Return To The Big Time

The NFL season is basically a blur. The NFL Playoffs are anything but. Even though there's still the same amount of time in between games, it often can feel like weeks before they take the field. I've know that the 49ers would be in the Playoffs for some time; it was more or less a foregone conclusion that they'd be there somehow, even when they looked their worst. But here they are, and along with 7 other teams, they begin the chase for the Big Game this weekend, while the Big Boys get to sit back and watch these teams beat each other up in what appears to be a series of bone-chilling affairs, culminating in what's shaping up to be the bone-chillingest of them all on Sunday afternoon in Green Bay. Here now, my picks for the weekend:

Saturday, 4:30pm
Kansas City Chiefs (11-5) at Indianapolis Colts (11-5)
The Chiefs and Colts basically both made it to this point without much drama. The Chiefs did it by fattening up on a pillow-soft schedule early, racing out to a 9-0 start before coming back to earth down the latter half of the season. The Colts got off to a hot start, cooled off over the middle of the season after Reggie Wayne got hurt, and then retooled themselves to finish strong. The Colts can also boast to having beaten Denver, San Francisco and Seattle, all of whom are among the top teams in the league. The Chiefs have ridden the recipe of Alex Smith's smarts and Jamaal Charles' power running, and a tough defense that ranked among the tops in the league. But their schedule has dogged them and few believe they're as good as their record might indicate. The Colts, on the other hand, have Andrew Luck and are well served by a breakout season by T.Y. Hilton. Their running game is presumed to be weak because Trent Richardson is a colossal dud, but Donald Brown is kind of a sneaky-dangerous all purpose back. I picked the Colts to win last year in Baltimore but they weren't quite there yet. This year, I think they're ready for a deeper playoff run.
Pick: Colts 24, Chiefs 17

Saturday, 8:00pm
New Orleans Saints (11-5) at Philadelphia Eagles (10-6)
One of those games that confounds people. By all accounts, the Saints should probably wipe the floor with Philadelphia. They're easily the better team, Drew Brees is on top of his game and all their pieces are in place. And yet whenever they go on the road in the playoffs, no matter how good they look, they have this tendency to turn to mush. The Seahawks did it to them in 2010, the 49ers did it to them in 2011, and now here they are, going to Philadelphia in this weekend's Cold Game #1, to face the Eagles, NickFolean Dynamite and their Blur Offense that, once it got going, really propelled the Eagles to this point. True, the Eagles sort of happened into winning the NFC East primarily because nobody else wanted to win the Division, but digging a little deeper reveals the fact that the Eagles have the best Running Back in the NFL right now in LeSean McCoy and a Quarterback in Nick Foles who does not make mistakes. It would be up to the Saints Defense, which has been better this year than in prior years, to try to force a few turnovers if they want to tilt things in their favor, but I don't know if that's going to be in the cards given how smartly Foles has played of late. More than likely, this game is going to dissolve into a shootout between the high-powered Saints and the high-paced Eagles, and in a track meet in the cold, the circumstances seem to favor the Eagles.
Pick: Eagles 44, Saints 38

Sunday, 1:00pm
San Diego Chargers (9-7) at Cincinnati Bengals (11-5)
I waffled the most on this game. For whatever reason, I want to pick the Bengals. Not simply because they haven't won a playoff game since 1990, or because they had a decided advantage at home this season, where they've been 8-0, or because they've got this nice underdog spirit behind Andy Dalton and A.J. Green, and a good defense. They just seem like it's their time. And yet I can't seem to shake the idea that this is just a setup for Philip Rivers to come roaring in, slinging some weird sidearm passes around to guys like Keenan Allen and Seyi Ajirotutu and Antonio Gates and just giving the Cincinnati fans one more giant shitburger to carry them into the Winter. This is Cold Game #2, and a rematch of the legendary Freezer Bowl back in the 1981 postseason, where the enduring image is of poor Dan Fouts fluttering passes into a deathly wind with icicles hanging off his beard. You think Philip Rivers is the kind of guy who gives a crap about the cold? Yeah, me neither.
Pick: Chargers 24, Bengals 20

