NFL 2012

[Haminal10]

The only thing that sucks is that I have to work nine hours from now!

[RogueIce]

So for a slightly more interesting discussion, what are the odds they let New Orleans host the Super Bowl again any time in the next, say 15 years?

[Elfdart]

I can absolutely complain about that no call on the last drive, but I wouldn't want it going against my team the other way.

We shouldn't have even been in this game after the absolute shittastic way we played in the first half. Am I upset we lost, yeah, but as the Ravens are my favorite AFC team it's hard to be super pissed.

It ended up being a great fucking game though. Congrats to Thanas and Ando. I know you guys were sweating fucking bullets at the end.

Referees do not call PIs or defensive holding in playoff games unless it's really blatant. You can thank Tex Schramm for that.

[Havok]

The Ravens played great and came prepared in every aspect of the game. If the Niners showed up in the first half this wouldn't have even been a game in my mind. The Ravens offense scored 6 points in the 2nd half and barely got that.

[Havok]

I can absolutely complain about that no call on the last drive, but I wouldn't want it going against my team the other way.

We shouldn't have even been in this game after the absolute shittastic way we played in the first half. Am I upset we lost, yeah, but as the Ravens are my favorite AFC team it's hard to be super pissed.

It ended up being a great fucking game though. Congrats to Thanas and Ando. I know you guys were sweating fucking bullets at the end.

Referees do not call PIs or defensive holding in playoff games unless it's really blatant. You can thank Tex Schramm for that.

Oh I know, but it was blatant illegal contact at the very least. The ball was at the 5. Contact was being made in the endzone. It's not exactly rocket science. Still even Phil Simms was like, "oh yeah, he was totally holding him."

That said, as I have been saying if the Niner D had decided to show up in the first half, this isn't even a contest. I can't figure out what it is the Niner D sees at half time that they don't see before the game starts sometimes.

[Havok]

I don't feel all that bad. I thought I would feel horrible.

[GuppyShark]

There's 30 teams in the league that would love to have lost a close Super Bowl, after all.

Class act Hav. Calls can go either way and who wants to put an asterix on every result? That wouldn't benefit anyone.

[Havok]

Thanks. I love the Ravens so maybe that is helping quite a bit. If this was the Steelers I would be the biggest cock on the planet right now.

I mean it was a GREAT game. The stories leading up to it, the play on the field, the power going out, the comeback, the goallineish stands, Ray going out in style on his way to the Hall of Fame, Kaepernick being 5 yards away from his first Superbowl victory in his 10th start. Even leading into the offseason there are still good stories coming up. I've never experienced a Superbowl loss so I'm not sure how to feel, but I thought it would be way worse than this. Maybe the asskicking we avoided helped a little bit, or it could be that I am fucking exhausted from the comeback.

[Thanas]

If we would not have won it I would have wanted the 9ers to win it.

But what I enjoy the most? Ed Reed finally getting a ring.

[Havok]

Most definitely. See my post in testing. That is really who I am happiest for. Ray already won his SB. He has been my favorite defensive player since he came into the league. Even more so than Lewis, Justin Smith and Willis. If he leaves the Ravens this off season, I think he is going to retire, and goes into free agency, I would love for us to sign him, although I don't think we really need him.

[Thanas]

I hope we resign him, but we only got 15 mill in cap space and Flacco might even cost us 20...and we have to resign Ellerbe, Kruger, Williams (gone as sure as water is wet. No way we can afford corner money).

[Havok]

I just hope he doesn't go to New England (likely) or ugh... Pittsburgh.

That said as far as personnel, you guys are definitely losing the core of your team. I hope Flacco doesn't regress, but I don't think that is happening.

We on the other hand just need to take care of replacing Justin Smith and we need to start thinking about a real replacement for Gore, not just complimentary guys.

And man, if we had Manningham out there tonight. But honestly, how glad were you to see us not run from the 5 yard line or you know throw a screen pass maybe just once.

[Flagg]

Man, Alicia Keyes is hot as fuck. But it's the Superbowl sweetie not your demo reel, you needed to speed it the fuck up.

[Thanas]

And man, if we had Manningham out there tonight. But honestly, how glad were you to see us not run from the 5 yard line or you know throw a screen pass maybe just once.

Definitely glad. Maybe you can answer me this, but were the commentators right when they said that Kaepernick rarely ever progresses from his first to this second/third read? Because all the balls were going to Crabtree/Davis and sometimes to Moss. If that is the case, why not put Alex Smith in on a redzone package?


EDIT: Also, I was raging mad at the blackout. Whoever says momentum is not important in a game should see this one.

[Flagg]

Yeah, if Loseranna ever hosts a Superbowl again I'll be shocked.

[RogueIce]

EDIT: Also, I was raging mad at the blackout. Whoever says momentum is not important in a game should see this one.

If the 49ers had won, how many people would be blaming the blackout this morning?

[Flagg]

EDIT: Also, I was raging mad at the blackout. Whoever says momentum is not important in a game should see this one.

If the 49ers had won, how many people would be blaming the blackout this morning?

I would, since it gave them an obvious advantage seeing as how they were playing before and after.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Oh, come on, the blackout momentum thing is bullshit. Hell, the entire idea of momentum is bullshit.

From Grantland

The more frequently discussed momentum argument revolves around the power outage, which was obviously an elaborate CBS plot to get 30 more minutes of highly rated television. There's at least something resembling an outcome here; the 49ers trailed 28-6 at the time of the power failure and went 25-6 the rest of the way.

