The Faulty-Niners

The way how the San Francisco 49ers ran their two-minute offense against the Arizona Cardinals was simply mind-boggling.

And an apparent miscommunication between the officials and the 49ers' coaches in the final seconds didn't help them either.

Down 24-29 in the final minutes in their Monday Night game, the 49ers were marching down the field and with 30 seconds to go, they got a first down inside the 5-yard line.

Out of time-out, they had to spike the ball the stop the clock. All they had to do was to spike the ball and the clock would stop running.

But for some reason, they decided to have not one, but numerous substitutions for that single play. The result: at least 20 seconds were lost.

Then on second down, Frank Gore ran left and was down just short of the goal line. The officials marked the ball at the 1-yard line, and the 49ers had to spike it again.

But just as they spiked the ball, the officials decided to review the play to see if Gore was indeed down by contact. When the replay showed that Gore's knee touched the ground after a Cardinals defender tapped his back, albeit slightly, the officials put two seconds back on the clock and it was now third-down with four seconds to go. The play clock would start at the referee's signal.

Only for one problem: The officials moved the ball back to the two-and-a-half yard line, apparently without informing the 49ers' coaches.

That's why we got to see a goal line offense at the 3-yard line and the play call was a typical one for goal line play: A plunge by the running back over the offensive linemen.

Michael Robinson simply didn't have a chance. Game over, and the Cardinals won.

After the game, Mike Martz, the offensive co-ordinator of the 49ers, claimed that he never realized that the ball was not on the 1-yard line for the final play. He also added that once the play call had been sent in, there was no way to change it.

In other words, Martz's mind was frozen in the final seconds.

To me, his mind was already frozen way before that.

After spiking the ball on first-down inside the 5-yard line, there was enough time for them to run three pass plays. All they had to do was to avoid throwing the ball in the middle of the field, and the clock would stop soon enough to give them three shots a the game-winning touchdown.

Instead, they ran on second-down and had to burn third-down on a spike play. And they didn't get to fourth-down as the clock ran out.

Meanwhile, if there was no way for them to change the call on the final play, shouldn't Shaun Hill have done something?

Hill, the 49ers' quarterback, should have noticed that something was wrong when he got the play call. Instead of questioning the call or changing the play by audible, he did nothing and allowed Robinson, the back-up running back, to become the culprit.

I hate to be blunt, but perhaps that is exactly the reason why he had been limited to only two kneel-down plays during his first six seasons in the league.