Fare Thee Well

Rumblings on Monday led to a pair of painful announcements relating to the 49ers this afternoon, breaking up the general monotony of Spring Training baseball where no news tends to be good news. One item was expected. The other, a shocker that's kind of left everyone feeling numb.

The surprise retirement of Patrick Willis came mostly out of nowhere. Willis, the unquestioned leader of a defense that has been among the NFL's best the past 4 seasons, hadn't given much in the way of indication that he wouldn't be back from the toe injury that shelved him for a majority of the 2014 season. But as a sign that you can never really know what's in the head of an athlete, Willis instead announced today that he planned to retire to pursue a more philanthropic career. It's noble, and certainly speaks to the character Willis displayed throughout his career, but that doesn't make it any less shocking.

Willis' career has been nothing but one accolade on top of another. Drafted by the 49ers in the 1st round in 2007, Willis was the Defensive Rookie of the Year, a first-team All Pro multiple times and voted to the Pro Bowl every year of his 8 year career except this past season. Willis was a leader in every sense; not so much that he set an example for his teammates both on and off the field, but for the fact that he made everyone around him better. NaVorro Bowman, who from everything I can gather like a little brother to Willis, was hardly heralded as a prospect when he entered the league in 2010, but after playing next to Willis became a force just as strong and together, the tandem helped the 49ers become great again. Bowman will be back, though nobody knows just how strong he will be after his knee injury now over a year ago, and certainly everyone had to think Willis would be there alongside him. But he won't.

Whether it was the wear and tear of playing at the level of ferocity he usually displayed or a religious awakening that became so prevalent across his social media pages, Willis decided now was the time for him to move on. It seems shocking and premature but the best way to look at it is to reflect on the 8 seasons he played and remember what a force he was.

Less surprising, but not less upsetting was the word that Frank Gore was also departing the 49ers after 10 sterling seasons as the team's Running Back. Gore, a Free Agent, wanted to be back and the 49ers certainly indicated they wanted to have him back at the end of the season, but the way things unfolded that seemed to dissolve, because I'm not sure the 49ers ever made him an offer. Over the weekend, it seemed like the hot word was that Gore was headed to the Eagles, but he ended up shunning Philly for an offer from the Indianapolis Colts.

With Gore, the answer of whether to bring him back or not seemed less cut and dry. Gore's 32-year old legs covered a lot of ground over his 10 seasons and at times he certainly didn't have the same juice he did when he was younger. But just when you figured he was through, he'd come out and rip off a 120+ yard game and score 2 Touchdowns and you'd remember that he was still the same Frank Gore who was always going to get the job done. Gore, the 49ers all-time leading rusher and a 5-time Pro Bowler, always ran tough and angry, but accomplished his job humbly, so much so that sometimes it was easy to overlook him. But he was always there in the end to grind out tough yards when the 49ers needed it most.

Most importantly, Gore and Willis were the two key cogs on the 49ers through the latter half of the dark era of 49ers football in the mid to late 00s that toiled through a lot of lean years before finally getting a taste of success in the past few seasons. When the 49ers re-emerged in the Jim Harbaugh era, it was Gore and Willis who stood front and center as the team's leaders and nobody questioned that. These were two players that clearly appreciated every ounce of the winning they got to experience. But as Harbaugh has departed, and now Gore and Willis have left as well, it seems that the window on this era has closed for the 49ers. The 49ers do have the depth and pieces on their roster now to replace these large holes, but will they? It's not the time now to focus on how or why this has happened here, or to start knocking owner Jed York, or whatever. For now, you tip your cap to Patrick Willis and Frank Gore, a pair of great players who always made me proud to root for the 49ers.

Missing Man

A season that's already been disrupted by injuries and internal controversy got cut a little deeper for the 49ers this week when the team announced that Patrick Willis, perhaps the team's only consistent force on defense, to say nothing of his leadership, would miss the remainder of the season. The culprit being a toe injury that seemed fairly benign, but managed to knock him out of action for several weeks before it was finally determined that surgery would be needed, ending his season before it ever really got going.

