Farewell Jim!

Jed York and Trent Baalke, Take us to your dealer. We need to know what you guys were smoking.

Really saddened by Jim Harbaugh's exit from the 49ers. I have read through tens of blogs in the past couple of days and I couldn't find any 49er fan who is happy that he is leaving.

Harbaugh was at Google couple of years ago. He requested that the event be held outdoors as he prefers the sunshine and just the idea of being outside, on the field. As he came in, he yelled, "Any 49er fans out there?", and some hollered back and clapped. Jim then said, "Any football fans out there? because thats what really matters...we are here to talk about football". There was a huge roar and I was thinking to myself -- this guy lives and breathes football, Why won't any player want to play for this guy?

Over the last few years, during football season, my week started with a read of Jim's monday/tuesday coach transcript discussing the previous game, and also to read up on the latest harbaughisms. His iconic "gobble, gobble, gobble turkey from jive turkey gobblers" is one for the ages. I still remember his public support of Alex Smith by saying "He's as tough as a two-dollar steak.” His thoughts on Schembechler's school of football -- can't ever forget his promise of using a full back and tight end at all times. Only he can come up with such things. Now to think Jim won't be around, and also staring at the possibility that my two favorite players -- Frank Gore and Justin Smith are exiting the team -- these are difficult pills to swallow.

Niner nation blogs posted the iconic "O Captain! My Captain!" clip from Dead Poet's Society. I can imagine players wearing the numbers 49, 7, 81, 21 standing on those benches in the locker room saluting Jim, but not the player wearing the number 85 though. After the final game, Gore had his kids at the game, and in the post-game locker room, Harbaugh approached Frank Gore's sons, and said "Your dad's the best guy ever." One of them replied "Please don't leave".

Who's Got It Better than us? Michigan for sure.

Read Option

The option offense in football is fascinating. It definitely seems like more teams in the NFL are employing an athletic quarterback with the idea of executing the read option. The new generation of QBs -- RG3 of the Redskins, Cam Newton of the Panthers, Russel Wilson in Seahawks, and of course Kaepernick of the 49ers have been drafted by their respective teams with that thought in mind. One of the risk however is the QB getting hit and having to come out of the game. Was that why Mike Shanahan, Coach of the Redskins, use a 4th round draft pick to take in another QB in the form of Kirk Cousins? Here is what Vic Fangio, defense coordinator of the 49ers, says of this trend in the NFL.

What makes that kind of offense so hard to defend?

“It just becomes a numbers game. Your typical run, the quarterback hands off and it’s now their ten against your 11. Now when he’s a potential runner, it’s their 11 against your 11 and they’re not even blocking one of the guys at the point of attack, so it actually becomes 11 against ten if they do it right. So, the numbers are flipped.” 

You’ve been around this league a while. We’ve seen a lot more of that this year. What has changed, the philosophy? Because they used to be afraid of getting their quarterbacks hurt. What do you think has changed?

“Well, I think part of is the NFL is a by-product of what the colleges feed us. The colleges are our minor leagues, and that’s what the colleges are feeding us now. So, when you get a quarterback that has that ability, it behooves you to maybe have that as part of your offense.”

The Hot Hand

Been studying a few things online and looking at 49ers play calling in the past 2 games, I think it is clear why Harbaugh picked Kaep over Alex. It is not because of his arm strength or his accuracy or deep throwing ability, but it is solely due to his running ability. Kaep comes out of Nevada, where their head coach Chris Ault had developed the Pistol offense. Pistol offense can help add the read option dynamic to a team's offensive game plan.

49ers, as we know, are a running team, their team is built around running backs and they have depth there. Their offensive line is built to run-block better than pass-protect. Greg Roman's background is the running game. They were not going to suddenly abandon all that and switch to a dynamic passing game, relying on Kaep's throwing ability. Not this late in the season anyway. With Alex Smith as the QB there was no explosive element in the 49ers run-centered offensive system. The opposing teams defense accepted it was going to be a grind playing the hard nosed 49ers offense, but they didn't lose sleep over it.

If 49ers were to make a run for the Superbowl, they needed some weapons on their offense to add to their base running game plan. This weapon is the extra dynamism of the read option -- RG3 and Cam Newton have been executing this quite successfully. Kaep now provides this ability for the 49ers. However, the one great disadvantage in using a QB read option is him getting a hit and going out of the game (look at RG3). But 49ers are golden here, they can immediately switch to Alex if Kaep gets hit and they can continue with roughly the same running game plan (minus the option) -- as if nothing happened. It is a win-win either way. Not many teams in the league have two starting calibre QBs, the 49ers do. This was simply the most logical choice for Harbaugh. Having Kaep as QB adds one more piece to the running game for the 49ers -- the pistol offense with the read option.

p.s. - a blogger noted that 49ers ran the pistol formation 17 times against the Dolphins.

p.p.s - "Basically, if the quarterback never runs, the defense has 11 and you've only got 10," "Nobody covers the quarterback. So most of your defenses are set up 11 on 10."