Sunday, 4:30pm
San Francisco 49ers (12-4) at Green Bay Packers (8-7-1)
But, of course, all these games are mere appetizers to my main course in the late game Sunday. Did you know that "The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field" is really a myth? Legendary voice of NFL Films John Facenda never actually said it. It's really just a Bermanism. Plus, it's redundant, because all Tundras are, by nature, frozen. So let's just get past all this Lambeau Field mystique crap and get to the point: It's going to be Really Fucking Cold in Green Bay on Sunday, because that's what happens in Green Bay in January. And while we're on the subject of Packer Brown-nosing, I watched NFL Network's excellent "A Football Life" series this week, where they devoted two hour-long programs to Vince Laaahm-Baaaa-Di. I know his name is synonymous with NFL royalty and I'm supposed to cream my pants at the mention of his name and the Packer Sweep, but after watching this program, I'm basically convinced that if Willy Loman were an NFL Coach, he'd be Vince Laaahm-Baaaa-Di.

Yes, it's a long-winded way of saying that I don't care for the Packers much. The Packers come into this game as the ultimate rags-to-riches tale, having lost Quarterback Aaron Rodgers to injury, suffering through weeks of losing and the indignation of a Tie Game, only to have the remainder of their division fall apart around them and Rodgers to come back and lead them to the Miracle Victory for the Ages last Sunday in Chicago. Rodgers is back, Rodgers is hot, and here we go. They get this game in their stadium, in their weather and under their circumstances.

That being said, they can't beat the 49ers. For as great as Aaron Rodgers is, he's not able to carry the entire game on his back, and the 49ers are just a better put-together team than the Packers are. San Francisco comes into this game having kind of quietly put together a 6-game winning streak, to say nothing of the fact that a majority of this roster is still kind of quietly steaming over their loss last February. Also of note is that in two previous meetings, Colin Kaepernick has completely shredded the Packers. Last year, he did it with his legs. So the Packers muscled up and sold out to stop him from running. The result was that in Week 1 this season, Kaepernick shredded them with his arm, and this was when his receiving corps consisted of Anquan Boldin, Vernon Davis and Me. Now, he's got a full arsenal at his disposal, while Green Bay's defense hasn't improved much over the course of the season. On the other side, while Rodgers may have saved the Packers' asses last week at the end, he didn't look great for a majority of the game, and their run game may suffer with Eddie Lacy ailing. The Packers and Rodgers took advantage of an awful Bears defense last weekend. The 49ers defense, who incidentally went the entire season without allowing a 100-yard rusher, is significantly better than the Bears defense, and I don't think I need to go into the sordid details.

Then, there's the weather. I know everyone wants to say "Ooooooooh, Packers Weather!" etc, etc, and yeah, to a certain extent that may be true. But once you start getting into temperatures in the single digits or below zero, the weather will affect you whether you're used to it or not. So for anyone who wants to make a stink about the delicate 49ers playing in the harsh cold, well, the Packers have to play in it too, and I don't believe they played in any games this season where the game time temperature was 3˚ with a forecast low of -20˚. So throw the weather theories out the window, because it's going to suck for both sides. This game comes down to talent and mental toughness, and the 49ers have the Packers beat on both counts.
Pick: 49ers 33, Packers 20

What, you're surprised? Go enjoy the games! Have a Blast! Eat some Peyton Manning Pizza! Fuck the Packers!

Only For The Tough

The 49ers found themselves faced with a number of different playoff scenarios as they went out to Arizona for their final game of the regular season. None of them involved the 49ers not making the playoffs, which was in stark contrast to the situation the Cardinals were facing, because they needed to a) Beat the 49ers and b) hope like hell that the New Orleans Saints somehow slipped up and lost at home to the Buccaneers. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, neither thing happened. The 49ers won a back-and-forth battle 23-20 on a last second Phil Dawson Field Goal, but long before the game was decided, the Saints had cruised to a blowout win over Tampa, making the game academic for the Cardinals. Then again, who cares about the Cardinals. With a win and a Seattle loss, the 49ers could have slipped in and stolen the NFC West title, which would have been quite a kick in the pants seeing as how Seattle has been regarded as the NFL's amphetamine darlings all season long. But Seattle's game wasn't in doubt either, so basically the 49ers were simply jockeying for position as a Wildcard team destined to go on the road for all their playoff games.

