San Fransisco Chronicle
Sunday, September 23, 2007
49ers running back Frank Gore (21) is taken down by the Steeler defense in the first quarter.
(09-23) 19:53 PDT Pittsburgh --
Three games in, and the 49ers - no longer invincible - have discovered their own inconvenient truth: Frank Gore, playing his guts out week after week, cannot carry them.
Their 2-0 record, constructed out of Popsicle sticks, paste and a winning margin of four total points, disintegrated Sunday on the road once an elite NFL defense took direct aim at the 49ers' most dependable scoring threat.
The Steelers stacked the box, planted safety Troy Polamalu in the rushing lanes, blitzed quarterback Alex Smith and gradually overpowered San Francisco 37-16, sending streams of Pittsburgh folks home from Heinz Field early.
And yes, the 49ers did throw the ball to tight end Vernon Davis, as per his request. Not that he caught them all.
Or that his four receptions for 56 yards helped all that much, especially when referee Gerald Austin interpreted a third-quarter Davis catch-and-tumble reception at the Steelers' 32-yard line as an incomplete pass.
But as coach Mike Nolan pointed out, there was more variety in the heavily critiqued 49ers attack this week. More bootlegs for Smith, who finally threw his first touchdown pass, a 21-yarder to Taylor Jacobs in the blowout fourth quarter. More shotgun. An unusual pass attempt to heretofore unused vertical threat Ashley Lelie, who appeared to rationalize Nolan's lack of faith in his free-agent wideout by dropping the ball.
Gore, along with his teammates on offense, realize they no longer can live by the run on first and second down, or the what-the-heck field goal. Certainly they can't depend on the generosity of their mistake-prone division opponents.
"I tried. But they came and played good defense," said Gore, a man of few words and simple truths who had 14 carries for 39 yards against the Steelers' third-ranked defense. "We've just got to play better offense right now. We're struggling."
By failing to capitalize early on prime opportunities, the 49ers practically invited the fourth-quarter rout. In point of fact, there was the first-quarter sack of Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger by outside linebacker Hannibal Navies, who forced a fumble on the play and recovered the ball at the Steelers' 22-yard line. Navies' effort was wasted when the drive stalled at the 4-yard line.
"It's real frustrating. Like I said, you get a touchdown, it's better for the team. Three points is good but seven points is better," Gore said. "It would have been a better game."
Settling for three points time after time because of dropped passes, poorly timed routes and a lack of urgency has caught up to the 49ers, and they're now 2-1 with a renewed sense of purpose.
"There were a lot of plays in that game that would have made a difference," Nolan said. "We had a couple of dropped balls in the first half that would have made a difference."
Nolan, though, would not use the critical ruling on the Davis noncatch - a point when the 49ers trailed 17-6 and really could have used a touchdown - as an excuse why his team lost.
"I would like to think, because we can control this, that we lost the game," Nolan said. "When you start putting it on somebody else, I can't control that."
Did the Steelers take Gore out of the game?
Not as much as the 49ers did, by falling into such a deep hole. "You're passing because of that," Smith conceded.
Pittsburgh had not allowed an individual 100-yard rushing performance in 27 games, including the playoffs, dating back to the 2005 season. In their past 52 games, the Steelers had allowed only one player, then-Colts running back Edgerrin James, to exceed the century mark in rushing yards.
This season, the 3-0 Steelers of the Mike Tomlin era have returned to attack mode on offense as well, outscoring opponents 97-26.
Their ability to neutralize Gore on Sunday is not striking. It is a trend. Teams are stacking eight and nine players in the box against him, and the NFC's leading rusher last season saw this coming back in training camp.
For a single-minded guy such as Gore, a player who defines himself by his ability to pile-drive his 223 pounds into stacked defensive fronts and bust through chunks of daylight, the 49ers' inability to butt heads on offense has gotten to him.
"Yeah, man. I mean, all of the guys, we've got to come together, man. We ain't together right now, man. The defense is doing all they can out there and we ain't matching them at all," said Gore, who has 175 yards and three touchdowns on 52 carries after three games.
Take away his 43-yard touchdown run at St. Louis, the 4th-and-1 third-quarter burst, and Gore's average per carry drops from 3.4 yards to 2.6.
What Gore left unsaid was this: It's time for Davis, for Smith, for Darrell Jackson and Arnaz Battle and the rest of the 49ers' offensive players to pull their weight. Gore and kicker Joe Nedney shouldn't bear the individual strain of scoring the points, week after week.
The good news is, the message was received.
"We left some plays out there on the field. There were big chunks there," Smith said. "That was a good defense we faced. And I think we'll learn a lot from this game."
E-mail Nancy Gay at ngay@sfchronicle.com.
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