Super Bowl...

I just read Bulldogs post on the Super Bowl over at Noting If Not Random...yea I know, the Super Bowl was on February 3rd and it's the 15th...but I'm not the only one in the late category.  Did a Google News Search on "Super Bowl" and their were stories posted on the 13th. 

It was a very entertaining game....at least after the black out and it played out the way it did...mind you I didn't expect the Ravens to kill the 49ers in the first half and then the 49ers making a comeback and falling 5 yards short of winning the game (even thought that was the 49ers MO lately)...but I thought it would be the little stuff that would eventually doom the Niners and for the most part, it was.

The first 3 drives of the game...

49ers first play is a 20 yard completion, but they are flagged for an illegal formation.  Result: 3 and out.

Ravens first position,  a 49ers offside on 3rd and 9 gives the Ravens a 2nd chance to keep the drive going.  Result:  TD Ravens.

Ensuing 49ers drive, Kaepernick on a scramble overthrows an open Crabtree in the end zone:  Result:  FG 49ers.

None of those 49er mistakes were big ones, but at the least it could have been a 7-3 49ers lead and possibly 14-0 49ers.  One big 49er mistake of the half, the James fumble, ended up costing them another 7 points.  The other big mistake, the Kaepernick interception, ended up not costing them because the Ravens faked a field goal on a 3rd and 9.  I'll put that in the "more guts than brains" category.  Then the 49ers made the mistake I definitely expected to see, because their safeties were their week link on defense and the Ravens liked to throw deep....a safety bit on a double move and left Jacoby Jones wide open for a 56 yard score.  It could have easily been a 17-13 game at halftime and it would have been 24-13 after Jones kickoff return for a TD.  Instead the score was 28-6.

Then the blackout.


I don't know how much that effected the Ravens (or for that matter the 49ers), but it was the Ravens making the mistakes in the 2nd half.  Back-to-back Ravens drives after that, Boldin dropped passes while wide open that would have given them first downs.

Meanwhile, Kaepernick was doing his thing and on the Ravens' 3rd drive, Rice coughed up the ball.  Suddenly we had a 28-23 game and the 3rd quarter wasn't even over yet.  I was thinking at that time that the Ravens were going to lose this game and the story of the game was going to be the power outage.

Boldin then made up for his dropped passes.  A play that, in my mind, was as much a deciding factor as anything else. On 3rd and 1, Flacco incredibly audibled to a pass and threw a jump ball to Boldin who went up and took things into his own hands...literally.  That drive ended up in a FG to make the score 34-29, but more importantly took the clock from 9:57 down to 4:23.  That give the 49ers only one more chance to win the game.

In the end, it was fitting that Ray Lewis and the defense was on the field during the deciding drive.  1st down, goal-to-go, 7 yard line.  Could they have scripted that in a movie any better?  The only thing different is that, if it was a movie, Lewis would have made some spectacular tackle to save the game.  Maybe like in Waterboy, where he meets Frank Gore diving over the line in what looks like a sure TD, but gets blasted back from the force of the tackle.

Yea, I know...pass interference should have been called, but the fact is the 49ers had 4 chances to score.  They ran James for 2 yards on first down and went 3 times to Crabtree.  The great defensive play was by Graham (I think it was Graham) that knocked the ball out of Crabtree's hands on what looked like a sure catch that would have made it 3rd down around the 2-yard line.  Instead it was 3rd and 5 when the 49ers took a time out to talk about it.  That likely took away the option of running Gore and they threw twice more to Crabtree.

Back to the last play...the 49ers should have known an all out blitz was coming and called a play to counter that.  On the 2-point conversion the Ravens sent an all out blitz and Kaepernick responded by making a quick throw that had no chance.  Fast forward to 4th and 5, last play of the game. Was it pass interference...yea, it could have been called...but if Kap has another half second to throw that ball, the defender fell and Crabtree was open.  Instead, Ravens blitz, quick throw...no chance.  In the end, it was another small mistake that cost the 49ers.  Gore was out of position and never even attempted to pick up the Raven that came up the middle on the blitz.  If Gore picks him up, Kap has time to wait and it's an easy TD.