Nolan more conservative without the suit
Is Mike Nolan out of his mind? His ultra-conservative decision
making in last week’s pivotal game against the Rams
– ironically during a week when he wore his casual, more liberal
Reebok gear – could ultimately prove to be the biggest nail in the
coffin in the 49ers 2006 campaign, which up until last week, had
playoffs written all over it.
Nolan more conservative without the suit
Is Mike Nolan out of his mind? His ultra-conservative decision making in last week’s pivotal game against the Rams – ironically during a week when he wore his casual, more liberal Reebok gear – could ultimately prove to be the biggest nail in the coffin in the 49ers 2006 campaign, which up until last week, had playoffs written all over it.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Nolan’s most costly and arguably the biggest bonehead decision ever in regular season 49er coaching lure, let me familiarize you with it, and then back up my thoughts.
The 49ers held a 14-13 lead over the Rams on the road with 3:54 to go in the final quarter. The Niners had the ball and marched it all the way down to the Ram 7-yard line on an impressive drive that was highlighted by a series of solid runs by Frank Gore, Maurice Hicks and Michael Robinson. As a team, the 49ers were averaging 5.5 yards per carry for the game.
Simply put, the Rams could not slow down the Niners’ running attack, which is why Nolan’s decision to kick a field goal instead of going for it in a fourth-and-one-inch situation still has my brain scrambling for answers.
In fact, the Niners had less than an inch to go, but referees never say fourth-and-an-eighth-of-an-inch.
Nolan opted for a chip-shot field goal by Joe Nedney, which made the game 17-13.
From there, the Rams got the ball back at the 20 and proceeded to put together a game-winning drive that was capped off by a touchdown toss from Marc Bulger, who went 9-for-9 in the final drive, to Kevan Curtis with just 27 ticks left on the clock. The score was now 20-17 and Alex Smith now doesn’t have any time to think. Deer in the headlights. Game over.
Let’s pretend Nolan had gone for it.
If the Niners could have mustered up enough talent to move the ball a mere half-inch, they would have gotten a whole new set of downs, and would have been just seven yards shy of the goal line. Alex Smith, at 6-foot-4 inches, could have fallen over the back of Pro Bowl guard Larry Allen and gone a foot on a muffed play.
With the new set of downs even if they never punched it in the end zone, the new game clock would have dwindled the 3:54 game clock down another 2.5 minutes or forced the Rams to use most of their timeouts.
If they went for it and scored, it would have been game over and the Niners could afford to lose one more game down the stretch and still make the playoffs.
Let’s say the Niners went for it and didn’t get it, it was so close that repositioning the ball again, based on the referee’s human judgment of the spot where the player was down, may still have been enough to get the crucial first down.
But let’s say the Niners went for it and got immediately stopped for a loss, another 30 seconds would have come off the game clock – which wouldn’t have been enough time for the Rams to score, based on the time that it actually took them to do so.
Not only that, St. Louis would have had to start their drive from the 7- or 8-yard line, instead of the 20, which is a huge difference.
With all that said, the other question I have is why in the heck did Nolan opt to go into the prevent defense once the Rams did get the ball back?
The prevent defense doesn’t prevent anything except wins. The Niners’ base defense had been playing solid all day. Why change with the game on the line? Not only that, the Rams still had a pair of timeouts left as well as the two-minute warning to stop the clock – both reasons to not opt for the prevent defense.
Oh well, I guess it’s just another discouraging experience that this young team has to learn from. Hopefully, the coach got something out of it too because that type of play calling will never work against Drew Brees and company this Sunday if it didn’t against the struggling Rams.
