San Francisco 49ers' Coach Jim Harbaugh's Strategy

The first week of the 2011 season is now history, and the performance of the San Francisco 49ers was bland but effective. This was almost as I expected it to be.

It was a plain vanilla game, with a few standard plays being used over and over. The strategy for the game worked—this time.  It will not always work, and the 49ers will lose some games.

The 33-17 win over the hapless Seattle Seahawks was, I will admit, a bit more of a thumping than I expected. 

Football success is composed of skill, knowledge, practice, strategy, flexibility, confidence and luck. The 49ers have the skilled players. Their knowledge of the strategy is still developing, however, and will be a work in progress for at least the 2011 season.

The skill came with a few well-practiced offensive plays used repeatedly with good effect. This is what the building process is all about. Learn plays one through five, then six through ten and so on. Playing these few plays competently adds to the team confidence.

Coach Harbaugh is charged with building a successful team from the wreckage of eight failed seasons and has a monumental task to perform. He must establish some team morale while building confidence within the group of guys that comprise the team. He must write up the playbook, then expose the guys to it. I hear the Coach Harbaugh playbook is a tome featuring hundreds of plays. 

He must give the guys time to learn the plays he has planned for them.

This is not so easy. 

Learning a play is more than knowing that a certain code call means a certain play. It means knowing the timing, the routes, the techniques and the possible variations on that single play. Eleven guys have to know all of this for every play called. All eleven must be synced when the play commences.This knowledge comes through study, practice and actual game performance.

None of the players can learn all of the plays at once. They have to memorize them, practice them and use them in actual game situations, until the plays become second nature. Muscle memory is as important as brain memory. An NFL player is best when he reacts correctly during the play without having to think the problem through. 

When the team gets a few plays down solidly, they can then learn a few more. As the team's repertoire expands, its success will also increase. At some point, the repertoire will be large enough to cover almost all situations, and then the 49ers will be a force in the NFL again.

This process will continue for the foreseeable future. The 49ers are now in elementary school. Expect a few surprises each game. Expect a gradual expanding of the number of plays the 49ers will use. And expect a gradual increase in the success and morale of the team as they begin to execute plays with crispness and without hesitation.

A note here about Ted Ginn: This is where the luck in football is demonstrated.  

Ginn has endured his share of fan disappointment and, frankly, abuse. His performance during the fourth quarter, running back two touchdowns, changed his relationship with the fans and his teammates forever. I could imagine as he caught the punt for his second touchdown of the day, his thought was, “I know how to do this now!"

Morale is built on performance and the trust one teammate has for the others. Ginn made his reputation and proved he could be as fast he was advertised to be.

When he took off on the kickoff return, running past guys with surprised looks on their faces, my son and I both jumped to our feet. My son, the wag, yelled, “Run, Forrest! Run!”

One could not have said it better. Ginn is now an official San Francisco 49er, our own “Fast Forrest Gump."