Regarding joeshmo and some other comments:
1. Ken Lucas has dominated his side of the field all year. During the regular season, he may have had three balls thrown to his side, and I don't recall any being completed. In our preseason game with the Giants (our 3rd game as I recall), he gave up a fairly deep pass, but kind of joked about it because it was the first pass he'd seen his way up to that point. He's physical against the run, and is our best cover guy by a mile. Look for McCown to go to Gamble's side with the deep ball.
2. Peppers has indeed been a disappointment, but he is also a notoriously slow starter, gathering the vast majority of his 30 career sacks in the second halves of seasons. Rucker has made some nice plays from his end, forcing a couple of big fumbles. An advantage for you since double teams do not seem critical at this point.
3. Our offensive line will get better as the year goes on; LT, LG, and RT are either new or playing a new position. They have been good on pass protection, but relatively weak on run protection. The company line is that we take what opponents give us, so while we are run first, if you bring a lot of guys to the line we will go to the air more frequently.
4. GB double and even triple covered Smith. Colbert stepped up and made some nice plays, along with a couple of TDs to TEs (Gaines, Mangum). In single coverage, Smith seems to ALWAYS get open, so he caught most of the balls the first 3 games. It would be a mistake to assume that Smith is the only one who can catch a pass.
5. I disagree with most of our whiners regarding our DC. He does pressure relatively consistently; the problem is the Dline not creating enough of a push. I expect that to change at some point. Our problems tend more in the soft zone coverages, due to concerns with our safeties. Underneath routes, quick slants and outs are where Fitzgerald and Boldin can make big plays. The deep ball is tough to complete against Lucas and/ or Gamble.
It is very tough to run against us, and that is probably your greatest area of concern since Shipp's production has been limited. When opponents are in obvious deep passing situations, we will aggressively blitz, which has forced more misfires and incompletions than sacks this year but still effective.
Congratulations on the quality of the board here. You guys do a nice job of actually talking about football. There are an excessive number of yahoos on our boards. I expect a tight game- good luck Sunday.