NFL Sunday saw great quarterback performances. Consider that Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos almost pulled out a miracle win against the San Diego Chargers, while Alex Smith and the San Francisco 49ers smashed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48 to 3 and Aaron Rodgers and his Green Bay Packers outcoached The Atlanta Falcons.
What’s not so funny about this report is that, even with his amazing performance, Denver Broncos Head Coach John Fox is not willing to say that Tebow gets the start next week, even after the Broncos were just one Hail Mary pass from winning a game they lost 29-24. Coach Fox said “We have to look at the film…” which brings up the question of the Broncos’ coaching staff’s ability to evaluate a football game in real time – the basic ability required to make fast game plan adjustments. Something that’s not the San Francisco 49ers problem.
That the San Francisco 49ers are doing so well as to be 3 and 1 at this point in the season, comes as no surprise to this blogger. Even as the complaints about how the Rooney Rule was, literally, used, came in from this space in the wake of former Stanford Head Coach Jim Harbaugh’s hiring, this remark was in the post:
In closing, I never said Harbaugh wasn’t a good choice. He is and I think he will bring a Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Niners.
Remember that. Even as Aaron Rogers and the Green Bay Packers, the current Super Bowl Champions, find a way to win. They’re 4 and 0, and haven’t lost since six games ago in the 2010 season! Arguably the Packers win over the Falcons on Sunday Night Football 25 to 14 should not have happened, because Atlanta started the game off with a bang, taking as much as a 14 to 0 lead at one point.
And the Falcons had something to prove, as the Packers waxed them at home in the 2010 NFC Divisional Playoff Game, and then later said they wanted to beat them by a higher score than the 48 to 21 score they posted.
On Sunday, the Falcons played like a team possessed.
But then, the Packers’ head guy Mike McCarthy and his staff just plain outcoached the Falcons Head Coach Mike Smith. How? By throwing away their initial run-first, then pass game plan, and going to one based on a steady dose of “glance” passes and inside slants, both after some mean play action fakes by Rogers.
That’s the same approach that got the Packers to the Super Bowl; you’d think Smith and the Falcons would have been ready for it. But instead of opting to play bump and run and disrupt the inside patterns, they allowed the inside release by the wide receivers, and just plain forgot about max blitzing Aaron.
On offense, the Falcons’ powerful Michael Turner-driven running game lacked a diet of well-designed play action passes to complement it. In short, the Falcons offense was simple in design and lacking in play selection choices – not enough tools to use against the Packers’ Defense.
Packers win. Again.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll