NFCCG: San Francisco 49ers (11-4-1) vs. Atlanta Falcons (13-3) | L, 28-24

[dee279]

If tony retires or if He doesnt retire, our needs are IMO RB, DL, OL, TE, Lbs, and even WR/KR/PR. I said those together hoping we can get an all in one. I have always said this is a top heavy team. Not much depth on this team. That IMO is our biggest problem. We got overmatched by the 49ers because all the depth they had. With us playing our main players so much, we got wore down and thats y we pretty much got shut out second half. We still have a bright future. Like Bravo said, our core is young and TD will hopefully start adding more talented youth to this team. I think we need to stop trading all our draft picks though. Maybe start trading down to get more picks because IMO, we do have a lot of holes now because of older guys/unimpactful players and not having upgrades to take over their spot.

[Ramon Nivar]

After the game me and my girl went for a walk [with my phone off] and I feel so much better about this team. I need to stay out of NFL main and away from the people who will call us choke artists and need to remember this was a darn good season. We knew coming in we had holes. We knew coming in this team wasn't the end all. We're not one of the teams who is led by aging talent [Brady, Manning, Lewis/Reed], we are a young team who is still young[I know this has been mentioned, but it's my turn]. Our best defensive player barely has playoff experience. Our best offensive player is in his second season [Ignoring position bias, I think Julio has proved to be "better" than Ryan and pretty much every receiver not named Calvin or Larry].

We made it to the NFC Championship game with Sam Baker at LT. Let's see any other team do that.

[Bravo95]

^Now you see why I'm not a regular in the main NFL forum, especially for game threads. There are few posters in particular who always mess up any chance to have decent civilized debates in there. I agree with most of what dee said also.

[Getting UGGLA]

Why the f___ did they abandon the man to man defense. We Su*k at Zone D. That's why we lost.

[Ramon Nivar]

Zone D would work better for our personnel, if we got a pass rush.

[Bravo95]

Yeah playing zone had very little to do with it. Even when they played man to man, players like Davis got open. In the end, our LBs and DL were a bigger issue... just like the Seattle game.

Dee279 has said many times that depth is their downfall -- the "depth" isn't really about the reserves but rather teams like SF have multiple impact players at each level (DL, LBs, DBs) of their defense while the Falcons do not.

Here's all you need to know: Under Mike Smith, the Falcons have allowed 31.5 PPG in five playoff games. If you applied that number to the regular season, Atlanta would have finish dead last in Points Allowed in 2012.

http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/team...fense-category

[sfgiants5518]

If Douglas didn't trip, Falcons probably win. Just wanted to say sorry to all the die hard Falcons fans. I enjoyed posting with you guys this year and will definitely be back next season and throughout this offseason.

[blitz42]

We need to make better in-game adjustments. They focused on taking Julio out after he started tearing it up. They got off to a slow start but made the adjustments to move the ball and Vernon Davis terrorized our soft spots. Also as a playoff game you can never adopt a conservative approach, ie. Seattle, once your up big you need to step on their throats when they're down. Toughest playoff loss in my opinion to date.

[FalconsNation02]

We need to make better in-game adjustments. They focused on taking Julio out after he started tearing it up. They got off to a slow start but made the adjustments to move the ball and Vernon Davis terrorized our soft spots. Also as a playoff game you can never adopt a conservative approach, ie. Seattle, once your up big you need to step on their throats when they're down. Toughest playoff loss in my opinion to date.

It's going to be tough for any team to cover Vernon Davis, let alone the Falcons, just by the way you have to scheme against the 9rs. I think the way you have to approach them is take Kaepernicks running ability out of the game-just like how we accomplished.

The only way to get away with this is different zone defenses to confuse the QB, a capable front 4 that can apply constant pressure (which we don't have), and an extreemly atheletic MLB that can keep up with Vernon Davis or at least throw him off his routes.

We don't have the front 4, or quite honestly the front 7 to consistantly beat a team like the 49rs.

[Bravo95]

Toughest playoff loss in my opinion to date.

Arizona, for me. Regardless of record, the Cards were the only playoff opponent of the five that I believe had less talent than the Falcons. The other four -- GB, NYG, SEA, SF -- all had superior talent from top to bottom.

[FalconsNation02]

We just got extreemly unlucky, because that da@# San Francisco 49r fan got to sit in his lucky seat in his old house in that bud light commercial.

Imagine what could have been, if the owners hadn't allowed that to happen

[ugafan]

This was the toughest loss for me as well. I believe any team can beat any other team on any day so the talent level I don't care much about.

This game was ours and we gave it away. The 49ers didn't win, we lost. I will hold onto that notion until the day I die.

[Bravo95]

I guess you guys are more pissed because of how close we were to the SB. I kinda let each game stand on its own. Keith Brooking biting on a play-action fake on 3rd-and-16? A fitting end, on so many levels.