49ers Will Need To Find Their Hearts and Minds To Beat Vikings

Barreling at ludicrous speed toward Sunday's clash between your 2-0 San Francisco 49ers and the 2-0 Minnesota Petersons, I'm hearing all kinds of cute descriptions for what the matchup signifies.

My media tent buddy Matt Maiocco of The Santa Rosa Press Democrat has been trying to trademark the phrase "GPS Game" as in finding out where your team stands.

Matt Barrows of The Sacramento Bee, in an effort to tweak Maiocco, dubbed it the "WPS Game," reasoning that the Wi-Fi based navigation system is supposed to be more accurate than the satellite-based one.

Mike Florio, over at ProFootballTalk.com, referred to it as a "checkpoint game," while noted Sports Illustrated windbag Peter King called it a "barometer game."

Me? I just think it's a winnable game, and whether the 49ers do so or not depends far more on their brains and guts than their hands and feet. 

They've got the talent, that much is clear. In convincingly beating Arizona and Seattle they've shown that their front seven are more than stout enough to squash the run, and they've got a couple of corners in Nate Clements and Shawntae Spencer that aren't afraid to stick their noses in there in support.

Actually, a major reason Spencer won the starting job ahead of Dre' Bly and Tarell Brown was for his size and willingness to tackle. He might not be quite the playmaker that the other two are, but he's sturdier, and coach Mike Singletary has made it clear that stopping the run is the defense's top priority.

The 49ers held Vikings super-duper star Adrian Peterson to three yards on 14 carries in a '07 meeting, a game that Peterson confided he remembers all too well, calling it "the worst game of my career," and while no one expects him to be that bad again, it was hard to argue with Purple Jesus when he suggested that San Francisco's defense is even better now.

For Minnesota to move the ball against the Niners, they're going to have to let Brett Favre do what they brought him over to do, and throw the damn ball and not those mincing five-yard checkdowns to Percy Harvin or Visanthe Shiancoe either.

You don't pay a guy 12 million bones and piss off two quarterbacks who busted their humps all offseason and in training camp just to bring in a guy to dink and dunk for 16 weeks.

San Francisco's defense thrives against conservative offenses. God in heaven knows they see enough of it during practice every day.

The question isn't whether the Vikings, and their coach, Brad "Twisted Steel" Childress will unleash Favre on Sunday—he will. Rather, it's whether Singletary, and his offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye, will follow suit.

And this is where the brains and guts come in to play.

Do the coaches have enough trust and confidence in quarterback Shaun Hill to win the game for them?

All signs point to a firm, "NO".

For one thing, they've spent the whole week talking about how they're undaunted by the "Williams Wall", the Vikings formidable defensive tackle tandem of Pat and Kevin Williams, who are completely unrelated except for their badass-ness. 

Running back Frank Gore did run for over 200 yards last week against the Seahawks last week, including untouched sprints of 79 and 80 yards to paydirt, but that was against a Seattle team missing their own best run-stuffing tackle in Brandon Mebane, as well as linebackers Lofa Tatupu and Leroy Hill.

Gore's nursing a gimpy ankle this week as it is, so to go to the well too often with him this week would be foolish.

Meanwhile, Singletary, when given the chance to show his support for Hill last Monday and confirm that yes, he did think his quarterback can carry the team on his back and win a game for him, gave the question far too much thought, sighed, and glumly offered that, "Hopefully, we won't ever need him to do that."

What a vote of confidence.

No wonder Hill gets no respect nationally. Even his own coaches won't stand up for him to their local media, to whom they're more than willing to stretch the truth about everything else.

The fact of the matter is that at this stage of their careers Hill is every bit as good as 40-year old Favre. The difference is you'll never catch Childress saying "I hope Brett won't have to win any games for us."

That level of confidence affects locker room morale; it affects game planning, and it sure as heck affects play calling on 1st-and-10, let alone 3rd-and-6.

If Singletary and Raye have the guts to let Hill win the game for them, the Niners have a fighting chance. Still, the offensive line has to play better and communicate well inside the noisy Metrodome—this is where the brains come in—and Hill has to be on the same page with his receivers and make sure that no one zigged when they should've zagged.

The game is sitting there, begging to be won. We should know pretty quickly if Singletary feels that way, or whether we'll need to use a GPS, WPS, or UPS to find his cajones.