By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz — We’re in a bubble down here, Sesame Street with Saguaro.
The Niners are coming unglued. Bruce Miller arrested? What next? Jim Harbaugh coaching third for the A’s?
© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
GLENDALE, Ariz. — He was weary and battered, a champion once again, an MVP once more.
Tom Brady, who wasn't necessarily the man who made the difference — although certainly he was a difference-maker — stood there as much in gratification as in glory.
Copyright © 2015 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
Special to the Examiner
PHOENIX — They weren't going to trap Marshawn Lynch. He would talk Tuesday on Super Bowl Media Day. He would sit there at his rostrum and declare, "I'm only here so I won't get fined."
Declare it 28 times before adding, "Time up."
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
PHOENIX — There was a guy wearing only a barrel. No, not the late, great Tim McKernan of Denver; this was someone representing a local C&W station, KNIX.
There was a young lady from a Hispanic sports station wearing something so tight it could barely be confused with a dress, much less a barrel.
Copyright © 2015 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
PHOENIX — Think of the great NFL coaches over the last half century, the Lombardis, Shulas, Nolls, even the Belichicks, because no matter what we think of Bill, he is part of this category and a much rarer category -- a winner in back-to-back Super Bowls.
Now consider adding the name of Pete Carroll to that list. Silly, you suggest, because Carroll, a product of California's fantasy-land Marin County, a guy whose easy-going ways when he coached the Jets were derided as "the good ship Lollipop?"
Copyright © 2015 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
PHOENIX — Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, in his rimless glasses and dark suit, looked more like a businessman than a football coach. However, the questions he was asked moments after the Seahawks arrived for next Sunday's Super Bowl had nothing to do with finance.
Seattle's jet arrived at Sky Harbor Airport in the early afternoon, and not long after that, after the Seahawks' buses crept through the crowd of cheering, banner-waving fans at the motor entrance to the Arizona Grand Hotel, he was dealing with, yes, "deflategate."
Copyright © 2015 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PASADENA, Calif. — The oddsmakers knew Oregon, even if most of the eastern United States did not.
The Ducks, the aptly named Quack Attack, were a 9 1/2-point favorite over Florida State, a team that hadn't lost a game in two-plus seasons. Some people wondered how that could be. They found out the first day of 2015.
Copyright © 2015 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
PASADENA, Calif. — One team, Oregon, is second in the nation in the playoff rankings. The other, Florida State, is third and undefeated. Each has a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback. What else do we need to know?
Other than who will win Thursday's College Football Playoff semifinal, of course.
Copyright © 2015 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA — The announcement, lacking explanation, carrying no emotion, was delivered within moments of Jim Harbaugh’s last words to the media. The 49ers and Harbaugh had “agreed to mutually part ways.”
Just like that? Not if you were tuned in, and the Bay Area, as well as Ann Arbor, where the man supposedly will take up residence, never tuned out.
The story, the agony, the questions, have been bubbling for weeks, printed in the dailies, carried on radio and TV, on Internet sites.
Harbaugh and the Niners were done when the season was done, we were told, and told again, and Sunday, with a 20-17 victory over the Arizona Cardinals, at last it was done.
Thus, after four seasons, most wildly successful, three trips to the NFC championship, one to a Super Bowl, so was Harbaugh as Niner coach.
We knew it was coming, knew it was inevitable, knew the people at the top didn’t like Harbaugh’s pushy, demanding style — although they did like the victories, of which appropriately there were a total of 49, including playoffs.
And yet in this world of social media and screaming headlines, where there are no secrets, Harbaugh and Niners management, meaning president Jed York and general manager Trent Baalke, attempted to hide it until the last second.
Then on the final day of the regular season of 2014, when it could no longer be ignored, the Niners delivered the news as they might have done about another empty seat at Levi’s Stadium.
Oh, by the way, kids, there will be a new coach next season. Thought you’d like to know.
Here’s the shame of all this: That on what most likely will be the final game for another memorable 49er, Frank Gore, who ran for 144 yards, giving him his eighth season of 1,000 or more and a career total of more than 11,000, the performance becomes a sidebar.
For the Niners, who came in at 8-8, the only non-winning reason of Harbaugh’s four, the main story is Harbaugh and the departure that was forecast for weeks.
Jim is a demanding guy. The way he’s turned teams into winners (at Stanford, he took over after a 1-11 season and, whoosh, coached the Cardinal to 12-1, leading to the Niner job), he can afford to be. But he gets to the egos of those who pay his bills, an independent cuss whose loyalty is to his players rather than the bosses.
When the Niners went to the Super Bowl two seasons back, facing the Baltimore Ravens, coached by brother John Harbaugh, Jim thumbed his nose at protocol. It’s tradition the Friday before the game that each coach shows up at media headquarters in coat and tie for a final press conference. John wore a suit. Jim wore the clothes he wears on the field, black sweatshirt, chinos.
Basically what Jim Harbaugh does is wear on others. Play a few bars of Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.”
Now it’s the highway. Or a private jet to Michigan, where he’s getting an offer worth millions to coach his alma mater. Of course, when Harbaugh became Stanford coach before the 2007 season, he said Michigan admitted “borderline guys” and steered athletes (student-athletes?) toward softer majors than the rest of the kids.
What he said Sunday standing at the podium in the stadium auditorium was he felt great with what he and the team accomplished during his short reign.
“I leave on good terms with Jed York,” said Harbaugh. While there were skeptics among us, York and Harbaugh embraced after Jim walked out of the locker room pregame.
Later, soaked by a Gatorade as a farewell gift from his players, Harbaugh left the turf carrying a game ball, handed to him by safety Craig Dahl, whose interception in the final moments locked up the win.
“It’s like the song ‘Time of My Life,’” said Harbaugh. “That’s what it’s been. The relationships remain along the way. That’s what a team is. As I’ve said all along, it’s been a tremendous four years, my pleasure to work with this organization, this football team.
“This win meant a lot. There have been a lot of great moments.”
Harbaugh thanked the fans — many of whom remained to give him a last hurrah — as well as the media, the team.
“These were signature years in my life.”
As, Frank Gore said, they were in his life.
“He’s a great coach,” Gore said of Harbaugh. “My best years were with him as a team. He was here, and we won. I just wish him the best. I know whatever team he goes to, whether it’s the NFL or college, he’s going to be fine. He’s going to get it done.”