All that being said, the scenario seemed to matter very little to the 49ers, who looked like a team that just wanted to go out and play to win, and to their credit they did, heading off a Cardinals team that had been on a pretty good hot streak over the past several weeks, coming out of nowhere to make themselves contenders up to the final week. But the 49ers came out and attacked them from the outset, primarily behind Colin Kaepernick and Anquan Boldin. Boldin, who spent many seasons with the Cardinals, was making his first appearance at his former haunt since they dealt him away in 2009, and he looked like a guy who wanted to show his old team just what they were missing. Boldin ran up 149 yards receiving and one emphatic Touchdown, a majority of it coming in the 1st Quarter and on an electrifying 63-yard catch-and-run to set up a Vernon Davis Touchdown. The defense, behind Navorro Bowman's interception of Carson Palmer, hadn't done much and the end result was that the 49ers raced out to a 17-0 lead and appeared primed to wipe the Cardinals into oblivion.

But the Cardinals, in spite of the continued bad news they got on their own field and from New Orleans, kept fighting and kept the 49ers from extending their lead. Frank Gore and the 49ers rushing attack were pretty much bottled up, leaving the 49ers to solely rely on Kaepernick to move the ball. Though Kaepernick did have some success, netting his second 300+ yard game of the season, the 49ers drives mostly stalled, or, on one occasion, ended with Phil Dawson missing a short Field Goal attempt when Andy Lee's hold went awry. For a playoff tuneup, however, Kaepernick looked good, spreading the ball around with relative ease, working lesser-used receivers like Quinton Patton and Kassim Osgood into the mix, and even hitting Joe Staley for a gain on a Tackle-eligible play.

The defense bottled up the Arizona running game, which wasn't much of a challenge since Arizona's running backs don't appear to be very good, but after keeping him in check in the 1st Quarter, Carson Palmer caught fire over the rest of the game and kept moving Arizona into position to score. Fortunately, Arizona's kicker, Jay Feely, missed a pair of Field Goals, and stopped the Cardinals on 4th down on another occasion. But Palmer was able to keep the game close, and when he hit Andre Roberts on a 34-yard prayer with just over 3 minutes to play in the 4th Quarter, he'd managed to lead the Cardinals all the way back to tie the game at 17.

But, in a situation where nobody would have blamed the 49ers for just letting things lie, taking it easy and just preparing for next week, the 49ers warmed up again, with Kaepernick hitting Michael Crabtree and Boldin for long gains to set up Phil Dawson to hit a season-long 56-yard Field Goal, giving the 49ers a 20-17 lead with 1:45 to go. Undaunted, Palmer countered with a strong drive of his own, hitting Larry Fitzgerald and Rob Housler to move the Cardinals into position to potentially score a Touchdown and win the game, but Palmer couldn't get the Cardinals closer than the 30-yard line, and Feely re-tied the game with a Field Goal with :29 seconds left that seemed destined to send the game into Overtime.

But Kaepernick and the 49ers wanted no part of Overtime. After a strong kick return from LaMichael James (who continues to excel in this role), Kaepernick hit Boldin for one chunk of yards, and then hit Quinton Patton, who made a brilliant leaping catch to pick up another 29 yards, allowing the 49ers to call a Timeout with 2 seconds left, and send out Dawson to kick home the game-winning 40-yard Field Goal and send the 49ers on to the Playoffs with a wild 23-20 win.