Give Frank the Ball

I loved this one particular play call during the third game of the 2012/13 season when the 49ers played Minnesota Vikings. Frank Gore fumbles the ball which was recovered by the Vikings, but on the next offensive play for the 49ers, they hand the ball back to Gore, reposing their faith in their man, their bell cow, their work horse. This says it all, the 49ers offense is built around Frank Gore and his running game. When Gore runs well, the niners win, the co-relation is stunning. Since 2005, Gore has accomplished the feat of 100 yard rushing in 32 games, and 49ers have won 25 of those games.

The loss v/s the defending Superbowl champions -- the Giants -- was hard to take as this was a statement game. Ahmad Bradshaw, the giants running back, proclaimed after the win "You gotta beat the man to be the man". 49ers, the anointed team-to-beat before this game, failed to show up. What was bizarre was Greg Roman's play calls, with many drive killing "Wild-kap" calls. 49ers were so backed up in the second half that Gore did not run at all in the second half. But it wasn't about the second half, the question is why did they dial down the running game after the first 2 drives in the first half, it didn't allow the offense to get into any sort of rhythm.

I like Alex Smith, despite the fact that he isn't in the "elite" class of quarterbacks such as Rodgers, Brees, Manning and Brady. Every team wishes for a Joe Montana but not every team gets one. We have to make the best of what we have, and Alex isn't too bad when used the right way. He isn't known for his deep passes or his accuracy, but he understands the 49ers system well, makes reasonable judgement and has the capability to give the ball to his playmakers such as Vernon Davis.

Real football is blocking and tackling. The passing or the running game is built around these two aspects. “If you watch NFL games I almost think NFL wide receivers are becoming bored,” Harbaugh said before the 2011 season. “They’re not significant in that they might get two to three balls thrown to them a game. But where is the running on the back side of the route? Where is the blocking? I want to make wide receivers relevant again in the game of football to where they’re playing 65-70 plays a game and feel relevant on every single play.”

After the loss against the Giants on sunday, 49ers took on the Seattle Seahawks on thursday night. These are two strong physical teams and some one tweeted that it felt like a game former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes and former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler would have loved to watch. Can you imagine a game in this era and age where the O-linemen are the stars? They were indeed the playmakers in this game, successfully blocking and creating holes for Frank to run through. I sense Roman and Harbaugh will come up with even more innovative play-calls that will take us back to football's roots -- blocking, tackling and the rushing game. It is an ode to the throwback style of football.

Post Script: NFL is known as the copy cat league, where success is imitated and replicated. If you look at the NFC West division, where in the absence of elite class quarterbacks, all of these teams are starting to build their game around a strong physical defense, a formula that 49ers used with great success in the 2011/12 season -- take what you have and work with it.

Stay for the Corn

There is a reason that a lot of slopes at ski resorts in the Northern Hemisphere are north facing. During winters in the northern hemisphere, the sun is in the southern sky, so the angle of inclination of the sun is lower in general, and particularly lower for N-facing slopes. These N-facing slopes receive less heat from the sun, and hence the snow pack lasts longer and remains fresher.

A lot of folks living up in the Sierra Nevada recall that the reason they moved up to the sierras was their love for snow and their passion for skiing, but they invariably concede that they have stayed on in the high alpine because of summer. "Come for the winter, stay for the summer" is their refrain. When it comes to skiing in Tahoe, there is a similar sentiment -- come for those epic dumps, but stay for the joy of spring skiing. To me, my favorite ski month is not December (usually hit-and-miss), not January or February (when the resorts are crowded), but it is actually March and early April. If you time it right, corn or spring snow is some of the most delicious you can experience. 

As spring arrives and sun's angle of inclination increases, temperatures rises and the top layer of snow melts. But during the night, temperatures up in the mountains are below freezing, so the top layer refreezes forming a hard icy surface. So to enjoy spring conditions, we need to patiently wait for the sun to do it's magic and adopt a simple rule: "Follow the sun".

Ideally, you start on E-facing slopes in the morning (snow softens on E-facing slopes first as the sun rises), move to S-facing ones mid-morning (as the day warms up, sun in the southern sky has shined longer on the S-facing slopes thus softening it up) and then move onto N- and W-facing ones as they soften up by lunchtime (sun shines on the western slopes in the afternoon, and N-facing slopes soften up in the afternoon heat).

Understanding the slope aspect and effects of the sun is important in order to have a good day on the snow because believe it or not most resort days are non-powder ones.

"sticks-and-stones" School

When Jim Harbaugh was hired out of Stanford to be the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2011, people drew parallels to the time when Bill Walsh, the legendary 49ers coach, was hired out of Stanford. Niner nation was convinced that Harbaugh will bring back the famed West Coast offense system into the 49ers playbook.

