FOXBORO, Ma. – The 49ers beat the Patriots 41-34 and clinched a playoff berth. Here is the grade for the 49ers’ coaches.
Coaching: C-. The offensive and defensive game plans were aggressive and terrific. Greg Roman called passes on four of the first five plays, and the 49ers easily marched down the field for a touchdown. On defense, Fangio was calling plays that resulted in unblocked pass rushers. He was dominating Patriots’ offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
As soon as the 49ers got a 28 point lead, the 49ers coaching staff went away from the game plan, went away from what was working and went into ultra-conservative mode. Fangio called mostly zone and the 49ers stopped getting pressure on Brady. As a result, the Patriots scored four TDs on four straight possessions. During that run, the 49ers offense went four-and-out and then three-and-out and then three-and-out one more time. The Patriots were expecting the 49ers to run, and that’s what the 49ers did. It took the Patriots tying the game for Roman to start calling aggressive pass plays again.
The 49ers coaches cannot take their foot off the pedal the rest of the season. They need to remain aggressive to win the Super Bowl.
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I would agree, but then we also were up on them 31-3 at the half…
Agree we need to finish stronger though. Given the Special Teams play, the fake and James’ return, coupled with the first half performance, we actually should have been up by more than 31-3 at the half, I would give a very solid B+. That was a REALLY good team on their home turf in the elements, with a HOF QB, I am only marking down to B+ because we gave them life by going conservative.
What? It was 17-3 at half time.
ha ha, was thinking about that, thanks!! Its late, maybe I was thinking it should’ve been 31-3 at the half :)
They didn’t “give them life” by going conservative, they almost threw away the victory.
Grant’s C- is a tad generous, IMO.
We keep getting conservative on offense and defense when we get leads. Need to do what Seattle is doing and keep aggressive on both sides to the end. When we went to zone, the D could barely bother touching the Pats receivers, as though we had already won the game. Jed York had a good tweet on this concern, hope Coach gets the point.
Other issue is the sudden acceleration of injuries hitting us. Oyy.
Unfortunately this coaching staff does not understand how to aggressive. The Niners should have been up by more than four TDs, but once again we decided to play for field goals. Like the play before the half, a stupid run that has about a 10% chance to get us a touchdown. We should have thrown the ball into the end zone, but Roman is too much the idiot. I hope somebody hires Roman to go coach (badly) a college team. This guy is always willing to give up on third downs and in the red zone. The Niners can’t put teams away because the coaching staff is just way to conservative. I still can’t believe that Harbaugh has an OC that doesn’t know how to diagram a pass play, or at least no very well. How can you expect the guy to be a good OC with no experience in the passing game, and was hired as a RB coach just a few years ago. Glad we won, but this team could be so much better with good coaches. Now we will go to Seattle and get killed because we haven’t been able to play three consecutive good games all season. I see no reason to believe this coaching staff can make the adjustments necessary to change that.
Wow, why so negative? What about all the positives like the explosive plays, the vertical passing attack, well designed running plays, etc?
We will not lose to Seattle. Mark it down.
Nick
Why so negative? Because the team came within a whisper of giving the game away, and this is the same crap they’ve been doing over the last two years. Get a lead, go conservative… It’s the reason their record is not 12-2. Both Rams games directly resulted from this same conservative crap.
Why do we continue to be ridiculously conservative with our play calling?
Run up the middle, get stopped.
Pitch it to the left, run nowhere.
Run up the middle, get stopped again.
Place too much faith in a heavily struggling and hugely declining 38 year old kicker, surprise…he misses a 38 yard chip shot.
Place too much faith in a defense playing against a Hall of Famer QB, a 4 touchdown comeback. wow.
I get it. A win is a win but we’ve got to make some Offensive Coordinator upgrades this offseason…this is getting a little silly and unbelievably frustrating to watch sometimes.
Maybe firing Roman isn’t the answer but you’ve got to build a better offensive foundation of play calling then what is currently going on…
It’s not on the offensive coordinator!!! Dollars to donuts this is a Harbaugh thing. I’d bet a gazillion dollars.
It’s why his teams are always good, but seem to not win against the high-powered teams. Andrew Luck probably could have passed for 400 yards a game in college, but the Cardinal focused on running and defense.
