Sigh. Glaring observations that many of you have already stated.
Defense:
Dlineman. Bennett is just as athletic, if not more than Peppers. He was having his way at the line of scrimmage. Clay and peppers got together a couple of times, but were scrambling and reacting because of subbing. Coaching miss.
Linebackers. Perry and d.jones just look stiff and limited compared to Morris and the Seattle lbs. they were flying all over the place. The Seattle lbs were every bit as athletic as eddie lacy and met him at the LOS.
Secondary. Maxwell played well being picked on the whole game for Seattle. Sherman should have been challenged. Clinton Dix needs to tackle fundamentally better. Shields is the only explosive db we have. Seattle has several.
Overall, Seattle is a rangy and super athletic defense. No news there. The only team that really matches up with them is San Francisco. Our team has only a handful of players who match up athletically. Scheme all you want. It's an uphill battle without the faster horses. Ask Denver.
Offense:
RBs. lacy is strong, tough and quick. Lynch is just as strong, tough, but much quicker. Watch lynch's footwork. Like lightning. Lacy is good too, but watching them side by side, it was clear who had the quicker feet.
WRs. Percy Harvin. A more athletic version of Randall Cobb. And I think Randall is exceptional. We could have benefited from putting Cobb in better situations with the ball(more out of the backfield, etc). Nelson was stellar. Even Seattle respected him. Should have challenged Sherman.
Tight ends. Zach millers diving catch. Us? No diving catches by a TE.
QB. Wilson is getting better and better. A more complete QB than Kaepernick. Played within himself and was hard to stop with lynch play actions.
Rodgers was steady but did NOT challenge Sherman. Coaches and players can deny it and claim that they were shifting Jordy around but, last time checked, shifting a player around means playing him on the other side of the field too. That rarely happened. They matched him up against maxwell for 80% of the game. Sherman had boykins most of the time. The proof is that not one throw went that way.
I'm very disappointed in this. I hate to say this but Favre would've challenged Sherman. He may have lost, but he'd go down swinging. Even Kaepernick challenges. He loses, yes, but is not afraid. Aaron played afraid, or at the least ...conservative. The film doesn't lie.
All in all, we are what we thought we were. A second tier team to the Seahawks and the 49ers. 12-4 and one and done in the playoffs again, if they face SF or Seattle. We can go back to the drawing board and pad the stats against mediocre teams like the Jets, but this January wont lie. Call it pessimism, but I call is realism.
More athletic talent is needed for the team to take it to the next level. 2010 feels so far away now.
Not much else to say.
p.s. Aaron is the QB that challenged a more athletic USC defense with a slow CAL offense, and scored 23 straight completions against them because he wasn't afraid. You can't do that with half the field And "shifting" your best receiver to the left side of the field most of the time.