49ERS WIN UGLY OVER ARIZONA 27-13

By  

         

Scary

Barry

Rodriguez

December 31, 2012

Candlestick point , San Francisco - Yesterday , in their victory over the bottom feeder Arizona Cardinals , the San Francisco 49ers didn't resemble the second cede in the NFL playoffs. Fortunately for the Niners the Green Bay Packers lost to the Minnesota Viking thereby gifting the second cede to San Francisco. The Cardinals started a third stringer , Brian Hoyer at the quarterback position. Yet for almost the entire first half San Francisco could do nothing offensively and the defense gave up two field goals to the worst team in the NFL with the exception of the Oakland Raiders ! The Niner offense was MIA until Kaepernick connected with Michael Crabtree for a 49 yard touchdown just before the half ended. The halftime score was 7-6 in favor of San Francisco.

The first half featured bad play calling on the part of the Niners and two missed field goal attempts from David Akers. The attempts weren't even close ! In the second half the San Francisco defense stepped up and shut down Arizona. In the third quarter David Akers hit a field goal from 43 yards out and Kaepernick hit Michael Crabtree from 28 yards out for another touchdown. The period ended with the Niners leading 17-6.

In the fourth quarter the Niners added another touchdown on a            Frank Gore 2 yard touchdown run to put the score at 24-6 . Gore had most of his good runs in the second half which steadied the ship and allowed Kaepernick some slack. David Akers hit a 26 yard field goal to cap the Niner scoring for the game at 27 points. With less than two minutes left in the game the Cardinals managed their only touchdown of the game when Hoyer hit Michael Floyd with a touchdown pass from 37 yards out to complete the all of the scoring for the game with the score at 27-13.
 
Undoubtedly the lackluster performance of both the defense and offense was partly due to recent injuries to key players. Overall the team played tired. In the first half the Niner safeties and corners watched as Arizona recievers made receptions. The Niner defense is not deep so the unit as a whole appears to be bone tired from not getting off the field enough ! With Kaepernick under center its a nothing or everything , roll of the dice on every play. Michael Crabtree had his best game ever as a Niner receiver with 8 catches for 172 yards and two touchdowns. Frank Gore again delivered in the clutch ! Defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois had a good game but was not good enough to make up for Justin Smith's absence. I don't think the Niners can afford to use Ted Ginn Jr. or David Akers in the playoffs. They are both major liabilities at this point !

Before the game ended Alex Smith briefly came in and received a standing ovation from the crowd. After he had suffered through many different offensive coordinators , two especially terrible coaches and a General Manager that bad mouthed him , despite this he had a 70 % completion rate this season ! Then as a reward he was sacked with six games to go and replaced with Colin Kaepernick ! The Arizona Cardinals and many other teams are interested in Alex Smith and I doubt if he will return next year as a backup quarterback ! The  Scary one expects the Niners to be a one and done team in the playoffs with Kaepernick under center. If this doesn't happen I will be surprised.

Note : This article is dedicated to the hard working Americans that are subjected to the whims of a gridlocked Congress of the United States. At work all of us are judged by what we get done but the members of Congress , especially the Republican party just do interviews and create crisis such as the Fiscal Cliff ! They are supposed to be working for us not their own agendas ! Peace and love for 2013.