49ERS Saints game has some interesting occurrences

San Francisco coach Steve Mariucci wanted more time to mount a drive with the hope of forcing OT.
VINDICATOR STAFF REPORT
In 24 years of coaching football, Steve Mariucci has seen some strange plays.
Last Sunday's final two minutes of San Francisco's 35-27 loss to the Saints in New Orleans contained two of the most unusual sequences the 49ers coach has witnessed.
Trailing 28-27 at the two-minute warning with the Saints offense on the 49ers' 1, quarterback Aaron Brooks scored, but the Saints were flagged for having 12 men on the field.
Because the 49ers had just one timeout remaining, they declined the penalty, giving their opponent a touchdown. If they hadn't, the Saints could have run off 90 seconds before booting a chip-shot field-goal.
A minute later, the game was interrupted when a fan jumped out of the Louisiana Superdome stands and ran onto the field into the 49ers huddle.
Seldom seen
"That was a real interesting scenario," said Mariucci of the final two minutes that ended with the Niners on the Saints' 19. "Fans don't often see something like that."
After being outscored 22-3 in Sunday's fourth quarter, the 49ers, owned by John and Denise DeBartolo York of Canfield, are 4-2 and tied with this week's opponent, the Arizona Cardinals, atop the NFC West Division.
"The Cardinals are an up-and-coming team," Mariucci said.
Running back Garrison Hearst (hamstring) and wide receiver Terrell Owens (heel) are listed as probable for the game. Linebacker Saleem Rasheed is doubtful with a strained quad muscle.
The 49ers' braintrust said no-thanks to the penalty (and canceled touchdown) in order to give their high-powered offense more time to drive.
"We ran 12 plays on that drive," Mariucci said. "If Kevan [Barlow] gets out of bounds a second earlier, we would have taken a shot with a pass into the end zone.
"We figured we had to go for a touchdown and a two-point conversion, so we needed all the time we could get," said Mariucci during a break in preparations at the team's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif.
Logic
"When the Saints took the ball to the 1, the coaching staff began discussing whether we should just let them score, then try for overtime," Mariucci said.
"I'm no mathematician, but if you do the math you'll find that if we had accepted the penalty, we would have gotten the ball with maybe 15 seconds left," Mariucci said. "They would have had four downs and we could have only stopped the ball once.
"So it really was a no-brainer -- why have only one shot at a Hail Mary pass when you conserve enough time to mount a drive?" Mariucci said.
During the drive, a 12th man joined the San Francisco huddle. Saints fan Otis Henry, 50, ran into the 49ers huddle carrying a pen.
"I heard he was trying to sign TO's [Terrell Owens'] jersey, but he grabbed [center] Jeremy Newberry's jersey," said Mariucci, who added that he didn't see the fan until "all of the sudden I saw him flying out of the huddle because Newberry pushed him.
"Newberry said that at first he thought it was an NFL official checking his jersey for an illegal substance, which is what they do at the start of a game," the six-year 49ers coach said.
Mariucci wasn't surprised that Henry was able to jump out of the stands to field level.
"I can understand how that can happen, but for nobody to notice him running into the huddle, that's a strange thing. He only had a pen, but it could have been anything," Mariucci said.
Blew lead
Blowing an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter left a sting.
"I don't know which kind of loss is harder -- blowing a lead or coming close but falling short," Mariucci said. "We know why we lost this game -- we turned the ball over twice in the fourth quarter and gave them two short fields. We simply didn't get it done."