The NFC Championship game was unbelievably exciting this year. The teams played hard and the score was close. If you’re a football fan, it’s games like these that makes the sport worth watching.
We all know what happened. In overtime, the Niners’ Kyle Williams fumbled deep in San Francisco territory and New York recovered. The Giants won with a short field goal shortly thereafter.
Williams is the easy target for the loss. He already had a muffed punt earlier in the game led to another Giants’ score. If he just hadn’t made one of his two major mistakes, the 49ers would have won. That’s the story we tell ourselves.
I think that’s the wrong story. The game was so evenly matched that we can look at any number of plays as a possible turning point. There’s the Giants fumble that never was. Or San Francisco’s horrendous conversion rate on third down. If the 49ers could have gotten a little luckier or executed a little better, they could be the ones going to the Super Bowl.
Blaming Kyle Williams for the loss is stupid. Making death threats to him and his family is even stupider.
The Niners were so close. With a little more help somewhere or somehow, they could have won that game. Williams’ errors would have been reduced to little more than a footnote instead of being enshrined in sports infamy. We would be singing the praises of the team, not bemoaning the miscues.
San Francisco barely lost. They could have barely won. The team did their best, including Kyle Williams. The game was entertaining and competitive.
That’s the story I’ll remember.
