The 49ers' defense put on a pitiful performance in the first-half of the NFC championship, which raises concern as they head into the Super Bowl.
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00:00 And it was one of the most incredible comebacks in playoff history.
00:04 The Niners were down 17 at halftime.
00:08 They erased that deficit in eight minutes and one was that a great
00:13 comeback father or a great collapse.
00:17 Okay.
00:20 Could we split the difference?
00:21 Um, first of all, I want to give credit when you're down that much going into
00:27 the second half that is extremely serious.
00:31 And even if the other team is not as good as you, which is the case, and the
00:36 other coaches bordering on a clown, which is the case, um, it takes a lot to come
00:43 back.
00:43 It's hard to do that in football.
00:45 It's hard to win in football.
00:47 The lions were not as good as the Niners, but they were a good team.
00:51 So I give them in Chris Cawthon, but I got a cough drop here.
00:56 I give incredible props for the comeback.
01:00 In fact, my overall grade, this may surprise you, Iggy for the Niners in that
01:08 game as a team would be an a, even with all the things that went wrong, because
01:13 a comeback like that is historic is dramatic.
01:17 It's uplifting taking a cough drop to the fans.
01:21 It's uplifting to the team.
01:23 It meant everything.
01:24 So, yeah.
01:26 So all of that and Purdy came through, Kyle came through.
01:30 We had wondered if they could come through in a big game.
01:33 They did the, both of them did in the second half in the second half,
01:37 but was it a big collapse?
01:40 That lion's team got exposed.
01:44 We always had our doubts about, um, Jared Goff, you know, he's a pretty good
01:50 quarterback and he has a great arm.
01:52 He can't move.
01:53 He's a little plodding in his thinking, and he's certainly not a guy
01:58 who can carry a team on his back.
02:00 And the coach is one of these guys overrated NFC coaches like Sirianni.
02:06 They're they're, they're BS artists in a lot of ways.
02:09 Oh, we changed the culture.
02:10 We, so much for the culture.
02:13 Can you coach?
02:14 Uh, can you make the right decision?
02:17 No, you can make the wrong decision twice, not to go for the field goal,
02:22 make the wrong decision twice.
02:23 So I think it was a combo pack.
02:25 Great comeback, great collapse.
02:28 What do you think?
02:28 Both.
02:30 I mean, the Niners were seven point favorites.
02:33 They're better than the lions.
02:35 So the fact that they had to come from behind, whatever, like they didn't play
02:40 that great, but they did what they had to do.
02:42 And they revealed the essential truth that they're better than the lions.
02:45 The lions had an opportunity to like pull off this incredible
02:48 upset and they blew it.
02:51 They freaking blew it.
02:52 You could say that they always go for it on fourth down, but by not kicking a field
02:58 goal, they gave the 49ers all the momentum when they were up by 14.
03:01 And I guess the lines will say they didn't have a good kicker and that
03:04 that guy hadn't been making long kicks.
03:06 I don't know.
03:07 Well, then you guys just weren't good enough to beat the 49er.
03:09 Sorry.
03:09 You weren't going to beat the 49ers.
03:11 Yeah.
03:13 And saying they didn't have the right kicker.
03:14 They had all seasons get a better kicker.
03:17 You know, no excuses, no excuses.
03:20 The coach blew it.
03:21 And I want to tell you, Iggy, if I were a Detroit, Detroit writer,
03:26 columnists, and I was still doing this job, I'd go after the coach.
03:30 Yeah.
03:31 My column would be how Dan Campbell blew the championship game.
03:37 Nothing else.
03:38 That's what I would have written.
03:39 Yeah.
03:40 Um, also in addition to Dan Campbell, if he were defending himself, he'd say, well,
03:46 the fourth, the first fourth down that they went for the lions was a, a throw to a
03:51 wide open Josh Reynolds who dropped it.
03:53 Then on the next series, it was third and 10.
03:56 There was another throw to a wide open Josh Reynolds past the
03:58 sticks and he dropped it again.
03:59 Um, but it's like, okay, well then you guys still aren't good
04:04 enough to beat the 49ers.
04:05 You were thrown to some wide receiver who wasn't ready for the moment.
04:07 And he blew it.
04:08 Yeah.
04:09 So you're going to blame the whole better.
04:11 You would have won.
04:12 Yeah.
04:13 If you, if you were better, you would have won.
04:16 They weren't good enough to do it.
04:17 And the coach is supposed to take that into account, right?
04:21 Saying, is this guy going to catch it?
04:22 Or should we go for the three points and make it a three score game yet again?
04:26 I think we call it for someone else.
04:29 Who is Josh Reynolds?
04:30 He's like your fourth best wide receiver.
04:31 Why are you?
04:31 Yeah.
04:33 What I feel about Dan Campbell, there are certain coaches that are gimmick coaches.
04:38 Chip Kelly was a gimmick coach.
04:41 This guy's a gimmick coach.
04:42 He's gimmick is he goes for enough walk down and in Philly,
04:45 the gimmick is the gimmick is the push push.
04:47 But let's come back to the Niners because the lions are history.
04:52 They history.
04:53 Yeah.
