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Niners need to bear down if they want this one on Sunday
By David Zizmor October 20, 2009 |
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SANTA CLARA--The Niners (3-2) should be embarrassed about their last performance against Atlanta two weeks ago at Candlestick it was not something that was fun to watch for the fans or for the players because it was a stinker. You don't lose by 30 plus points and come out of it with a nice taste in your mouth and the Niners are feeling pretty lousy right now. They just stunk up the field and in front of the home crowd no less. It was a very disappointing especially when you consider the way they played in the first four games. So with last week's bye week hopefully they had a chance to reset and get their heads on straight and prepare and kind of get back to what made them successful in their first four games this season. They went 3-1 in those first four games and I'll grant you not all those teams were the best teams in league but when they played Minnesota (6-0) the Niners held their own and frankly they should have won that game if not for crazy Minnesota quarterback Brett Farve's last second play to win it. So the 49ers are still a competitive team and you can look at that game against Atlanta hopefully as an out wire as an anomaly. The Niners are a decent team not a great team, but their a decent team and every team has an off day and you got to hope that the 49ers game with Atlanta was just an off day. The Niners next game is against the Houston Texans (3-3) and their coming off a big win with the Cincinnati Bengals last week they beat them 28-17. The Niners are really going to have to step up their game on defense because Houston is one of the better offensive teams in the NFL. As a matter of fact you might think it's a guy like New England quarterback Tom Brady or the Colts Peyton Manning but the quarterback with the most touchdowns in the NFL but it is non other than Houston starting quarterback Matt Schaub in fact he threw four touchdowns just last week against the Bengals. So the Niners really have to step up their passing game and they got to make sure they got to get some pressure on the quarterback that was something they were unable to do against the Falcons last game. Not a lot of pressure and if you look at the game in the first few weeks of the season that was something that the Niners had excelled at. The Niners did a really good job pressuring the quarterback until they played Atlanta obviously part of that goes to the talent of the Falcons they have a strong offensive line and one of the best quarterbacks and a guy who can get rid of the ball quickly before the pressure gets to Matt Ryan. The Texans are a team that has had offensive line troubles all year so the Niners really have to find a way to get to Schaub and make him feel the heat so he doesn't have time to get the ball to wide receiver Andre Johnson whose one of the best receivers in the NFL. He's second in the NFL in receiving yards at 572 yards. So what the Niners have to do here is play solid defense and they have to have a little bit of success on offense that's been their recipe for success all season long, the defense has to be dominate or at least keep them in the game and the offense has to hang with them. David Zizmor covers 49ers football each week for Sportstalk radio |
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