Vote: who do you blame most for last night?

I laughed, worriedly, last week when I read quotes from players, and Capers, that said facing Joe Webb last week was good preparation for this Niners offense.
That's like comparing a 1978 Pinto to a 2013 Ferrari. Were they serious?

Now, we don't know exactly what Capers & company worked on this week in their prep and practice. We don't know what they showed the players, worked on.

But what we do know is that it not only didn't work well, but it made Kaepernick look like the greatest all-around QB who ever lived. Never before in any game, playoffs or regular season, has a QB run for as many yards as he did with 181 yards.

You know, it almost looked like the defense prepared for a slow pocket passer like an old Dan Marino or a gimpy Peyton Manning.

We saw Walden follow the fake to Frank Gore, and Kaepernick ran right behind him for 56 yards, Walden with his back to him. He was benched then.
I saw Woodson out of position so many times, leaning the wrong way.
I saw a few blitzes called brilliantly where, Hayward for instance, he came in unaccounted for, untouched, and he not only missed Kaepernick, he let him run right past him and get 20 yards. Anyone else recall that one blatant fail?

Think about this: We are afraid to let Rodgers run because he takes big hits often.

Kaepernick ran for that many yards, and he never even took a big hit. We barely hit him. That's pathetic.
But then, we were pathetic in our 2009 playoff loss too, making Kurt Warner a record-setting passer that day beating us I think 51-45.

So who do you blame more for last night's embarrassment in Candlestick, against the running QB?

Capers game plan/strategy
The so-called "Players" execution/performance (lack of)

The 9ers were the better team on offense, defense, and special teams.

The muff'd punt was terrible. The lack of someone spying on Kaep was horrendous. Rodgers turn over had the "what was that?" Kind of reaction

Defense was on the field too much and some of the game planning was atrocious. The lack of adjustments was disappointing as well.

The offense failed to sustain drives and we abandoned the run. Tough game. SF is a match-up problem for us.

How about "The better team won" as a choice? Face the fact, 49ers were as good or better in every area. Kaepernick is a freak - never saw anything like this ever. Frankly, it does not bother me so much when a better team beats us. When a inferior team beats us, then I get a bit upset. Time to move on.

The kid I paid to put the horse tranquillizers in the 49ers Gatorade buckets !!

Total team screwup.
Walden constantly getting sucked inside on the end runs.
BJones getting caught in the wash.
DB's unable to get off the WR blocks.
Hawk sticking like glue to his blocker.
Tramon a step slow.
EDS allowing free rushers on delayed blitzes.
Ross rookie mistake on the muffed punt.
McCarthy over reacting to aforementioned error.
MM abandoning the run in the 3rd quarter.
I will credit MM with the personnel on the field during the no-huddle when Cobb was the RB in the 2nd half.
Capers with not having the players ready to contain a running QB. Kevin Greene is included in this as his LB crew is supposed to be the main line of defense in Caper's scheme.
Medical staff. How is it the Packers have relatively long injury lists 2 of the past 3 years? League leading if not close to it.
NFL in allowing the replacement refs to put this game in SF after a bye week instead of GB which would have had it. The SF defense was wearing down by the end of the season (NE, Sea, & AR offenses moved the ball) and the week off allowed them to recover a bit.

Cam Newton, RG3, Wilson, Vick, Tarkenton, Young, Culpepper. All of these ran like that their first year or so. We'll see over the next few seasons if he is different.

I actually think that IS what bothers me the most. Not that we lost, but that we are clearly not as close to being a championship caliber team as I thought we were.

At least if we would've just had a terrible game, I'd feel like we were right on the championship cusp against going forward. But we were clearly inferior, and I'm not sure how close we really are anymore.

Exactly.

We've lacked a pass rusher to compliment CMIII for years, plus we never seem to blitz and/or send pressure like one would expect. I heard a lot of complaints about Clay last night, but when Capers is continuously sending three against him, how exactly is Matthews supposed to get the pressure needed?

I'm not going out on a soapbox crying for terminations but will be interested in seeing how we try to fix this mess of a run D.

I'm not going to blame anything we did offensively (other than not going for it on that 4th and 4). We scored enough points to win. We gave up 45. Not going to win when you give up 45 points.

Unless I missed something, the Packers did not have a running attempt after 9 minutes left in the 3rd quarter except for scrambles. The game was tied up on this drive. That is abandoning the run.
http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/20130...ab=analyze&menu=drivechart&analyze=playbyplay

Why couldnt Ross or Cobb catch a kick/punt??????? Why would you put ross at punt returner in a PLAYOFF game. Let Ross return kicks and punts ALL next season and then he will be ready to catch them in the playoffs. I dont blame MM 100% though its not the first time Ross has returned punts he should know how to catch. I blame most of it on the D both coaches and players mainly LBS as far as players go.

Not a very analytical approach: the whole "better team won" rationalization glosses over the reasons why the better team won in favor of a mental shortcut.

I'll place some blame on the offense. The offense scored just 17 points before the outcome had been decided. Take a look at that time of possession: the offense didn't do any favors for the defense by maintaining drives. As a result, our D was gassed by the third quarter.

I honestly don't know why kaepernick wasn't assigned a spy every play and how no one else figured out that all they did was read option or throw to crabtree.

The fumbled punt was a back breaker much like the Hail Mary last year. The Packers finally stop Kapernick and get him off the field and immediately give him the ball on the five-yard line. It changed the entire momentum of the game.

I was also waiting for a defensive adjustment that never came. I'm not a defensive coordinator, I'm not any kind of a coordinator... nor am I a defense, but the Packers kept running man and putting nobody between the defensive line and the secondary. Kapernick just pulled the ball down and ran at will. Where was the adjustment?

With that being said, this team needs linebackers. Linebackers who can run... Linebackers who can tackle... Line backers who don't get consistently confused by the "read option" over and over and over again. The lack of athleticism of AJ Hawk, Erik Walden and Brad Jones looked slow and bad.

Well, hopefully Brian Bulaga, Derrik Sherrod, Jerel Worthy, Desmond Bishop and Nick Perry all come back healthy and contribute.

I was waiting for that adjustment too, but it never came.

Who would you have put on him? Nobody at the linebacker position is fast enough and none of our DB's can tackle. So really who do you assign to him?

Personally, I blame the 49'ers for being a better prepared and more talented team.

I mean...the nerve of those a-holes... to thoroughly trounce our guys twice in one season. Apparrntly, they didn't get the memo that they're supposed to defer to the Packers.

We did pretty good stopping Gore.