There were a handful of huge plays in Super Bowl XLVII, none bigger than the Joe Flacco-to-Jacoby Jones 56-yard touchdown with 105 seconds to play in the first half that gave the Ravens a 21-3 lead at intermission. 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver, who found himself some 10 yards behind Jones when quarterback Joe Flacco released the ball, was in man coverage and looking for safety help from Donte Whitner which never came. Two days later, San Francisco's secondary still couldn't decide who was responsible for what on Jones' touchdown catch. Culliver was asked if Whitner was supposed to drop into coverage instead of shadow receiver Anquan Boldin, who was in the slot when the ball was snapped. "Yeah," Culliver said, according the Sacramento Bee's Matt Barrows. "Like I said, I don't want to throw nobody under the bus. But I had him and we wasn't on the same page, so it ends up as a touchdown." Whitner, meanwhile, had a different take on the defensive play call. "No. No. People don't know," Whitner said via Barrows. "It's something we call 'pounder' where we're playing man-under in a form of quarters (coverage) where I'm on No. 2 (receiver). Anything that No. 2 does, I'm over him. Then we're playing man to man outside. Our corners did a great job all year of playing this coverage. And it just caught him (Culliver). It just caught him. I don't know. "Chris is man to man, that was his guy. And the guy just got behind him," Whitner continued. "The guy is extremely talented guy. The guy who caught the football ... he's extremely fast. I don't know. He'll (Culliver) be better next year. He'll be better covering on the outside next year, and hopefully we don't give up those type of plays. But it's the Super Bowl. "Coverage goes with rush. And on that play, I don't know if we had the best rush. We definitely didn't have the best coverage. So Flacco was able to step up, throw it deep and that's exactly what we didn't want all week long." Source: CBS Sports
i would be more inclined to trust whitner's knowledge of the play call. it's obvious culliver released him, thinking whitner was going to pick him up but whitner was completely focused on the slot receiver, not even looking at Jones running past him.