The decision on Harbaugh and by Harbaugh has been made. The decision on Gore, a free agent, is pending. Does he also depart? “I wish we can get things worked out,” said Gore, who cried before the game started, considering past and future. “But I also know it’s a business.”
So does quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who in Harbaugh is losing not only the man who drafted him in 2011 after the two worked out, but the one who as a former NFL quarterback himself nurtured him.
“He has been a huge part,” said Kaepernick, “but I’m playing football nevertheless.
“He helped develop me, not only as a quarterback but as a person. He made sure you took care of your family and your teammates. But he sill pointed out what I needed to do to get better as a player.”
He’ll be advising some other quarterback now on some other team.
“You start something,” Harbaugh said about the grind this year, “you finish it. We battled. You do your best. People may look at it as not enough, but you do your best. If your best isn’t appreciated, then you do your best anyway.”
Jim Harbaugh’s best was always appreciated. If only for too brief a time with the 49ers.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA — This was the 49er year in microcosm. And in memoriam. A season that might have been unwound painfully in a game that should have been. And wasn’t.
After all the chaos, the rumors, the questions, the Niners had a chance to quell the noise, if only for a few days, and no less significantly end their losing streak.
That they could do neither seemed appropriate in their next to last game of a season that will climax for the first time since 2010 without a winning record.
And possibly, since they now are 7-8 and play one more, with a losing record.
The Niners lost Saturday night. Again. Lost on a 40-yard field goal by Nick Novak in overtime. Lost to the San Diego Chargers, 38-35. Lost after leading 21-0 in the second quarter and 35-21 in the fourth quarter.
Lost after setting a team rushing record of 355 yards. Lost when for the 15th time in 15 games they failed to score a touchdown in the final regulation period. Or in overtime.
For a while, it seemed the Niners would have one last hurrah, a shout to echo through the dreadful silence of bewilderment, of wondering where Jim Harbaugh would be coaching, or asking why general manager Trent Baalke and team president Jed York couldn’t patch together the differences that in part turned a Super Bowl franchise into a supreme disappointment.
But a team that had a reason to win, the Chargers, chasing a playoff spot, found a way — or ways — to beat a team that already was eliminated from the postseason, had no particular reason. Except pride.
“We kept fighting,” said Harbaugh. “We did the best we could.”
There’s that one game left for the Niners, here at Levi’s Stadium, the $1.3 billion home for what evolved into a two-bit team, Sunday against Arizona.
After that Harbaugh, whose arrival in 2011 gave San Francisco the lift and the direction to become winners, will depart.
Where, to another NFL team — the Raiders? — or his alma mater, Michigan, only he knows. What everyone knows is the Niners have slipped from the their perch near the summit, and their fall could be a tumultuous one.
Already below Seattle, they could drop below Arizona and St. Louis, an also-ran with aging linemen and a quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, apparently more qualified to use his legs than his arms.
Kaep rushed for 151 yards, including a spectacular 90-yard touchdown run, the second longest by a quarterback (to Terrelle Pryor’s 93-yarder) in NFL history. Frank Gore, 31, whose time is nearly finished in San Francisco, picked up 158.
But for a fourth straight game, the Niners couldn’t pick up a win. Even after a great beginning.
“There’s no way to explain it,” said Bruce Miller, the Niners fullback.
To the contrary, there is.
The Niners, because of their numerous problems — only Wednesday, defensive lineman Ray McDonald was terminated because he was being investigated for sexual assault — their frequent injuries and their well-publicized dysfunction, were in survival mode from the start.
And they were unable to survive, whether the game Saturday night where the less-than-capacity crowd was less than effusive, or the full schedule. Losing to the one-win Raiders a couple of weeks back should have been the indication that the Niners were a mess.
Football is a sport of emotion as well as strength. People can say what they wish, but deep down a player must be driven. A bad break here, a tough call there, and everything comes apart. It did for the Niners Thursday night. And in other games.
Gore, who was returning after a concussion, had his finest game of the year. “There’s a man,” said Kaepernick of his main running back. Absolutely, 158 yards on 26 carries, highs for 2014.
Yet, the man wasn’t given a chance in so many other games. And now the end as a Niner is near.
The Niners' strength had been on defense. But NaVorro Bowman had a knee torn up in the NFC Championship a year ago and never played. Aldon Smith was suspended for legal troubles, including firearm violations. Patrick Willis missed the last month with turf toe. The strength became a weakness.
“I’m going to try and forget it,” defensive tackle Mike Purcell said when someone asked him if he would remember the game.
Niner fans will seek to do the same.
“We just didn’t finish,” said cornerback Parrish Cox. “We want to finish the season strong. But I don’t know what it is.”
Harbaugh may know, but he wasn’t talking.
“It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot to say right now,” he said after his penultimate game as coach.
Except, in a few days, goodbye.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — He had the look of a man who had just swallowed a lemon. Or a huge loss. Colin Kaepernick stood at the podium with his headphones and without any meaningful answers.
The 49ers' season has gone down the drain, and it’s not unfair to suggest that Kaepernick’s career has also.
On the first play from scrimmage, Kaepernick threw an interception. On the last, in a finish that was all too symbolic, he was thrown on his backside, sacked.
In between, on this Sunday of tectonic shift, the Oakland Raiders climbed from their embarrassment of a week previous, a 52-0 loss, and stunned the Niners 24-13 at O.co Coliseum.
What a crushing, painful time it’s been for the Niners, battered on Thanksgiving night at their own venue, Levi’s Stadium, 19-3 by the Seattle Seahawks; caught in the constant tumult involving the future of head coach Jim Harbaugh; then getting embarrassed by a team that had won only once in 12 previous games.
And somewhere in the maelstrom was that tweet from team president Jed York, immediately after the defeat by Seattle, apologizing for the performance, or lack of same, against the Seahawks.
These are the conclusions one jumps to after the rapid flow of recent events: Harbaugh will not return for a fifth season as the man in charge of Niner fortunes. Kaepernick has been exposed as a quarterback who sees only his primary receiver.
Kaepernick was and is Harbaugh’s guy, chosen in the second round of the 2011 draft, a brilliant athlete who can throw a baseball more than 90 mph and in football can elude tacklers. Until, admittedly, they surround him in a well-planned pass rush.
When Alex Smith incurred a concussion midway in the ’11 season, Kaepernick took over, and with his speed and arm gained Harbaugh’s endorsement.
