Losing at home to the Brown 12-13.
No touchdown for San Francisco and its RBs (Hearst and Barlow) limited to 19 and 14 yards respectively (a week after Jamal Lewis shredded them for 295 solo..)

Niners drop to 1-2 with a visit to 3-0 Minnesota next sunday.
49ers fans, say hello to a long season...

this is so ridiculous...

I agree, Darkiller, and I'm not a Niners fan at all.

Since I was forced by the network gods, and my desire to watch football--any football--I pretty much had this game on for the afternoon. And what I saw was just disgusting.

Does anyone really think the Browns made a monumental leap from last week to this week? I don't either.

To me, that says either the Niners are much more talent deficient than we thought or Dennis Erickson is a piece of crap coach.

The fact the Niners went to the playoffs last year, totally blew apart the Bears in Week One, and almost took a game away from the Rams on the road--a Rams team that proved itself today to be a little better than once thought--says that they have talent.

What does that leave? Coaching. I have never had a great opinion of Dennis Erickson as a coach. College recruiter? Yes, he's a good one. Offensive innovator? Yes, I would say he generally knows how to design an offense. Making adjustments on the sideline? Training players in his systems? Keeping them motivated? No, these are not strengths. And that's being shown today.

CR

Lets see how many times i say something close to this this week.............As a Packer fan i guess i can take comfort in knowing that my team isn't the only team struggling......

Originally posted by Chief Rum
Does anyone really think the Browns made a monumental leap frm last week to this week? I don't either.

No, but I don't think the Browns were as bad as they showed last week either. Bear in mind that they held a pretty good Indy defense to 9 points in Week One; the Baltimore game is more of an abberation than this one was.

Kevin

Maybe the Niners are starting to wonder if letting Mooch go was a good idea after all.

Moochie where are you????? :)

I have one defence of the Niners....Garcia looks like he is in awful pain every down.I think there is something wrong with him.

Originally posted by Celeval
No, but I don't think the Browns were as bad as they showed last week either. Bear in mind that they held a pretty good Indy defense to 9 points in Week One; the Baltimore game is more of an abberation than this one was.

Kevin

Well, this game is much closer to the Browns' norm than the Baltimore game, but that's only because the Baltimore game was so out of whack, no team's average performance is going to come near it.

Don't be fooled by Week one. That game was completely on Peyton Manning. Edgerrin James actually ran well, but with Manning pussy-footing around with rinky-dink passes, the Colts never got anywhere. The Colts fell in love with a short passing game, and hardly ever ran James after the first half. But the team still averaged over four yards per carry.

Manning finally got his act together enough to beat the Browns after that. He was the only one keeping it from being a blowout.

There are actually a lot of similarities between this week and that week. The Niners also fell in love with the short pass and failed to establish (and keep establishing the run). Toss on the fact Jeff Garcia never really turned it on, and Kelly Holcomb's heroics, and you have an upset.

Erickson has never been one to commit to a running game when he should.

CR

Originally posted by bbor
Moochie where are you????? :)

I have one defence of the Niners....Garcia looks like he is in awful pain every down.I think there is something wrong with him.

Yeah, I think his disk in his back is a lot worse then they are letting on in the media. I think the 49ers are pressuring Garcia to play hurt, and he is playing poorly as a result of this potentially debilitating injury. Interestingly, I play in a fantasy league with a bunch of docs, and most of us wouldn't touch Garcia in the first few rounds because of the injury.

I was at the game, and I just feel sick. That was just wrong. I know the Bay area media is going to be all over Erickson tomorrow. And with good reason. I know The niners are looking to their next game against the Vikings, but Erickson has to be looking at the more important game of his short career with the niners versus the Lions, if he loses that game, he's on the hot seat.

On a positive note, I did just pick up and start Owen Pochman as my kicker.

Thanks Owen!

Originally posted by Sharpieman
...but Erickson has to be looking at the more important game of his short career with the niners versus the Lions, if he loses that game, he's on the hot seat.

In case you haven't noticed, he's already on the hot seat. The 49ers should be 3-0 right now, there is no doubt about that. I want to give props to Kelly Holcomb, because he put together a beautiful drive at the end of that game, and his performance shouldn't be played down because of the 49ers' godawful performance.

