But two seconds before Hill killed the clock, the whistle blew. Referee Tony Corrente immediately announced that the play was going under review. This entire episode gave the 49ers an additional 2 minutes, 35 seconds before they had to run the next play.
That should have been plenty of time for interim coach Mike Singletary, offensive coordinator Mike Martz and the 49ers' staff upstairs to go through the possible scenarios to get ready for the next play.
The officials appeared to spot the ball at the 1-yard line after getting ready for the next play in the immediate aftermath of Gore's attempt on the previous play.
Thirty-two seconds after stopping the play to announce it was going under review, Corrente announced that the play was being reviewed to see "if the runner was down by contact."
A full minute later, Singletary is seen speaking with line judge John Hussey on the field about what was happening. Shaun Hill is over there, too.
Then, 2:08 after the play was stopped, Corrente announces that Gore was down at the 2 1/2 yard line and that the game clock would be reset to :04 and it would start "on my signal." The time was reset to :04 because that's when the whistle blew to signal the replay challenge - initiated from replay official David Coleman in the booth.
The coaches on the 49ers sideline said they never heard that explanation. Martz said he did not find out the ball was moved to the 2 ½ until he spoke with Mike Nolan the next morning.
Eighteen seconds after Corrente made the announcement, the 49ers were at the line of scrimmage ready to run the play. Corrente is seen telling Hill exactly what's going on. Hill then conveys that message to center Eric Heitmann.
When the 49ers snapped the ball, it was after a break in action of 2 minutes and 35 seconds - plenty of time to prepare for any possibility. The coaches in the 49ers' replay booth should have been able to anticipate the 49ers would've had the ball at the 2 1/2 yard line.
One thing to remember is that the 49ers were out of timeouts, yet they had an opportunity to take advantage of an extended timeout while the play was being reviewed.
It would have been unfair to the Cardinals for the 49ers to be able to run a play with the game on the line from the 1-yard line. The officials ultimately got that part of the play correct. The 49ers, in essence, were asking for additional time to think about a play call from the 2 ½-yard line. Wouldn't that have been unfair to the Cardinals to give the 49ers even more time to consider the possibilities?
And as for Martz's assertion that Robinson gained 2 yards on the play, that is incorrect. The play started at the 2 1/2 yard line. It appears as if he did not quite make it to the 1-yard line.
Here's the official statement from the NFL Office in
"At the end of (Monday night's) game between the
"The replay review determined that the runner was down by contact at the two-and-a-half yard line. Referee Tony Corrente followed normal procedures by announcing on his microphone where the ball would be spotted (at the 2 1/2-yard line) and that the clock would start on his signal. The officials then reset the ball at the line of scrimmage and Corrente reminded the quarterback that the clock would begin on his signal. He then made sure the quarterback had time to get under center before signaling for play to resume."
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Thanks Matt. My response is "whatever". The 9ers were panicked and you could see it in everyone except Shaun Hill. Singletary was doing the right thing by trying to find out what was going on with the officials. Martz's only job as the OC is to be prepared to run a play. He should have 2 plays in mind with the same personnel package. His head should have been down, discussing the play with Hill, not waving his arms around. I listeded to Wisenhunt on the Dan Patrick show and he was saying that the Cardinals prepare for those kinds of situations because when they come up, it is the difference between winning and losing. Maybe we'll learn from this debacle.
Ouch. Looks like the niners were ill prepared for the end of the game and still alive scenario. Seems that everybody on the entire staff didn't do their job right. When they won in seattle, that was O.T. and they had plenty of time. It seems like they got too excited and lost there ability to think straight. Matt, why do you suppose Shaun Hill didn't take over and spike the ball after the review? 4 secs is plenty of time to spike it. I enjoyed his performance, but he has no excuse. He knew where the ball was and he heard the ref. Is that inexperience? I know Martz is kind of an egomaniac, but a Q.B. should be able to override in that situation. Thoughts?(I still think Shaun Hill gives us the best chance to win.)