Following the game, Jim Harbaugh told the team that where they were going was "Only for the Tough. But we have been toughened." The 49ers finished up the regular season winning their last 6 games to finish with a record 12-4, winning one more game than they did in 2012. But this season seemed to feel like more of a struggle for whatever reason. Maybe it was simply more of a struggle for their Quarterback, as Colin Kaepernick didn't light the league on fire like it seemed he would based on his success last year. He certainly wasn't a disappointment this season, but he was, at times, disappointing. He suffered with the loss of Crabtree and Mario Manningham (who once again is lost for the playoffs). There were games where the offense simply stagnated against tough defenses. Too often, drives stalled and Field Goals were settled for. Too often, the defense was leaned on to win games, and while they did a majority of the time, the offense would leave them with too slim a margin. But in the end, 12 wins speak for themselves. The 49ers for all their problems know how to win games and have drawn some much-deserved praise as a Championship Contender despite going into the Playoffs as a Wildcard team. And as a Wildcard team, the first order of business for the 49ers is the high pleasure of going to Green Bay next Sunday to take on the wonderful Packers, who squeaked into the playoffs with an 8-7-1 record after not having Aaron Rodgers for an extended period of time. Going into Doublecheck Lambeau Field in January is not for the faint of heart, but the 49ers have proven that they can not only handle the Packers in the Playoffs, but they can go on the road and win Playoff games. They did both of these things just last year en route to an NFC Championship. And this is what Jim Harbaugh meant. They have been through these tough Playoff games before. Experience may not guarantee victory, but it certainly can help a team play together and play smart, and these things will help the 49ers as they face a difficult, but not impossible, route through the Playoffs.

Stars Shine Brightest

It seemed fitting that the final game at venerable Candlestick Park would take place on the stage of Monday Night Football. Candlestick Park hosted more Monday Night Football games than any other, and it almost always featured some kind of memorable performance from one of the hosts. During the era of 49ers dominance in the 1980s and into the 1990s, it seemed like their best players always raised their game a little higher under the National spotlight. Since 1983, the 49ers hosted 29 Monday Night Football games (and a record 36 overall) and won an astonishing 22 of those games, and it usually included Jerry Rice stealing the show, or Joe Montana rising to the occasion, or Ronnie Lott and Charles Haley spearheading a defensive masterpiece, or Steve Young picking apart a defense. Recently, Frank Gore has shown a flair for this spotlight and Colin Kaepernick had his own coming out party last year on a Monday Night at Candlestick. Monday night, Candlestick Park went out with one final blast, as NaVorro Bowman saved the 49ers from certain disaster by intercepting a Matt Ryan pass with 1:10 to play and dashing 89 yards for a Touchdown to clinch not just a 34-24 victory, but also put the 49ers back in the playoffs.

Ostensibly, any sort of victory would have been satisfactory for the 49ers and their fans, but this game certainly ended up a bit hairier than they would have liked. Though this was certainly circled as a marquee matchup when the schedule was released, since the 49ers met, and beat, the Falcons last January in the NFC Championship game, the season took these teams in vastly different directions. Though the 49ers have, to this point, continued the success they've had under Jim Harbaugh, the Falcons have struggled, suffered through injuries and basically flopped (in spite of being mostly the same team that was a whisker of the Super Bowl last season), coming into the game a miserable 4-10 and looking only to spoil the 49ers party.

Early on, the Falcons certainly appeared ready to do some spoiling. Though the 49ers offense marched down the field on their first drive, with Colin Kaepernick hitting Anquan Boldin on a pair of passes (which put Boldin over 1,000 yards for the season in the process, a testament to how valuable he's been to the 49ers), the drive stalled when Kaepernick took a bit of a panic sack and the 49ers, as has been their wont, settled for a Phil Dawson Field Goal. Though the drive appeared to set a tone, it was really a false alarm, because that Field Goal ended up being the only consequential offense the 49ers would generate in the 1st half of the game. Atlanta Defensive Coordinator Mike Nolan, former head coach of the 49ers, dialed up some exotic blitzes and schemes designed to make Kaepernick uncomfortable, and for the most part it succeeded. He was throwing too early, or taking a sack, and generally the offense just stagnated.

