Niner Accomplishment

Posted on October 6, 2008 
Filed Under Chris Warner, Game Day Rear View



logoby Chris Warner
chris.warner@patriotsdaily.com

At Candlestick Park, the Patriots were able to put together enough solid football to come out with a 30-21 win. Driven by Randy Moss (five catches, 111 yards), Wes Welker (eight catches, 73 yards) and a Swiss-Army-knife named Kevin Faulk (four catches, 29 yards; seven rushes, 32 yards, two touchdowns), the offense held the ball for nearly 40 minutes to keep San Fran at bay. (Sure, unoriginal, but it gets me every time.)

Matt Cassel piled up 259 yards, hitting 22 of 32 passes and a touchdown. Sounds good, but as the French novelist Balzac once said, “Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and abilities.” Yup. Balzac. Pronounced how it’s spelled.

Anyway, Patriots fans were wondering exactly where Cassel’s instincts and abilities had gone as he got hit in the pocket and threw a sliding fastball to Niners linebacker Takeo Spikes, who I thought retired about three years ago. The home team wasted no time reimbursing their guests on the next possession, as J. T. O’Sullivan’s 40-yard bomb was tipped and intercepted by Brandon Meriweather. New England’s offense ran out on the field, gained four yards in three plays, and punted. That made four possessions, one first down.

Seriously, those first five minutes had as much action as watching Weebles wrestle. San Francisco’s Nate Clements came up with a nifty, cross-field punt return, giving his team the momentum to open up the scoring on a 16-yard in-pattern to Frank Gore, who cut past Ellis Hobbs for the touchdown catch.

New England’s following possession provided a perfect display of how Cassel can make fans feel Jekyll-Hyde-ish. Starting on their 32, Cassel’s dump off to Faulk went for two yards. On second down, the quarterback fumbled the snap; this play was so poorly timed that half of the offense didn’t move because they seemed to think someone had committed a false start. Just when Pats followers were considering having Cassel take a knee on third down, the kid howitzered a 66-yarder to Moss, who glided past a tripping safety for the tying score. Early in the second quarter, Cassel would underthrow a streaking Moss for his second interception of the game.

Just to make it exciting (that’s my positive spin), the Patriots’ defense left Isaac Bruce uncovered on the Niners’ second scoring drive, giving him a 38-yard reception deep into their territory, followed by a six-yard touchdown catch to make it 14-7 Niners with 5:25 left in the first quarter.

Though they didn’t get points on the following possession, New England earned two first downs and some confidence as well. This may or may not have had something to do with replacing running back Laurence Maroney with Sammy Morris or Faulk, but when you consider that: a) this was New England’s most time-consuming drive of the quarter; and b) Cassel only completed one pass for five yards; then, yeah, maybe having a running back who takes one cut and heads upfield could be part of the solution. Morris had rushes of two, 14, and one yard on the drive. He got everything he could. Maroney? Not so much. The best example of this disparity came during New England’s first drive of the second half. After a San Francisco offsides penalty, the visitors had a first and five at midfield. Maroney ran for two yards on first down. On the next play, Maroney cut outside off of tight end Benjamin Watson’s block. Heading for the sideline, Maroney saw the first down marker and ran out of bounds ahead of linebacker Patrick Willis … inches short of the first down.

Hey, I’m no tough guy: I watched this game from 3,000 miles away and Willis intimidated me (18 total tackles Sunday. Ouch); still, were I a professional running back, I might have summoned a little more Eddie George than Franco Harris, if you know what I’m saying. It was telling that on third and one, Coach Bill Belichick inserted Morris, who got five yards. Also of note: the running of LaMont Jordan, whose low average (five rushes, 16 yards before a first-half injury) belied a straight-ahead style that helped set the tone for the day.

No matter. Rodney Harrison intercepted O’Sullivan’s next pass to give the Patriots the ball at the Niner 24. Morris’ legs and Faulk’s hands (and, sure, his legs also) got them to the two. New England then ran the ol’ “Where’d the shotgun snap go?” play, with Cassel faking as if the ball went overhead and Faulk snatching it to sneak up the middle for a 24-14 lead with 5:25 left in the third.

The Patriots’ defense held the home team to an ensuing three-and-out, as the Niners lost yardage on their third-and-two pass play. (Why they didn’t run that goofy, mind-bogglingly-effective Wildcat formation with the direct snap to Gore, I have no idea.) Walker picked up 20 yards on a well-executed bubble screen, getting two blocks from tackle Matt Light and scooting to the open sideline on the play. Cassel converted another first down to Jabar Gaffney, who gained 11 to San Fran’s 28. Three plays later, Stephen Gostkowski booted his second field goal, a 40-yarder that made it a safe-seeming 27-14 at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

The Niners came back on their next possession with a mix of runs (darn you, Wildcat play!), medium-range passes (crossing pattern, anyone?), and a penalty on Meriweather. All Meriweather did was hold hands with Arnaz Battle downfield, but considering Battle wanted to use one of those hands to catch the ball, that’s illegal. From the eight-yard line, San Francisco needed three plays to find Bruce and cut the deficit to 27-21.

Good New England showed up and embarked on its finest drive of the day, taking the clock from 10:22 down to 4:42 and picking up a key field goal in the process. Though Morris got little on the ground, Cassel dispensed the ball to Welker, Moss and Faulk to move into Niner territory. When a 15-yard bubble screen to Welker was called back due to offensive pass interference (Moss blocked too early on the play), Belichick called on Gostkowski to make it a two-score game. The kicker did the honors, splitting the uprights as evenly as your roommate’s last pop-tart.

New England would allow no more scoring. At the 2:45 mark, Deltha O’Neil intercepted a pass tipped by Rodney Harrison on fourth down (uh, note to Deltha? Next time, knock it down). San Francisco got the ball back with 2:15 left, but on their final play Harrison shouldered the ball out of Bruce’s hands incomplete. The Back East contingent were 3-1.

New England has not yet played the game that their coaches must believe them capable of playing. Check out O’Sullivan’s line: 14 for 29, 130 yards, three TDs, three INTs. He got little blocking (one sack by Adalius Thomas), little running (54 yards on 12 carries by Gore), his receivers had some key drops, and his defense couldn’t get the ball back to him. He’s at a level where he should play a few more years, retire, and start a chain of family restaurants, the kind with nicknames (QB Scramble Egg Sandwich!) and kinda-creepy photos on the walls of people you don’t know? “Welcome to J. T. O’Sullivan’s! We’re not as bad as you think!”

Still, O’Sullivan managed to keep the game close. Tough to imagine what a more experienced, more talented QB would be able to do.

For the visitors, Cassel was just … Cassel. Over the course of three hours, he managed to make fans crazy, happy, frustrated and content. The graph of his improvement will resemble a mountain range rather than a hill, as evidenced by the first play of the fourth quarter. With his team leading 27-14, Cassel went to Welker once too often, trying to hit him with another quick pass. The problem? Three Niner defenders stood between Cassel and his target, forcing him to sidearm a throw that - mercifully - fell incomplete.   Fans will know Cassel has made it up the mountain when he refrains from attempting that pass. The next trek starts now.

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