Singletary said something like they didn't want want to chance having time run out on them with a spike play at the end. I don't understand that answer at all, but that is what he said. I loved Singletary's response about the last 3 weeks. "I want to become one of the greatest coaches of all time". Gotta like the kid
Matt- I think you're correct in everything except you don't address what I understood to be Martz's and Singletary's main complaint - that the officials did not tell them the ball would be spotted at the 2 1/2 (instead of the 1) and they were unable to hear the announcement due to crowd noise. Since Martz is the one ordering the play in, it doesn't help much if Hill knows the spot but Martz does not. I agree they should have been more prepared, but if nobody heard the announcement, all the preparation in the world might not have helped much if they don't see the spot until a couple seconds before they have to snap it.
Agreed, I love Singletary. I think Shaun Hill should have taken matters in his own hands. The great ones do.
Let's do some "revisionist history" shall we? Imagine if the Niners scored on that play? A play that surprised the Cards because Mad Mike is known for his penchant to pass the ball in situations like these? How many nominations for "President" would Mad Mike have IF the play had suceeded? Unfortunately for the 49'ers, it didn't...And we've had a lot of that lately. Getting tired of it I must say.
"I listened to Wisenhunt on the Dan Patrick show and he was saying that the Cardinals prepare for those kinds of situations because when they come up, it is the difference between winning and losing." - This is EXACTLY what Singletary was talking about in his postgame PC... they need to learn how to win.
Hi Matt, there was another chaotic moment earlier in the game that resulted in quite an animated exchange between Singletary and Martz. It was 4th and less than a yard...looked like Singletary wanted to go for it but the field goal unit had already gone onto the field and kicked. It appeared that Singletary was unaware that Martz was doing that. The cameras caught what looked like a mildly heated exchange. Any comment from the HC on why he and the OC don't seem to be on the same page??
Matt - as always, thanks for the solid breakdown.
I think what's being overlooked here is that it's taken 2 days now to figure out everything that happened...and as you said in a previous post, there's enough blame to go around.
My question is...how is it that the booth review nullifies the spike? Shouldn't the spike may have made the prior play unreviewable?
There's no question that the Niners OC panicked.
My own response is, that starting now, you tell Martz to get his butt up in the booth where he won't get all flustered by the crowd noise or whatever, and can keep his focus on whats important. Leave the sideline duty and time mgmt to Singletary asnd Tollner.
The whistle blew before the ball was spiked because the booth was going to review the play. As soon as the whistle blew, the play was dead and the spike never happened. It's like that Charger play a few weeks back that cost them the game. That being said, I don't know why they didn't spike the ball again after the clock was wound. Even with wasting the hundreds of seconds that they did, they still would have had 2 seconds with the clock stopped. The headset goes on and Martz would have time to change his panties to call a play
When do they turn off the headphones? If it's 15 seconds, then there's no way they could have relayed a revised play call to the QB.
What I do highly disagree with is the choice to run the ball. If they throw with :20 left, they get three attempts. from the 1 yd line, that's pretty much a guarantee TD. If you run and get stopped, with no timeouts, you end up in a situation where you are vulnerable to situations like this replay. The refs did their job. The coaches put themselves in this situation.
Also, the guys in the booth. I believe that's a reference to Paraag Marathe. He helps make the calls in terms of timeouts and replay challenges and going for 2, etc. A York guy through and through as he has zero football sense. This team is poisoned from the top down and it infects everything.
While the coaches have some responsibility, this is clearly an official error. We had 2 seconds when they went to the review and looked to be on the 1/2 yard line. We come back from the review and have 4 seconds and are at the 2 1/2 and they are winding the clock once they place the ball. We didn't have any timeouts. In essence, we were put in the worst possible position by the officials.
Normally I would agree to put Martz back up in the booth after this cluster*@#$. Thing is Hill's new as the starter & I think it's still beneficial for Martz to be down to get face time with him when needed.