In spite of the defense putting up their general solid effort, they still managed to let Atlanta sustain one drive when Ryan hit Drew Davis for a 59-yard gain on a 3rd down play early in the 2nd Quarter. This was simply a blown play. Davis sort of got lost in traffic in the middle of the field, but Ryan was able to hit him over the middle in front of Carlos Rogers, and Davis basically outran everyone most of the way down the field. This set up a Steven Jackson Touchdown (in spite of being on a different team, Jackson still seems to do it to the 49ers), giving Atlanta a 7-3 lead. The 49ers couldn't mount a response, and eventually Robert McClain broke a long punt return that set up a Falcons Field Goal as time expired in the half. The Falcons led 10-3 and this game was shaping up disastrously.

But the 49ers righted themselves in the second half. Aided by an egregious offsides penalty on Atlanta that helped extend the drive, the 49ers zipped down the field to start the 3rd Quarter, the drive capped off by a Boldin Touchdown and aided by a pair of clutch catches by Michael Crabtree, one of which went for 45 yards on a 3rd down play, and the second for 19 yards to set up Boldin's score. One drive later, the 49ers regained the lead on Dawson's second Field Goal, and one drive after that, Kaepernick scored himself on a 4-yard Quarterback Draw. All the while, the Falcons could do nothing, and so the game seemed to be fairly stable with the 49ers ahead 20-10 early in the 4th Quarter.

But the action was just beginning. The Falcons embarked on a painstakingly slow drive that appeared to be headed nowhere, until out of nowhere Ryan reared back and hit Roddy White on a long bomb for a 39-yard Touchdown that cut the lead to 3 with 8 and a half minutes to play. The 49ers, on their ensuing possession, set out to eat up some clock behind Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter. The problem was, the Falcons defense proved themselves pretty much incapable of stopping the run, so instead of chewing up yards and killing the clock, Gore and Hunter pretty much ran wild, including a 45-yard run from Hunter that set up Gore to score on a 2-yard Touchdown, having used up only 3 minutes worth of time. Nonetheless, with 5 minutes to go and the 49ers ahead 27-17, it appeared unlikely that the Falcons could mount the necessary comeback and Frank Gore would, appropriately, go down as the man to score the last Touchdown at Candlestick Park.

That, however, was nowhere close to the reality. The Falcons, perhaps sensing the moment and an opportunity to prove they're better than their record might indicate, refused to fade into oblivion and mounted a spirited, hurry-up drive, with Ryan moving the Falcons down the field at will and eventually getting them within 3 when he hit Tony Gonzalez for a Touchdown with just over 2 minutes remaining. So, all the 49ers had to do was recover the onside kick, right? Sounds simple enough, but sometimes funny things happen. And a funny thing did happen when the kick sort of knuckled past NaVorro Bowman and bounced into no-man's land, where Jason Snelling recovered for the Falcons, putting them well within Field Goal range with 2 minutes to go and 3 Time Outs.

Now, this wasn't what anyone expected. All of a sudden, not only were the 49ers looking at potentially an Overtime game, but the Falcons certainly had enough time and weapons to score a Touchdown and win the game. This would have been a real kick in the ass to everyone expecting the 49ers to shut down the Falcons and close Candlestick Park in a blaze of glory. It was starting to look, to me, like the unmitigated disaster that was the Final Game at Shea Stadium. Ryan started the drive strong, hitting consecutive passes to move the Falcons down to the 49ers 10 yard line on a 2nd down and 1 play. But just when disaster seemed imminent, that old Candlestick Park Monday Night spirit showed itself one final time.

