Going into Week 10, Derek Smith sees positives being made by the 49ers defense, but wants even more out of his squad. In this installment of 50 on 50, Smith breaks down the game against the New York Giants and talks about what he thinks will give the 49ers a better chance to win this weekend in Chicago.
All I can speak for is defense, but I thought we went out and played physical, we played hard, and for most of the game we played smart. Against Tampa Bay, we played more of a complete game. This week, we were battling it out the entire game until that last drive.
We gave them some big plays that ended up in some Giants' points. You don't want to sit there and say, "If we take away those big plays, things would be different," because you can get into the bad habit of saying that. We needed to tighten up on every down. That catch Plaxico Burress had was just a great catch. The one Jeremy Shockey grabbed at the end of the half was another big play.
We are still playing hard. There's progress being made on the field. There were some opportunities on defense, like when the ball hit the ground a couple of times. We could have recovered one of those loose balls. When the ball was in the air, we could have got some of those turnovers too. We had our hands on some balls and dropped them. If we can capitalize on some of those opportunities, the defense can help the whole team out a lot more.
This week we have the Bears. I haven't had a chance to watch the film on them yet, but I'll come in tomorrow morning and watch some film. Tuesday is my first day of film. I'll get here early, get my treatment and my film for the upcoming game. We haven't had a win on the road, and I think we can give ourselves a chance to win if we play mistake-free football. If we go out and play physical, mistake-free football, that's going to give us the best chance to win in Chicago.
