Sorry, Mrs. G, but I am writing another current connection over a sporting event.
TITLE: San Francisco's Utilization of the Pistol/Read Option Offense to Guide Them Back to Glory.
The topic in which I wrote to you about a month ago can be found here on NFL.com. Once again, the great city of San Francisco has produced a championship caliber football team who has battled its way up to the door step of the Super Bowl, but have struggled to accomplish the daunting task of reaching the Super Bowl on the road. Not since the Montana years in '89 have the 49ers successfully won a road playoff game. This describes how the 49ers have utilized their new Pistol and read option offense that may allow San Francisco to break their 20 year draught of road playoff games.
This Current Connection relates to a previous post that I have written involving San Francisco's young mobile quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. (Source) Led by Kaepernick, the Niners throttled the offensive juggernaut and the #3 seed Green bay Packers. "The performance by Kaepernick in his first playoff game shredded the previous QB rushing record for any game, set by Michael Vick (173) in 2002. It was also the most rushing yards for the 49ers in their postseason".
Green Bay's secondary underestimated Colin's phenomenal speed as he consistently scorched the running angles of the Packer secondary on his way to setting an NFL single game quarterback rushing record with 181 yards on the ground. Head Coach Jim Harbaugh's risky decision to bench his starting quarterback, Alex Smith, after a concussion side lined him for only 1 week, who ,by the way, was playing at an exceptionally high level of quarterbacking. Alex had led the Niners to a 6-2 record prior to his concussion that sustained in week 10 against the St. Louis Rams, where, as fate would have it, allowed Colin Kaepernick to stick his foot in the door of being a starting professional quarterback for a team that he idolized as a young boy. Kaepernick has never looked back and has allowed the 49ers to implement a rare third dimension in a professional offense, the read-option.
The read option is basically a hand off to the half back that the quarterback can choose to keep possession of the ball and run himself. The read option forces NFL defenses to pay attention to the quarterback running the ball after the play-fake. Typically the quarterback will only bring the ball down for himself if the running lanes for the half back is congested or if the defense is focusing too strong on the running back. Although the read option has been effective against NFL defenses, the play is rarely utilized in a NFL offense, either because the offense does not possess the proper quarterback to run the read option or their prideful offensive coordinator firmly believes that the play is a "college" play and should not used in professional play. The read option became prevalent last year with the emergence of Carolina's quarterback, Cam Newton, and Denver's former quarterback, Tim Tebow, and has begun to spread across the league with Redskin's quarterback, Robert Griffin III, and San Francisco's own Colin Kaepernick.
Now the once criticized Jim Harbaugh and the degraded read option has San Francisco one game away from reaching the Super Bowl, something that he may not have been able to accomplish again with the play of Alex Smith although Alex Smith had already beat the Packers at Green Bay in week 1 of the regular season. The added dimension that is Colin Kaepernick's unquestionable talents to run and throw at a proficient level, has allowed San Francisco to steamroll other powerhouse passing attacks such as the New England Patriots and the New Orleans Saints along with defensive powerhouses such as "Lovie Smith’s defense [who] struggled vs. the option." Now, San Francisco will encounter another finesse offense in the #1 seeded Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons have been notoriously poor against read option quarterbacks such as Cam Newton this year and are now the underdogs even though they possess both a better regular season record and homefield advantage. Colin Kaepernick is in nearly the same position as Alex Smith was last year when Alex had led a clutch game winning drive against the New Orleans Saints in the divisional round to propel the Niners into the NFC Championship, only to lose to the future Super Bowl champion New York Giants. If Kaepernick can harness the momentum that he had garnered from last week's slaughtering of the finesse Green Bay Packers, Kaepernick can finally shut up any of the critics of his and pronounce Jim Harbaugh a genius (as if Kaepernick hasn't already shut up his objectors in last week's performance). Jim Harbaugh had already taken a 6-10 team with an ineffective component in the most important position in sports, the quarterback, to a 13-3 season in his first year and 11-4-1 season in his second, both reaching as far as the NFC Championship game.
I am able to connect to this current event because of my heritage in the Golden State and the proficient play of their sport clubs, bringing joy to all of their loyal fan bases. The Quest for Six has evolved into a phenomena in the city by the bay. What was once thought of as a college offense designed specifically for a single quarterback (Colin Kaepernick), the pistol has eased its way into the NFL through the immensly talented Kaepernick. The Pistol forces opposing defenses to reconfigure their entire play style and work in the favor of the 49ers. (Speaking of Golden State, the Warriors have also become a force in the Western Conference in the NBA.) Ta-da!
(Update as of 1/25/2013, Jim Harbaugh's ingenuity of his offense trumped the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game. Knowing that the Falcons would pay an extraordinary amount of attention to Colin Kaepernick's read option game, Harbaugh utilized Atlanta's fear of the read option and redirected it in his favor. Captain Comeback (Jim Harbaugh's nickname given to him during his 1995 campaign as quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts when he led the Colts to an improbable post-season run that nearly gave the Colts a birth in the Superbowl. The Colt's run was stopped short in the AFC Championship game by the Pittsburgh Steelers) had his read-option quarterback to refrain from running the ball himself and to continue handing the ball off to Frank Gore. This method proved sensational against Atlanta's defense, who were making sure that Colin was under control in the running game. Atlanta played a lot of Defensive End contain and quarterback spy, which allowed for huge holes between the the guards and tackles for San Francisco and allowed Tight End Vernon Davis to run free in vanilla coverage. San Francisco dug itself out of a 17-0 hole to win the game 28-24. San Francisco advances to the grand finale, Super Bowl 47.)
Source: NFL.com
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