The 49ers blitzed Ryan on the next play, in an attempt to force him to throw a pass quicker than he would have liked, or, perhaps, sack him altogether. They didn't sack him, but his pass to Harry Douglas was quick and short, enough that Tramaine Brock was able to break up the pass and bat the ball away. This normally results in an incomplete pass, but for NaVorro Bowman flying in from the fray to pick the ball out of the air and dash in the other direction with nothing in front of him but open field and a convoy of 49ers behind him, ready to lead him into the end zone and leap on him when he got there. Bowman had blitzed on the play, but had ended up getting blocked out and lost in traffic. Unable to get to Ryan, he instead went after the ball, which was fortuitous since the ball ended up getting knocked practically right into his arms. Certainly, it was the right place at the right time for Bowman, but it's fitting that he would be the one to make the game-clinching play to close out Candlestick Park. He's been making big plays all season long. He may get overlooked next to Patrick Willis (and let's not overlook Willis in this game—he played like a man possessed all night, ending up with an absurd 18 tackles and generally disrupting everything all game), but he's become a major star in his own right, and making a play like this one further enhances his reputation as one of the NFL's best Linebackers.

This was the kind of game that the Final Game at Shea Stadium should have been. A great, Championship-quality effort that was punctuated with one of those magnificent plays that will live on in team lore forever. And the end result was that it put the team in the Playoffs. So the 49ers can rest a bit easier next Sunday when they go to play in Arizona against a Cardinals team that needs a win and some help to make the Playoffs. But a win would be in their best interest, not simply just to finish on a strong note, but, though it's a longshot, should the Rams beat the Seahawks in Seattle (a tall order indeed, but one that the Cardinals accomplished on Sunday) and the 49ers win, the 49ers would end up winning the Division and Candlestick Park would live on for one more game. To say nothing of how hilarious it would be if the 49ers ended up assing the Seahawks out at the final leg after the Seahawks have been considered an overwhelming favorite all season long. But that's not something that needs to be worried about until Sunday.

From The Ground Up

The 49ers have now played 14 games this season to the tune of a 10-4 record, which has been good enough to keep them in pretty solid playoff contention. But for a lot of the season, it seems like the 49ers hadn't really played up to their capabilities as a team. Their losses have been of the frustrating or baffling variety, where they've either lost close games due to the inability to make a key play or they were blown out simply because the other team wore them down. Every team will have losses like that, but many of their victories haven't exactly been clean games either. Most in the spotlight, naturally, has been Colin Kaepernick, who's been uneven in his first full season as starter. He's certainly shown flashes of the guy who took the league by storm and dominated the 2012 Playoffs, but he's also had plenty of moments where he looks like he's still trying to figure it out. As such, it seems as though Jim Harbaugh has dumbed the offense down somewhat in order to protect Kap. I mentioned this last week, but sometimes the offense has become too reliant on the running attack behind Frank Gore and company, and the result is that far too many times, the team has ended up settling for Field Goals (Fortunately, Phil Dawson's been on a roll on that front, a far cry from the roller coaster that was David Akers in 2012). This is all fine and good, but too many Field Goals and too few Touchdowns can come back to bite you in the ass. This was proven in the Carolina game last month, and it could have cost them the Seattle game last week were it not for an inspired run by Gore and an inspired effort by the Defense.

But Sunday's game in Tampa saw the 49ers open things up a bit more offensively. It's been said more often than I care to remember but only now does the 49ers offense feel complete again, with Michael Crabtree and Mario Manningham back in the fold to supplement Anquan Boldin and Vernon Davis. With these pieces together, Kaepernick seemed to have the shackles taken off and began slinging passes around with a bit more abandon than he'd done over a majority of the season. Though it certainly wasn't Kaepernick's best game statistically—he only completed 19 of 29 passes for 203 yards—it was the way he completed those passes that was impressive. The fact that he completed his first 6 passes was also nice; far too often it seems like he'd been starting games completing 2 of his first 9 passes and looking in a fog.

One need look at Kaepernick's two Touchdown passes to see just how different he looked in this game. His first, on the 49ers first drive of the game, went to Crabtree, who became the first 49ers not named Davis or Boldin to catch a Touchdown from Kaepernick this season. On a broken play, Kaepernick had rolled right, looking for Crabtree, who was trying to break away from tight coverage. After circling around and back towards the sideline, Crabtree finally had a step, and Kap threaded the needle just right, whistling a strike in to Crabtree for the score.

