Week 18 Post Match Review: Lambs vs Lazarus

By Scooter_McG

Rejoice 49ers fans! The 49ers did their best impersonation of Lazarus and won an overtime thriller over the Rams to book their place in the playoffs. 

In fact, this 49ers season has been one of coming back from the seemingly dead. At 2-4 and then 3-5, many 49er fans and pundits were writing this team off as no chance of making a run to the playoffs. I know after the loss to the McCoy led Cardinals I gave them little hope. But they have since gone 7-2 to be one of the form teams in the NFL heading into the playoffs this year.

Jimmy Garoppolo's season looked all but over after he ruptured the UCL in his thumb vs the Titans. But against all odds he was back starting this game just a fortnight after the injury, with just some tape helping to hold the thumb in place. 

And this game reflected the season. The 49ers got off to a disastrous start and a 17-0 hole late in the second quarter, but were able to being themselves back up off the mat with a scintillating third quarter. Then when it looked all over late in the fourth quarter, Jimmy G would show some heroics with less then two minutes left in the game, leading a game tying drive with no timeouts to take it to overtime and ultimately a 49ers victory. 

Here's what stood out to me. 

Jimmy 'Just Win' Garoppolo. By all rights he shouldn't have even been playing this game. But he toughed it out and rose to the occasion in the second half, leading multiple long drives that brought the team back and sapped the energy and confidence from the Rams. 

The first half looked ugly, but as I noted during the game, he looked like Jimmy G to me and not a guy that was impacted by his thumb injury. The real problem for the 49ers in the first half was the players around Jimmy reverted to first half of the season form. 

But boy oh boy... when the 49ers really needed Jimmy to be good, he came through. Not only did he help bring them back from the 17-0 deficit, his drive at the end of the fourth quarter to tie the game involved a number of critical throws downfield where he demonstrated great poise and presence in the moment. He was also excellent on the drive in overtime, marching the team down to the red zone. It would only result in a FG, but Jimmy was excellent on the drive. 

All in all this was a quintessential Jimmy G game. We saw the highs. We saw the lows. And in the end we saw a win. 

First half jitters. Yikes, that first half was rough. I'll be honest, I thought the team was done when they went down 17-0. The team didn't look up for the game on either offense or defense. The most embarrassing series of the half came when they lost yards on three straight plays, then lost their punter for the game after a big return. It pretty much summed up the entire first half which was dominated by the Rams. 

The defense in particular struggled on third downs, which has been something of a bugbear for the team in all of their defeats. Too many times we see good work on first and second downs undone by giving up huge plays on third and long. That was the case throughout the first half in this one.

Fighting spirit. As bad as the first half was to watch, the second half was great viewing. The team came out with a real fire, showing they weren't going to go down without a fight. They recommitted to the run game and finally started to get some positive plays out of it due to a combination of much better blocking and some very impressive runs by Mitchell to find hidden yards. 

Defensively, the team was able to start shutting down the Rams on third downs, getting pressure on Stafford almost every pass play and forcing him into numerous mental errors. After going with just one incompletion in the first half, Stafford started missing his receivers at every turn. And with the scores tied, he came up with his first turnover of the game on a brilliant pick by Moseley. 

Both sides of the ball showed an ability to lift when the chips were down, and they'll need that and more if they are to make some noise in the playoffs.

What can't Deebo do? Is he a WR? Is he a RB? Or... is he a QB? Why pigeonhole him - he can do it all. He would finish this one with 4 catches for 95 yards, 8 carries for 45 yards and a TD, and a 24 yards TD pass to Jennings. He was quite rightly spent by the end of the game. He may not win league MVP, but he's the 49ers MVP for mine.

The only detraction from his game is the drops. He had a couple more today, some on important drives. The team was lucky that they were usually able to overcome those drops and pick up first downs on the next play or two, but if there is one area Deebo must work on moving forward it is his concentration. 

WRs come up big. I've already mentioned Deebo, but the other WRs also had big days. Jennings has gradually worked his way into the lineup as the third WR over the course of the season, and even with Sanu back from injury he earned the right to retain the position in recent weeks. He showed why in this one, having a career day with 6 catches for 94 yards and two TDs.  

Aiyuk was also impressive, snaring 6 catches for 107 yards on the day. That included some important grabs over the middle on a number of the 49ers scoring drives. Although, like Deebo, Aiyuk also had a drop on one he should have had.

Armstead overpaid? There has been some chatter that the 49ers are overpaying Armstead and that his level of production isn't worth the $20M+ salary cap hits he'll be providing the next few years. There is likely some merit to that argument, but then he is also a lot better than many people like to give him credit for too. 

Today he had a monster game, with 2.5 sacks. But as is often the case with Armstead, its what he does that doesn't show up on the stat sheet that makes him valuable. He consistently collapsed the pocket in this one, leading to not only sacks for himself, but also his teammates, and forcing Stafford into poor throws. 

Armstead's move to DT mid-season was also the catalyst to a significant improvement in the 49ers run defense this season, with the team now one of the best run stopping units in the NFL.

Ambry Thomas for the win! I was pretty critical of Ambry Thomas after his first couple of starts. But credit where credit is due, he's played well the past few games. He still has some issues with the catch point, highlighted again in this one when he was beaten on a jump ball by Higbee (who to be fair is a much bigger man). But he also came up with the game sealing INT and in general played well. The Moseley and Thomas tandem certainly looked a lot better than having Norman out there. 

Looking ahead. The 49ers win, and the Cowboys victory over the Eagles, means the 49ers will now visit the Cowboys in the first week of the playoffs. Nothing better than an old rivalry game. 

Hopefully the 49ers came out of this one mostly injury free, and guys like Trent and K'Wuan Williams will be fit for next week.