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Surprise, surprise: Rams upset 49ers
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_c04f98fa-febc-52ac-9e37-65b0fe07583a.html
SANTA CLARA, Calif. • They were given up for dead a week ago in Kansas City. Battered, bruised and beaten. Two starters lost for the season. An injury report twice as long as the team’s sack total for the season. And yes, another second-half meltdown.
So no one saw this coming, certainly not the San Francisco 49ers. Maybe not even the Rams. But on a day when the Rams’ pass rush returned with a vengeance, the Rams didn’t crumble in the second half. Instead they pulled off an improbable upset, hanging on — barely — to defeat the 49ers 13-10 Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.
It came down to the next-to-last play,
third-and-1 for the 49ers, about a half-yard from the goal line with 9 seconds to play. San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick tried to go up and over on a sneak. Not only did he fail to get over, somewhere in the process he lost the football.
“Jo-Lonn (Dunbar) did a great job recognizing sneak,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “You can just tell a quarterback’s mannerisms when they’re gonna sneak.”
So Dunbar went high on the 6-foot-4 Kaepernick, while Laurinaitis went low.
“He fumbled the snap a little bit,” Laurinaitis said. “A guy that tall, he wants to catch it and jump over the pile.”
As Laurinaitis went low, he said: “I could see the ball sitting there. Usually in scrums like that, you’ve got to show the refs quick. That way they know the ball was out.”
Laurinaitis did just that, and after a lengthy booth review, the original call stood. Fumble, Rams recover, touchback.
“There was nothing we could see that could change the ruling on the field on the last play at the goal line,” referee Jerome Boger told a pool reporter.
“I know I crossed the line,” Kaepernick said.
Because of the touchback, it was Rams ball on the 20 with 2 seconds remaining. After a kneel-down by quarterback Austin Davis, the Rams left town with their first victory over the 49ers in the Bay Area since 2007. The final score in that game at old Candlestick Park was 13-9 for Scott Linehan’s Rams.
“I know I’ve said it before, but teaching a young team how to win close games is not an easy thing,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “And it doesn’t get any closer than that one today.”
Two plays before the ill-fated sneak by Kaepernick, he threw a 1-yard pass to wide receiver Michael Crabtree toward the right sideline. Running back for the ball, Crabtree came oh-so-close to catching the ball over the goal line for what would’ve been a game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds remaining.
But the ruling on the field was that Crabtree caught the ball short of the goal line. And after a lengthy booth review, which also reviewed whether Crabtree made the catch, the call stood.
There was another close shave at the end of the first half. Phil Dawson’s 55-yard field goal attempt as time expired in the second quarter was well short of the crossbar for San Francisco. Tavon Austin fielded the ball several yards deep, hesitated and then started out of the end zone.
He was a couple of yards out when he suddenly reversed field and appeared to be brought down in the end zone by San Francisco’s Derek Carrier. San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh cut off Boger before he could get off the field for halftime to plead his case. Fisher joined the fray as well.
Another booth review, another play upheld. It was ruled that Austin was knocked back across the goal line by Carrier — and the original call stood.
“The ruling on the field was that the ball-carrier brought the ball out onto the field of play, and there was contact by the defender that forced him back into the end zone,” Boger said.
Had the call been reversed, the 49ers would’ve been awarded with two points for a safety and taken a 12-10 lead at the half. Instead, it remained 10-10 at the half. Imagine how the game-ending possession by San Francisco might have played out if that safety was awarded and the 49ers were trailing only 13-12 and needed just a field goal for the win.
“(Austin) probably should’ve just stayed in once he saw there were too many opponents in the area,” Fisher said. “I don’t know why they reviewed it because the ruling on the field was a touchback. A touchback is a touchback, but obviously the envelope of the end zone is all subject to potential review.
“I was talking to Coach Harbaugh out there and he was kind of hoping it was a safety, and I was kind of hoping it wasn’t.”
It wasn’t, so the Rams headed home with a 3-5 record at the midpoint of the 2014 season. San Francisco, which has been in the past three NFC championship games, and played in the Super Bowl two seasons ago, fell to 4-4.
Just three weeks ago in St. Louis, the 49ers dominated the Rams in the second half at the Edward Jones Dome, winning 31-17. This time around, the 49ers seemingly had everything going their way entering the game.
The Rams were so beat up, with 13 players on their injury report, they scrubbed their regular Wednesday practice routine and held a walk-through instead. Meanwhile, the 49ers had the benefit of a bye week and were rested and healthy for the most part.
When asked if he was surprised by the outcome, Harbaugh replied: “Got to play at the highest level to win football games in this league. Didn’t get that done.”
That was largely because the Rams’ defense played the kind of wire-to-wire game that has eluded them all season but finally arrived in Game 8.
A Rams defense that had managed only six sacks total in its first seven games rang up eight on Kaepernick on Sunday: two apiece by Robert Quinn and William Hayes, and one apiece by Laurinaitis, Michael Brockers, Aaron Donald and Eugene Sims.
For weeks as the Rams struggled to generate a pass rush, Quinn has repeated that all it takes is a snowflake to generate an avalanche. Does eight sacks in one game constitute an avalanche?
“Not quite,” Quinn said, smiling. “Once the first sack came, guys just kind of sparked it and got going. The sacks are picking up and guys are selling out. So hopefully, it doesn’t stop here.”