The second Touchdown was just pure strength, the kind of throw Kaepernick hasn't really even attempted this season. Early in the 2nd Quarter, Kaepernick took a deep shot at Vernon Davis, who was in single coverage with a Buccaneers Safety. Unfortunately, the pass was overthrown. One drive later, with the 49ers at their own 48 yard line, Harbaugh called the play once again. Kaepernick dropped back and rolled left, stepped up and launched a rocket, an absolute rainbow of a pass that traveled at least 60 yards in the air. This time, the pass was on target, and Davis caught it in stride for the score, his momentum carrying him through the end zone where he crashed into a guardrail. This was the kind of play that seemed to be missing from the 49ers arsenal this season.

These two scores in the first half sent the 49ers out to a 17-0 lead, but for at least part of the second half, they seemed to slip back into some bad habits offensively. The 49ers managed only a Field Goal in the 3rd Quarter and when Bucs QB Mike Glennon capped a 92-yard drive by hitting Tim Wright for a Touchdown on the 1st play of the 4th Quarter, Tampa had closed the deficit to 20-14 and all of a sudden a game that the 49ers had really had a handle on for most of the game seemed now quite dicey. But, as the 49ers have done on more than one occasion this season, they closed well in spite of some momentary lapses. On a drive comprised primarily behind the general fortitude of Frank Gore, the 49ers covered 77 yards in 17 plays (which also featured a key 3rd down conversion by Crabtree—something else the 49ers had really missed this season) that took 10 minutes off the clock and ended with, surprise surprise, Dawson's 3rd Field Goal of the day, getting the lead back to 9 points. Then, of course, the Bucs tried to get fancy on the ensuing kickoff, Eric Page made an ill-advised and ill-timed attempt to pass the ball off to Russell Shepard, Shepard never got a handle on the ball, fumbled and Kendall Hunter alertly jumped on the ball and rolled into the End Zone for what was essentially the clinching score. The Buccaneers then turned the ball over twice more in the final minutes, once on downs and once courtesy of Eric Reid's 4th Interception of the season, Dawson added a 4th FG and the 49ers ended up coasting out of Tampa with a 33-14 victory and a tighter grasp on a Playoff spot.

The 49ers now need to win one of their final two games, or see the Arizona Cardinals lose one of their last two games, in order to lock up a spot in the Playoffs. This seems a likely occurrence; Arizona is playing in the Horrordome in Seattle next week, while the 49ers host the Atlanta Falcons in a rematch of last season's NFC Championship game. In a testament to the fragility of NFL teams, the 49ers certainly appear primed for another deep playoff run, while the team they went on the road to beat to reach the Super Bowl last season has fallen into the abyss, rolling into San Francisco with a 4-10 record. The 49ers and Falcons will meet on Monday night, which means that the playoff question may be academic by time the game rolls around, but it seems fitting to play then. Monday's game will be the final game at venerable Candlestick Park, barring some unforeseen reversal of fortune in the Postseason that somehow ends up with the 49ers playing a Championship game at home. Candlestick Park, though generally reviled by both players and fans alike, has nonetheless been the site of a multitude of great moments over its history, particularly for the 49ers, and many of those moments came under the spotlight of Monday Night Football. It might not hold quite the same significance for me as when Shea Stadium closed (this should be obvious based on the fact that I went to 269 games at Shea Stadium as compared to none at Candlestick Park, even when the Giants played there), but nonetheless the stars will all be out to send Candlestick out in a blaze of glory.

Delusions Of Grandeurson

To state the obvious, the Curtis Granderson signing by itself won't make the Mets into a Playoff team. In fact, it's no sure thing that the signing will even make them a contending team right away. Granderson, who will be 33 on Opening Day of 2014, is coming off a season completely undercut by a pair of freak injuries, switching leagues for the first time and moving to a ballpark that's decidedly un-friendly to hitters.

And yet, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about the move.

