SAN FRANCISCO — Jim Harbaugh has spent his entire coaching career as nothing short of a football alchemist, a mad genius in a mock turtleneck and a scowl. Most recently he has been responsible for turning the chronically dysfunctional San Francisco 49ers into one of league's best teams — a ranking that improved with a 45-31 victory over the Green Bay Packers on Saturday in an N.F.C. divisional playoff game.
This season, however, has been different than 2011, Harbaugh's first in San Francisco — less for a deficiency of genius than an abundance of mad. Perhaps nothing illustrates this more clearly than the quarterback swap of Colin Kaepernick for Alex Smith. A new starting quarterback, from Week 11 on. For better or for worse.
This is the game that Harbaugh has chosen to play. His great gamble this season was benching Smith, the incumbent who had taken the 49ers to within a botched fumble of last year's Super Bowl, in favor of a second-year player with high upside and whose résumé's brightest spot before this season was his standout play at the University of Nevada.
In the first minutes Saturday, it looked as if the gamble was about to bust. On San Francisco's fourth play from scrimmage, Michael Crabtree lined up wide right as the team's only receiver, and Kaepernick's primary option. When Crabtree slipped to the field, however, Kaepernick turned left and forced a pass to tight end Vernon Davis. Packers cornerback Sam Shields jumped the route, returning the interception 52 yards for a 7-0 Green Bay lead barely two minutes into the game.
But Kaepernick immediately displayed the trust Harbaugh has in turning to him. On San Francisco's next drive, Kaepernick dumped a nice 16-yard checkdown to Frank Gore, who rumbled for an additional 29 yards to the Packers' 22. Three plays later, Kaepernick escaped a crumbling pocket, seizing the opening like a right-handed Steve Young and stunning a scrambling Green Bay defense for a 20-yard touchdown.
After getting hit hard by defenders front and back following a 15-yard run in the second quarter, Kaepernick spiked the ball at their feet, incurring a 15-yard penalty.
But again Kaepernick responded, finding Crabtree two plays later for a 20-yard touchdown and a 21-14 49ers lead.
Were Smith playing, he may have avoided several of Kaepernick's early-game mistakes, but even at his passing best, the seven-year veteran did not have nearly the array of touch passes, floaters and bullets unleashed by the 25-year-old Kaepernick. Add to that Kaepernick's majestic third-quarter touchdown run — a 56-yard designed run around right end.
Ultimately, Harbaugh looked simply like a genius. The 25-year-old Kaepernick finished with 181 yards rushing — two running touchdowns — for the highest rushing total for a quarterback, in either a regular-season or playoff game. It was also the 49ers' highest rushing total in a playoff game, from any position. Factor in Kaepernick's 263 passing yards — and two more touchdowns — and it becomes hard to imagine that changing quarterbacks was ever considered a gamble at all.
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