Hill looks steadier & more mature than JT so he MIGHT not need as much coaching as JT does. But he's still learning a new offense. It will be up to Singletary & Martz to figure out what's best.
This is where we miss having an Offensive HC. The OC would be up where he's supposed to be & the HC could still do his job PLUS coach his QB.
I still believe in Singletary. Of course he's green being a 1st time HC but I think he'll figure those things out in time. I 100% have faith that he won't make the same mistake & learn from them quickly unlike the last guy that was here who was a pure NON-learning knucklehead.
Really to be fair I count this 1st game after the Bye as his real start. In this short time he's set the tone & is holding the player/coaches accountable, manuevered the personnel to get the best 22 out there, & the team has found a genuine new found BELIEF in him. They're playing taking on his personality..physical & disciplined ball.
The next weeks will make a huge statement seeing if the team continues to play with that same kind of fire & stay consistent with that week in, week out. Watch to see if there continues to be improvement with better execution, cutting down penalties, & better game management. In this ONE GAME it was great to actually see our Niners playing REAL FOOTBALL. The run D has improved greatly. Let's give the guy some more time yet.
But with Martz's experience there's just ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for that debacle. The whole game management from the time they got to the red zone was FUBAR'd big time. He should just OWN UP TO IT.
OK, MATT I didn't get the last few minutes Tivo'd so my question is how many seconds were left on the clock when Gore was first tackled and then when they decided to review the play. There had to be more than four seconds left when Gore was tackled otherwise time would have run out before the Niners could've run another play. Those were crucial seconds taken away from the niners by the replay officials that they weren't able to use for the next play. Then to start the clock on the officials signal because of the replay instead of getting the normal play clock time with the disallowed spike screwed the Niners too. If they had the normal 40 seconds to call and run the play there probably wouldn't have been any confusion caused by the NORMAL POOR QUALITY OFFICIATING about where the ball was placed. It's time for you people in the media to start writing about every bad call made and constantly bringing them to the leagues attention because the power of the pen is the only thing that will get them to improve the officiating. They're obviously in serious denial. Mike Pereirra is a waste of skin and his rule explanations are a total joke. How can we expect the coaches to know every rule when the Officials have NCAA, That's : No Clue At All!!!!!
Matt...As I said the day after Nolan was fired....GET OVER IT....it was very clear you were cast under the same spell from nolan that his players were...Many can go and "clean up a mess" , but to build something good many dont have that ability and he didnt......ALL of what has gone on over the last 2 weeks is why you dont change coaches in mid season......why dont you comment more on the football play....Am I the only one that notices that first line of defense Gore always goes down and never has the right or solid cut back? second line perhaps no one is better with his hard cuts but far too many 1-3 yard gains from him because he lacks the " quick twitch" that so many great backs lack.....
This week's coaches dogpile (so familiar during the past four years) needs to bring us back to a painful fact: this Niner OLine has been atrocious in short yardage (run or pass) for years. Gore's run off tackle got stuffed, so he was forced to bounce outside (almost made it). Instead, no gain.
The Niners short-yardage follies can't be saved by Martz, can't be blamed on Martz. You can call all the plays you want, but this pitiful Niner OLine can't move any team on short yardage.
As far as passing, I recall JTO having a 4th and short at the end of the half vs. Seattle two weeks ago . . .
I really think there are some positives on this melt-down. First, despite the pathetic ending, Singletary showed he can put some fire in the team. Second, the team found out that when they are cranked up, they are good enough to take a play-off bound team to the ropes--AND that they still have to learn how to deal with 4th quarter pressure. Altogether, this was a game that should inspire rather than discourage. And finally, a victory really would not have bailed out our season. This way, our position in the draft stays good--and we will need it to be good to fill holes and give Singletary more talent to work with. Any more Matt Ryans out there? Or an OT ?
How about wasting that time out on a challenge we knew was wrong? Where was Parathe?