Skeptics seem to point to Granderson's signing potentially being another Jason Bay-type disaster, and for all we know, that could very well happen. Granderson's career arc doesn't necessarily posit that he's due for that kind of a serious dropoff (Unlike Jason Bay, I never referred to Granderson as an overglorified Gabe Kapler). First of all, Granderson actually seemed like he wanted to come to the Mets. Jason Bay seemed to come to the Mets because nobody else would take him. But it goes deeper than that. While playing most of his formative years in spacious Comerica Park, Granderson was a gap hitter who hit a lot of doubles and triples (his 23 in 2007 led the AL) and scored a lot of runs. When he moved to the cute little bandbox in the Bronx, those doubles and triples were suddenly flying out of the ballpark, which led to 41 and 43 Home Run seasons in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Nobody's hitting 40 Home Runs a season playing half their games in Citi Field, but a more likely scenario would see Granderson's Home Runs drop off and his doubles and triples increase again. Point is, he's used to simply hitting line drives, so the park factor won't fuck up his head the way it did to Bay.

Also, the specter of playing in the media vacuum that is New York can mess up some sensitive-types. Jason Bay came to New York after spending many years in Pittsburgh obscurity and surrounded by a galaxy of stars in Boston before coming to the Mets with the expectations of being The Man and rescuing the Mets from a down season (the fact that things were already too far gone is besides the point; we really hadn't accepted that as truth yet). After a slow start, he pressed and never recovered. Granderson arrives with the Mets having already spent 4 years playing in New York for that other team, so he's used to the basic craziness of the whole thing. Granderson is also one of those gregarious, outgoing types, who's more likely to fire back some witty retorts when faced with criticism. Additionally, Granderson is joining a team that's taking a step forward in rebuilding. He doesn't have to be The Man. He just has to do what he does and help make the players around him better. This is also something he's generally used to doing. He's not a savior and nobody is viewing him as such. Or, at least, they shouldn't be (the real savior is going to miss playing with Granderson for a year, assuming things go as planned).

Really, the best thing about the Granderson signing is that it happened at all. After about a month of Free Agency chatter and a tepid amount of player movement, the Mets fans were really starting to get restless. This was supposed to be the Offseason where things finally started to happen for the Mets to bring them out of this 5-year abyss. Nobody was amused by the Chris Young signing, particularly when, for a while there, it looked like that was all the Mets were going to do. But then the Granderson rumors picked up steam and finally it became official last Friday morning. Finally, the Mets had gone out and done something of consequence. It's been a long time since the Mets made a Free Agent signing of some note, and that it's someone that fans can really get behind makes it that much better. It means that the days of us Mets fans having to talk ourselves into the idea that somehow Shaun Marcum is a shrewd Free Agent pickup are (probably) finally over.

If anything, the Granderson deal is probably more like the Pedro Martinez signing back in 2005 as far as the statement it makes. Pedro was past his prime and probably signed for a year longer than the Mets should have given him, but they had to bring him in and they couldn't fuck it up. Once Pedro signed, and made it clear that this was where he wanted to be, other Free Agents saw that the Mets were serious about putting together a winning team and pretty soon, guys like Carlos Beltran, Billy Wagner and others were coming on board. Pedro didn't ultimately perform to the worth of his contract (though not for lack of effort), but no Mets fan can possibly think it was a bad move for how it eventually set the team up for success. Of course, that was fleeting success, but it was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? This is what the Mets are doing with the Granderson move. It's a 4-year contract, which will last until he's 37 and probably on the downside of his career, but that's irrelevant. The Mets are a big-market team and should be able to absorb a few bad contracts assuming the economics fall into place.

By signing Granderson, the Mets are finally making good on the promise they've continually made to their fans that 2014 would be the year things finally got better. By signing Granderson, the Mets are sending a message to other Free Agents that this is a team players want to come to (and Granderson said as much in his press conference Tuesday). They're sending the message that this 5-year journey through Hell is finally coming to an end and the team is going to get serious about winning once again. Granderson's effect on the Mets may not be obvious immediately, but in time, it will pay off.