NFC West one week in

So having the game on Thursday allowed me to sit back and watch other teams on Sunday which was kinda nice, knowing we were sitting 1-0 after a big win Thursday.

Niners. Jumped out early, the D made Romo look very Romo like..... Offense capitalized but still didn't look locked in in the passing game. But they didn't need to with the lead and running game. Still dont know how they will shake out, but they still appear to be our biggest road block to the division.

Cards: Up and down game last night. They pulled it out in the end. Defense looked great at times, but honestly had Rivers caught that snap they probably lose. Can't believe they refused to throw to fitzy.

Rams, looked terrible. Looking forward to the draft. Mariota and Hundley coming out?

The Cards D still looks very stout, they are built much like the Hawks, strong DB play allowing front seven to pin their ears back. Rivers was under pressure the entire game.

But it's the same old feast or famine offense with Palmer taking far too many risks downfield, it's too bad the Charger's DB's couldn't catch an interception if it was tossed to them underhand by a five year old.

I'm going to hold off my opinion on how the Niners look until they play an actual NFL team.

Too early to tell.

The only team that looked really good out of the bunch is MY team.

gowazzu02":wfkdxph5 said:

the D made Romo look very Romo like.....

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If Romo making some inexplicably stupid decisions to throw horrible passes right at SF defenders and they were able to catch passes thrown right to their chests is their D "making" Romo do that despite little to no pressure on most of those picks, then sure. Romo largely created his own problems and SF did not look dominant.

I think week 1 tells us that so far what we were expecting was about right.

The Seahawks are dominant and the best team in the league, the 9ers have some problems due to suspension and injury but are still clearly the second best team in the division and one of the top teams in the league, the Cardinals are a good but inconsistent team, and the Rams are kind of a mess.

There's still time for all of this to change, but overall, I think it was a fairly unsurprising week in the NFC West.



SIDENOTE:

gowazzu02":fm9fa5e1 said:

Niners. Offense capitalized but still didn't look locked in in the passing game. But they didn't need to with the lead and running game.

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Pretty hard to tell with the passing game because the game was over by eight minutes into the first quarter. With the 9ers lead less than three scores Kaepernick was 4/4, 19 yards per attempt, 2 TDs and 0 Ints. Heck, with the 9ers lead less than three TDs across the whole game Kaepernick was 6/6, 15 yards per attempt, 2TDs and 0 Ints.*


*(FWIW this also isn't including the 32 yard completion to Davis that was negated on the Lloyd OPI call that even the most ardent Hawks fan was terrified by. If you wanna include that, and it wasn't official so I don't, his line with the 9ers up by less than three TDs across the whole game was 7/7, 17.5 YPA, 2TDs, 0 Ints).

While I am aware that our secondary is a huge concern, I'm not ready to say it is as bad as some people believe.
I mean look at our starting DBs last year as compared to this year, we went through some huge changes.

We lost Whitner/Rogers/Brown and replaced them with Bethea/Cully/Brock.

IMO, we still haven't seen our secondary yet, Brock and Culliver missed out most of the Dallas game and most of preseason.
Word is that Brock suffered a turf toe injury which is never a good thing, I have some serious concerns about our secondary going into Chicago.
One thing that I think is going to help is that our pass rush shouldn't be as bad as it was in Dallas. The only bright spot on that Cowboys team would be that O-line, very young and talented.

I still don't think we've seen all of SF, may just be my homer thinking but part of me likes to believe that once we jumped ahead Roman started going conservative so we didn't show our cards to early on a a team that we clearly had beat.

Sherminator":2cwjwvjs said:

While I am aware that our secondary is a huge concern, I'm not ready to say it is as bad as some people believe.
I mean look at our starting DBs last year as compared to this year, we went through some huge changes.

We lost Whitner/Rogers/Brown and replaced them with Bethea/Cully/Brock.

IMO, we still haven't seen our secondary yet, Brock and Culliver missed out most of the Dallas game and most of preseason.
Word is that Brock suffered a turf toe injury which is never a good thing, I have some serious concerns about our secondary going into Chicago.
One thing that I think is going to help is that our pass rush shouldn't be as bad as it was in Dallas. The only bright spot on that Cowboys team would be that O-line, very young and talented.

I still don't think we've seen all of SF, may just be my homer thinking but part of me likes to believe that once we jumped ahead Roman started going conservative so we didn't show our cards to early on a a team that we clearly had beat.

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Likely your toughest matchup will be Arizona. Chicago and Philadelphia have the offense to light the 49er's up but horrible defenses. And they're home games so I figure you lose 1 of the 3 unless something changes with Philadelphia in particular.

Popeyejones":2hshhiyh said:

I think week 1 tells us that so far what we were expecting was about right.

The Seahawks are dominant and the best team in the league, the 9ers have some problems due to suspension and injury but are still clearly the second best team in the division and one of the top teams in the league, the Cardinals are a good but inconsistent team, and the Rams are kind of a mess.

