NFL Network analyst and former NFL player Heath Evans spoke on KNBR Thursday morning. Here’s what he said about the 49ers and the Falcons.
Q: The 49ers are a four-point favorite on the road over the Falcons. Does this stun you?
HEATH EVANS: No. Not at all. I was talking with Darren Sharper the other day, and I’m telling you – anyone that is picking Atlanta is either biased because they want Atlanta to win, or they’re planning on at least two turnovers, or one turnover and a special teams touchdown by Atlanta. There is just no way on paper, ,matchup-for-matchup, scheme-for-scheme, coach-for-coach, that any 49ers fan should be worried. The only even thing I think for these teams are Brad Seely and Keith Armstrong, the two special teams coaches. I think it’s kind of a draw there. But offense-for-offense, defense-for-defense, San Francisco has this thing down pat.
Q: You played in the NFC South for a while. What do you learn about the Falcons and their DNA?
HEATH EVANS: It means I’m still surprised they actually pulled it out versus Seattle. I’m getting all these trash-talking texts all throughout the first half and I didn’t even respond to them because, in my mind, I’m like, “We’ll see typical Atlanta Falcons’ football come out here pretty soon.” What do they do? It’s like they went in at halftime and took a nap instead of trying to step on the throat of your opponent, one that they should have known was extremely dangerous.
Atlanta’s just a front-running team. I think they’re soft when need be. I wasn’t the most physical fullback in the world, I knew who I was, I didn’t make mental mistakes, but I learned real quickly from Bill Belichick in my four years in New England how to take advantage of a team’s weaknesses and who they are as a team. That’s how you attack them based on who you believe them to be.
We didn’t struggle with Atlanta too often in New Orleans. They called it a rivalry game. I wouldn’t say it was much of one. They definitely have a character flaw in the sense of who they are as a team. Now, maybe Mike Nolan and Coach Smith are in the process of changing that right now, but I don’t see it yet.
Q: Are the 49ers the opposite?
HEATH EVANS: Absolutely. That was really my only knock when Jim decided to go with Kaepernick over Alex. I thought he had spent basically two season building a team, a team built on ball control, a team built on being disciplined and fundamentally sound. Definitely one of the top three or four physical teams in the business, and a team that didn’t make mental mistakes.
The first six weeks of Colin’s starting career, some of the things I was seeing were small mistakes that weren’t being judged as mistakes because they were completed passes or maybe they were even scores, and I thought, “Man, when you see the top notch defenses of the playoffs, this is going to cost this team wins.” The growth process he’s been in – last week was I think the first time Kaepernick really struck down the middle of the field, inbetween the hashes. We have seen them kind of avoid that area of the field. It was a thing of beauty. I have no concerns about this football team right now. I still think they need to be cautious with Colin at times. You give that defense an edge to win games, and I feel like that defense alone will make it happen.
Q: The Falcons have a lot of talented players on offense. Is there any way they can with the game for Atlanta?
HEATH EVANS: Did Aaron Rodgers do it in the last game with all the weapons he had? What Aaron Rodgers couldn’t do, why would we believe Matt Ryan could do with less wide receivers? Let’s be honest, I’m going to take the Green Bay wide receivers over what I’m going to take in Atlanta – big, fast receivers. Yeah, they’re good, but what is the route tree that they run? They run 9-routes, they run deep comebacks, deep outs – tough to defend, but listen, I’m going to take the versatility of Green Bay all day.
If Dirk Koetter, the offensive coordinator of Atlanta, decides to run the ball again and he wants to space out that left side of the 49ers’ 3-4 scheme that Vic runs, I think they might have a chance.
If you go back and look at that Giants’ film, what the Giants did was genius. Very few people have copied it. They spaced out the left side of that 3-4 defense with big splits between the guard and center and guard and tackle, and it just created about an extra three or four inches of running space when big Justin Smith was trying to jam stuff up. The Giants ran all over you guys, and no one’s been able to full copy that idea yet. If Atlanta’s willing to watch some game tape and say, “Hey, this worked for the Giants and we think we can do the same thing,” they might be able to have some success running the ball. But there is nothing Atlanta does that scares me for this week’s matchup. I’m not saying they can’t win, because we know this game, but you cannot build a recipe for success for Atlanta based on who they are and who the San Francisco 49ers are.