The following year, the two of them had the Niners in the Super Bowl, although San Francisco’s defense was the real reason, and in the game itself, the final play, Kaep demonstrated an inability to feather a pass, firing away an incompletion.
Over the last few games this season, Kaepernick and the Niner offense — one and the same — were ineffective.
Defensive coordinators in the NFL are well paid to develop designs that take advantage of every offensive weakness. It certainly appears they’ve figured out how to shut down Kaepernick.
The Raiders are in no way among the better defensive squads — on the contrary, they’re among the worst — but they sacked Kaepernick five times (including that ultimate play), picked him off once and limited him to 18 of 33 passing for 174 yards, a quarterback rating of only 54. Derek Carr, the Raiders' rookie QB, was 22 of 28 for 254 yards and a 140.2 rating.
Unsuprisingly. Kaepernick’s post-game comments offered little explanation of what was wrong and why. He has become notably reticent, almost as if being interrogated by an enemy solider rather than a few harmless journalists.
“We haven’t played well,” said Kaepernick, as if anyone holding a note pad or a microphone was under the impression they had.
Kaepernick did concede on that opening scrimmage play he was trying to find receiver Michael Crabtree, and the safety, Brandian Ross, “came over the top.” But he wouldn’t allow that the interception, so quick and jarring, had effect on the rest of the game.
“You leave that play behind,” said Kaepernick, an ironic choice of words because when Oakland’s Sebastian Janikowski kicked a field goal eight plays later the Niners were left behind, 3-0.
Although San Francisco would carve out a brief 7-3 lead, there was a sense the Raiders were in control and the Niners, about to fall to a record of 7-6, were in trouble. Once Donald Penn caught a touchdown pass from Carr on a tackle eligible play, the 49ers were out of the lead.
Harbaugh was hardly more illuminating than Kaepernick as the coach fielded questions equally divided between the game result and his own future.
When asked about Kaepernick, Harbaugh — a former quarterback himself — understandably was not going to toss his man under the bus, particularly on a day when Kaep had been tossed under the defensive line so many times.
“I look at it as a team effort,” a subdued Harbaugh said about Kaepernick’s failing, “and we didn’t get it done.”
Not at all.
Asked if York and general manager Trent Baalke want Harbaugh, under contract, to be coach of the Niners in 2015, Harbaugh responded, “My priorities are: No. 1 winning football games; No. 2, the welfare of our players, coaches and our staff; and lastly what my personal future is.”
When a journalist wanted to know if he had coached well the last month, Harbaugh said, “You have to take responsibility so it falls on me if we don’t win these games. That’s my No. 1 priority, winning football games.”
The Niners, who next face Seattle — all hope will be gone with what seems a certain defeat at the Seahawks’ place — are in a very tenuous spot. Maybe so is Harbaugh.
Asked if he wanted to be with the Niners next year, Harbaugh repeated a previous remark, “My priorities are winning games.”
Something that has become very, very difficult of late.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA — The game didn’t hurt Marcus Mariota’s chance for the Heisman Trophy. “If this guy’s not what the Heisman’s about...” said Mariota’s coach, Mark Helfrich.
The comment went unfinished, but Mariota’s quest for the Heisman surely will not be.
Nor did the game hurt the University of Oregon, arguably the second-best team in the land and surely destined for one of the four positions in the college football playoffs. The Ducks embarrassed Arizona, 51-13, Friday night at Levi’s Stadium in the Pac-12 championship game.
“Wasn’t a good night,” said the Arizona head man, Rich Rodriguez. He was talking about his team, which had beaten the Ducks two in a row, 41-24 earlier this season at Eugene, Oregon’s place, and 42-16 last season.
He also could have been talking about the conference’s reputation.
Arizona took a hit, a big one. In what was supposed to be a competitive game, Arizona was disgracefully non-competitive. At halftime, the Wildcats had minus-9 yards rushing, only 25 yards total offense. At halftime, the Wildcats trailed 23-0.
At halftime, the game was over.
“You know,” said Rodriguez, “this play didn’t work, that play didn’t work.”
But for Mariota, the redshirt junior quarterback, after a slow start almost everything worked. By the time he was taken from the game in the fourth quarter, Mariota had rushed for 33 yards and three touchdowns and passed for 303 yards and two more touchdowns.
By that point, Mariota had all but made certain he would earn the Heisman.
“I wouldn’t be in this position,” said Mariota, “if it weren’t for the other players. It’s an 11-man game.”
But of those 11, Mariota, with 39 touchdown passes and only two interceptions this season, is one of a kind. The Ducks are 12-1, that only defeat to Arizona, and headed for one of two postseason semifinals, probably at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. But that is a few weeks in the future.
On Friday night as the rain fell and stopped and fell, on turf at the San Francisco 49ers' new $1.3 billion stadium that despite having been replaced five times was slippery, Mario worked his magic.
And worked over an Arizona team that was as bewildered as it was battered, giving up 640 yards while acquiring only 224.
“I think Oregon is a very, very good football team,” said Rodriguez. “The winner of our league each year is going to be, I think, a contender to be one of the best in the country. Oregon’s the best in our league this year, and I think they have a chance to prove they’re the best in the country.”
That’s because, in addition to the offense driven by Mariota, they also have a defense. Or is that statement unneeded when the opponent has only 25 yards in the first half?
“The defense did a tremendous job,” confirmed Helfrich. “They stopped a higher power offense.” An offense that gained 495 yards against Oregon in October. An offense that Friday night could hold on to the ball just over 21 minutes of the game’s 60.
Helfrich was apologetic about his own offense early on. The Ducks took the opening drive to the Arizona 16 and finished with just a field goal. After Oregon recovered an Arizona fumble on the kickoff, the Ducks went to the Arizona five and finished with another field goal. Next, they were stopped on downs at the Arizona 25.
“Offensively,” said Helfrich, “we were a bit tight. A bunch of guys were trying to make it 42-0 on two plays, and that’s very difficult. Whether it was jumping offsides or making mistakes, we were inches away from a bunch of points.”
Those points would come, and in the fashion of Oregon’s high-speed tactics that wear down the defense, they came quickly. What didn’t come was the big crowd Pac-12 officials wanted in the first of the four conference championship games not held at one of the opponents’ stadiums. Announced attendance at the 68,000-seat stadium was 45,618, and it seemed closer to 35,000.
Mariota seems closer to the No. 1 individual prize in undergraduate football, the Heisman.
