Sadness, frustration, anger, disappointment. Just a few of the emotions that I have been through in the past 24 hours and continue to feel about this missed opportunity.
I am trying to tell myself all the positive stuff that has come from the season and the reasons to be optimistic. Our team is finally relevant again and is definitely one of the elite teams in the league, we have found our QB of the future and he is only going to get better and better. We have a boatload of talent and a bunch of picks in the first 3 rounds to infuse more talent into an already loaded roster. We should be an annual threat to win the SB for the next 3-5 years. Despite all these facts, this one hurts and hurts a lot.
Firstly, congratulations to Baltimore. They were the better team on the day, they held their nerve when it counted and did enough on the big stage to win it all.
I cant help but walk away from this game though and feel that we shot ourselves in the foot. I know plenty of 49er fans are blaming the ref for the non-PI call on 4th down, but I dont. I look at the poor playcalling at that stage, 4 plays inside the redzone to win the game and you dont once put the ball in the hands of Kap or Gore to punch it in? I look at all the other things we did throughout the game that cost us; too many silly penalties, blown coverage on Jones on a 3rd and 10 that led to a TD, blown special teams coverage that led to a TD, lack of pass rush, turnovers, etc. I walk away from this game feeling that we are still the better team on paper, but Baltimore showed much more poise on the big occasion and as a result they got the win. Kudos to them.
I feel this game confirmed to me that our defense has been a little overrated this year and thats where our offseason attention needs to go to. The pass rush was anemic at best in this game and our secondary just didnt hold up. If anything I think weve now reached a point where our offense is ahead of our defense. I think this could be a top 5 offense next year with the maturation of Kaepernick. We still need some more WRs though, Crabtrees emergence has been great but theres little else out there at the WR position.
Not much more to say really, feel like shit, this one really hurts, after all the crap we did to ourselves throughout the game we still had a chance to win it at the end but just werent good enough.