04:53 The Niners, some teams cannot take advantage when the other coaches,
05:00 a clown, the night did they kept their cool?
05:04 They did.
05:05 They kept their cool and they came back like, I would say like a great team.
05:12 You know, some of those Joe Montana, uh, teams were behind in big games.
05:16 They were behind in the catch game, but they came, they came back.
05:21 Coming back is extraordinary.
05:24 And they came back.
05:25 So I give the 49ers full credit and Iggy.
05:28 It's one of the best comebacks I've ever seen in a 49ers game.
05:33 And, you know, I've been, I can't say thousands cause they're not
05:36 that many games in a season, but I've covered hundreds and hundreds,
05:40 I guess, of their games, and this was one that was amazing and praise worthy.
05:47 Yes.
05:48 Agree.
05:48 The Niners get full credit.
05:50 In addition, the lions collapsed, the Packers collapsed, and the Niners
05:57 clearly not only better than those teams, but more seasoned and ready
06:00 for the moment than those teams.
06:02 But those teams absolutely collapsed.
06:04 And what I want, they had leads late, but not only that, they had
06:07 opportunities to intercept Brock Purdy.
06:10 Brock, the Niners are undefeated when he doesn't throw an interception,
06:12 but they had their opportunities.
06:14 The Packers had two, the lions had three, and they only came
06:19 away with one collectively.
06:20 And he's moving on.
06:22 The question to me is if you keep playing like that, will the chiefs
06:28 give those opportunities away?
06:29 That's what matters moving forward.
06:31 Like, it's great that the Niners were able to do this, but they need to play
06:35 a whole lot better next than they did in the NFC championship.
06:38 They played just well enough in the NFC championship game
06:40 and the NF in the NFC playoffs.
06:42 Iggy, I'm going to disagree with you.
06:46 So bear with me.
06:47 I don't think they play just well enough.
06:51 I think they kick butt against the lions coming back like that
06:56 is not playing just well enough.
06:59 It's playing extraordinary.
07:02 And that's, so I think this is fair.
07:06 Let me rephrase it.
07:07 But I'm trying to say, okay, all right.
07:09 The Niners were 10 point favorites over the Packers and seven and a half
07:13 point favorites over the lions.
07:14 They beat each team by three.
07:15 They do what they had to do to win, but narrowly beating green Bay and
07:19 narrowly beating Detroit doesn't necessarily mean the Niners are
07:22 going to go beat Kansas city.
07:24 That's a way better team.
07:25 That's all I'm saying.
07:25 I agree.
07:27 Oh, and we're going to talk about Kansas city in a bit.
07:29 Yeah.
07:30 But again, I don't think the Niners did just enough to win.
07:35 I think they did something extraordinary to win.
07:38 That's how I feel.
07:40 And if I were writing a column about the Niners, I wouldn't be writing about
07:45 the quarterback or the running back.
07:47 I'd be writing about what they did was extraordinary.
07:50 It's like a great fighter gets knocked down a few times in the
07:54 early rounds and it's way behind Jake Lamada against do Twill, who people
07:59 won't even know came back and knocked them out in the last round.
08:02 And that's extraordinary.
08:04 And what the Niners did was extraordinary.
08:06 Doesn't matter who they did it against.
08:08 I know you're right.
08:09 I guess I just can't get past that.
08:11 The defining play of this game was a play that very well could have been an
08:16 interception for the lines, but they hit the guy in the face.
08:18 Just one of those games.
08:19 And was it like the Niners were down and then Brock Purdy through the
08:23 past to Dwight Clark, and it was just this, this incredible play.
08:26 It was, it was like divine intervention.
08:30 It was it's Sal Castaneda.
08:33 You were on channel two yesterday.
08:34 He called it the Iuke fluke.
08:36 Which it's so clever and it's so New York, the I Luke fluke.
08:40 I love it.
08:41 And it was like the New York post, right?
08:43 Big bold letters.
08:44 Yeah.
08:45 The IU fluke.
08:46 Yeah, it's true.
08:47 There was an Iggy said it, or he was on channel two and he said, if you slow
08:52 down the film, you could see God coming on the field and helping the 49ers.
08:58 That was, that was a great play by Iuke, but.
09:03 It was a bad play by the defensive back when the ball hit him in the face and he
09:08 didn't knock it away or cat or catch it.
09:10 So, yeah, I mean, great comeback.
09:12 That was also a great collapse.
09:14 It required the lions to do some really bad things that make you think that
09:19 they're not really a true contender.
09:22 Even next year, they look a lot like the Eagles, not like the next 49ers.
09:26 They're NFC tough.
09:29 And what we're going to learn about the Niners in two weeks, are they NFL tough
09:35 or NFC tough if they beat Kansas city, their NFL tough, if now, if they lose,
09:42 but it's a close game, maybe they're NFL tough.
09:44 If they get it, they're behind handed to them.
09:47 They're NFC tough.
09:48 I'm not saying that's going to happen, but those are our, our positions.
09:52 They looked NFC tough against the Browns, the Ravens and the Bengals.
09:59 They did see what the Chiefs can do.
10:00 [MUSIC]