10 Things We Learned: 49ers, Patriots move on

By Jonathan Comey
Cold, Hard Football Facts Bad Mamma Jamma

Ten things we learned from a stellar Saturday that proved two things pretty conclusively:

• Brady > Tebow
• Home > Road

1. Yes, Tim Tebow is basically a fullback playing quarterback … but sign us up for another year of Timmy Time.

It figures that Tebow would go from “Is he the Second Coming” to “Can he play in the league” as the result of one football game – that’s the world we live in.

But it’s tough not to kill Tebow at this very moment. We’ve seen it every week of this Broncos run – the kid can’t throw the intermediate routes that dominate today’s NFL, and if he can’t learn it he’s not going to make it.

That said, he’s got a whole offseason to build himself up and get it together. He still doesn’t make mistakes, but if that offense is going to work he has to be able to make those short throws. Give the Broncos another year to build the defense, keep working hard and they’ll be in the mix again next year.

He gave the city of Denver more excitement then it could conceivably have bargained for, and that should be enough for John Elway and company to buy in and do everything humanly possible to make it work.

2. Alex Smith is Tim Tebow with an arm.

Smith might not have St. Tebow’s Fire, but he has a similarly tight grasp of how to manage a game with the added bonus of being able to, you know, pass it and shit.

Smith took what the Saints gave him all day, and despite some shaky options (San Francisco doesn’t have the horses at WR) he was able to go with what worked. Time after time he threw the ball away or out of harm’s way when it wasn’t there, and his caution helped maximize the Niners’ takeaways.

Then, when all bets were off and it was up to him to win it, he came alive – it was very much like Tebow Time, the seven-play, 85-yard drive capped with a clutch 14-yard TD strike to Vernon Davis.

To throw just five picks in 17 games is pretty impressive stuff, and the pairing with coach Jim Harbaugh is enough to remind you of Brady hooking up with Belichick. Don’t be surprised if the still-young Smith (28 in May) puts up much bigger numbers next year with a full offseason.

3. The Patriots finally got “the disrespect card” back.

New England used to be big on playing the disrespect card.

In fact, it was their mantra during their golden run from 2001 to 2004 – any time people questioned their talent after yet another close-call win, the clubhouse thrived on the perceived slight.

And they played like it, winning just about every clutch battle they played in. That’s bound to even out, and the disrespect cards went in the pockets after the 16-0 and 14-2 seasons where they looked completely unstoppable.

But this week, they were back out. Tebow and the Broncos getting the hype heading to Gillette? Talk about Tom Brady and how he hadn’t won the big one for awhile? Disrespect. And for the first time all year really, New England put together a comprehensive four-quarters effort with excellence in all phases.

Some of it’s a product of Denver’s dereliction of duty, but that doesn’t explain the 146 yards rushing or the endless string of negative plays forced by the defense. Even in the glory days, the Patriots didn’t beat up on teams like that, and it’s got to be interesting film-room time for their next opponent.

And no, the Patriots still haven’t beaten a team with a winning record yet this year, although they’re now 7-0 against 8-8 teams.

4. The Broncos’ fatal flaw – Passer Rating Differential – cost them badly.

It’s the most important number in the game, folks, and Denver was terrible at it.
For the season, Denver was 28^th in passer rating differential (offensive passer rating minus defensive passer rating) at -19.67. The four teams grouped around No. 28 Denver on the PRD chart were: Washington, St. Louis, Jacksonville and Tampa Bay.

On Sunday, it was beyond ridiculous – the Patriots finished with a rating of 137.6, the Broncos 52.7, for a whopping -84.9 on the Passer Differential Rating chart. It was the biggest aerial mismatch since that one-winged seagull coasted into the local hawk preserve.

Ugly.

5. It’s time for the Saints to get some defensive players.

It’s really a shame to watch New Orleans waste the best years of Drew Brees’ career with a bunch of ill-tackling defenders.

Here are Drew Brees’ numbers for his last two playoff losses:

• 40-of-64, 462 yards, 4 TDs, 32 points
• 39-of-60, 404 yards, 2 TDs, 36 points

You can’t fault coordinator Gregg Williams completely, because the Saints’ style does usually mix well with the type of offense Sean Payton calls. And he really doesn’t have the horses.