In both today's game and last Sunday's game against the Rams, the 49ers committed a multitude of mental errors that eliminated their chance to win the game. In week two, everyone jumped all over Cedric Wilson's back about that last play. Yes, it was ridiculously ignorant. However, there were multiple offsides and encroachment penalties on 3rd or 4th and short, allowing the Rams to continue otherwise stalled drives. Had these not occurred, Cedric Wilson would never have had to make that decision. To follow this performance up, this week the 49ers decided to make the penalties on long yardage rather than short yardage. From ridiculous pass interference penalties to disgustingly unnecessary roughing the passer penalties, the 49ers let Cleveland walk all over them on that last drive. Sure, the 49er DBs are terrible...however these mental errors are making their physical game seem that much worse.

In my opinion, the reason these mental errors are occuring is because Erickson doesn't have the same presence as Marriucci did, and therefore there is less discipline among the still young defensive unit. Until the secondary can stop making these juvenile errors, the 49ers are going to lose a lot of games unless the offense starts getting to be so explosive that it doesn't matter.

Now, no one else seems to have noticed, but there was a ridiculously close play on the opening drive of the game. Erickson made a gutsy (but probably foolish) call, and went for it on 4th and 1 from the 1 yard line. Beasley leapt up, reached...and then stopped. The officiating staff ruled that he was down and he didn't make it in. Erickson challenged the play, and the crew ruled there wasn't enough physical evidence to overturn the play, Cleveland ball at the 1. Does anyone else think that Beasley was in? I'm not trying to whine about a missed call costing us the game...that's not why I bring this up. Why doesn't anyone mention this at all? The CBS announcers seemed afraid to announce their opinion on the matter, and it was soon forgotten. Sure it was early in the game...but in my opinion it was a pivotal play and deserved more scrutiny. Don't mean to rant about that, but I was pissed about it at the time, and I'm still pissed about it now.

We clearly should be 3-0 at this time.
Instead, we're headed for 2-5 (provided we beat the Lions at home..).

That's bad.

Owens is not getting the ball, Garcia doesn't play well, and the DBs are not getting the job done (as usual, as it's been the case for the past 5 years).

I feel disgusted.
Only bright spot : Julian Peterson.

Originally posted by Vince
Erickson made a gutsy (but probably foolish) call, and went for it on 4th and 1 from the 1 yard line. Beasley leapt up, reached...and then stopped. The officiating staff ruled that he was down and he didn't make it in. Erickson challenged the play, and the crew ruled there wasn't enough physical evidence to overturn the play, Cleveland ball at the 1. Does anyone else think that Beasley was in?

I thought he was in. In fact, when they broke for commercial, I thought we had gotten away with one. They came back and reviewed... but I do see the argument about the lack of evidence. I think the video they had would have kept the ruling on the field whether he was initially called in or initially called out.

Kevin

I'm so upset...and the game is being replayed in French TV (sport+) tonight at 9...

I know myself, I'm gonna feel bad about it for the whole week...and then, by next sunday, it'll be a fresh start: man I tell you what, they'd better win this thing in Minneapolis or else this is going to be really really ugly down 49er avenue.

I simply CAN'T BELIEVE we lost a homer to the Browns. Innexusable, indefendable.

I think misspelling "ambarassing" is pretty ironic here.

Originally posted by Darkiller
I'm so upset...and the game is being replayed in French TV (sport+) tonight at 9...

I know myself, I'm gonna feel bad about it for the whole week...and then, by next sunday, it'll be a fresh start: man I tell you what, they'd better win this thing in Minneapolis or else this is going to be really really ugly down 49er avenue.

I simply CAN'T BELIEVE we lost a homer to the Browns. Innexusable, indefendable.

Darkiller...I wouldn't be so hard on them. The Browns aren't all THAT bad. It's still a little embarassing, but not that bad. That being said...2-5? The Niners are better than that, and if they can put a decent pass rush on Culpepper and limit the mental mistakes, I can see a victory over Minnesota.

Wheee!!! The Cowboys have a better winning percentage than the Niners!!! :D

guys, the Browns AREN'T THAT BAD

Wern't the Browns a playoff team last year? Everyone makes them out to be like the other team from their state...

Maybe firing Steve Mariucci wasn't such a good idea after all... :rolleyes:

I pity the Niners fans... that team is being mismanaged into the ground.

Originally posted by Franklinnoble
I pity the Niners fans... that team is being mismanaged into the ground.

Yeah. Your team should know better than that.

-A Blackhawks fan

Originally posted by Chief Rum
To me, that says either the Niners are much more talent deficient than we thought or Dennis Erickson is a piece of crap coach.

