This is a horrifying image for San Francisco 49ers fans. The weather at Candlestick Park this Saturday is expected to be sunny, clear, with light winds, and temperatures hitting as high as 67 degrees. Sounds great for a bike ride at Candlestick Point, but it’s looking more and more like the legendary swirling winds and bitter cold at The ‘Stick won’t descend until Sunday, too late to help knock off the New Orleans Saints juggernaut.
But even with bone-chilling fog seeping under their collars, the Saints would have to be favored because of the Niners’ not-so-secret weakness: their pass defense is dependent on their run defense. See the problem? The Saints have an excellent ground game, but they don’t have to hand off to eviscerate their opponents.
So, the Niners’ central dilemma is that all season they’ve used a historically great run defense to force teams into obvious passing situations, which are easier to defend because they can tailor their personnel and sets for them… But! The Saints* are such a great passing team that handing off is their change of pace. Rationally, any team with an above-average pass attack facing the Niners should omit running except as a “show me” tactic designed to keep the defense honest**.
Sean Payton is too smart to fall into a “playoff teams have to establish the run” trap — he hasn’t fallen into it at any time as coach of the Saints — so we’re looking at over 40 passes from Drew Brees on Saturday. With fantastically calm weather, I don’t see any way the Niners will be able to keep up. The first time they kick a field goal, we’ll know they’re doomed and headed for a 38-16 loss, or something like that***.
To win, San Francisco will have to move the pile again and again on inside runs, and, most important, score touchdowns instead of settle for field goals. As noted above, their defense is ill-suited for stopping the Saints, so they find themselves in the rare position of being the home team needing to take risks in order to keep pace. Again: field goals won’t win the game. They have to score touchdowns and get a little lucky with special teams and/or turnovers, which could lead to something like a 24-21 victory.
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*…and Green Bay Packers, and New England Patriots…
**If the New York Giants were rational, they would be one of the teams that simply abandoned the run against the Niners, but they are not run rationally, in-game. By the time they played the Niners in San Francisco in Week 10, they should have known the Niners had a great run defense. Yet, even without Ahmad Bradshaw, they gave 18 carries to Brandon Jacobs and another nine to D.J. Ware. That’s 27 rushes for 89 yards, or a middling 3.3 yards per carry.
***I give it a 5% chance the Saints utterly destroy the Niners, like… I don’t know… 56-10.
(Image from weather.com)
10:44 am - 13 Jan 2012 - 7 notes
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Filed under: #football #San Francisco 49ers #New Orleans Saints
