Rumination - What is the point of a challenge in an instance where the evidence is so vague it cannot overturn the original call? Now, the rules suggest a coach should never get ‘extra help’ but that’s not reality. In reality the home stadium coach gets big, slow replays to watch (people can see it on TV) and the booth has monitors that show the TV replays and headsets telling the coach what to do. If you’re a visiting team you get no replays and maybe the monitors suddenly disconnect at a key moment for those in the booth. But what good is that advantage when the referees an often, in effect, still make bad calls and get away with it. As I see, that INT by AZ DL Dockett was not an INT.  He was still pulling it down and clutching it to his tummy when it got knocked out. Had it been called a dropped ball, there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. But since it was called an INT, that could not be changed either.  If video evidence cannot prove a challenge wrong then the challenge should be returned to the team, plain and simple. In short, a team should not lose a challenge because of a lack of conclusive evidence either way.

Rumble - Talk about a big play missed, never give FB Norris credit for ‘good vision’. On his first carry he went up the RG/RT gap and then moved inside and was tackled by pursuing players. Yet outside of the RT the only defender had been flattened and another had jumped inside so hard it set him up to get blocked as well. Had he looked up and bounced outside he had a clear lane to the S level and enough room to get more yardage.

Rave - What more can you say about our offense when we just made more third down conversions in less than 5 minutes of game time than we did in 60 minutes against SEA? As time goes on, we can add more wrinkles and become more consistent, simple as that.

Rave - I have not been as negative about rookie RB Coffee as most. In fact, I blame Raye for only inserting him in obvious running downs and tipping defenses. On many if not at least 80% of Coffee’s runs, defenses have run heavy run blitzes and shattered his blocking while he’s still in the backfield. Sometimes, he can’t even take 2 steps without needing to face a defender. But that aside, he did have some decent runs in this game but his biggest play was not a run. Just after AZ RB Tim Hightower fumbled the ball and CB Bly recovered it, Coffee delivered a tough, in your face block on a backside AZ blitzer that let QB Smith deliver a spot on strike to TE Davis in the end zone.

Rumble - I’m still not a fan on S Roman. S Goldson made all of the big plays with 2 FFs and 2 PDs and an INT. Roman did add a lucky FF and had 2 FRs but was mostly lucky for being around dropped balls.  It still doesn’t save Roman from his many missed tackles, bad coverage angles and lack of PDs.

Rave - Talk about a coming out party on the stat sheet. I’m not ready to crown OLB Brooks as the ‘pass rusher we have needed’. As far as I can see, a lot of it was effort and bad RB blocking help. One play he just blew by the LT. Another there was a questionnable choice of assignment by a blocking RB and the third the RB did a poor job on helping with an outside chip and mostly rubbed by Brooks at best. He has 4 sacks in the last 2 games against hardly mobile QBs and banged up and suspect offensive lines. Clearly a tool we want to develop and look at. Of course, there is no shame in a guy who will pile up 8 sacks per year just on the bad teams, that will help us dominate the ‘easy’ games.

Rave - Clearly the best game of Goldson’s career. Two forced fumbles and 1 INT as well as quite a few good tackles. Plus he was right in there on some big plays and bombs to WR Fitzgerald. Not only was his coverage superb, we didn’t give up any big pass plays, and he produced 3 turnovers! But more importantly what I saw was what looks like a better nose for the LOS than the deep field. I really think Goldson has the style to play SS and deliver those type of FF-producing hits and S-blitz sacks that have worked so well the past few weeks and has the range to also go deep with receivers. This seems like a perfect off-season to release Lewis and Roman, move Goldson to SS, bring in a new veteran all-purpose guy to replace Roman and a draftee to build as a true FS. I have a vision of Goldson moving to SS and being quite a success there in a year or two.

Rumination - Since it was a national, prime-time game, I actually DVR’ed the game at home and watched it again last night.  First off, to the Smith detractors, even national media is noting how multiple offensive systems and OCs has hurt QB Smith’s career to date. The focus on changing of play-calling systems, repeatedly rebooting the style of offense and having to adjust to personalities was one of the few good things I liked. What really irked me though was apparently their ridiculous lack of knowledge as to the week 1 game!They were talking about how we weren’t running much without even noting how Gore getting stuffed extensively in Week 1 made the game even harder for us to win. At a few points they quite clearly poo-poo’ed their knowledge of the 49ers and said names incorrectly and lacked useful research on the team they are covering.

Rumble - It’s nice to see Crabtree have a nice catch and run for a TD and to be our top receiver for the game. But I’m worried about one key thing I see in his play. The kid carries the ball far too much only on his forearm and at times runs while ‘carrying it like a loaf of bread’. You can bet DBs and LBs will see it and start swiping at the inside of his arm as he carries the ball. I’m worried about his ball protection and not tucking it to his chest and protecting the inside nose with his biceps.

Rumble - Officiating BS at its best. Hightower puts the ball on the ground and is barely on the ground and he gets a quick whistle. Yet Beanie Wells is stopped on a goal line run and no whistle comes and about 2 seconds later he spins and gets a TD. Clearly the refs are quick to blow the whistle to protect AZ and not in our favor. If the same alacrity of whistle blowing had been applied to the Wells run as the Hightower fumble, then AZ should have lost with only 1 FG scored.

Rumble - While on the topic of bad officiating, as a simple statement, that fourth quarter ‘hold’ on WR Morgan was a jokingly bad call.

Rave - I like what I was seeing out of the running game. Of course Gore made some nice cuts and sprints but the design and play-calling was excellent. Pulling and trapping both OGs produced some good gains even out of more open sets and some of our more unexpected twists had our ground game were good for gold. We don’t need to use 2-back sets 80% of the time to get Gore open. Spreading it out and good solid blocking also springs him for some good runs. We saw a solid evolution of the ground time that bounced from straight up blocking in spread offensive sets to a handful of more classic sets succeeding too.