Well none of us thought that this would all wrap up so quickly.  The post was actually inspired by the last few minutes of this podcast, during which Matt Maiocco and the nationalfootballpost guys discussed what Crabtree's "end game" might be.  My thinking was that it would make sense for Crabtree to sign prior to the bye week because that would give him a bit of time to get acclimated to the Niner's offensive "system" (yeah, the quotes are necessary, since they've been so anemic on that side of the ball).  So I made my prediction based on that.  It turned out that it made a lot of sense to make the contest close on the Tuesday--since by Tuesday night I was up refreshing Maiocco's Twitter in hopes that the things that would inspire this article would have taken place.  Those things did take place, and Crabtree's a Niner and Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com has posted contract figures that may or may not be reliable.  In any case, they're reliable enough for the Prediction Game Results!

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I know that there have been myriad Crabtree-related posts recently, but the whole contract stalemate has dragged on long enough that we might as well find some way to have some fun with it.  So I give you the Crabtree Contract Prediction Game!  The rules will try to follow those of the weekly Prediction Game. This Game assumes that Crabtree will sign before the November 17 deadline (maybe a bogus assumption, but we'll make it for the purposes of having some fun). 

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Most folks around here at ninersnation are well aware that a proposal is on the table to build a new stadium based on this design in Santa Clara.  jobrien put up a fanpost the other day about the new stadium, and urnext opened a discussion of the finances of the deal--and the last thing I want to do here is to step on what was discussed there.  What I'm wondering about is this: how satisfied are you with the design of this specific stadium?  This means that I'm not concerned with whether you're ok with the move to Santa Clara, nor with whether you're concerned about the legitimacy of the team retaining the San Fransisco title, nor with whether it's a good enough deal for the team or Santa Clara.

The reason I ask the question is this:  many of the new stadiums these days kill their teams' home field advantage by putting the seats too far from the field (Gilette Stadium) or by removing the lid (Indy's new stadium) or by doing various other things. If you don't believe me, read this article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/partone/081121.  Does anyone know whether they ran this design by an acoustical engineer?  Seattle is one of the few places that did this right when building their new stadium, and they were able to do it right because they asked these questions ahead of time.  The result has been a formidable home field advantage--a place where your cheering actually makes a difference on the field.  Crowd noise makes a huge difference in your team's rushing attack (check Michael Turner's home vs. away yards per carry averages, for example) and in your team's defense overall, since opposing team's offensive lines can't fly off the ball if they don't hear the snap--and that's not even mentioning false start penalties.  And hey Fooch--next time you have a sit down with your buddy Jed York, could you ask him about this?

FOOCH'S NOTE: I thought this was a very solid piece and definitely worth opening up for greater discussion.  It's lengthy, but down at the end grantmp has put together some impressions and questions for folks to answer.  Definitely worth checking out.

This is a breakdown and analysis of the situations in which the Niners got their sacks in the 2008 season.  Overall, the team was ranked 16th in the league with 30 sacks.  As you’ll notice below, I’ve only documented 22, so obviously I’ve missed some.  Let me know where and when, and I’ll add them to this post down the line.  My methodology here was the following:

1) search through the game play-by-play recaps for times when the Niners got a sack
2) look up that instance in the game in question
3) Note the time, down and distance
4) Analyze the offensive and defensive formations including the Niners’ personnel
5) Describe the play as it developed
6) Explain why it happened beyond all the flying bodies—i.e. assign praise or blame.

The reason why I wanted to do this was because I wanted to have something other than a nebulous sense of who did what in terms of rushing the passer in the 2008 season—I plan on making this a tradition.

I know this is a ridiculously long post, but it did take some effort, so I’ve left some thoughts I was left with to the bottom of the post in the hopes that people will read my analysis, which gives the reasoning for my thoughts (since I won’t at the bottom).  If you disagree with me, you’ll have to do the digging, because I’ll likely have a comeback.  I appreciate the rec’s and the votes in the poll, but I’m most interested in having a good and informed conversation about the Niners pass rush in 08 and looking forward.

Let’s dive in!

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