“We had a lot of motivation going into this game,” said Mariota. Two months ago, against the Wildcats, he caught a touchdown pass and threw TD passes of his own, but the Ducks were defeated.
“We didn’t try to put too much emphasis (on this game), because that’s going to be a distraction. We just wanted to go out there and play the best we could. The last couple of years we haven’t been able to put that out there against them. Tonight was just a great example of us playing a complete game.”
And a great example of a quarterback who has likely earned the Heisman.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA — The people who play and coach the game understand what it’s about: Success. How you achieve it is inconsequential.
They don’t judge on style points, only on final scores. Al Davis told us exactly what matters in the NFL with his mantra, “Just win baby.”
This 49er season hasn’t been what some thought it might be. The team has struggled at times, mystified at other times. It lost to the Chicago Bears at home — the Chicago Bears, for heaven’s sake — and couldn’t even be competitive against the Denver Broncos.
And yet a few days before Thanksgiving, here are the Niners, perplexing, confusing — at least to the fan base — but still hanging in there. On Sunday, San Francisco, albeit unimpressively, defeated the Washington Redskins, 17-13. Then, Thursday, again here at Levi’s Stadium, they play the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, who at 7-4 have the same record as the Niners.
The Niners needed a touchdown with only 2 minutes 59 seconds remaining to overtake a Redskins team that now has a 3-8 record, a quarterback (Robert Griffin III) who knocks his teammates and a coach (Jay Gruden) who knocks his quarterback.
The important thing is they got that touchdown, the first one all season in the fourth quarter with Colin Kaepernick at quarterback.
The important thing is when the time came, on fourth and one from their own 34 with only some five minutes remaining, they got a three-yard run from Frank Gore.
The important thing is the next play Kaepernick connected with Anquan Boldin for 29 yards, and when Redskins safety Ryan Clark was called for unnecessary roughness for his hit on Boldin the ball was on the Washington 19.
“We’ve got to make plays when they’re there,” said Bruce Miller, the Niner fullback. “Today, especially late in the game, we made them.”
That’s what winners do, of course. Even when they turn the ball over three times. Even when they give up 136 net yards rushing.
“That’s one thing about this team, and I applaud them for their efforts to keep going when it gets tough,” said tight end Vernon Davis. “We fought. We stayed in there, and we pulled it off.”
Up north, the Seahawks were beating the division-leading Cardinals, 19-3. Then Thursday they’ll be in Santa Clara. If the Niners are going to the postseason it’s a game they have to win, because later they play up in Seattle where they never win.
Yet what might happen concerned the Niners less than what did happen, the victory over the Skins.
“We win these kind of games by any means necessary,” said Niners coach Jim Harbaugh. “When you (turn the ball over), it’s about the team sticking together.
“We turned the ball over, and some teams will hang their heads when that happens. But that’s not what this team’s about. This team’s about each other. They’re about the team, the team, the team. Not into criticizing each other. We’re not into badmouthing each other, talking about each other. We’re into lifting each other up. Guys just kept playing and fighting. That’s what good teams do.”
If by implication that was a zinger against the Redskins and their apparent dissension, Harbaugh made no effort to make anyone believe anything else. He read and heard what Griffin said about his teammates, that they needed to play better, and what Gruden said about Griffin, that he needed to worry about himself and not the others.
The unity of a football team is essential if unpredictable. A week ago, Niner linebacker Ahmad Brooks whined about coming out of a game. Just as the issue seemed about to enter crisis stage, Brooks gave his apology and Harbaugh wisely was in complete acceptance. He’s ready with a quick show of support. His guys are his guys.
One of those guys is Boldin, whom the Niners acquired from Baltimore before the 2013 season. Although 34 and in his 12th season, the ability has not ebbed.
“He’s a shining star,” Harbaugh insisted of Boldin, “a stalwart. Still making the big plays.”
Which is what Boldin hopes to make. His touchdown for Baltimore in the Super Bowl XLVII two seasons ago helped defeat the Niners. Now he helping the Niners beat others.
“At some point,” said Boldin, “we were going to have to make a play, win a game on offense. Defense played their butts off. I think (the offense) played well in spurts, but we shot ourselves in the foot at times. Three turnovers definitely were detrimental. Tough games, but guys are making plays when called upon at the right times.”
Boldin made them. Kaepernick made them. The defense made them.
“A good team doing what it has to do,” said Harbaugh, “to win a football game.”
How good? We’ll know in a matter of days.
By Art Spander
BERKELEY — So this was the year Cal had a chance against Stanford, the year the Golden Bears had a defense and had tenacity. What they didn’t have one play into the game was their starting strong safety.
What they often didn’t have after that was discipline. Or, more critically, the football.
The air shooshed out Saturday virtually as the balloon was inflated. All the excitement, the hopes, the possibilities, disappeared in moments.
An ejection. A rapid 10-point deficit. Dejection.
The sun came out above Memorial Stadium after a morning rain, but the day metaphorically was dreary for most of the less-than-capacity crowd of 56,483.
The Cardinal was too much for Cal, maybe not as much as 2013 when the score was 67-13, the most one-sided in the history of a series that now has reached 117 games, but plenty nevertheless.
The final this time was 38-17, and the way the Golden Bears played defense, made penalties and threw interceptions, you never felt Cal had a chance. Both teams entered with 5-5 records, but there was no question one was superior.
“Frustrating” was the primary word tossed around in the Cal post-game comments, followed by “disappointing.” No one expected the Cal people to be pleased. Yet the remarks are becoming litany, and for the faithful, the Old Blues as Cal alumni designate themselves, agony.
The game overall was a bewildering mix of mistakes and official video reviews. In the third quarter alone, Cal had three touchdowns overruled on three consecutive plays. But good teams overcome all that incidental stuff. Bad teams don’t.
Was it a shock that on the first play from scrimmage Cal strong safety Michael Lowe was penalized and ejected for what the official believed was “targeting,” driving his helmet into Stanford tight end Austin Hooper? Of course.
“In 20 years,” said Cal coach Sonny Dykes, “I have never seen something like that happen the first play of the game. I wish that something like that wouldn’t affect us as much as it did. It affected me, and I think it affected our players.”
Which tells you perhaps as much you need to know about Cal. It is an improving team but also a fragile team, working its way back from a 1-11 record in Dykes’ first season. One blow knocked it off kilter.
Not that Stanford’s defense and a Cal offense, which lost four turnovers — against a team that only had nine takeaways all season — weren’t major factors.