CR

I'd go with the Erickson is a piece of crap coach argument. Everything he did at Miami he did with Jimmie Johnson's talent. Aside from that, he did OK at Oregon State and Wash St and basically sucked in Seattle. I laughed when the Niners hired him and knew he would never coach one game more than his current contract allows. He may not even make it that far.

Wern't the Browns a playoff team last year? Everyone makes them out to be like the other team from their state...

Exactly. This is a very talented team in the Browns. People are calling them the second Bengals because of last week, but Lewis always kills Cleveland.

So if Cedrick Wilson used his head last week AND
Andre Davis doesn’t make a spectacular catch on a ball that would have gone through the uprights if he hadn’t caught it…


Two plays and they are 3-0 and everyone is talking about all the great things they are doing and how much better Erickson is then mooch.

A couple thoughts:

· Their entire offensive line is hurt, it is very hard to be productive on offense when you do not have a solid group – everything at every level of football starts on the offensive line. As long as they are seriously banged up the offense will struggle – when they get healthy the offense will be better.

· Garcia may be hurting but he ALWAYS looks like that – he is the smallest starting QB in the NFL and he runs around with abandon. In 5 years I have yet to see him look like he is healthy. Again if they were 3-0 nobody is talking about how hurt he looks.

· Erickson – I like the changes on defense to be more aggressive and take advantage of the team speed. If the offense could have controlled the ball just a little yesterday they would have shutout the browns. The browns did nothing on offense until the defense got tired.

· Erickson – offense – I like the concept of spreading the field, but Garcia is NOT Marino. Balance and West Coast with an occasional long pass is the only thing that will work with the Niners current personell.

· Mooch – This has been discussed ad nauseam but he is 1-2 just like the Niners. IMO Twenty years from now Mooch will have had a nice little career with 0 superbowl wins. I think he is better college coach then a pro coach.

Originally posted by 44Niners

· Mooch – This has been discussed ad nauseam but he is 1-2 just like the Niners. IMO Twenty years from now Mooch will have had a nice little career with 0 superbowl wins. I think he is better college coach then a pro coach.

I dunno... it's too early to tell, and I'm not sure Mariucci is really in a better environment with the Detroit front office than he was at S.F.

Until the Niners get new ownership, they're screwed.

The funny is, everyone's so down, on the niners right now, just one loss, yes it was to a team that didn't have as much talent, but its still just the begining of the season, three games in and everyone in SF is calling for Erickson's head. Hey if they keep losing then it will be a big problem. But right now, it's not a crisis situation. The real weird thing is that the defense is one of the best in the league, its just the offense thats not getting it done. Knapp is calling Mooch plays and the line is all screwed up. Plus Garcia is not up to par. The vikings look really good, and the niners are going to have trouble beating them, but 2-5? This is NOT a 2 and 5 team, And I'll make a bold prediction right now, that the niners will not be 2-5...

The Vikings look really good? Sure they're 3-0 (not discounting that at all), but they've played such teams as Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay (wouldn't be included in the trio except for they lost to the Cardinals yesterday). And their margin of victory is only 16 points. That's 5 points per game. The Vikings are probably the weakest 3-0 team I've seen in quite some time. On top of that, Culpepper is doubtful with cracked bones in his spine (although after watching Frerotte torch Detroit on a few plays, I'm not sure that's a good thing).

I don't know why it's a funny thing that Erickson's head is being called for. Mooch turned the team into a perennial playoff contender again in 3 years, and he was out shortly thereafter. Erickson loses two straight games he should have won, and it's a surprise that people are calling for his head already? Nah...49er fans and ownership expect excellence immediately...while I agree with your assessment that it is just two losses, and we shouldn't get worked up about it, I'm not surprised that most people are worked up about it.

I'll make an even bolder prediction: The 49ers are 3-1 over their next 4 games.

EDIT: Sorry if this message came out acidic and attacking...I'm annoyed right now about standing in line for over two hours just so I can hand over a $2,000 tuition check, and people have been reminding me of Scott Spezio and the World Series last year, and that's irking me.

Spieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiooooooooooooooo!!!

Vince, the thing your dicounting is that the Niners have to go into Minnesota. The Vikings may be the weakest 3 and 0 team, but they are always tough at home. Mooch isn't going to come back, Yes, the niners should have kept him, but all I hear is, should have, could have, would have, which is pretty pointless. Plus, Erickson has coached the team for the 3 games, not three years, so you can't really compare yet. Furthermore, he can't be the only one blamed for the losses, There has been numberous mistakes by the players.