Niners Not Intimidated By High Octane Saints
Added on Jan 10, 2012 by Jack Thurman in
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The San Francisco 49ers are one of the biggest surprises of the 2011 NFL season. Their opponents in the NFL playoffs this weekend are one of the most successful franchises of recent years and an offensive juggernaut, the New Orleans Saints. The Saints are led by one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in Drew Brees while the Niners are led by work in progress Alex Smith. Despite this, don’t think the Niners are intimidated by the task at hand.
The mainstream sports media is trying to manufacture some ‘bad blood’ between Saints’ coach Sean Payton and Niners’ coach Jim Harbaugh over a preseason ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’ which suggest that opposing coaches talk over game strategy before exhibition games. Harbaugh said he knew nothing about it and even consulted his brother–Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh–on the matter. Not that he would have done it anyway:
“He wasn’t aware of all that. And even if there was, we wouldn’t do it, anyway. We ask no quarter, we get no quarter. That’s how we approach things.”
The Saints responded with a blitz heavy package in the preseason game called by New Orleans’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. New Orleans dominated San Fran en route to a 24-3 victory–some of the Niners’ players were surprised at the blitz tactics but not center Jonathan Goodwin:
“First practice in training camp, Gregg blitzes. It wasn’t a surprise for me. That’s what he likes to do. One thing about this league is you have to learn from your mistakes. Fortunately for us, at that time it was a preseason game, a game that didn’t count against us. Hopefully, we’ve learned from some of those mistakes and can apply them in the future.”
Left tackle Joe Staley hasn’t forgotten what he considers bad sportsmanship:
“We kind of come to the sidelines and we’re like, ‘They’re blitzing every play. We have a week-and-a-half of the offense in right now.’ So we weren’t expecting that, no.”
Staley says things are different now:
“It’s not even the same team. There’s so much more confidence. We’re so much more sure of ourselves and the schemes and what we’re doing.”
NFL betting lines still aren’t affording the Niners much respect–San Francisco has been installed as a +3′ point home underdog with the total set at 47.