“They are a physical team,” Dykes, painfully honest about his program and other programs, said about Stanford. “And they laid some pretty good hits on us. They did a nice job tipping a couple of passes, and you have to give them credit for that. We have to make sure we move the pocket and make space.
Starting quarterback Jared Goff threw a couple of those, which were tipped and picked. His alternate Luke Rubenzer also threw two interceptions. Running back Daniel Lasco fumbled near the goal line, Stanford recovering. And there you have part of the tale of self-destruction.
“Our kids really wanted to play well,” said Dykes. “We really wanted to play well as a coaching staff. Our fans wanted us to play well. We didn’t make a very good showing today, and I am really disappointed about that.”
Goff, the sophomore, broke his own single-season record for passing yards. He had 182 Saturday on a so-so 16-for-31 completion mark and now has totaled 3,580 for the season with a game left to play against Brigham Young.
“They’re playing Savannah State,” quipped Dykes. “Probably winning 120-0, getting their confidence.” (It was only 64-0, but his point was understood. BYU gets a lot of points. And the Bears give up a lot of points.)
Goff, said Dykes, didn’t have one of his better games. “When you face a good defense,” reminded Dykes, “you have a small margin for error. Five turnovers are pretty significant errors.”
And 113 yards in penalties (Stanford had 21) are no less significant.
“I am disappointed in the way we played,” said Dykes. “I anticipated us playing better football. It was a bit of a strange football game, and it certainly didn’t start the way we wanted it to start.”
It didn’t end the way they wanted either. Stanford has won the last five years, half a decade. Somehow, Cal has to find a way to keep the other team out of the end zone — Stanford’s Remound Wright tied a Big Game record with five touchdowns — and, no less importantly, find a way to keep its composure.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — That “O’’ in Oakland? No longer does it equal the Raiders’ win total for the year. The streak is over. The streak ended here, at the O.co Coliseum — maybe they should change it to the 1.co Coliseum — on a Thursday night of rain and success.
Go ahead and say it, the drought has ended, for Nor Cal, for the Raiders.
It was inevitable. The football, that is, not the downpour, although the forecasters said that too was coming. The way Raiders interim coach Tony Sparano said a win was coming.
Teams don’t go through a 16-game NFL schedule without a victory. Sure, the 2008 Detroit Lions did, but since the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs, an expansion doomed to failure by the system, the Lions were the only team.
Somehow, the Raiders were going to win one.
And they did against the Kansas City Chiefs, who had won their previous five games in a row and were tied for the AFC West lead.
They did by sweeping ahead 14-0 early in the second quarter. By letting that lead go and then, on a 9-yard touchdown pass from rookie quarterback Derek Carr to James Jones in the closing minutes, going back in front and winning 24-20.
“We’d been getting close,” said Sparano, who was coaching his seventh game since replacing Dennis Allen. “We’d been getting better in practice. I saw a different look in this team.”
And now there’s a different look with their record. One win may not seem like much, but to the contrary it’s huge when you’ve lost 10 out of 10 for the season and cobble that to the six straight defeats that concluded last year.
Not since Nov. 17, 2013, 368 days if you’re counting, had Oakland come out ahead.
“Those losses had been hard,” said Carr. He took over as starter from the veteran Matt Schaub before the first game. So since last year at Fresno State, he was always on the losing side. Until Thursday.
There was unabated joy in the Raider locker room. Such yelling and shouting. It was as if they had won the Super Bowl, not merely a scheduled game. “All that frustration that we’ve gone through when something goes wrong at the end,” said linebacker Sio Moore.
Moore and rookie Khalil Mack, also winless as a pro, did a bit of unprofessional celebrating — in the Chiefs' backfield — slapping hands after sacking quarterback Alex Smith on the K.C. 48 with 28 seconds. But before a penalty could be called for delay of game, Oakland wisely signaled time out. One more play, an incomplete pass, and the Raiders owned the ball. And the win.
“I was so caught up in the moment, man,” said Moore, who’s in his second year. “That was an error I’ve got to clean because in another situation — in all seriousness — that can make the difference. I do apologize for putting the guys in that situation. I can’t let emotions get the best of me.”
For 10 weeks, teams have been getting the best of the Raiders, although the way Oakland played defense in losing 13-6 to the Chargers last Sunday was verification that they were improved — if without results. Until Thursday night.
“I don’t know how to explain the feeling,” Moore said about finally winning a game. “It’s a good feeling to see through the culmination of weeks all the work that we’ve been putting in.
“We decided when we came in at halftime (with a 14-3 lead) that we weren’t going to let them get out of deep end of the pool, and we were going to finish it out.”
The Chiefs made it to the shallow end, but then the Raiders swamped them again.
Oakland scored first on an impressive eight-play drive, Latavius Murray bulling the final 11 yards. Then Murray dashed 90 yards two and a half minutes into the second quarter, and Oakland had its first 14-0 lead since the Twelth of Never.
“They blocked us,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, “(he) hit the hole, and we just weren’t able to catch him.
From two touchdowns back, Kansas City did catch the Raiders, however, and the guess was it would yet another Oakland defeat. Not at all.
“We learned a little something today,” said Sparano. “Learned something about ourselves. Today they just refused to give up the rope. My hat is off to the people in that locker room. Greatest feeling in the world is to see them smile. Helluva bunch of guys. They don’t stop playing. We don’t always do it right, but they play hard.
“Today the offense took the football down the field and did it in the old-fashioned Raider way. They ran it. They ran it. And we made a big play. It was a heck of a thing to watch, and if you didn’t learn anything from it, I apologize to you.”
No apologies needed this time. Only kudos.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There’s something wrong. With the football team, which is evident. With the new stadium, which is apparent. The 49ers are showing up as a mystery, one that has coach Jim Harbaugh so perplexed he can’t even get angry with media questions.
The fans after halftime aren’t even showing up at all.
A new home, a $1.3 billion beauty of steel and class constructed in honor of champions of the past. The tickets are sold, but the people who hold them must not be sold on the Niners.
This is what happened Sunday. The nation returned to standard time. The 49ers, however, didn’t turn their game clocks ahead or back. They just stood figuratively still before all those empty seats at Levi’s Stadium, and they were upset by the St. Louis Rams, 13-10.
The Rams, 3-5, were not very impressive. The Niners, 4-4, were very unimpressive.
Niner quarterback Colin Kaepernick was sacked eight times — by a team that had six sacks total in its previous seven games.
