Earl might be easier b/c he's been making top 15 pick money. Tate's probably gone, but I've heard Baldwin's probably staying, especially if Rice is cut.
I thought it was a 2 year deal, but I don't know if he can opt out. I am sure he would opt out if he could.
Maybe not. But you saw that a big key though was laying the wood to the receivers in the middle of the field along with the pressure on Manning. From the games I watched, which were really mostly against the Seahawks, I really thought Bowman was the best player on the 9ers this year until he got hurt. Hopefully he makes a solid recovery.
Well, I was reading that Sherman said the Seattle defense knew all of Manning's signals, and they said that they basically bet it all on knowing what Denver was going to run. He said that if Manning had changed it up, they would have been exposed. I thought that was interesting. Not sure how the Niners defense would have approached the game.
The thing with Tate and Baldwin is I'm not sure they'll really get a big contract offer. They're both #2 guys at best. Baldwin is also a RFA btw
Seattle is a different team with the threat of Harvin in the return game and on offense. I said it after the NFC title game. Without Harvin, the Seahawks don't have a gamebreaking threat on offense. The 49ers got lucky in that they didn't have to play Harvin this year.
The Seahawks ran a route-jumping scheme in the secondary. Basically, for example, Kam Chancellor would recognize the crossing route, peel off his zone responsibility further down the field (while Earl Thomas then picked up that receiver), and Chancellor (or whoever peeled off the downfield receiver) would be there to stop any YAC. You have to have a very intelligent secondary to run this scheme, though, because if the nickelback or one of the safeties doesn't read the peel, then Denver would have a wide open receiver running down the field. Having two corners like Maxwell and Sherman who play man on the outside helps a lot. The pass rush made it possible for this peel, too. It was a masterpiece in a 'bend but don't break' defense. Early in the game when Chancellor blew up Thomas on a crossing route, it was over for Denver. YAC is how Denver moves the ball, and Quinn's scheme made that all but impossible. Also, LOL at the 49er fan who says the 49ers were a better team than Seattle. That's just the whining of the fans of a losing team.
I had a blast watching the game in Seattle with a bunch of life-long Seahawk fans, my brother included. I was thrilled for them after the game, and Wednesday is going to be insane on 4th Ave. My brother and nephew are ditching work and school that afternoon to go to the parade. Listening to Brock, Danny, and Groz while driving home today was fun, too. As a Raider fan, it's been 29 years since I got to celebrate a SB as a fan, and I was in HS then. I told my 8 year-old nephew who bleeds Seahawk blue that he'll never, ever forget where he was, and how much fun it was, when the Seahawks finally won a Super Bowl.
Honestly I think the two teams are extremely comparable. They're just better in different areas. Seattle has the much better secondary. SF has the much better LB corps. I think Gore is pretty much done and that was a huge difference in the game. Lynch is arguably the best RB in the game.
Nic could be one of the best players in the game if he really wanted to. I think he has the talent, he just doesn't have the mindset.
So, I see where Sherman said after the game started, they broke his audible. Nowhere did I read that they "bet it all" and would have been exposed. I was in Seattle for much of today, and Dan Quinn's gameplan was to have the safeties peel off after they saw the routes. It's why teams watch film. You're making it seem like the Seahawks were basically guessing, which clearly was not the case.
They're both elite NFL teams. The NFC championship was a fun game to watch as a fan with no rooting interest. What I find to be whining is when BlazingGiants says that he thinks the 49ers are better than the Seahawks. That's the butthurt whining of a fan of the losing team. Scoreboard is the obvious retort.
