SAN FRANCISCO - Jim Harbaugh knows how to project an air of confidence, whether he's talking into his headset on the sidelines or addressing the media after a game. After his NFL head coaching debut, he showed the slightest crack of vulnerability.
"I slept like a baby last night," Harbaugh said. "Woke up every hour crying."
The 49ers gave their rookie coach a few reasons to weep Sunday at Candlestick Park, stutter-stepping through an uneven performance against the visiting Seattle Seahawks. But the defense was dominant at the beginning, and Ted Ginn was breathtaking at the end, allowing San Francisco to walk away with a 33-17 victory.
Harbaugh joined Red Hickey, Monte Clark, George Seifert, Dennis Erickson and Mike Nolan as 49ers coaches who won in their NFL debuts. It's clearly no guarantee of success - Bill Walsh lost in his first try - but it was an encouraging start for a team that stumbled to an 0-5 start out of the gate last year.
The Seattle offense looked miserable for much of the game, but the Seahawks wouldn't completely go away. You could sense the crowd's concern when, with 3:56 left in the game, Tarvaris Jackson and Doug Baldwin - who played for Harbaugh at Stanford last year - connected on a 55-yard touchdown pass that cut the deficit to 19-17.
That's when the Ginn got out of the bottle.
The fleet return man took ensuing kickoff 2 yards deep in the end zone and never hesitated. He veered to the right side of the field and burned down the sideline for a devastating touchdown and another nine-point lead.
"That's a boost for the whole team," defensive end Ray McDonald said. "We hit that dry spell where the defense is kind of playing dry and everything's not clicking. And then he just took that kick back, man. That was a real big boost for all three phases of the team."
Four plays later, Seattle inexplicably punted back to the 49ers with 3:05 left, and Ginn made them pay for their timidity. He bobbled the ball, gathered it in and sprinted 55 yards for another touchdown.
It was the first time in history the 49ers scored on a punt return and a kickoff return in the same game. Ginn also set up his team's initial points - the first of David Akers' four field goals - with a 32-yard punt return late in the first quarter.
Ginn's heroics were the final twist in a strange game that seemed to mutate every time the clock wound down to zeroes. The first quarter was a sluggish defensive struggle. The second quarter was a display of San Francisco dominance, capped by Alex Smith's 1-yard touchdown run 12 seconds before halftime. The third quarter saw the Seahawks sneak back into the game.
"For the most part, in the second half we were kind of lackadaisical," linebacker Patrick Willis said. "I felt like our intensity wasn't there that first series of the second half. … It was a wake-up call for us, and we ended up getting it right."
The fourth quarter got weird.
It started with a field goal by Steven Hauschka that got Seattle to within 16-10. The 49ers then launched a 15-play, 72-yard drive that ultimately ate up 9:01 of the clock - including 2:15 after Harbaugh made a highly risky decision. Akers hit a short field goal that would have given the Niners a 19-10 lead, but Seattle's Brandon Browner ran into him. Harbaugh elected to take the points off the board and take another crack at the end zone from the 1-yard line. The 49ers failed to get in, but ran off some time before Akers came back on for an 18-yard kick.
That set the stage for those dramatic late touchdowns.
Ginn's speed bandaged over an overall poor performance by Harbaugh's offense. The 49ers had just 209 total yards, 124 passing yards and 12 first downs. They converted just 1 of 12 third-down opportunities, and none through the first three quarters. Frank Gore averaged just 2.7 yards on his 22 carries.
For most of the game, the defense more than made up for it. There were two rookies among Seattle's starting offensive linemen, and all five had combined for just 27 NFL starts before Sunday. It showed as the 49ers' starting three-man line of Ray McDonald, Isaac Sopoaga and Justin Smith menaced the Seahawks all day. They all made big plays, and so did outside linebacker Parys Haralson, who caused two fumbles that the 49ers recovered.
Seattle was only slightly better than the Niners statistically, with 219 total yards, and had a meager 37 yards at halftime. Jackson was sacked five times on the day.
The 49ers now have a winning record for the first time since they were 3-2 during their bye week in 2009. They also have a date with the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2, and perhaps a sense that they'll have to play better than they did today to improve to 2-0.
"I always feel that a football team has a chance to gain its biggest improvement from Week 1 to Week 2," Harbaugh said, "whether that's Week 1 of the preseason to Week 2 of the preseason games, Week 1 of the regular season to Week 2, or playoff Game 1 to Game 2. I'm sure it won't be too many hours until I start focusing on that."
You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com
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