SANTA CLARA – This is Jim Harbaugh’s assessment of Greg Roman’s play calling on Sunday against the Rams.
Q: Did Greg Roman call a good game yesterday?
HARBAUGH: “Yes. The other play that probably gets some scrutiny is the first with two minutes to go – we throw the ball to Delanie. The flipside of that is getting both of their timeouts, running the football. There would have probably been 1:12 to 1:20 on the clock. It was a well-designed play, a play that we worked on we thought would work. Our guys have executed, our guys have called big plays before. This one in particular didn’t work.”
Q: You were pretty conservative to set up a field goal try there from 51 yards. Were you OK with 50, or was there a part of you saying you should get down the field a little bit more and make the field goal a little bit easier.
HARBAUGH: “I think that’s something we have to look at.”
Q: How do you think your coaching staff coached yesterday?
HARBAUGH: “It’s an accountability. I’m taking responsibility. We all look at the fact that we didn’t win the game, we didn’t finish the game like we were supposed to – we all look at that. We don’t lay it on anyone in particular’s doorstep. We look at it and see where we can improve.”
Do you agree with Harbaugh? Did Roman call a good game? Why or why not?
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Chump coaching.
Where’s Singletary. He was $3M cheaper and calls the same conservative crap. Ask Crabtree about offensive philosophy.
Wake theF*CK up, Jim!!!
Ditto Ditto Ditto! Otherwise go back to college coaching! I thought Jimmy Raye was whispering in Roman’s ear. The question wouldn’t even be asked if it’s not an issue.
Silly talk.
Of course he is defending Roman its as much his game plan as Romans. If you do’nt think Harbaugh is’nt involvrd in the offensive game plan from start to finish you are just naive and as far as i know we are the only team where the O coordinator makes the call then its relayed to the HC who then relays it to the QB. Its why all this criticism of Roman i believe should be pointed towards Harbaugh also. Even Bill Walsh gave his O coordinators more autonomy
Whatever – it’s not working.
Haven’t seen any good playing from Roman accept last years Saints playoff game.
Was the worst coaching performance in the Harbaugh era across the board. I’ll be happy to see Roman take another job elsewhere.
Roman called a fine game, the problem is that the coordinator has no control over how hard the QB flips the ball nor can he stop him from running into the end zone. Stop blaming the mistakes from yesterday on the plan when it was clearly the execution that failed.
+1
Thank You..
Before several people go ballistic…it was not all on the QB, offense did not perform as a team.
yes and no…third and three and a pitch to Ginn???
Bad call. Bad execution. There are a lot of fingerprints on that failure.
Yes, that play was bad, but why stop listing the bad plays there? Ginn should have landed on the ball there, dropped passes, bad o-line play and too many dumb penalties on both sides of the ball.
The call for an option by Roman was bad. Kaepernick’s execution of the play was bad. Two things can be equally true.
and I believe we all would agree that the player should not be placed in that position at point of the game
Well said Jack
How can we disagree with this statement “Harbaugh says Roman called a good game against the Rams”, if we agree with this statement, “Harbaugh says Kaepernick put on “a winning-quarterback performance”?
Roman’s play calling is horrible and not just this game. He’s conservative at the wrong time and agressive at the wrong time not to mention his “gadget” plays that kill drives.
Why don’t they have a third play option called? let it roll, kill and wiggle wiggle wiggle, meaning a screen play to the WR or running back. You think a few screens yesterday against the blitz would work? epecially on the road?
How about at the end of the game running three straight times running down the clock and kicking a FG instead of that throw to DW?
Vic fangio:
When your defense is predicated on giving up the short , middle stuff, why not throw in a zone blitz to confuse Bradford especially from a two point stance like JS runs every once in a while?
JH, this is the first time I’ll insult you. You are full of shhhhhhhh…….the play calling was garbage and not just on that pitch play. We get the ball on the 50 from a shanked punt and we can’t pick up 20 yards? really? and you want to win a superbowl? not going to happen with that play calling….smh…Geep chryst needs to influence the play calling more.
Roman:
Line up VD in the back field and let him go in motion. Put moss in the slot. Flank gore out at WR every once in a while. He sucks!!!
Roman called a good game?!!!Bwauaauahahahahaahahaahaha!I have a feeling this whole cinderella story is gonna come unravled..Well it was fun while it lasted..
Can’t agree. It was a poor call by Roman. Tried to turn Colin into Alex. How many throws for distance? The stupid toss to Ginn is obvious. The overly conservative run when you can’t run was wrong. “Throw the ball”
Why put Colin in there and then put the “handcuffs” on him with wrong play calling? He’s not Alex, don’t call Alex plays for him.
Roman can go, he’s not 49er worthy.
He’s a horrible play caller. I hate how most of the media say he’s a mad scientist. He’s not that great. Where are the half time adjustments? I hate coaching to lose. That’s what they’re doing again. No killer instinct unless it in a pointless game where you’ve already won like the Tampa game last year. Josh Morgan lost on a silly play.
If Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick were suddenly free agents, which one would command the higher salary?