There are a few reasons why momentum is a pretty sloppy explanation for what happened before and after that power outage. Let's start with the simplest one: Big scoring margins tend to regress toward closer margins, not larger ones. Teams down a bunch will get aggressive against prevent defenses and produce points, while the team with a big lead will be more concerned with running the clock than scoring points. In addition, the things that occurred to help that one team out to a big edge — namely, turnovers — aren't likely to keep recurring. Take the 49ers-Patriots game, for example. If there had been a power outage halfway through the third quarter, some would have credited the outage with reinvigorating the Patriots and turning them around. As it turned out, the Patriots didn't need a power outage, just superior execution and some of the breaks to start going their way.4 Those are the same tools the Niners used to claw their way back into the contest, just with more Steve Tasker cut-ins.

Taken on a micro level, the momentum argument falls apart. Say that the Ravens lost the momentum after the power outage and the 49ers gained it. What happened right after the power outage? The 49ers checked down on third-and-13 and punted. The Ravens got the ball back and picked up 15 yards on their first play, a pass to Torrey Smith. They ran two more plays and then, on third-and-8, Ray Rice came up a half-yard short of a first down. The Niners got the ball back, Kaepernick scrambled a bunch, they completed a couple of passes, and then the Ravens converged on Michael Crabtree and failed to tackle him, allowing him to walk in for a touchdown that began San Francisco's comeback.

Is that momentum? Or just sloppy football? Because I think the case for momentum is pretty heavily linked to sloppy football in this game. During the first half, when the Ravens had the momentum, the 49ers were full of sloppy plays. They missed tackles in the backfield and sacks that would have created second- and third-and-long situations. They took unnecessary penalties to wipe away their big plays (including the illegal formation on the opening play of the game) and extended Baltimore's drives with penalties on the defensive side of the ball (like the offsides that turned a third-and-9 stop into a third-and-4 Anquan Boldin touchdown to end Baltimore's opening drive). They committed two turnovers, one of which came at the end of a long drive that could have given them the lead. And then, when the 49ers gained "momentum," the Ravens made mistakes. They ran into David Akers to wipe a missed field goal off the board. They took a roughing the passer penalty to help a drive along. They fumbled themselves. You don't need to lack momentum to play sloppily; you just need to make mistakes.

The other directly correlated relationship between momentum and scoring points was what ended up being the most important, telling stat of the night: how the Ravens did on third down. During their scintillating first half — one in which they supposedly had all the momentum — the Ravens went 6-for-8 on third down, producing a number of key plays in the process. The touchdown passes to Boldin and Jones came on third down, as did the wild, scrambling bomb to Boldin for 30 yards. The 49ers were 1-for-5 on third down, with two sacks on third down in the red zone yielding field goal tries.

No team in the league can pick up 75 percent of their third-down conversions over any appreciable span of the time, and the Ravens were no exception. During the second half, they were 3-for-8 on third down, including failures on their first two attempts. The second failure was caused by a 49ers sack, and the resulting punt return from Ted Ginn gave the 49ers the ball on the Baltimore 20-yard line, from which they scored a touchdown in two plays. When Ray Rice fumbled on the subsequent drive, San Francisco took over on the 24-yard line, had all the momentum, and kicked a field goal after failing to score a touchdown. From then on, Baltimore started converting its third downs again. It shouldn't shock you that Baltimore essentially played them to a draw the rest of the way, minus the intentional safety at the end.

Why was the blackout supposed to offer the 49ers momentum, anyway? Because it stopped Baltimore in their tracks for a half-hour after they had been dominating the game? If that really made a difference, why wouldn't halftime have accomplished that? The 49ers didn't exactly get a momentum boost from that similar respite; they came out and promptly allowed a 108-yard kickoff return to start the third quarter. And if the 49ers only gained momentum after the blackout, why were they able to drive the ball 71 yards in 1:45 at the end of the second quarter to set up a scoring opportunity? The power outage giving the 49ers momentum is an argument that only gets applied after the fact by people who can't remember (or be troubled to read) the play-by-play. Don't let abstract, entirely arbitrary concepts stand in for actually watching what happened in the game.

[weemadando]

That article kind of ignores that the first two things that happened in the 3rd quarter were the Jacoby Jones kickoff return TD and Capernick getting sacked on SF's first snap. And then the lights went out.

Because of course, neither of those two events mattered to the headspace of the teams/coaches.

[Elfdart]

Yeah, if Loseranna ever hosts a Superbowl again I'll be shocked.

Are you kidding? New Orleans is by far the League's favorite place to host a SB. It's warm, and everything is cheaper: from rooms to food to booze to lapdances to drunk coeds. For the middle-aged businessman with an expense account (i.e. the typical SB ticket buyer) it's paradise!

[Elfdart]

Oh I know, but it was blatant illegal contact at the very least. The ball was at the 5. Contact was being made in the endzone. It's not exactly rocket science. Still even Phil Simms was like, "oh yeah, he was totally holding him."

I said really blatant, as in "almost tackling the guy". I think it's bullshit, but that's how it's been since 1979.

Anyway, your team is a stud pass rusher or two away from getting its sixth Lombardi Trophy. With Alex Smith as trade bait, that seems very doable.

[Flagg]

Yeah, if Loseranna ever hosts a Superbowl again I'll be shocked.

Are you kidding? New Orleans is by far the League's favorite place to host a SB. It's warm, and everything is cheaper: from rooms to food to booze to lapdances to drunk coeds. For the middle-aged businessman with an expense account (i.e. the typical SB ticket buyer) it's paradise!

All of that sounds like Miami more than New Orleans.

[weemadando]

http://www.intothemangrove.com/2013/02/ ... uper-cold/

I'll just leave this here.

[GuppyShark]

You know

It would really suck to be the reason your brother was the first 49ers coach to lose a Superbowl. I mean, really, really suck.

[weemadando]

Well, at least we know which brother is sitting at the kid's table come Thanksgiving.