49ers Can Tell Us They're Running, But They Need To Show Us Some Passes

(Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

After all the nonsense and posturing, the meaningless preseason games and even more meaningless interviews, the time has come for Team "Don't Tell Me, Show Me" to put up or shut up.

The "Nutcracker" drill has been put in storage for the winter, buried underneath the secret entrance behind Singletary Hill.

All the training camp drama—such as it was—has come and gone. Shaun Hill kept his starting quarterback job over hard tacklin' Alex Smith, Shawntae Spencer came out of nowhere to snatch the cornerback job from the clutches of Dre' Bly and Tarell Brown; and Adam Snyder won the right tackle spot, really just by being a ringside observer to a more unfortunate (and one-sided) duel between Marvel Smith and his aching back.

The 49ers have completed their training camp relatively unscathed and the 53 gentlemen left on the roster will be the same ones, more-or-less, that they'll try and make do with in 2009.

Sure, there's always the possibility that a Michael Crabtree will come to his senses and force the team into a transaction or two, but what reason is there for him to wake up smarter tomorrow than he has been for the previous 50 days, give-or-take?

These are your San Francisco 49ers. Love 'em or hey how are them Giants doin' these days?

The season opener on Sunday sees the boys squaring off against their division "rivals" the Arizona Cardinals, and despite the small matter of Arizona being the defending conference champions, it looks like a decent match up for them.

Not only do they have a history of playing the Cardinals close (you no doubt remember the Monday Night fiasco last year, where good Ol' Mike Martz called the first goal line dive in league history from the three yard line), but Arizona's been positively dreadful during the preseason, with their own players admitting to being uninspired and lackadaisical.

The 2009 Football Outsiders Almanac, who charitably described the 2008 Cardinals as "one of the worst teams to ever play in a Super Bowl," have crunched the numbers and calculated that these Cardinals project to having the third lowest mean number of wins this season, at 5.6, due mostly to quarterback Kurt Warner's arm falling off, or something equally bad that happens to people when they turn 38.

I'm only seven years away from 38 and I'm not at all looking forward to using a keyboard with one hand, no matter how much experience my friends accuse me of having with that very scenario.

To the casual fan, the Cardinals would figure to boat race San Francisco. They can pass but can't run on offense, and are okay stopping the run but flat out awful defending the pass. The 49ers, meanwhile, can run but refuse to pass unless it's the last resort, and they're very good at stopping the run but just middling against the pass.

You're thinking to yourself "Kurt Warner + Larry Fitzgerald + Anquan Boldin + No pass rush = 0-1," and no one can blame you.

However, there is hope, if you know where to look.

The Cardinals were the worst team in the league last year against the shotgun formation, and the 49ers had the second best differential between shotgun efficiency and under center efficiency.

It should stand to reason then that the 49ers should operate out of the shotgun plenty on Sunday and pass, pass, pass, right?

Sadly reason left this team somewhere around 2001 and hasn't left a forwarding address.

They're pledging to run 60 percent of the time, and seem a lot more intent on "doing what we do" than actually bothering to game plan around their opponent's weaknesses. The second part of that plan would require acknowledging the existence of other teams, and that just isn't the way things are done in 4949 Centennial Way.

Even without the shotgun, the Cardinals defense was only 26th against screen passes last year, and faced more running back screens than anybody. Hill has an arm built for throwing screens (but not through them) and since both "Coach Sing" and offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye want Frank Gore to get the ball a ton anyways, I think I see a solution here.

Also, Vernon Davis, the centerpiece of Raye's "tight end friendly" offense, can be dialed up for a few screens himself, as the Niners tied the Redskins last year with the most tight end screen attempts in the league.

Subtlety has always been a weakness of mine, so just to be clear, I think San Francisco needs to throw the ball quite a bit to have a chance on Sunday. They probably won't, and we'll see where that gets them.

O' Captain, My Captain:

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