“We have all the talent in the world,” said Niners left tackle Joe Staley. “We’ve been doing some dumb stuff, and they took advantage of it.”
Like not keeping the Ram defense out of the Niner backfield. Again. Two weeks ago, Kaepernick was sacked six times at Denver. Then, after a bye week to make fixes, he was sacked eight times.
“We prepared for this during the week,” said Kaepernick. Maybe the situation is unfixable.
Maybe Harbaugh is as distressed as he is bewildered. Usually, when he’s asked what went wrong, the competitive, combative man he is takes issue, as if the media doesn’t have a clue so just sit down and be quiet.
Not this game. Harbaugh was restrained, responding with generalities, not specifics, the old, “Not enough good football, we got beat.”
Old, except for Harbaugh, who normally is loathe to concede that his squad was outplayed. This was a new frontier for the Niners’ fourth-year leader. This took some swallowing.
Yes, as poorly as they played, the Niners could have won. They had the ball, third and goal on the Rams one, with nine seconds remaining. A field goal would have sent the game into overtime. Instead, Kaepernick bulled up the middle and fumbled. The Rams recovered.
“I was juggling the ball,” Kaepernick conceded. He also believed he had crossed the goal. A replay review verified he did not.
Could have won. But did not win, because now, at the midpoint of the season, when the Niners usually are becoming their best, priming for the playoffs, San Francisco is a mess. And the next game is against the Saints at the Superdome, where the Niners invariably have problems.
The Niner offensive line seemed confused, not only because rookie Marcus Martin was starting at center for the first time. The pressure on Kaepernick came from everywhere, from William Hayes at left defensive end, from James Laurinaitis at middle linebacker, from Robert Quinn at right defensive end.
“We’ve been talking up those things,” said Rams coach Jeff Fisher about harassing the quarterback, “and I said we’d been getting close. You’ve got to credit the guys up front. These were individual efforts.”
So in a way, as Staley confessed, were the Niner failures. “Penalties,” said Staley in review, “dumb blocks, dumb techniques and dumb schemes.”
By supposedly some very smart football linemen, certainly for the most part by veteran football linemen, who two years ago helped the Niners to the Super Bowl.
Could they have grown too old? Could they have grown complacent? Change is a constant in sports at any level. No team remains at the top all the time. No players remain the best forever.
They tell us O-lines have great staying power. Maybe this one has stayed too long.
“We’ve got to suck it up,” said Harbaugh, avoiding mention of individuals. “Got to play better.”
Of course they do, but how? Does the blocking have to improve? Does Kaepernick have to get rid of the ball quicker — and more accurately? And how much is attributable to the fact that the Niners, who like to set up the pass with the run, could rush for only 80 net yards?
“We had opportunities in both halves,” said Kaepernick, “and we didn’t take advantage.” Not when they score a paltry 10 points. Not when the quarterback is tackled eight times behind the line of scrimmage.
“That’s why I’m here,” said Kaepernick. “I’m here to make plays. I can make people miss. So that’s part of my job.”
They aren’t going to miss when they sweep in from every direction, and they didn’t miss. The Rams knew something about the Niner offensive line. And now everyone knows.
“We’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror,” said running back Frank Gore, the spiritual leader of the Niners, “and we’re going to try to get to this postseason. We’ve got to do it and stop playing around.”
Or, when the postseason arrives, they’ll be forced to stop playing. Period.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — The question is not whether the Raiders are broken. We know they are. It’s obvious. It was obvious before they fell to 0-6 on Sunday.
They can’t stop anybody, and in football if you can’t stop anyone, can’t play defense, you have no chance. That’s understood.
But how can the Raiders be fixed? Can they ever be fixed? To look back and blame it on the late Al Davis doesn’t do any good, except maybe for some vindictive sorts.
If Al made some bad draft picks, if Al kept trying to play 1980s football in the 2010s, railing against him in 2014 doesn’t help the situation.
For the second game under interim coach Tony Sparano, in control only for two games, the Raiders hung in there, at times played effectively. But against a better team, which the Arizona Cardinals are — a very good team, at 5-1 — bits and pieces are not good enough. Oakland was beaten 24-13 at O.co Coliseum.
What you need to succeed in football at any level are a defense and a quarterback. In rookie Derek Carr the Raiders very well may have that quarterback, the man who can lead them into the future. But they don’t have a defense.
They haven’t a defense for years.
“We put ourselves in position to win,” said Sparano. “But we didn’t win. In the 140-odd plays there are eight or nine that are critical. You’ve got to make those plays to win. We have to get better on third down. We have to get off the field.”
They have to stop the other team when it matters. The Cardinals had 15 third-down plays on Sunday. On nine they made first downs, 60 percent.
They never relinquished the ball. They had it for almost 37 minutes of the 60, and while possession time is not always a determining factor in this game — as was the case in last weekend’s against the Chargers — it certainly was.
The opposition just grinds up and down the field, holding the ball, holding the game. Is there an individual to blame?
Mark Davis, Al’s only son, is the one in charge, the team president. But he’s not really a football man as was his late father. Mark hired Reggie McKenzie to fill that role. It appears he hasn’t done it very well.
For two years Oakland and McKenzie were hobbled by the salary cap. Then, before this season, his third, he signed veteran free agents who have not done much, if anything, except earn huge salaries.
Do the Raiders start over? Does Mark Davis hire new executives? People with a plan? Or at least a plan that might be better than the one installed by McKenzie?
Dennis Allen, a defensive specialist, was McKenzie’s choice as coach. He was fired at the end of September, four games into his third season.
Maybe he didn’t have the players. Maybe he couldn’t be a head coach. The team has been more competitive under Sparano.
However, Sparano is the interim coach. Who will replace him? And does Oakland replace McKenzie?
Where to begin? When to decide? Do you clean house? Do you stay patient?
Charles Woodson is in his 17th season. He played safety on Sunday as he has forever, with the Raiders after he was the fourth player picked in the 1998 draft, then with the Green Bay Packers where he helped them win Super Bowl XLV, then in 2013 back to the Raiders.
He’s old. He’s still competent. In the second quarter, Charles Woodson, 38, 1997 Heisman Trophy winner, intercepted a pass thrown by Carson Palmer, 34, 2002 Heisman Trophy winner.
The Cardinals probably will have Palmer for a while. Woodson’s days are not so certain. He does provide good quotes.
