Random Thoughts on the Day After

Naturally, the first topic of conversation regarding yesterday's pants-soiling at the hands of Tony Romo and the Cowboys is Jim Harbaugh's decision to keep the points on the board following a penalty during David Akers' 55-yard field goal in the 4th quarter.

Defending Harbaugh's choice is asinine - there was no downside to taking the penalty. The 49ers would have gained 15 yards on the penalty and at the very least had three more plays to chew up the clock. You have to figure that they would've run Frank Gore twice, which would pick up four yards, and even if they let Alex Smith throw on one of the downs, worst-case scenario is that the 49ers would be lining up for a 36-yard field goal. Given Akers' ability to nail a 55-yarder a few minutes earlier with no winds at Candlestick on Sunday afternoon, I'd say that's about as much of an automatic as you can get. Of course, there's always the (slight) possibility that the Niners might have been able to string together a couple of first downs to burn more time off the clock, or even punch the ball into the endzone, which would have sealed the victory.

Speaking of Frank Gore, through two games, he's averaging about 2.5 yards per carry. At what point do the 49ers stop making him the focus of their offensive gameplan? I'm not sure if it's Gore's age, history of injuries or the general ineffectiveness of the offensive line, but handing the ball to Gore for minimal yardage reeks of the Jimmy Raye era. And if you take away the occasional big runs that Gore has popped over the past 2-3 seasons, you can see that 2.5 yards is about what you can expect each time he touches the ball. That's not a formula for offensive success. Rather, it's setting yourselves up for failure.

Back to the passing game - how is it that rookie QB Andy Dalton can toss 3 touchdown passes in his second career game and fellow rookie Cam Newton passes for over 400 yards in each of his first two starts, yet we're still seeing the same dink-and-dunk passing attack from Alex Smith? At this point, everybody else is doing it - why can't we? At some point, Alex is going to have to start throwing deep balls - don't forget, during his most "successful" campaign (the "Norv Turner" season), Smith was able to connect on long passes to Antonio Bryant and the rest of the receiving corps. I haven't even seen Smith take one deep shot yet this year.

And let's talk about all of this "good news" and "silver lining" nonsense that I've been reading and hearing regarding yesterday's game. There is no "silver lining" when you blow a game that you should have won against a banged-up and (quite possibly) overrated opponent at home. If anything, yesterday showed that Harbaugh still has no faith in his quarterback, the 49ers' offense is still dreadful and those free-agent defensive backs that were signed off the scrapheap are as bad as their former teams' fans told us they were.

Finally, I'd like to address the 49ers' latest gameday campaign - the "Red Out." Did fans really need a reminder to wear red to the game? How many other colors do Niner fans wear? Hell, even the seats at Candlestick are red. Making a big deal about Niner fans wearing red makes about as much sense as telling Packer fans to wear green or Raider fans to wear black. We get it. Duh.