JIM HARBAUGH
49ers coach loses cool in frantic finish.
NEW ORLEANS — If only the 49ers had brought the Stanford marching band with them from the Bay Area, maybe this game really would have had everything. As it was, Ted Ginn Jr. tried to weave his way through the sea of white jerseys, tried to find small patches of green to sneak through.
Tried to find a way — any way — to make this game last a little bit longer.
And that wouldn’t have bothered anyone, would it? Folks all over this town learn to savor every meal they eat in the Quarter, in the Warehouse District, in the Garden District, learn to take small bites to make their dinners at Emeril’s and Commander’s and Revolution last as long as possible.
So why not do the same now?
Ginn couldn’t do it, of course. No laterals, no miracles, no marching band to get in the way, even if a former Stanford coach was standing on one of the sidelines, alternately getting outcoached by his big brother and throwing temper tantrums to make every 6-year-old in America jealous.
But really, that was part of what made this Super Bowl so super. With brothers colliding on the coaching lines, with two brilliant quarterbacks taking two distinct routes to the finish line — all of it leading to fourth-down-and-the-season there at the end — the only ones among the 71,024 inside the Superdome who really wanted this to end were the Ravens, running on fumes at the end.
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“You know what the turning point of the game was?” Baltimore coach John Harbaugh would say. “When we covered the kick on the last play.”
So, was Ravens 34, 49ers 31 the best Supe of all?
Put it this way: This morning we can certainly make a case for it. It wasn’t the most well-played. It didn’t end on a gun-beating field goal. It didn’t feature an 18-0 team stumbling a few yards shy of the finish line because a football stuck like Velcro against the side of a helmet.
But it had just about everything else.
It had Joe Flacco, the newest Super Joe, joining Namath and Montana in the pantheon of quarterbacks good enough — say it: elite enough — to carry their teams to the finish line. It had some bizarre coaching by both Harbaughs — Baltimore John calling for a mindless fake field goal when his team was in cruise control, Frisco Jim refusing to run his gem of a quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, or his diamond of a running back, Frank Gore, even once despite having four shots inside the 7-yard line with the game in the balance.
“We had other plays called,” Frisco Jim said.
And, of course, there was The Blackout, the 34-minute delay early in the second half that re-booted the game, that spared us from one of those vintage, ’70s-era, one-sided eyesores that used to define the Big Game.
After, we had a classic that will keep fans of both teams up for a week — the Ravens because the palpitations might not cease and desist until the Orioles report for pitchers and catchers, the 49ers because their coach, believed to be the smartest human being on earth, choked with the game on the line and wouldn’t give his best players the opportunities to win the game.
And then didn’t mind pointing out the refs might have missed a call or two, the ultimate loser’s lament.
Kaepernick had led the 49ers back from 28-6 down by throwing, by running, by doing all of the things that have so quickly elevated him to one of the most devastating talents in the game. Kaepernick was awful early and looked overmatched by the moment.
And then he was … what? Something else? Something else. He was everywhere, he was everything, you couldn’t keep your eyes off him, the Ravens couldn’t tackle him, he had the Niners set up first-and-goal on the 7-yard-line …
And that was that. One run. Three passes. Two yards. Somehow, Jim Harbaugh is going to have to live with that, and he’ll probably throw a remote control or two across a room when he watches the sequence again.
And he should watch. Not only to beat himself up, not only as a coach, but as a fan. This was what we want the Super Bowl to be every year: a few goats, more heroes, huge plays, and an ending that will sustain us, keep us talking, all the way to July. Was it the best Supe ever?
It’s certainly in the conversation. And it’s a hell of a conversation.