It’s old-school, Bo Schembechler-style smash mouth, and it’s got Harbaugh’s paw prints all over it.
Harbaugh has said that he’s somewhat a deciple of Bill Walsh…..Walsh did the same thing when he was Niners HC….build up a lead, then go conservative on offense in the second half…there is something to be said for that philosophy with regard to injury potential, but, this team isn’t built to play that game against the ‘elite’ teams in the NFL…at least, not yet. I really hope that JH and Co. will take a different attitude into this weeks game with Seattle…fully utilize the offensive weapons he has at his disposal, and quit throwing them a bone every now and then.
Look I don’t think you are being fair in this grant, I think Belichick has a trend of making second half adjustments that are very deadly to the teams he is facing. He made those adjustments, with crippling results, but the 49ers also made adjustments in the 4th quarter to win the game, this is an A at the least coached game, I said the only way the 49ers could beat the patriots was with a perfectly planned game it was close but the defense was going to get tired you cannot face what the patriots have and not wear down on defense, the coaching for this game was near perfect IMO.
The coaches made a couple of gutsy calls too. The fake punt comes to mind.
I have never been a fan of the prevent defense and this game shows why. The niners also have a prevent offense which does not “prevent”. I agree with others, keep your foot on the gas.
All in all, a well coached game – it deserves a B at least. C’ mon they did beat B&B in Foxborough. Great game.
The fake punt was Dashon Goldson’s call. Give him credit for that.
Was it really? Where’d u hear that syco?
Roman is a IDIOT,he seems to Help the other team with his playcalling.Hey ,special teams coach—you lost a chance to win a super bowl muffing away punts when are ya going to run away from the ball.Coaching was terrible.
You’d think we got blown away after reading some of the comments on here. Come on folks. Keep the faith. This coaching staff has gotten us this far and have a great chance of taking us all the way.
Sorry, Nick, did you say…
Kaep the Faith?
Haha
The changes from man to man to soft zone and from passing on first down to trying to work the clock in the middle of the third quarter were classic coaching stupidity.
With a 28 point lead the switch from man-to-man coverage to zone coverage (which, by the way, is not necessarily prevent) was the right move against almost any other offense, and more importantly, against almost any other quarterback. Brady is unworldly in his ability to pick apart zone defenses, he is patient and at the same time looking for the dagger to stick into your heart. He is a great quarterback and I love to watch him play, except against us.
P.S. Just watched Bill Belichick’s press conference after the game. He’s a sore loser, gave one word answers and looked like he wanted to rip out his own liver and eat it on stage. What a delight!
How is it that CK gets an A- and the coaching a C-?
In case you didn’t notice, CK stank at the same time the coaching supposedly did.
And our ST coaching was excellent. The DG punt fake call, and Andy Lee were awesome!
And players are coached Grant. You keep thinking CK is just great without good coaching is just in poor taste.
Good morning, Negative Nancy! :-D
Negative if you think CK gets all credit for good and coaching the blame for all bad. Even though players play.
I agree they did lay off a bit and I was wondering what was going on. After watching hours of game tape this season with this no huddle offense isn’t new, you would think teams would catch on. Its no huddle, it doesn’t take rocket scientist to figure out how to disrupt it.
Seattle pressured New England for all 60 minutes when they played them. By holding off a bit, the Niners gave up too much. Oh well a win’s a win. And thank god for Kap. Harbaugh’s QB’s a well educated and read much more so than 95% of the QB’s in the league who are about stats and athletic ability but have very little when it comes to brains. Luck, Smith and now Kap. You can’t go wrong with any of ‘em.
Coaches need to start aggressive continue aggressive and finish aggressive they can not feel that they have points in the board and that is it…..PUT THE PEDAL TO THE METAL!!!!!!!
I’m torn on the coaching grades – I’m somewhere between a B- because they won a game that nobody gave them a chance to win and a D for being too f’ing conservative in the second half.
What bothered me the most about the ultra conservative play calling falls is the whole “fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice, shame on me”…they were fooled 4 times before they went back to what worked. They should have realized their error after the 1st NE TD, and the fact that they didn’t change their strategey after the 2nd NE TD tells me they were way too slow in reacting.
But, I’m not worried about the future – I don’t think they make the same mistake twice.