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Excellent post.
That is all well and good, but we lost against the lambs, so anything is possible.
Im a Niner fan but Atlanta is not a front-running team they’ve had a number of late come back wins this season. Atl is dangerous when theyre trailing so if we get up we need to bury them like we did to the Pack. Any team with the receivers like they have cant be counted out.
great color, and good support for Grant’s earlier article. I’m surprised he’s as down on the Atlanta receivers vs the GB crew – they look pretty dangerous to me.
JJ and RW are better than anybody GB has but GB has 4 or 5 good receiving threats vs. 3 for the falcons.
Break their wings and watch them smack the ground.
I think the media and fans are getting way ahead of themselves with confidence in a 9er win. Atlanta is a scary team to me. I think they are going to try to make CK7 a passer by stopping our run game. They have their crowd and the no-respect motivator going for them. Their WRs are going to be a handful and not sure if we’ve seen anyone like them this year. If we dont get pressure on Ryan it might be a long day.
He just called the Falcons soft. Straight up soft. Wow.
Yep…
I think they’ll try to stop the run game too, I just don’t think they’re capable of doing so. I can’t see Atlanta’s D line being able to handle the niners O line and Gore. Unless the Falcons get a big lead or multiple turnovers so the niners have to abandon the run, which could happen…
Atlanta’s defensive line averages 271 pounds. There is no way that they are supposed to be able to stop us from running the football. What I dont like is that our offensive line has issues with small quick defensive linemen. The funny part is that Atlantas defensive linemen are really slow. We are supposed to maul these dudes into their own turf.
Heath Evans is talking some serious smack. I hope he’s right. The Niners definitely have an edge and if they win the one-on-one battles and dominate the line of scrimmage (which is expected), this game will be over by halftime. By the way, Heath’s partner on the NFL Network was even more vocal regarding this matchup. Let’s see how things play out, but I’m expecting a big time win for the Niners: 38-17.
W-W-?
I’ll believe the 49ers have a chance at number 6 when they hoist that trophy. Too much inconsistency for me to believe in them this year.
Yes it is like they are two diffrent teams between the wins and losses. If they play like most of our wins I don’t think anyone can beat them,but if they play like in a few of our losses there is not a team left they could beat, they need to show up.
That being said I think they are going to perform a Colin-oscopy on Atlanta like they did on Green Bay
My nerves are dying with every soft or paper champion comment I read. In a locker room that stuff goes a long way. I’ve seen to many underdogs saying the old “nobody gave us a shot” line after a shocker. SF shows up and this game is already a wrap. But which team is going to show up??????? That’s what’s killing me.
agreed…
There are two more games and all teams left will take a full team effort to bring home the trophy. Coaches everyone…
This media crap is all part of it in the playoffs. I hope JH is up to this challenge
ninermd, everytime i hear somebody taking our team or talking smack about the ATL it makes me very uncomfortable!!! ATL has all the fuel and momentum to show up on sunday and show the world they are a legit TEAM! I hope to god our team is not pay any attention to the hype and they are ready to play their best physical game of the season or we can lose this game!!! GO NINERS
I feel the same. I haven’t forgot that after every two games we won. The whole nfl jumped on the bandwagon and said nobody can stop the 49ers. Then they come out and look like the old 2010 49ers. I just hope they’re hungry and want to really win this season. IMO the first quarter will tell how this game will end up. ONLY because its the dreaded third game.
My hope is that they’ll be ready as ever. They know the opportunity is right in front of them, and if they don’t take advantage, it can slip away quickly like it did last year. Like Gore said, “We’re gonna do everything we can to not get that feeling again.”
SF needs to set the tone early for this game with some nice runs (by Gore or Kap) and get the crowd out of it early to operate the offense efficiently and avoid mental mistakes.
Someone PUL-LEEZE grab a shotgun and make sure
Freddie P. Soft doesn’t get anywhere NEAR the building !!