SaintsBro |
02-05-2012 10:12 AM |
I saw it immediately. What happened to the 49ers this past year is exactly what happened to the Saints in '06. New coach and new coordinators came in, not a lot of film on what they were doing, for other teams to break down. Plenty of good players on hand, who had been poorly coached. Easy schedule due to the poor year they'd had the year before. Piled up wins. Won home field and a bye. Enormously off-the-chain, pumped-up home crowd and emotional players, that allowed them to win exactly ONE playoff game before they fell apart. Next year, 8-8 or 9-7, did not qualify, and that's exactly what I see happening to the Niners once they have to play a #2 seed schedule, and once teams study them a little bit and prepare.
Case in point: the Niners absolutely blew out Seattle early in the year, then the second time, those two teams played a really tough close game, late in the year, decided by only a couple of points. Once the Seahawks were able to look at film and prepare, the 49ers did not look nearly so hot. The Rams, same deal. The second game between them was much more competitive than the first, which tells me there is something going on with the Niners last year besides just plain dominance.
Now of course, looking back... if you offered me the Saints going from a losing record to being in the NFC Championship game in '06, I'll say OF COURSE I'LL TAKE IT. We'd never been anywhere near there before. But wouldn't you admit, that after that game at Soldier Field, and in the '07 and '08 seasons, we came to know how we were flawed -- that we maybe weren't as good as we thought we were... we were good, we were definitely a playoff caliber team in '06, but we weren't really an NFC Championship Game caliber team in '06. That's the moment the 49ers are at right now.
And I still can't believe people think the Rams are so bad. They had injuries but they're not a pathetic team, don't sleep on the Rams. I think the odds are good they're going to do exactly the above scenario next year, with a new coach nobody is prepared for, and win the NFC West over the 49ers, maybe even win home field. They have a good QB, a great workhorse running back, big playmaking defensive personnel, and new coaches who are coming into that division loaded for bear.
Remember back when our division was changing QBs and coaches every year, revolving door, the NFC South was a very unstable division, different teams won it every year. Now that's kinda stabilized, so you don't see it so much. But that NFC West is topsy turvy that way, they keep changing coaches and QBs out there and it's basically the Rams turn to get it together next year.
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