw that our rookie Reid bit on the play action and he gave chase and was already way behind when he noticed and started chasing.

Click to expand...

No, it was just a general observation that Willis has lost a step.

Willis looked Murtaugh at the end of that run.

Scottemojo":ngy3cirj said:

HoRneR":ngy3cirj said:

Scottemojo":ngy3cirj said:

IllWill49":ngy3cirj said:

He had a groin injury earlier in the season that might be hampering him, he is also almost 30 years old (29) I believe so he may be slowing down a bit. Navaro usually covers TE's but they had to dedicate him to spy on Wilson. They must have adjusted something going into the second half cause they seemed to keep Seattles TE's in check for the rest of the game.

Click to expand...

Linebackers are a bit like running backs. 30 is a bad number.

Much respect to Willis. He has always been such a bad ass player. He just looked slow trailing a couple of guys, and I hate to see a warrior in decline.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about the Wilson touchdown that wasn't his guy they were playing zone and he saw that our rookie Reid bit on the play action and he gave chase and was already way behind when he noticed and started chasing.

Click to expand...

No, it was just a general observation that Willis has lost a step.

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Well its hard to tell cause Gore has lost like 2 steps and he seemed to run as fast as Earl Thomas on that long run.

Popeyejones":2sfg27nu said:

It's a good question, and I agree with the assessment. I think it's a combination of four things:

1) The groin injury might still be lingering a little bit.
2) He's getting older
3) It doesn't get talked about much because he's so good, but playing in coverage has always been his weakness. Over the course of his career he has built himself up from bad to somewhere between average and slightly above average.
4) It gets talked about even less, but Willis has been the second best ILB on the 49ers for going on two years now, and maybe even three.

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Coverage has always been one of his strengths though. He's rated extremely high on PFF in that category in the past. I'm not sure where he's at this year though.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2 ... nebackers/

HoRneR":3s69c03r said:

Scottemojo":3s69c03r said:

HoRneR":3s69c03r said:

Scottemojo":3s69c03r said:

Linebackers are a bit like running backs. 30 is a bad number.

Much respect to Willis. He has always been such a bad ass player. He just looked slow trailing a couple of guys, and I hate to see a warrior in decline.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about the Wilson touchdown that wasn't his guy they were playing zone and he saw that our rookie Reid bit on the play action and he gave chase and was already way behind when he noticed and started chasing.

Click to expand...

No, it was just a general observation that Willis has lost a step.

Click to expand...

Well its hard to tell cause Gore has lost like 2 steps and he seemed to run as fast as Earl Thomas on that long run.

Click to expand...

I think you've confused angles with speed. Not surprising, really.