The Niner-Harbaugh story is far bigger than the hyped St. Tebow story.

[trumad]

Harbaugh turned a team of misfits into a pretty damn good team.

[trotsky]

1. No kidding.

For a 1st class douche, the guy knows how to make a football team work. ALEX freaking SMITH for crying out loud.

[trumad]

2. I think the Niners have a littles ways to go...

and were certainly helped by a crippled Ben last night...

But---college coach hops on and is as good as any NFL coach out there.

[Auggie]

3. Vic Fangio, Defensive Coordinator,

deserves a lot of credit. Harbaugh hired good lieutenants and benefitted from some decent draft picks, many prior to his arrival, who are just now maturing. I think Harbaugh has coached Alex Smith well, mentally as well as physically.

But Smith and particularly the O-Line are the 49ers Achilles' Heel. The front line isn't deep -- one injury and a defense can easily rattle Smith. It's a good assessment trumad -- they have a ways to go.

[trumad]

5. But you see the core coming together.

That was the problem with Sparano.

There is a core in mho, but he simply couldn't connect the dots. Miami has some really good players...they just needed a coach who could coach them.

[Old and In the Way]

14. Alex looks like Aaron Rodger's twin brother.

Played like him, too.

[PRETZEL]

4. Got to give them credit

they're playing good ball. Smith isn't killing them and their defense is playing well.

Ben playing hurt didn't help.

[trumad]

6. There is no way he should have played last night.

I don't know what they were thinking in letting him play.

[Auggie]

7. Not much in confidence in Charlie Batch, I'd say

[madinmaryland]

9. I think Batch would have given them a better chance than Ben.

He could barely move in the pocket and his motion looked only marginally better than Tebow's.

[PRETZEL]

10. "and his motion looked only marginally better than Tebow's."

ouch,

That's not fair.

[PRETZEL]

8. I think a couple of things played into that

I heard that Tomlin got the ok from the medical staff that he could go. That was part of it and from what Tomlin said after the game, it was his leadership on the field that was part of also.

Another thing, we got a gift from Baltimore Sunday nite. A win last nite and we have the Rams and Browns left on the schedule. Both games are very winnable with Charlie Batch at qb and we would be the number 1 seed with a buy week and home field advantage. Baltimore has, I believe, the Browns and Bengals to finish off the season. Cincy is still fighting for a playoff spot which could work to our advantage since Baltimore wouldn't be able to rest anyone.

Ben's going to need a couple of weeks to heal. It was a gamble that didn't pay off.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Agreed...with his limited mobility, he could have aggravated the injury much worse.

I'd have at least tried Batch to see how he performed. If he had played well, Ben could have used the time to heal without the risk of sustaining another injury or making the one he does have worse.

[Auggie]

11. One more factoid about the game last night

From the San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 20, 2011:

Left tackle Joe Staley said the 49ers were ready for a Pittsburgh's zone-blitzing schemes after a round-the-clock week of preparation.

"Guys did a great job of preparing all week," Staley said. "We knew it was problem area; we really identified it. A lot of guys spent a lot of extra time watching tons of film this week. We felt like we knew exactly what they were going to do before they tried to blitz."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/19/SP141MEH6K.DTL

WTF -- you mean it's as simple as that?

Memo to the 49ers: Watch more film.

[WilliamPitt]

12. The Niners defense has been improving for several years now.

It showed last night.

[joeybee12]

13. And I'd like to thank the Niners for last night's game...

The Pats now control their destiny for the #1 seed...of course, they'll lose in the first round, though. Mark it down. Fact.

[MrSlayer]

16. If they get the number one seed they can't lose in the first round.

Because they'll get a bye.

Than can lose in their first game though.

[joeybee12]

19. They probably will!!!!

[fishwax]

17. Between the 2009 bye and this year's bye, the Broncos went 7-24

Since the bye, they've gone 7-2.

There's no doubt that the 49ers are a better team than the Tebow-led Broncos--but that's to be expected, since they were a (much) better team last year, too. They finished 6-5 after starting 0-5, and had it not been for the disastrous start of the year they would have won the NFC West. They had a defense that was middling last year but had been very good the year before, whereas Denver has finished in the bottom 3 in points allowed two of the last three years, and last season was dead last. They haven't had a top 10 defense since 2006 or a top 15 offense since 2005.

The Broncos have been thoroughly inept. No team in the NFL had a worse record between November 2009 and Tebow's start against Miami. Not the Detroit Lions, not the Carolina Panthers, not the Buffalo Bills, not the Cleveland Browns. Not even the St. Louis Rams. Since the bye they're 7-2, in the driver's seat for a division championship (and in a good spot for a wildcard slot if they don't get that), and up until last week had the top rushing offense in the league.

So the Broncos turnaround is pretty significant. It's just that it's not the result of Tebow being a superior quarterback.

[trumad]

18. Bu the Broncs turnaround...

came from inept teams.

[fishwax]

20. lol -- San Francisco's wins come against teams with a combined record of 62-78

so they haven't exactly been playing murderer's row. Their 11 wins include wins against five teams at or above .500, while the Broncos have beaten four.

Of course, the 49ers have fared better against good teams. To their credit, they've gone 3-2 against teams in playoff position, with that marquee win against Pittsburgh as well as wins over Detroit and Cincinnati. (They lost to Dallas and Baltimore.) The Broncos haven't fared as well, beating the Jets (and the Bengals, but that was back before the bye) but losing badly to New England and being completely destroyed by Detroit.

But, then, it's no surprise that the Broncos haven't fared as well against good teams, since they aren't as good a team as the 49ers.

If somebody offered you 10-1 odds that the 49ers, after their 6-5 finish last year and after bringing in Harbaugh, would be 11-3 and on top of the NFC West (which, last year, was won by the 7-9 Seahawks, after all), would you have taken that bet? I would have.

If somebody offered you 10-1 odds that the Broncos, after starting 1-4 and then turning the reins over to a QB whose attempts to throw a forward pass resemble "a moose fucking a washing machine" would go on a 7-2 run, be in the driver's seat for the AFC West Division title, and failing that with an inside track for a wild card spot, would you have taken that bet?

[trumad]

21. To be fair...the whole league sucks this season.

[fishwax]

22. hah! there's some truth to that

As evidenced by the fact that we can even have this conversation, since the Broncos are in playoff contention