Trent Dilfer said the Refs are very good in that situation and he said they always tell the QB what is going to happen and give them the time to spike the ball. After resetting the ball they say I will not start the clock until I blow the whistle and give you the time. Hill should have spike the ball with 4 sec left and got a new play, it was doomed by the Cards defensive formation who called it right.
But still go watch the blocking from the rear view. It becomes clear why the play failed. BTW Robinson was a poor choice because he always runs standing up, just like the old QB he was.
It still was a good game and Martz did call a good game.
MarkW...there's 3 stud OT's.
1) Michael Oher / Ole Miss
2) Andre Smith / Alabama - MUST control his weight. Sabean talked him into losing 30 lbs this year. The question is can he control that year in, year out. If he can he's impressive, I've been watching him.
3) Eugene Monroe / Virginia
QB's there's only 2 legit top 10's.
1) Matt Stafford - I've watched him a lot & am not impressed. IMO...stay away.
2) Sam Bradford / Alabama - IF he comes out. He's a redshirt Sophomore. When I watch him he fits all the hype. Very ACCURATE, good release, smart, & a fiery competitor. His stats in his freshman year are phenomenal & so are the 1st half of this season.
2nd Round QB's
1) Colt McCoy / Texas
2) Grant Harrell / Texas Tech
3) Nate Davis / Ball State
Mike & MarkW,
Braford is from OU and has not declared for the draft (he's a junior).
Stafford is overrated.
McCoy is a junior and going back to Texas next year (he said).
Harrell and Davis are real 2nd - 3rd round possibilities. Not sure things but could do well with the right coaching. Oh, crap... yikes! We have lousy coaching...
OT or DL or shut down CB is the way to go with the first pick. Love Maualuga too but he doesn't fit a need.
Sorry about Bradford, yes Oklahoma.
I did all those colleges off the top of my head.
I'm not sold on Jenkins or any other CB as a legit top 10 pick but we might not have a choice if none of our other young bucks steps up for Harris. Maybe FS instead with Taylor Mays or William Moore.
OL yes, DL...I don't see one either as a top 10.
Terrance Cody/DT/Alabama could be emerging as a top 10.
Was Patrick Willis a big need when we chose him? I see Maualuga as another potential legit STAR in the making at ILB with the possibility of being Willis' equal. Spikes has possibly 1 other good year left & his contract ends after this year. He'll probably try & find a contender.
Maualuga as ILB if we stay with the 3-4.
With the 4-3 I'd first go Maualuga in the middle then put Willis on the outside to try & take advantage of his extra mass/thumping in the middle. If we want more speed/range in there instead you put Willis at MLB & Maualuga outside.
BUT REALLY I HAVE MAUALUGA IN MIND ONLY WITH THE 3-4 WITH HIM & WILLIS CONTROLLING THE MIDDLE.
IMO once we figure out which scheme we're going to run immediately after we set up our new Coaching Staff if it's a 3-4 I would be ALL FOR MAUALUGA AS AN OPTION. If we go 4-3 then I think THAT'S when he's not a high need.
so will one of those future we will know what to do if it happens again is the following?....
i don't know the exact seconds but one of the options should be...
when the catch was made at the one yard line maybe hill should have just taken the too many on the field penalty and spiked the ball leaving 40 seconds on the clock and be at the 6 yard line
would have given more field to work with for a martz offense
just a thought....
Question to all those out there.
Why is it that when talking about how good a player in college is at throwing the ball do we ever talk about how much larger an NFL ball is (it is significant)?
I'm sure most of us have thrown both.
For most, the NCAA size is adequate to the normative range for most people with hand sizes corresponding to body height at about 5'8" Why is this distinction not talked about more often? (with the exception of Alex Smith having small hands) It would seem this should be a major consideration.
For instance, Joe Flacco would have no problem conforming his throw withing that range, considering he's like 9' something. However a QB under 6'4" could (if he's on the lower distribution of hand size to body height) have problems handling the size of the ball.