Jason_R

Well played.

I love Hamp.

Go look at the Niners forum and see what they say about the first half. I’m sure their fans were talking about SF’s uncharacteristic defensive play, Purdy’s uncharacteristic interception, and how improbable it was that Detroit converted a 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10, and 3rd and 18. Detroit played a hell of a game, and yes, just like so many NFL games, a play here or there might have been the difference. Does that mean that every NFL season amounts to pure luck? No, the best teams have the skill to keep themselves in it and the best teams are more likely to make crucial plays that make the difference between winning and losing. That’s what happened in SF, just like everyone expected before the game and before the season. You’re in denial if you attribute Detroit getting outscored by 20 points in the second half to luck.

Of course luck exists. But it is silly to say that something almost everybody predicted from the beginning of the season was due to luck. And I agree with MB that the talent gap between Detroit and SF is smaller than many might have thought. Still, it’s hard to expect a defense that struggled against the pass all season to go to the Super Bowl. Yes, probably a player like Sweat would have changed things but Holmes chose not to pay that price. I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Disagree. We see these kinds of plays all the time in the NFL. These guys are good. Beyond their natural talent, they have been practicing tip drills for years by the time they reach the pros. Maybe they can’t make that catch 100% of the time but just because we would make it 0% of the time doesn’t make it luck. But again, if Detroit has the better roster why didn’t our guy make the easy play when their guy made the hard play?

The board has turned into this meme 😂 Do you not believe in the concept of skill? None of us has the skill that Jusczyk (a fullback!) had to haul in that tiptoe sideline catch, for example. (Can Detroit’s FB make a catch like that? Didn’t think so.) Just because we don’t have that kind of skill, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. SF made plays like that in the second half that Detroit didn’t make. Maybe it was bad luck that Gibbs fumbled. Or maybe holding onto the ball is a skill that Gibbs failed at in that instance The bigger point is that you don’t get to explain your own team’s success based on skill but the other team’s success based on luck. It is delusional and disrespectful to the opponent to say their victory in that game was pure luck when, over the course of the game and over the course of the season, SF did what just about everyone expected them to do — win the NFC. Did they get some lucky plays along the way? Sure. Did they get some unlucky plays, undoubtedly. But pretty much everyone agreed at the start of the season that they had the best roster in the NFC and that they were a or the leading candidate to win the NFC. They did it. Now that they did it, you can’t dismiss it as luck. They are a very good and resilient team. They did not quit when they got down early. They have the strongest roster in the NFC (though Detroit’s is suddenly very close). Hats off to them.

Who had the skill on that play, Aiyuk or Vildor? Vildor could have made a relatively easy play but blew it. Aiyuk had to make a relatively hard play and made it. That play really distilled the skill disparity between the teams that showed up throughout the game. Luck doesn’t explain anything but the inability to understand how talented and practiced a person has to be to make the play Aiyuk made.

Yes Detroit missed plays in the second half, but they missed plays because SF also has talent. If SF was not more talented they would not have been able to catch back up from such a large deficit. The pinpoint first down pass to Jusczyk where he laid out on his tiptoes was not luck. That was pure skill, both from Purdy and the receiver. If Aiyuk was not highly skilled he would not have caught that ball on the deflection. CMC made a couple of outstanding plays in the second half. So did the defense to take away Detroit’s run game which had been churning out big plays in the first half. You can’t chalk up their second half domination to luck. Yes, Detroit missed some plays but SF made them.

All season I assumed that SF would beat us by 20. The way Detroit ended the season, I talked myself into believing that they had all the momentum and SF had all the pressure, and the Lions really could go in there and pull it off. The first half made it seem like it really might happen. But the second half was more what might have been expected.

I took a break after the way things ended. Looking back, I don't think the Lions really overachieved. I think the Lions did what we expected them to do in the regular season -- win the NFC North. And if we had been told that our playoff opponents would be the Rams and the Buccaneers (rather than the Rams and the Cowboys or Eagles), I think most of us would have expected them to win playoff games against those teams. If they overachieved anywhere, it was in the first half of the SF game. They caught the home team flat-footed and raced out to an early lead. Some of this was aggressive coaching, some of it was converting on several 3rd and longs to keep drives alive. In the second half, the talent deficit caught up with them, and the game ended the way pretty much all of us expected it would, and the way we would have expected at the start of the season. The fact that the NFC Championship game was as close as it was is a testament to Holmes's incredible drafting and Campbell's incredible coaching. Next season every player on that roster will show up to training camp expecting to play in the Super Bowl, and it will be a perfectly reasonable expectation.

Yes. No guarantee on a 48 yard FG and MCDC has relied on his best players on 4th down all year. Reynolds should have caught two balls that hit him in the hands.

Well fellas, it was a good nineteen and a half game run. Let’s draft some CBs and another pass rusher, shall we?

Well, nobody can doubt Jaymo after this game.

Reynolds missed the block.

There’s Reynolds padding his stats.

Welp…

**** Another ******* scramble.

Need a stop.

🥶

First half we converted several third and longs. Second half, so far, we haven’t. Good has been nails in the 4th quarter this postseason.

Reynolds is rattled.

Reynolds with another drop.

Gulp.

****

Reynolds. Hit him in the hands. 🤷🏻‍♂️