Week 3 Recap of 49ers vs Vikings

By Kalen Patrick

The San Francisco 49ers suffer their 1st loss of the season to the Minnesota Vikings today by the score of 24-13. One of the things I heard throughout this game was that the Vikings were beating the 49ers by playing the 49ers style of football. This is something I could not agree more with. Besides for the Kyle Williams return, the Vikings soundly beat the 49ers in all 3 phases of the game. In my opinion this was the worst overall game the 49ers have played under Jim Harbaugh. The key to the Vikings win was their 3 touchdown drives, each of which went for 80+ yards on the highly regarded 49ers defense. I do want to give the entire Minnesota Vikings team props for their sound beating of the 49ers. There is no doubt they deserved to win the game.

JIM HARBAUGH WAS NOT A HAPPY MAN TODAY IN MINNESOTA

Lets now discuss some of the reasons why I feel the 49ers were beaten badly today.

1. ZERO Pass Rush - It seemed that for the vast majority of the game the 49ers simply rushed their front  four (Ahmad Brooks, Aldon Smith, Justin Smith and Ray McDonald) and they rarely got near Ponder. There was little to no variety in the blitzes, very rarely did I see guys like Aldon Smith drop into coverage and see blitzing LB's or Safeties. I don't know if Fangio just put too much faith in his front four to get pressure or what, but what I do know is that he was definitely out-coached by Vikings OC Bill Musgrave. I would love to see some major changes in the blitz packages in the coming game against the Jets.
2. Lack of Frank Gore - The Vikings opened up the game with an exhausting drive, then it seemed like the 49ers reacted (panicked?) and they went Pass, Pass, Pass. Almost immediately the 49ers went away from what they do best, which is run the football, and then hit on short/intermediate passes off the play action. Frank Gore had only 6 rushes in the entire 1st half. This is simply unacceptable. The 49ers made themselves 1-dimensional (which is usually what the 49ers FORCE other teams to do). For most of the game the 49ers just didn't run the ball and the Vikings were able to tee off on the pass. 



ALEX SMITH IN ACTION AGAINST THE MINNESOTA VIKINGS

3. Defense couldn't make THE stop - At halftime the score was 17-3, then quickly the 49ers made the score 17-13, Kyle Williams return set up a David Akers FG, then Minnesota had a 3 and out, followed by a 49ers TD drive. ALL the momentum was with the 49ers. Then what happened? Oh just an 80 yard TD drive that ended with a one handed catch by Kyle Rudolph in the endzone. Not only is it terrible to give up the TD, but a LONG drawn out time consuming drive is just a killer. Suddenly it's back to a 2 score game and it's around the 4th quarter. That was the stop the defense needed to make, not even a 3 and out, just a stop. Of course, the reason why they couldn't stop the Vikings was largely due to point #1, in addition to the defense never being able to stop the short dump off passes to Percy Harvin and others. The following 49ers drive resulted in a Frank Gore fumble, the defense kept them in the game after that, but the entire 4th quarter was filled with harmless turnover prone offense.

Ultimately it was a really poor and sloppy performance by the 49ers and I really want to chalk this one up as one of those games that every good team has at some point during the season. Me trying to be as optimistic as possible, I will look at this as a "kick in the ass" game and maybe get the players working extra hard and not taking any game or play for granted.

Week 4 against the Jets is going to be a slugfest. Neither team is really capable of putting up huge offensive numbers and the defenses will most likely control the game. I'd like to see the 49ers become much more creative with their defense, and on the offensive side, maybe take more chances down the field. I'm not saying abandon what we have been doing, but you have to adapt in the NFL or else other teams will catch up. One thing I do know is that Jim Harbaugh is gonna make sure the 49ers are better prepared for next weeks game. I expect to see quite a few new wrinkles to the offense in particular.

Over and Out.