by PeterKing
RAISING ARIZONA
Michael Bidwill, the president of the Cardinals, had two very big decisions to make when changing his general manager (from Rod Graves) and coach (Ken Whisenhunt) in January 2013. On Jan. 9, Bidwill hired Steve Keim as GM, a man who’s served a 17-year apprenticeship in the organization in personnel. And on Jan. 17, Bidwill and Keim hired Bruce Arians as coach.
Pretty good calls. Arians would win a coach of the year vote this morning. Keim would be in the running in executive of the year balloting. On Sunday in Texas their work was on display. Keim thinks his most important acquisition since taking over was quarterback Carson Palmer; he came from Oakland for a seventh-round pick. Palmer threw three touchdown passes in the 28-17 win over Dallas. In 2012, Keim shook up the draft by gambling on troubled safety Tyrann Mathieu; he had his first interception of the season to stop a Cowboys drive. Keim has also had to repopulate a defense beset by suspension and injury and free-agent losses, and he’s done it largely by shopping at WalMart. As for Arians, he has instituted a deep-threat attitude on an offense with depth; on Sunday, the only TD catch for a wideout was by the fifth man in the rotation, Jaron Brown.
“We’ve been fortunate,’’ said Bidwill on Sunday night. “Bruce and Steve are sort of the same kind of guy. They’re football guys. I like the fact they never panic. They’re confident in their ability to get the job done even if they have adversity.”
The 49ers had no business losing that game.
There have been agonizing losses in the NFL this year, as always. Miami losing on the last play to Green Bay in Week 6 after the fake spike. Atlanta blowing the 21-point second-half lead and losing to Detroit in London. And then there’s the Niners on Sunday. They had the ball, first-and-goal at the Rams two-yard line, with 42 seconds and one timeout left. San Francisco trailed 13-10. The Niners had three shots for the win, and a chip-shot field goal to force overtime if they couldn’t punch it in. Or four shots, if Jim Harbaugh was feeling lucky.
First down: Short pass to the right to Michael Crabtree, close to the goal line. Marked down at the one.
Second down: Play-action rollout to the right. Colin Kaepernick, pressured by James Laurinaitis, threw it away.
Third down: Heavy formation. Kaepernick under center. He took the snap, fumbled it in his hands, grabbed for it and started moving forward. Fullback Bruce Miller bear-hugged him and pushed the quarterback forward. But the replays showed Kaepernick, in mid-scrum, losing the handle totally and the ball falling to the turf, just over the goal line.
“I was shocked to see it there, of course,’’ said Laurinaitis. “The whole play was surprising. The play before, they go play-action and don’t give it to Gore. Then on the last play, they don’t give to Gore either. But I could sense when they got on the ball they were probably going to sneak it. You could just tell in their mannerisms, their body language, the formation. I figured if Kaepernick is going to sneak, he’d just put the ball over the line, like Tom Brady or Drew Brees. But I think what happened is he never really had good possession of it. He didn’t catch it clean from the center. So he just barreled forward.
“As soon as I saw the ball on the ground, I just grabbed and tried to spin around right away to show the umpire. Like, ‘Ball’s loose! I got it! I got it! Our ball! Our ball!’ They looked at me and ruled it was our ball, which obviously was the right call. That ball was on the ground.’’
On replay, it was impossible to tell when Kaepernick last had any sort of possession. But once it was ruled a fumble on the field, it was impossible to overturn because there were no views of the play that showed Kaepernick with possession past the plane of the goal line. And that muffed snap is the kind of painful play that could come back to haunt a team that now will have almost zero margin for error if it wants to be playing in January.
One final point about the Rams here: They had eight sacks after having but five in the first seven games. The breakout came in part because of changeups that defensive coordinator Gregg Williams threw at San Francisco. “We spied them,” said Laurinaitis, “and we had a couple of sacks from blitzes. We blitzed from the left a lot [opposite Robert Quinn’s side]. And we won the one-on-one matchups a lot. There’s no magic potion sometimes—you just have to win the battle with the guys across from you.”
The Fine Fifteen
- New England (7-2). Five weeks. Five wins, by 26, 15, 2, 28 and finally 22 against the team we all thought was the best in football until Sunday. That’s how New England climbed to the top.
- Arizona (7-1). Fantastic orchestration on both sides of the ball, with defensive coordinator Todd Bowles dialing up an iron curtain to hold DeMarco Murray under 100 yards for the first time all season, and coach Bruce Arians calling the shots on 21 unanswered points for the offense.
- Denver (6-2). Time to start worrying about two players: rookie kicker Brandon McManus and veteran wideout Wes Welker. McManus, who doinked a 41-yard field-goal try off the right upright, has now missed three of nine. Not time to fire him yet, but time for John Elway to get the names on his kicker short list ready for tryouts with one more shaky performance by McManus. Welker dropped a gimme throw from Peyton Manning in the third quarter that bounced into the hands of Brandon Browner for a gimme interception, and hurt his back absorbing a hit on the play; a second later the Patriots scored and the game was over.
- Philadelphia (6-2). Jeremy Maclin (six catches, 158 yards, two touchdowns) has done a great job of making a city forget about DeSean Jackson. Maclin is on pace for a 1,580-yard season.
- Green Bay (5-3). Really liked this piece for The MMQB by A.J. Hawk, on what a player does in his bye week. I share it for two reasons: (1) The Packers just finished their bye week Sunday; (2) Hawk and his wife named their two children Hendrix (a boy) and Lennon (a girl) after Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. I would imagine the presets in Hawk’s vehicle go heavy on classic rock.
- Indianapolis (5-3). America, get to know T.Y. Hilton. What Harrison and Wayne were to Peyton Manning, Hilton will be to Andrew Luck.
- Kansas City (5-3). Stealth Chiefs. They’re 5-1 in the past six games, by a margin of 14 points per game, and Justin Houston is on pace to break the all time single-season sack record.
- Miami (5-3). We knew they could play competitive defensively. But who knew they could average 30.6 a game—which the Dolphins have done over the past five weeks?
- Detroit (6-2). Bye came at a good time. Reggie Bush and Calvin Johnson ought to be healthy for the final eight games, beginning Sunday with the Dolphins at Ford Field.
- Pittsburgh (6-3). In the past 14 days, the Steelers have awakened on offense in a way only the Patriots can understand. Three games, 41.3 points per game, three wins.
- Seattle (5-3). You should know by now that nothing in 2014 will be easy for Seattle. Nothing. Not even finishing off the 0-8 Raiders at home, with a Seabass onside kick almost lost in the last two minutes.
- Cincinnati (5-2-1). Don’t really know what to think of the Bengals. You?
- Dallas (6-3). Why are the Cowboys below Seattle now? Because this isn’t the same Dallas team (no Tony Romo right now, too many defensive injuries) that beat Seattle three weeks ago.
- Baltimore (5-4). The Ravens might be out of the playoff hunt before their secondary gets healthy enough to be a force.
- Buffalo (5-3). Underrated game of the week next weekend: Chiefs at Bills. You ready for that pass rush, Bills Mafia?
- New Orleans (4-4). Three-game homestand starts Sunday, with nary a gimme in the group: San Francisco, Cincinnati, Baltimore.
*shakes fist
LOL, first