This Week in 49er History: Week 3, 2008

This week I have chosen to take a look back at a more recent game in our history, the 2008 week 3 matchup with the Detroit Lions.

I must confess that the reason for choosing this is entirely personal, as it was the game where I was finally able to fulfil my childhood dream of watching the 49ers play at Candlestick Park.

Ever since I was old enough to pick up a ball - the first I can remember being an American football - I had wanted to visit the home of the 49ers.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s reading and watching anything I could get my hands on about the game and our team.

And at the centre of it all was always Candlestick Park, the place where Joe, Jerry, Steve and countless other heroes played out the dreams of myself and thousands of others.

Living over 5,000 miles away, and before the internet changed everything, made San Francisco, its players and its stadium even more magical and in 2008 I was fortunate enough to set foot in there to watch a game. Bliss.

They say you should never meet your heroes for you shall always be disappointed. Whilst that may be true sometimes, thankfully on this occasion it most certainly was not.

With each year that has passed since the game, my memories have become even more entwined with my childhood dreams, making 'The Stick' even more iconic.

OK, enough with the romanticism, those of us who can recall 2008 can remember that it was hardly a vintage year on or off the field.

However it was a significant year that can be remembered as the beginning of the end of a bleak era that began in the early 2000s and did not come to a close until the hiring of Jim Harbaugh which signalled our latest, more successful epoch.

This game with the Lions proved to be both the last home game and the last win in Mike Nolan's tenure as Niners head coach.

Nolan was fired in Week 8 after a loss to the New York Giants gave the team a 2-6 record going into their bye week.

Mike Singletary took over as head coach until the end of the season and won the job on a permanent basis after inspiring a turnaround that saw the 49ers finish 7-9.

The 2008 season was also the year of the Mike Martz offense, when the orchestrator of 'the greatest show on turf' moved his unique offensive playbook from Detroit to San Francisco.

Quarterback and former first overall pick Alex Smith was soon to be placed on injured reserved due to a broken bone in his shoulder, an injury caused by a wire left in it from a previous surgery actually cutting through the bone!

With Smith out of the picture the starting Quarterback was J.T. O'Sullivan, a player who arrived to little fanfare as he signed from Detroit along with Martz, primarily because he knew the Martz offense better than anyone.

Legendary wide receiver Isaac Bruce, who made his name with Martz at the St. Louis Rams, was brought over in free agency.

By this point, though, Bruce was well past his best, but he still proved to be a useful addition to a rather lacklustre receiving core.

The 2008 draft will go down as one of the worst in franchise history.

Newly promoted general manager Scott McLoughin oversaw a draft that included only six picks due to the team being fined a fifth round pick for alleged tampering.

None of the six players selected are with the team, first-round pick Kentwan Balmer was never able to realise his potential and endured a dismal NFL career.

After being released by the 49ers, the defensive lineman spent time at Seattle, Carolina and finally Washington.

Balmer mysteriously disappeared from the Washington team hotel during preseason in 2012, with team officials unable unable to contact him for over a week. No explanation was provided and, in an even stranger development, he was not officially cut from the team until earlier this year, almost two years later.

Alway from the demise of Mike Nolan and the emergence of Mike Singletary, two of the primary occurences that signalled the beginning of the Niners' re-emergence came with the signing of Cincinnati Bengals defensive lineman Justin Smith and the shellacking of Vernon Davis by coac Singletary.

If Singletary is to be commended for anything during his time with the 49ers, aside from his sterling work with the team's linebacking core prior to his promotion, then he must surely be recognised for changing the fortunes of Vernon Davis who is now one of the elite tight ends in the game.

Its easy to forget just how different things were for Davis in 2008.

Up until then he had been a top end first-round pick who had never come close to delivering on his potential.

Sure, he had the most natural athletic ability possibly ever seen in a player, with size and speed stats that wowed everybody, but he'd never stood out on the field and was becoming more openly frustrated as time went on.

The tipping point for him occurred during Singletary's first game in charge, when Davis was penalised for slapping an opposing Seattle player after a play.

Singletary's response was to send his starting tight end to the locker room after a heated exchange of words on the sideline.

During the post-game press conference the head coach gave his most famous soundbite:

“I will not tolerate players who think its about them....I would rather play with 10 people...Cannot play with them, cannot win with them, cannot coach with them, can't do it! I want winners!”

Singletary's decision to publicly admonish the former Maryland star had a profound effect on Davis, who turned into a completely different player.

The physical beast who just couldn’t catch was suddenly spending hours on the practice field with a JUGS machine, as well as improving his route running, play recognition and blocking skills. 