“I think it’s pretty much snowballed on us,” said Woodson of a season that supposedly had promise and now at almost the halfway point doesn’t even have a single victory.
“We had a close game that first game (a 19-14 loss to the Jets) and it felt like we were on the right track. We just weren’t able to capitalize on that first game. We haven’t been able to put four quarters of football together. But again, third downs, on both sides of the ball, are really killing us.”
Not as much on offense as on defense. If you rarely have the ball, you’ll never have any rhythm. If the defense is ineffective, you’ll rarely have the ball.
“We didn’t do the job on third downs,” repeated Sparano. “Some of that we have to look at scheme. Some of that we may have to look at players.”
Some of whom were signed by McKenzie, who was signed by Mark Davis, who got the team as a legacy. They’re all in it together, and what they’re in is a mess that some way needs to be cleaned up.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — He’s a kid, a rookie, a cornerback on an NFL team that five games into a painful season has changed coaches and even though winless well into October perhaps on Sunday finally changed direction.
“We all feel like we did something today,” said TJ Carrie.
What the Oakland Raiders did, at last, was compete, keep a game in doubt, show they are anything but hopeless.
What the Raiders didn’t do was win. As they haven’t won this season. The San Diego Chargers came from behind and beat Oakland 31-28 at O.co Coliseum. Even with professed Raider fan Tiger Woods in attendance.
It was the Raiders’ best game of the season, on offense. Quarterback Derek Carr, also a rookie, threw four touchdown passes. Darren McFadden ran for 80 yards. So encouraging.
But the Chargers, 5-1, as compared to the Raiders, 0-5, controlled the ball, had it 37 minutes of the total 60, gained 423 yards. It is a cliché that defense wins. In this case, for the Raiders, unable to halt Charger drives, especially the final one that climaxed with a Branden Oliver touchdown with 1:56 remaining.
A new coach for the Raiders, an interim coach, Tony Sparano, who was chosen to replace hard-luck Dennis Allen two weeks ago. An old result.
The players are the same. They seemed more spirited, more aggressive, more upbeat. But they were no more successful.
There are two requirements to create a winning football team, a defense and a quarterback. Without a defense, you virtually never get the ball — and when your time of possession is 15 fewer minutes, as it was for the Raiders, they virtually never had the ball. Without a quarterback, well, he touches the ball on every offensive play.
The Raiders appear to have the quarterback in Carr. He has started every game, and if Carrie, the cornerback, who got beat often enough, said he learned something, so did we about Carr. He’s poised. He’s aggressive. And he has a fantastic arm. Hey, on the third play from scrimmage he unloaded a 77-yard beauty to Andre Holmes for a touchdown. Shades of Peyton Manning.
“I thought our quarterback made some big plays,” said Sparano. He also made some mistakes, getting called for intentional grounding and then in the last minute, on a meticulous drive that seemed destined to produce a game-tying field goal, throwing a ball to the Charger 10 that was intercepted, ending not only a chance for victory but also a record.
Since the merger of the mid 1960s, the only rookies to throw four touchdown passes without an interception in a game were Robert Griffin III and Trent Edwards.
“He’s getting better and better,” said Sparano of Carr, who played collegiately at Fresno State. "On that first touchdown, they came with pressure, we expected the pressure, the guys handled it pretty well, but Derek kept through the progression and getting the ball to the right guy. That’s progress.
“The play at the end of the game, it’s second and very short (1 yard), we felt like we’d make the first down, took a shot and that kid (Jason Verrett, also a rookie, from Fairfield, about 35 miles from the Coliseum) made a great play.”
Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, as expected, made a ton of great plays. He threw three touchdown passes and has 15 in six games, with only two interceptions.
“We thought about blitzing him,” Sparano said about Rivers. “We blitzed him a couple of times early. We got to him a couple of different ways, but with Philip, as I said earlier in the week, if you don’t tackle him he’s a guy that buys time. He’s going to hurt you in those situations, and he hurt us in one or two of those situations today. You have to pick your poison a little bit with him.”
They’ll find no antidote in Carson Palmer of Arizona, next week’s opponent. The Cardinals are 4-1, and Palmer, who was with the Raiders three years ago, has recovered from his injuries.
“That’s the best team in the league according to some,” Sparano said of the Cardinals, and then switching to San Diego, “That’s one of the best teams out there today, and our kids played hard. We have to be in these kind of football games and finally one of these kind of games. That’s how we turn this thing around.”
They turn it around by shutting down the opponent, by playing the sort of defense the Raiders have not displayed for years.
Carrie could be part of that renaissance.
“His impact,” Sparano said of Carrie, ”was in two areas. I felt him challenging the ball on defense. I felt him around the ball. And then on special teams, on kickoffs (3 for 85 yards) and the punt returns, he really did a nice job.
“Look at TJ. Look at (rookie linebacker) Khalil Mack flying around and Gabe Jackson and these kids. It’s a good place to be right now.”
Did he mean for the Raiders or, as was the case for the Chargers and their dominant time of possession, the opposition? For Oakland there weren’t enough stops. And at 0-5, there certainly aren’t enough wins.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Jim Harbaugh was having his way a few minutes after his team had its way. There’s no direct line from A to Z with Harbaugh, whose very existence seems designed to keep everybody off balance.
With Jim you buckle your seat belt, button your lip and go for a ride that is never unexciting. Or unenlightening.
Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers were 22-17 winners over Kansas City on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, and the story could even stop right there, since coaches invariably say the only thing that matters is the final score.
If the coach isn’t Jim Harbaugh.
A couple weeks back, former defensive star Deion Sanders, now employed by the NFL Network, said publicly there are people on the Niners, in uniform, in executive positions, unhappy with Harbaugh. To which the immediate response is, “So?’’
Except every time Colin Kaepernick throws an interception or Frank Gore fails on third-and-one, the issue is tossed out there again. The idea is to get attention, right? And what gets more attention than another tale about the non-conformist leader of arguably the most popular team in Northern Cal?
Even if we’re told there’s no basis for the reports.
“All this noise, I don’t understand the whole thing,” said kicker Phil Dawson. “It’s certainly not consistent with the noise you hear outside the locker room. There is zero problem in the locker room. We believe in our coach and love playing for him.”
Dawson is in his second year as the Niners’ placekicker after a long career in Cleveland. Against the Chiefs on Sunday, he made field goals of, in ascending but not chronological order, 27, 30, 31, 52 and 55 yards, 15 points of the team’s 22.
