Last night was probably our most dominant performance of the season. Aldon Smith was outstanding. He made the tackles look like it was their first ever game. As for Kaepernick, he played well but did look like a guy who was still learning the game. I haven't seen much of him and he seemed to match the college scouting reports/trials i.e. mobile with strong arm, needs work. A couple of his passes were exceptional it has to be said (there was one over the middle similar to Freeman's from Sunday that was terrific) but I'm not confident enough in him reading a game to say he should start. He showed some patience in the pocket which is good especially for QBs who run a lot i.e. it's a fine line but running QBs can have a tendency to run first instead of hanging on to the final second before passing. I'm not sure the game has changed enough for that approach to supersede the more patient classic professional NFL style especially as both him and Campbell took a couple of risks with getting tagged by a big hit.
Star of the game last night was really Harbaugh and the offense. The defense was brilliant but in that first half there were so many formations and moves on show that the Bears were having to guess at times what was going on. In those opening exchanges we seemed to pass on first down more often than run, allowing us to build up that lead which put us in control. I'm sure Harbaugh opened up the playbook to test Kaepernick's arm because we had a number of big passing plays in that first half, deviating from a relatively conservative playbook. I don't know if Smith has that range but with it we have options that can open up the game for us both running and passing.
As for the Bears, I'm sure they know their weaknesses. Would Cutler have made that much of a difference last night? He may have gotten the ball away a bit more but Smith and Smith were either pushing guys backwards like it was a training session or just bypassing them completely. Jon Gruden came out with a belter too, "Are the 49ers are trying to get Aldon Smith in Canton tonight?"