This wouldn't have been good news even if things had been going well for the 49ers, but given that Navorro Bowman has yet to play or even practice this season (the window for him to be allowed to practice at all this season shuts on Tuesday) and Aldon Smith is only now returning from his suspension (and who knows how that will go), a thin 49ers Linebacker unit losing its anchor feels that much more devastating.

Without Willis, the 49ers defense has been shorthanded, but they've still managed to play at a high level, which is a credit to both Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio, as well as Willis' replacement at inside Linebacker, Rookie Chris Borland. Though Borland is no Willis and will never be, Borland has kind of come out of nowhere to play really well, racking up 35 tackles in the past two games and being generally disruptive against the run and the pass. He also scooped up Drew Brees' fumble in Overtime on Sunday, setting the stage for the 49ers to win the game. Credit ought to go to Willis as well; Borland had seen some spot duty filling in the spot that Navorro Bowman would have been in were he available, and Willis has long had the habit of making the players next to him that much better. Hard to say Bowman would have become what he is now without the benefit of playing next to someone of Willis' stature, and lesser players like Michael Wilhoite and now Borland have emerged to have fine seasons—particularly Borland in this instance.

Still, for as well as Borland has played, he's still a Rookie and an unknown commodity at the kind of position where you tend to get overlooked unless you're Patrick Willis, or Lawrence Taylor, or some sort of other monstrous, otherworldly presence at that particular position. Willis is one of those players that everyone rallies around, a leader on the team in every sense of the word even though he might not have the panache of a Colin Kaepernick or Vernon Davis. Nobody's been more important to the team over the past 8 seasons and to now have to do battle without him is a blow that shouldn't be glossed over.

Back In Red

In another era, the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys were, for all intents and purposes, the only two teams that mattered in the NFL. Three consecutive seasons, these two teams met in the NFC Championship Game, and that game may as well have been the Super Bowl since the winner of that game went on to flatten the hapless AFC Champion in their following game.

But that was the 1990s, and now it's 2014, and the 49ers, following a forgettable several seasons have resumed their position among the NFL's elite. The Cowboys, well, not so much. They boast a legion of overrated stars that cannot gel, a megalomaniacal owner that can't get out of his own way, and a Quarterback who inevitably finds a way to screw things up without much of an effort. And this is who the 49ers matched up against in their season opener, a glitzy hype-fest at 4pm on Sunday, with Joe Buck and his hair sitting along side the ever-agreeable Troy Aikman behind the mic.

True to form, the Cowboys screwed up early and often. Tony Romo threw three interceptions in the first half, the 49ers ran out to an early lead and basically cruised home with a 28-17 victory that probably wasn't anywhere near as close as the final score would indicate.

It took all of three plays for the 49ers to capitalize on a Dallas mistake. Despite taking the field looking woefully shorthanded thanks to injuries and suspensions, the 49ers defense got off to a flying start when DeMarco Murray fumbled on his first carry of the game. Dan Skuta, getting the start at Linebacker in the stead of Aldon Smith, stripped Murray and Chris Culliver, in his return to the lineup after missing all of the 2013 season with an injury, scooped up the ball and raced 35 yards unimpeded for a Touchdown.

For all the injuries, Aldon Smith's suspension, Free Agency departures and the assorted controversy-starting stories that had surrounded the 49ers—particularly their defense—this was quite a way to kick off the season, running back a Fumble for a Touchdown on the season's 3rd play. By the end of the game, though the Defense didn't have their best day, they would continue to force mistakes and take advantage.

Dallas' ensuing drive was, in a scene oft-repeated throughout the game, painfully slow in coming together. Tony Romo completed a few passes but was generally not at his best, but DeMarco Murray atoned for his fumble by running well. Still, the Cowboys were helped out by a pair of Ahmad Brooks penalties that extended things, and they were knocking on the door of a Touchdown before Justin Smith sacked Romo and forced Dallas to kick a Field Goal.

