Let's go ahead and get the good news out of the way first. Julius Jones rushed for 127 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries, flashing the revamped running game that Mike Holmgren had mentioned bringing back around the Northwest.
As for the rest of the news (all bad), the Seattle defense allowed: San Francisco to score 33 points, J.T. O'Sullivan to throw for 321 yards, and Isaac Bruce to catch 153 yards worth of passing. Yipes. On offense, John Carlson seems nice ... which is good because he's all they've got in the passing game. Courtney Taylor -- fresh off bemoaning his potential release -- was nonexistent, and Seneca Wallace didn't catch a single pass. That could be because he got hurt before the game, joining Logan Payne, Nate Burelson, Deion Branch and Bobby Engram on Seattle's Red Cross list.
Also, Matt Hasselbeck was a horrid 18 of 36 for 189 yards and two interceptions, probably because he has no receivers.
So, yeah, Seattle is more or less finished at this point, in all honesty. The crazy thing is that if 'Beck can somehow manage to get kind of healthy and Branch can come back, they could still win the NFC West.
Why's that? Because the Niners, who needed two shots at victory (Joe Nedney whiffed the potential walk off field goal) to topple these pathetic 'Hawks. And they're the second best team in the division. Epic fail indeed.
Vernon Davis may or may not have dressed for this game -- no one really knows since he didn't show up on the stat sheet. O'Sullivan did put up a ton of statistics, but expecting that on a regular basis, even in a Mike Martz offense, seems a bit bold, if I may say so.
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Bold like JTO (a nickname that straight up rulez by the way)? You betcha. Martz' new, from-the-scrappile protege said in response to the news that it had been four years since the Niners had a 300 yard passer that, "Well, I haven't been here." Ro-wr, JTO, ro-wr.
JTO wasn't the only one singing his own -- or Martz' -- praises after the game either. Frank Gore, Nedney and Arnaz Battle, all superstars in their own right, discussed the awesomeness of not being mediocre on offense, although they declined to jam Alex Smith further under the nearest bus axle.