Oooops, I mean to put this in the “Young, Dilfer and Jaworski debate the 49ers QB change” column.
Roman is a bad play caller. Simple as that. Cost us the game.
Of course the option play was a stupid decision. But even worse was his inability to react to what the defense was doing – stacking the line. He kept running Gore into the line, plays that were almost guaranteed to fail. Kap completed 2/3 of his passes but consistently Roman called a running play into the middle and Gore averaged one yard a carry in the second half.
Here’s something that tells you how confused Roman was. Over and over again he runs the ball on first and second and sometimes third downs. Makes it almost impossible to get the offense going. Then Kap makes that 50 yard run down to the red zone. With under two minutes to go, that’s when, for the first time in the second half, it makes sense to play the clock – to run the ball three times, use up the Rams’ timeouts, run the clock down to under a minute, kick a field goal. So what does Roman do? THEN he finally passes on first down. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Delanie, who has bad hands, is the guy who goes out; he’s well covered but Kap throws a perfect pass, which is dropped. Then Kap runs out of bounds. That one’s partly on Harbaugh, who obviously forget to remind Kap to stay in bounds and keep the clock running. All that stupidity gave the Rams time to come back and tie the game.
Seriously, Roman may be good at designing plays – blocking assignments, receiver routes, etc. – but he truly is a bad play caller. No question about it. In my opinion, that’s not fixable. You are either good at strategy or your brain doesn’t have that chip. He shouldn’t be allowed to continue in the play calling role.
Sigh. Thinking roman called a good games proves our offense will always be crap!
When Gore averages 1.6yd a carry , you need to change your plan.
When Kap gets sacked 4 times you need to change your plan.
When you change your QB, but not your plan, you need to change your OC
When you change your starting QB, you need to MAN UP and say it!
This sissy behavior might warrant a new HC.
When I saw the failed pitch to Ginn my memory went to the Giants-Eagles game of November 1978. Worst play call ever… Giants had the game won with one more kneel down. But no, the QB tries a handoff that is fumbled and ran into the end zone by the Eagles. The Giants offensive coordinator was fired the next day. Too bad Jim didn’t have the courage to fire Roman.
When we arrived at out last possession, Gore’s last 20 runs had gained 24 yards. I would think that good game-calling would consist of trying something else at that point.
Given Akers’ performance this season, it would seem that it was pretty clear that he needed to be kicking from less that 40 yards. I would think that good game-calling would consist of trying to get to the 22 on that last possession.
Watched the Giants-Redskins last night. they seemed to run the ball well without all the tricky formations, blocking schemes and gadget plays.
Grant, by my calculations, a second tie would have almost been as good as a win, while a loss was clearly a big loss. Under the NFL rules, a 10-4-2 team has a higher seeding that a 10-6 team, since it goes by winning percentage. Had the Niners punted in OT rather than going for the 51 yd FG, they likely would have held the Rams and had another tie. Do you think Harbaugh and staff even considered this??
If Roman called a good game, who called the game that I watched?
Thank goodness for Lowell Cohn, otherwise we’d hear these “Freddy P. Soft” reporters and columnists continue to downplay the fact that the forty-niners always come unglued in big games. We’d certainly not hear the questioning of those keystone cop-style offensive coordinators, Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman. They’re the “Gold Dust Twins”.
The defense gives up the big play when it counts the most. At times they look like the Raiders. The defense came unglued both against the New Orleans Saints in the postseason last year, and completely unraveled against the Giants in the championship game.
Remember: Harbaugh tried a similar toss play to Kyle Williams last year, in the rain during the Championship game, with Alex Smith as QB, and luckily, one of the forty-niner players recovered the fumble.
Yet, Harbaugh kept putting Williams in bad position, until he finally coughed up two turnovers. Wasn’t one screw-up by Ted Ginn enough {fumble against NO)? Ted Ginn has made countless gaffes, and his kickoffs almost never make it to the 20-yard line. Yet, there he was taking a pitch from the Quarterback.
The offensive line is overrated. Why do you thing Gore
couldn’t run and Kaepernick constantly was running for his life?
He was running from the pass rush when he cost the safety!
Remember this: Jim Harbaugh has the same amount of longevity coaching
the forty-niners as Colin Kaepernic has accumulated as an NFL quarterback.
The coach has one playoff win. Nowhere near a Super Bowl. Anybody who thinks this team will go to a SB anytime soon, I’ve got a bridge to sell. It’s
not yet finished, but you can have it cheap.
As for Alex Smith, his supporters talk as if he’s some savior. How many points did the team score against Seattle, the Giants, the Vikings? This
team looked on offense most of the time under Alex Smith as it did last Sunday with Kaepernick. They don’t score quickly with him, and they don’t score often. We have a good football team, when they play teams with backup or average QBs. When the qb can throw and receivers can catch, the 49ers are in trouble.
Let’s not assume a super bowl win, not even a division crown. Let’s just wait and see what the coach does about the loss of Kendall Hunter, Kaiser Williams and Mario Manningham. See if he’ll dump the load on Kaepernic as he did Sunday, with no running game and putrid play-calling.