Thursday Night Football Afterword: 49ers vs Seahawks

Home teams are now 5-1 on TNF in 2012

The 13-6 final score of last night’s game suggests a game we would expect from two NFC West teams specializing in defense. But I didn’t feel defensive prowess had all that big a part in the low-scoring game. Rather, it felt more like a game featuring two teams struggling with offensive impotence.

Seattle controlled the game early on, but dropped passes and stalled drives doomed them to two early field goals to carry a 6-3 lead into halftime.

More dropped passes would follow, even as San Francisco’s offense picked up. Alex Smith had thrown just one interception this season until his 3-pick outing last week against New York. He threw another pick last night but the Seahawks offensive struggles kept them from taking advantage of the takeaway.

Frank Gore had a fantastic game. He didn’t score a touchdown but fantasy owners will be pleased with his performance anyway, gaining 131 rushing yards and another 51 through the air.

After a couple really nice runs by Kendall Hunter, the Seattle defense held him to just 31 yards on 9 carries, but he still only has one carry for negative yards all season.

A big problem for Seattle was dropped passes, but it didn’t help that Russell Wilson only managed three completions during the second half when the 49ers defense did start playing well. Golden Tate also did not help Seattle’s cause. He had no receptions in the game, though he did drop an open pass on one ‘what if’ third down play.

At the end of the game, a chop block penalty in against Seattle in the end zone gave San Francisco a safety and the ball, but as it was on 4^th down and the defense stopped Seattle one yard shy of the marker, Jim Harbaugh chose to decline the penalty, take the ball right away, and sit on the ball twice rather than taking the 9-point lead and the ball with about a minute left.

I felt that it was not the best decision, but there are certainly arguments for both positions.

The victory gives San Francisco the NFC West lead with 10 weeks left in their season. They have won 11 consecutive home division games (almost four full seasons worth).

It was the second consecutive week that San Francisco’s offense looked lethargic after a strong start to the season, but their running game is still very much there and defense is the staple of this team, anyway. They may have lost their standing as the top team in the NFC, but they certainly cannot be overlooked.

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Thanks for reading everyone and enjoy the rest of Week 7. I’ll be back Monday with my Sunday Afterwords (no paper anymore, so I won’t miss it again)!