Sports

From homophobic rant to Super Bowl flop for 49ers CB Culliver

NEW ORLEANS — Payback can be, well, you know, a bummer.

Chris Culliver got his five minutes of infamy this past week with some of the most homophobic and idiotic comments ever heard on radio airwaves. The hubbub he created died down, Super Bowl XLVII kicked off and Joe Flacco and the Ravens enjoyed throwing at and repeatedly beating Culliver as the 49ers came up small in their first taste of the big game in 18 years.

The Niners rallied from a 28-6 deficit to pull within 31-29, but they couldn’t complete the comeback, and the Ravens held on for a 34-31 victory. The hole was too deep to climb out of, thanks in large part to Culliver.

“I know [Culliver] feels bad,’’ linebacker Patrick Willis said. “Cully is a competitor, he wants to win on every play. Unfortunately he had a rough one.’’

A really rough one.

There’s no doubt the national audience didn’t know much leading into the week about Culliver, a second-year cornerback from South Carolina, and then was disgusted when he got on the radio and fouled up the airwaves with an anti-gay rant. The 49ers distanced themselves from the vile remarks and Culliver apologized, but the damage was done.

After embarrassing himself with his words, Culliver did pretty much the same thing with his actions on the field. He was on the wrong end of one of the more memorably bad defensive plays in Super Bowl history. It turned a 14-3 Ravens lead to 21-3 and got the heavily-Baltimore rooting crowd whipped into a frenzy of jubilation.

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The Ravens faced a third-and-10 from their own 44-yard line when Flacco escaped pressure in the pocket and looked deep for speedster Jacoby Jones. Culliver, for some reason, did not respect Jones’ speed and allowed him to run right on by. Jones, wide open, leaped at the San Francisco 9-yard line to make the catch. Culliver raced back trying to recover and actually overran Jones, who fell to the turf, untouched. He got back to his feet and cut to his left, out-running Culliver and then Dashon Goldson into the end zone, completing a game-breaking 56-yard score.

“The ball was in the air forever,’’ Goldson said. “This is the worst roller-coaster game I’ve ever been a part of.’’

In the fourth quarter, Culliver, on a third-and-9 play, was called for pass interference working against Torrey Smith, giving the Ravens 14 yards and a first down to extend a drive that ended with a Justin Tucker field goal to extend Baltimore’s lead to 34-29.

“The referees have a big factor. … They see what they want to see,’’ Culliver said.

“Didn’t think that was an interference,’’ added 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh.

The Achilles’ heel of the otherwise sturdy 49ers defense is their secondary, a group that can be and has been beaten in the postseason. Culliver wasn’t alone in his misery, as safety Donte Whitner had a brutal first half. He allowed his third touchdown in the postseason when he could not stay with Anquan Boldin splitting the seam on a 13-yard scoring strike from Flacco to make it 7-0.

“All week we were working on double-teaming the guy,’’ Whitner said. “Just a bad situation out there.’’

Culliver didn’t help the Niners late in the first quarter when he couldn’t out-muscle Boldin on a 25-yard completion. A huge Niners comeback closed the deficit to 28-23, but Culliver struck again, failing to stay with Boldin on a 30-yard catch and run on third-and-3 to put the Ravens on the 49ers’ 35-yard line late in the third quarter.

“They targeted him a few times, got a couple of big plays on him,’’ Whitner said of Culliver.

A bad ending to a bad week.