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No other explanation required. Seems like a week 1 truth. Let's see about #2 shortly. 9ers kinda getting a break with Chicago. They should be able to beat them easily.

Seattle looked the most impressive week one.

The Niners have some question marks but maybe the defense will improve as the season goes on, especially when Bowman and Aldon return.

The Cardinals look decent and would not be surprised if either the 49ers or Seahawks split with them.

The Rams, I wonder if Jeff Fisher gets fired after this year.

The NFC West was historically good last year so I figured at least one team would regress and it looks like it will be the Rams.

I still can't get a read on the 49ers based on their game. The Cowboys defense is terrible, Romo played one of the worst games of his career and they had a 4-0 turnover advantage yet they still only won by 11 and didn't score in the second half. They're playing a bad Bears team at home next week so we may not know much until they play the Cards on the road in week three.

Largent80":3jdgxe14 said:

9ers kinda getting a break with Chicago. They should be able to beat them easily.

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How are the Bears any more or less of a break than the Chargers? They're both .500 teams that lost by 3 and 1 points respectively this week.

If we're going to start invalidating potential future wins in the division, wouldn't it be the Rams going up against the 4-12 Bucs of last year who looked as inept in Week 1 of this season too?

Popeyejones":26cmzohz said:

Largent80":26cmzohz said:

9ers kinda getting a break with Chicago. They should be able to beat them easily.

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How are the Bears any more or less of a break than the Chargers? They're both .500 teams that lost by 3 and 1 points respectively this week.

If we're going to start invalidating potential future wins in the division, wouldn't it be the Rams going up against the 4-12 Bucs of last year who looked as inept in Week 1 of this season too?

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I think what everyone is saying by not saying anything is there isn't much to say lol. They don't have a chance. Starting off 0-1 behind SEA, SF, and AZ is an early death sentence with the uphill battle they have to face.

The Chargers are a good team, much better than Chicago... The Chargers have some great players on Offense and supposedly will have a pretty good D this year. Chicago not so much. I think SD>Chi

Romo gave the game away more than SF earned it. So time will tell, week 3.

it will be interesting to see if we have 3 teams that are 2-0!

I want to think the bears offense can do some things vs a short handed niners D.

But after the third preseason game v seattle I dont know...... Alshon/Marshall should be able to do work against the niners secondary...

Arizona seems to have a knack for getting production out of no-names on their D-line. Their back seven looks suspect, but their D-line was stout against the run and better in the pass rush than their 0 sacks would lead you to believe.

I'm still pissed about Romo and Murray (and Scott Linehan) flushing that game down the toilet in the first quarter. The 49ers looked like a 10-6 team to me, but it takes an awful performance to lose when you are gifted 4 turnovers right off the bat, with two incredibly inept play calling performances at the goal line thrown in for good measure.

Are the Rams that bad or are the Vikings that good? I think it might actually be the latter.

little is known about SC right now.

I heard they ran 3 or 4 offensive plays and were up 21-0 already, something like that.

Romo handed them the game early. Ugly game

I watched all 3 division opponents.

Palmer looked more fit, active, and mobile than I ever remember.
Cards may have blitzed more than I ever remember. I did not think missing Washington and Dansby would make them slow their roll, and they have not. They are going to live and die by that blitz.
They want Floyd to supplant Fitzgerald.
Their offensive line is not as improved as I thought it would be.

The Rams were bad enough that the third string QB actually was an improvement. The Vikes have more speed on D than I gave them credit for. The Rams picked up where they left off with stupid penalties. Fisher had his guys playing with tennis ballls in their hands to prevent defensive holding in practice, they tackled like they were still holding tennis balls. And his receivers didn't get the memo that offensive PI is being called more this year as well. HIs DBs still got flagged for some holding and illegal contact. Maybe they can wear mittens?
I must admit that I have severely over rated Fisher. His team came out trying to attack the passer and 3 of the front 4 would over penetrate and let a RB go by. He is, like Pete, really the guy in charge of personnel, and I am not impressed by a lot of his highly drafted talent. The OC still sucks.

I was not impressed by much from the Niners, except for a handful of plays. Hyde looked good. I think he should be ahead of Gore on the depth chart. Kaep threw a couple of nice balls. Stepped into a couple of pockets, got away form a pressure and threw a good ball. The Dallas D got to him way too much, they have a lot to clean up there. FOr the most part Kaep still makes up his mind who is getting the ball right away and stares them down til they are open. Which vs Dallas is pretty damn open, Dallas has man corners playing zone, and they look bad doing it. San Fran had 4 offensive plays and 21 points, which told the whole story of the game, Dallas was very generous with the ball. San Fran had one real theme, don't get beat deep, and Romo kept trying to beat them deep, stipid on is part with how well they were running and getting some nice short area passing looks. San Fran should have dropped 45 on those guys. And Dawson. He seems to have lost something as a kicker.

I was really hard to tell who kicked Dallas ass more, San Fran or Romo. San Fran's secondary looks pretty depleted right now.