He also brought a new maturity and team spirit into his play and quickly became recognised as one of the locker room leaders, a far cry from what he is believed to have been the case before Singletary took over.

Six years on and we have a player who excels at blocking, is the fastest player on the team, is known to have a great pair of hands and is widely regarded as being a fantastic team leader and role model. And to think, without Singletary and his lambasting of Davis, we may never of had 'The Grab' during the 2011 playoff win over the New Orleans Saints!

Justin Smith came to San Francisco on a six-year $45million dollar contract. That seemed like a lot of money in 2008, but the signing has certainly worked out.

49er great Bryant Young retired after the end of the 2007 season and the team needed to find a suitable replacement for the man who had carried the defense (and the team) for so many years. 

They found him in the Missouri native, who had just spent his first seven seasons in Cincinnati and has taken on the mantle from Young, amassing 41.5 sacks and 276 tackles for the 49ers.

After a fairly decent 7-9 season in 2007, the Lions were looking to become a playoff team in 2008. 

Instead the Lions suffered a spectacular downturn as they became the first team since 1976 to lose every regular season game, finishing 0-16 in what was their 75th year as the Detroit Lions.

Even with this pitiful record, they still had talent in several key areas of the field, especially at receiver, where they had Calvin Johnson and Roy Williams in what as at the time regarded to be the best pair of wideouts in the league. 

However, Williams was traded to the Dallas Cowboys just threeweeks later for first, third and sixth round picks in the following year's draft.

Onto the game.

Played before a capacity crowd and in an unusually hot Candlestick Park, the 49ers got on the board first when O'Sullivan found Bruce wide open in the back of the endzone for a six-yard touchdown.

During the second quarter Frank Gore capped off a fast six-play drive with a four- yard TD run out of a four-wide formation.

This was a typical Martz offensive rush play, coming out of a multiple receiver formation. Martz is mainly known for his passing offense, which was always prioritised over therunning game.

After a 44-yard field goal by Detroit, the 49ers put together another impressive drive with multiple long completions, including the final 23-yard touchdown pass to tight end Delanie Walker that put San Francisco ahead 21-3 at half-time.

The 49ers got the ball to start the second half and were driving nicely before the Lions' defense stiffened.

Joe Nedney attempted a 47-yard field goal but it was no good. Detroit then pulled back 3 more points thanks to a monstrous 51-yard FG by their long-time kicker Jason Hanson, making it 21-6.

During the fourth quarter the 49ers had another nice drive going that stalled at Detroit's one-yard line.

It was fourth and goal. The kicking team came onto the field but the crowd were raucous and begging Nolan and co to go for 6 points. 

After some hesitation a timeout was called and the kicking unit came back off the field!

Lining up in a three-wide formation with newly acquired cornerback and return man Allan Rossum in the slot position to the right of the QB, the 49ers prepared themselves for the play.

The ball was snapped to O'Sullivan and he handed it off to the speedy Rossum, who at this point was at full pace running parallel to the line of scrimmage. 

Rossum evaded a defender at the seven-yard line before making like a rocket towards the corner of the endzone, where he dived football first in for the score! 

That spectacular fourth-down goal-line play made the score 28-6.

The 49ers, who at the time were not accustomed to holding such a large lead, unsurprisingly grew a little complacent as the fourth- quarter clock ticked down.

A simple Detroit screen pass that should have been stopped before the line of scrimmage ended up going for a 34-yard touchdown late in the game, cutting the advantage to 15 points.

There was enough time for Joe Nedney to tack on another three points, though, and ensure a 31-13 San Francisco win.

With this win, the 49ers were 2-1 but their promising start did not deliver a season of success as the Niners endured another campaign of turmoil.

It was not a team brimming with legendary players, it had a quarterback who would rapidly disappear off of the face of the earth not long after, and it was a mediocre year overall, but this game and the team of 2008 shall always occupy a special place in my heart as they were the team that I actually saw play at Candlestick Park.

It contained the backbone of the side that we watch today, including stars such as Frank Gore, Patrick Willis, Joe Staley, Vernon Davis and Justin Smith.

Nolan began 2008 as head coach by by the end of that year it was Singletary's role. 

Singletary went on to coach the team for the next two years, with the appointment of Jimmy Raye as offensive coordinator the worst of a long list of failures.

These events brought on a desire to go 'new school' in 2011 and hire a younger, experienced, successful and more contemporary coach in the form of Harbaugh. The rest, as they say, is history.

This game was one of the bright spots of an average and unspectacular year.

Yet it was a year that began the turnaround the fans had wanted for so long and so, for the reasons outlined above, 2008 was a pretty important year in 49er history.

Thanks for reading,

Paul Kadwill