Week 10 - Monday
'13 Seattle vs. '89 San Francisco
The west coast is the focus of tonight's matchup, as the Seahawks travel to Candlestick Park. Both teams are in the NFC West, and much like yesterday's Bears vs. Lions game, the Niners are sitting at the bottom while Seattle has been flying high.In a week where several upsets have happened, does San Francisco have what it takes to turn their luck around? Or will the newly revised** SF team show some muscle?
San Francisco chipped away at Seattle early, mixing their dangerous pass attack with some great Roger Craig runs to get into enemy territory. But they would have to try for a FG when the Seattle D bulked up. Cofer's FG, however, was a fat miss.
Lucky for him, Seattle's next drive was short lived, as Wilson was picked off by Ronnie Lott. After a strong rush attack, and a 28 yard run by Craig, it seemed as if San Fran would get an easy score. But the Legion of Boom came up huge, forcing SF to another FG, which Cofer gladly redeemed himself with on the hit.
From there, after another good stop by the Niners D, Montana mixed up runs and passes to Tom Rathman to easily put together a scoring drive. Roger Craig grabbed the 6 points to put SF up 10-0.
Russel Wilson found his groove afterwards, easily tossing his way into Niner territory. Unfortunately, after a good 3rd down stop by the Niners, the Seahawks settled for a Hauschka FG.
Just inside the 2 minute warning, Montana was in Joe Cool mode and found himself putting together another great drive, setting up for another Cofer FG. Yes, it was also good.
San Fran's quick dominance of Seattle got them the ball again, but with Seattle's special teams it wasn't in great posession. The Legion of Boom forced a safety. Unfortunately, 12 seconds in the half was not enough time to capitalize on. Seahawks were down 13-5 at the half.
As the 2nd half approached, Seattle put together a great drive, and Wilson found Baldwin on a 23 yard pass to put Seattle within 1 point of the Niners. From there, they tried several tricks to get past San Fran, but the Yellow and Gold kept Marshawn Lynch at bay, making Seattle a fight for yardage.
Montana, well aware of the predicament, completed several throws to crank out another good drive, putting 7 more points on the board after an 8 yard pass to Rice.
Down by 8, Seattle continued to try and surprise the Niners with their rushing game, but unsurprisingly had little success. Several fans were questioning Pete Carroll's play calling at this point. But as the 2 minute warning ticked down, the Seahawks scored on a fantastic drive, setting everyone on the edge of their seat. But when Wilson tried to scramble for the 2-point conversion, he was crushed by the Yellow and Gold. 49ers win 20-18.
San Francisco had over 300 yards total offense to Seattle's 210, and on defense had 5 sacks by 5 different players. Roger Craig had 129 yards on the day, averaging 7.6 per carry.
Standings
Now it's time to take a quick look at our standings as we sit at week 10. Despite the many ups and downs each week, there are some divisions with clear winners, and some divisions struggling to see a champion (AFC North, NFC South). Almost every division has teams on top that are 1 game away from trading places. This was always the goal of the LFL - putting the best to the test, with results that are not quite so predictable. (Look how many teams are between 40-60% win record)** within the last week I had determined that the numbers to dictate the pass DEF of the Niners were way off, by an average of almost 1.5 yds / completion. I've since fixed the file, but wonder now how much better they would have performed with Montana having that much better field position.
Comments
Post a Comment