Harbaugh, who sees his athletes as semi-mythical, pointed out that Dawson and others who contributed to the victory — Kaepernick, Gore, defensive back Eric Reid — should be so satisfied with their performance they can look at themselves in the mirror and say, "I’m a football player.’"
Of course they’re football players, or they wouldn’t be in the NFL, but Dawson, his nearly bald head shaved clean, isn’t certain he needs such self-congratulatory methods.
“At 39 years old,” Dawson said, “I don’t enjoy looking in the mirror very much. I’ll pretend to be a football player without looking in the mirror.”
The Harbaugh advice, of course, is figurative. He’s big on machismo, on individual success evolving into team success. Beat the guy across the line, and the team beats the opponent. Grrr.
The Niners are 3-2 now, and while expectations may have been for better, against the Chiefs they played effective defense and competent offense. And they’re still without two of the NFL’s best defenders, NaVorro Bowman, recovering from that knee injury, and Aldon Smith, on a nine-week suspension. If and when those two return, San Francisco might be pretty good.
Harbaugh knows what he has and what he doesn’t have. What Harbaugh himself has is an overwhelming desire to prove his capabilities. Just when you think you know the man, he’ll get you. Or his team will.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Niners, trailing 17-16, had the ball four-and-one on their own 29. They lined up to punt, naturally, but, sneaky devils, called a running play up the middle. The first down eventually led to Dawson’s fourth field goal and a 19-16 lead.
“Yeah,” said Harbaugh, tempering a boast. “Thought it was an important call, important play in the game. Strong important win for our team. Thought it was a great team win.”
It was a grind-out, we’re-stronger-physically-and-mentally kind of win that Harbaugh relishes, the sort of victory that registers not only on the scoreboard but the opponents’ psyches.
Harbaugh certainly was questioned again about the Deion Sanders contention that will live as long as the season does.
“The team doesn’t have to respond,” said Harbaugh in his own response. “The team has to do their job and play football. It’s my job to love them — those players, those coaches, everybody in our organization.
“It’s their job to love each other. They don’t need to respond in any other way than their job. The football team has done good. And the better you do, the more you do, then people try to trip you up. Whether you’re getting praised, whether you’re getting criticized or whether you’re having silence, all three have their obstacles. But also all three, any of the three, can add to the competitiveness, the determination. And our football is very determined and very competitive.”
Exactly like the head coach.
By Art Spander
SANTA CLARA — This one is summed up perfectly by Colin Kaepernick, who as most everyone on the 49ers was perfectly imperfect. “Terrible,” said Kaepernick.
Indeed. And maybe worse than that.
Another opening, another show. Another stunning letdown.
The first NFL game at billion-dollar-plus Levi’s Stadium, the jewel of Silicon Valley. A 17-0 lead over the Chicago Bears. And then?
Well, 16 penalties by the Niners. Four turnovers by Kaepernick. Ineptitude at the highest level, and finally, painfully, Sunday night a 28-20 loss.
“It stings,” said Niner coach Jim Harbaugh. Yes, and it stinks, in a figurative way. The new place, 70,799 fans paying some very high prices. A beautiful beginning, and then clunk.
This one belonged at Kezar Stadium, where in 1946, their inaugural season, the Niners lost their first game ever played. Or at Candlestick Park, where in 1971 the Niners lost their first game after the shift from Kezar.
Who even thought the script would be the same? Start like a klutz.
This is a Niner team headed for the Super Bowl? Please! Sixteen penalties for 118 yards. Absurd. Disgraceful. Impossible to overcome.
Harbaugh stood in the post-game interview room like a deer in headlights, giving the briefest answers in the softest voice. Either he was bewildered by what took place or appalled. Probably both.
Earlier in the day, at San Diego, the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, the team the Niners must overtake, lost to the Chargers. The score went up on those huge video boards. The fans cheered. The Niners would be ahead of the Seahawks.
Not on your life. They would be wallowing in their own despair. They would be flagellating themselves. They would be ruing what could have been, what should have been — but was not to be.
“When you’re up, and like you said, new stadium, with the fans, great fans,” agreed Frank Gore, the Niners running back and spiritual leader, “when you’re up like that, you’ve got to go for the kill. We let them back in the game. We didn’t finish, and they beat us.”
More accurately, the Niners beat themselves. They got called for defensive holding. They got called for illegal procedure. They got called for illegal use of hands. They got called for false starts. And most of all, at the end of the first half, still in front, 17-0, they got called for roughing the passer, with only a bit more than a minute to go in the half.
That moved the ball to the San Francisco 25, and in three plays quarterback Jay Cutler moved it into the end zone on the first of three touchdown passes to Brandon Marshall.
“He’s a tough guy,” Niners linebacker Patrick Willis said of Marshall. “He’s tough to cover by anyone on the field. It’s just him getting in the red zone. He’s a big body (6-foot-4, 230 pounds).
“The youngster (Jimmie Ward) was fighting his tail off and doing all we ask him to do. The plays just went their way on those.”
They didn’t go Kaepernick’s way. Three interceptions and a fumble. Arguably Kaepernick’s worst game since he became a starter two years ago in a game against, yes, the Bears.
“I think he was seeing things good,” Harbaugh said in support of his quarterback. “He threw some pretty darn good balls. The defense made some great plays.”
Kaepernick made plays that, to be kind, were very much less than great. He seemed flummoxed by a Bears defense that literally had him on the run.
“I saw the coverages,” said Kaepernick. “I didn’t make the plays.”
What we he made were mistakes, joining teammates in a universal effort.
The funny thing is the Levi’s Stadium field was for the third time in six weeks replanted. The grass had been coming apart. It didn’t on Sunday night. It was the Niners who disintegrated.
“Turnovers and penalties,” said fullback Bruce Miller, in what was becoming litany, “especially at the point in the game when they were made, that’s losing football.”
It was for the Dallas Cowboys a week ago against the Niners.
It was for the Niners on Sunday night against the Bears.
“Wins are tough to come by,” said Anquan Boldin, the Niners wide receiver. “When you have a team down, you definitely have to put your foot on their throat because nobody’s going to quit in this league.”
The Bears lost three key defensive players through injuries, including cornerback Charles Tillman. Yet it was the Niners who lost the game.
“It stings to lose,” Harbaugh said once again. “And we all have fingerprints on it.”
Do they ever. Someone get the furniture polish.