In a Traditional offense, the focus is on establishing a run game first, draw in the defense and possibly open up passing lanes downfield. In contrast,The 49ers' West Coast offense -- as developed by former San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh -- relies on short passes that stretch the defense horizontally using a quick, horizontal passing attack which then sets up the running game. The legendary 49ers QB Joe Montana mentioned that in the Bill Walsh system he was never forced to throw down the field unless he liked it. He said the emphasis was to give the ball to the play makers and let them make big plays.

But Jim Harbaugh is not a West Coast practitioner. Looking at how the 49ers have played under Harbaugh, it is clear that the emphasis is on a strong defense and a powerful running game. The great Jerry Rice called for the diapers to be taken off Alex Smith so that he can play more freely, perhaps throw passes more frequently, but that does not look like it will happen. The reason is: 49ers under Harbaugh play old school football.

Harbaugh said this after winning the NFL Coach of the year in 2011: "I consider myself from the Woody Hayes coaching tree, Bo Schembechler is also part of that tree. Woody has the biggest tree in coaching". In this Woody Hayes/Schembechler coaching style the emphasis is on a fundamentally sound ground game and a physical and strong defense. 

Reading about Harbaugh's life, Bo's influence on him is clear. Harbaugh was around Bo when Jack, Jim Harbaugh's dad, worked as a defensive coach under Bo Schembechler. It continued when Schembechler picked Harbaugh to be Michigan's QB and the duo went onto win many bowl games. It seems like it was here that Jim picked up on Bo's coaching style which traditionally featured strong defense, dominating offensive lines, and a power-running attack. In the words of one commentator, Schembechler coached a "remorseless and punishing" brand of football. Bo's mentor in turn was Woody Hayes who has been described to profess the conservative style of predominantly running the ball at the opponent. Woody, they said, believed that the pass should be used as an element of surprise.

In an increasingly QB driven pass happy league, the 49ers, a proud and regal franchise, are bringing back an old style of playing football. Looks like other teams are going nuts trying to make sense of all this.

P.S - I actually wonder but don't know enough about football yet to determine if Harbaugh is creating a hybrid approach. San Francisco seems to utilize complex formations and personnel packages which is probably west coast style. Mind going crazy now.

Under the Covers

Tahoe's Kirkwood ski resort has always been this laid back rustic bare bones ski area, not affected by the commercialization and mall culture plaguing other resorts such as Heavenly and Northstar. So, Vail resorts' recent acquisition of Kirkwood surprised many. "Kirkwood sold it's soul to the devil!", they thundered. "Save the independent ski areas in tahoe!", they implored.

Were they really independent? Here is a sneak peek of the Tahoe ski industry.

KSL Capital Partners owns Squaw as well as Alpine Meadows and now are the majority stake holder of this combined resort area. JMA ventures owned Alpine and now are minority stake holders. JMA also owns Homewood.

Boothcreek resorts own Sierra-at-tahoe resort, which some claim to be the last independent ski resort in tahoe area. Boothcreek actually used to own Northstar-at-tahoe but sold it off to Vail in 2010. Vail had made an entry into tahoe area by acquiring Heavenly in 2002.

Why mention all this? George Gillett, a businessman and entrepreneur, was the former owner of Vail. He also went on to co-found Boothcreek and is their CEO & chairman. Michael Shannon and Larry Lichliter worked with Gillett, as CEO and COO, respectively, of Vail . Shannon and Lichliter went onto co-found KSL Recreation (Kravis, Shannon, Lichliter) which ultimately became KSL Capital Partners. So these 3 business holdings put together and the closely connected individuals behind them own five of the most popular resorts in the Tahoe area and are now influencing the direction of the Tahoe ski industry.

Ski industry is now operated as a business and for profit. Profits should never be construed as a bad thing, it will guide their investments. This might be in contrast to the tradition and style of the original Tahoe ski pioneers such as Alex Cushing (founded squaw), Warren Hellman (was part owner of Sugarbowl), Dave McCoy (founded Mammoth), Dick Reuter (co-founded Kirkwood), and Bud Klein (founded Kirkwood). Never a dull moment reading about how McCoy built mammoth or how Reuter single-handedly lumber jacked his way around Kirkwood clearing ski runs. They were mountain men in the truest sense.

But, it is no secret that lift ticket sales alone were never profitable for the ski industry. The business reality makes a compelling case for these mergers -- helps to save costs, consolidate operations -- and explains their inclination towards real estate development at these resorts. Their focus now is on projecting these resorts as a winter vacation destination for urban families.With this approach, some say that skiing, as a sport, has perhaps been relegated to the background but I am not buying that argument. The charm of the mountain and snow is still their primary product, and they need to build a successful business around it. Their success is important for the sport of skiing.