Finally, nearly halfway through the 1st Quarter, the 49ers offense took the field. They weren't out there very long. Not because they turned the ball over, but because they tore through the Cowboys B-level defense so quickly it was mind-boggling. It took the 49ers all of 4 plays to score, Colin Kaepernick rifled in a pair of completions to Old Reliable Anquan Boldin to cover the majority of the field, an interference call on a pass intended for Michael Crabtree got some more yards, and then Kaepernick, after nearly getting tripped up by a pursuing Dallas defender, hit an uncovered Vernon Davis in the right corner of the End Zone for a 29-yard Touchdown. The Cowboys much-maligned Defense was living up to their billing as Kaepernick, who'd struggled through an erratic preseason, completed 3 of 3 passes for 73 yards and a Touchdown in his first drive of the season.

If you were rooting for the 49ers, and it appeared that many people that went to the game in Dallas were, you had to be feeling good, and after the next sequence of events you were probably feeling even better. Romo took the Cowboys offense back onto the field. His first pass was complete to Jason Witten, who was subsequently stripped by Patrick Willis and the ball scooped up by Corey Lemonier and returned for a Touchdown. Replay ultimately reversed this call, but undaunted, Romo just handed the ball back to the 49ers two plays later when Romo decided that he'd try to pass to a triple-covered Dez Bryant and, not surprisingly, Eric Reid intercepted the ball and subsequently ran it all the way back to the Dallas 2 yard line. On the next play, Kaepernick hit Davis for another Touchdown and the 49ers were out to a 21-3 lead before the 1st Quarter was out.

The Cowboys next possession ended with similar results. Though they moved the ball well down the field and were once again knocking on the door for a Touchdown that might have brought them back in the game, Romo ended up alligator-arming a pass not particularly close to Witten on 1st and Goal from the San Francisco 5 yard line, and Patrick Willis was there to make an acrobatic Interception to snuff out the Cowboys. The 49ers did not score on their ensuing drive, as a pair of penalties served to short-circuit things, but once again Romo turned around and handed the ball back to them when Perrish Cox, filling in for Culliver, who'd been injured late in the 1st Quarter, intercepted a pass intended for Bryant. Romo had now managed to throw interceptions on 3 consecutive drives, each one more spectacular than the one before it.

The 49ers, this time, set out to eat up the remaining clock in the 1st half, and that meant that for the first time in the game, we got a good look at Frank Gore, who did what he always does and ground out a bunch of yards, as well as the debut of Rookie Carlos Hyde, who proved himself a very intriguing backup with a lot of energy. Gore did most of the work, but it was Hyde who finished the deal, scoring his first NFL Touchdown with :39 seconds left in the half to put the 49ers up 28-3 at Halftime.

The 49ers did not score any points in the second half, but they did take their foot off the pedal somewhat. They basically spent most of the half handing the ball to Gore or Hyde, or LaMichael James, with Kaepernick sprinkling in some passes, including a pair to newcomer Stevie Johnson and more to Anquan Boldin, who as usual was Kap's favorite target. Kap finished out his day going 16 of 23 for 201 yards. Boldin caught all 8 passes thrown his way for 99 yards. Gore ran for 66 yards and Hyde buttressed him by rushing for 50.

Defensively, the 49ers did allow the Cowboys to score a pair of cosmetic Touchdowns in the second half, but in general they made it very difficult for the Cowboys to sustain anything. Their drives were mostly of the painfully slow-moving variety and were often aided by penalties or some weird breaks. There were more injuries, including to both starting Cornerbacks, Tramaine Brock and Culliver, which forced Perrish Cox and Rookie Dontae Johnson into the lineup, but Cox, as we saw earlier, came through with an Interception and Johnson, undaunted by getting thrown into the lineup in his first game, played admirably well and hung with it throughout the game. Dallas' two scores came when the game was far out of reach and just about over, so it's not as though the outcome was ever in much doubt.

Afterward, when asked about any particular ill feelings toward Jim Harbaugh, Anquan Boldin flatly stated that he had no idea there were any problems. Sunday, there certainly weren't any problems for the 49ers. You don't know if this was simply because they were playing a team that looks truly terrible, or if they're all the way back—I suppose that remains to be seen and it's what makes the early quotient of an NFL schedule so nerve-wracking—but at least for this game, the 49ers looked like they're still a powerhouse in the league and their elite players are still elite players. Now, they get to return home and open up their new stadium on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy on Sunday Night, as Faith Hill or whoever is singing the song now welcomes everyone in to Levi's Stadium when they take on the Bears next Sunday.