Smith gets big plays in passing game

SAN FRANCISCO -- The 49ers have been ranked near the bottom of the NFL in passing yards all season. Big plays have been rare.But the 49ers had success through the air Sunday against the St. Louis Rams in their 26-0 NFC West-clinching victory at Candlestick Park.Quarterback Alex Smith had his two longest pass plays of the season and both went for touchdowns. And Smith made another perfect deep pass on a ball tight end Vernon Davis dropped in the end zone.
After settling for three David Akers field goals in the first half, the 49ers broke through early in the third quarter.Michael Crabtree used a stutter move against cornerback Justin King on a deep post and caught Smith's perfectly thrown pass for a 52-yard touchdown."I just had to go get the ball," said Crabtree, who is tied with Davis for the team-lead with 48 receptions. "Alex made a great throw and I ran up right under it."Second-year receiver Kyle Williams showed his 4.43 speed in the 40-yard dash early in the fourth quarter to provide another long touchdown.The Rams brought a six-man blitz, and Smith threw an 8-yard hitch to Williams, who cut inside of right cornerback Josh Gordy and outran everybody to the end zone for a 56-yard score."(I) certainly didn't expect him to house-call it, but he slipped inside, broke a tackle and that was it," Smith said.Smith had the best passer rating of his career (142.3), as he completed 17 of 23 passes for 274 yards and two touchdowns. One of Smith's six incomplete passes could've easily been a 40-yard touchdown.Davis got several steps behind Rams safeties Craig Dahl and Quintin Mikell, but he simply dropped the second-quarter pass in the end zone. Davis said he got "over-excited because I'd pretty much killed the guy and I was in the end zone.""I've never had that happen to me before," Davis said. "I know all the great ones in the past, T.O. (Terrell Owens), Jerry Rice, they dropped passes. But that's not something I want to do. I want to be better than that. You always want to be better than the best. So that's something I have to get fixed."