The pick of Mark Ingram in the first round this year looks worse and worse, especially considering how deep they are at running back – why did they need this guy if they were going to run 15 times a game anyway? New Orleans has run some pretty odd draft rooms since Brees’ emergence, frequently trading up instead of stockpiling picks, and looks like they’ll need to go back to the drawing board in 2012’s draft. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see them use their entire draft or close to it on D.

6. What a win for the 49er faithful.

We’re not supposed to have human emotions here at CHFF, but watching my buddy Train celebrate Saturday’s win was one of the highlights of the season for your humble correspondent. Wearing his beat-up Joe Montana jersey and getting red in the face with emotion - joy, in the end - Train is a great fan of a team that’s always had a classy base. San Fran fans are some of the best in the country, and diehards have stuck by their team despite a 10-year playoff drought.

The league is just better when the red-and-gold are playing the beautiful game, and they looked every bit like the championship teams of yore on Saturday. They got great efforts all across the field, and needed every single one of them to beat Brees – who had two playoff games that were about as good as you’re going to get.

San Francisco hit hard, forced mistakes, and withstood the Brees arsenal. Let’s hope for their sake that this game isn’t “their Super Bowl,” as last week’s win by Denver clearly was for the Broncos.

7. Home is very sweet so far.

The 49er faithful will certainly be rooting hard for the Giants today after watching home teams go 6-0 through the first six games. Wins by Green Bay and Baltimore today would mean the first all-home-team sweep of the first two playoff rounds.

There hasn’t been a No. 1 vs. No. 1 final since 1993, if you can believe it, when the Cowboys beat the Bills. Will it happen again? New England will certainly be a favorite against either opponent in the AFC title game at home, and San Francisco would be a sizable dog in Green Bay (or a solid favorite at home).

We’d handicap the possible championship spreads thusly:

• HOU at NE (-6.5)
• BAL at NE (-4.5)
• NYG at SF (-3)
• SF at GB (-5 to -7 depending on how good the Packers look)

8. John Fox and the Broncos made one of the weakest garbage-time efforts imaginable.

While it was pretty obvious that Denver wasn’t going to come back from 38 down to win in New England Saturday night, at least you’d expect  the old college try.

Never happened. Fox and offensive coordinator Mike McCoy played as if they were going to head back to practice and work on some stuff Monday – there were enough handoffs to Lance Ball early in the third quarter to make a Broncos fan sick to his or her stomach.

Tebow didn’t attempt a single bomb down the field we can recall and the Broncos only had one play over 20 yards long all game. If a team’s ever run 40 times in a game they lost by 35 points, we don’t remember it.

Weird team, weird finish.

9. The year of the tight end? Yep.

Rob Gronkowski is the Jim Brown of the league right now – with the possible exception of Calvin Johnson, he’s the hardest dude in the NFL to stop. His three-touchdown game continues a season the likes of which we’ve never seen.

But he wasn’t even the best tight end out there Saturday.

Vernon Davis was pretty much the difference for the 49ers against New Orleans. With San Francisco’s subpar wide receiving corps doing little of note against a so-so Saints secondary, Davis was absolutely incredible. Seven catches for 180 yards and two touchdowns, including the game-winner that was an eerie doppelganger for Terrell Owens’ famous game-winner against Green Bay in 1999.

And Jimmy Graham of New Orleans showed some incredible toughness, coming back from an injury that looked pretty serious for 103 yards and two touchdowns. His jawing at the San Francisco crowd, however, ended up looking pretty silly when the Saints defense allowed Davis to give the 49er fans “Score-Board!” as the final word.

10. Houston-Baltimore might be the least-anticipated Elite Eight game ever.

Texans! Ravens! Anyone?

After two memorable games Saturday – one because of the game, the other because of the hype going in and the massacre going out – and a Packer-Giant classic showdown looming as the second game of Sunday, this one is kind of a cold fish.

That’s a shame, because this could be a pretty fun game to watch. If the Ravens can win it, they’ll get ready for a return trip to Foxboro, the site of the 2009 playoff demolition. If the Texans can win it, it’ll be “Young Tom Brady”, (a.k.a. the unheralded T.J. Yates, who is playing much like 2001 Brady in relief) against “Actual, Bad-Ass Tom Brady.”

Both interesting matchups. But it’s tough to see anyone outside of Houston and Baltimore really taking a side in this one even though it’s a good football matchup. Both have great defenses, both have great running games, both are capable of excellence in the air at times.

We’ll be watching, but will be more inclined to go to the kitchen for that buffalo chicken dip or actually take a piss without worrying we’re going to miss something big.
 

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