GDT: 49ERS VS CHIEFS

[NinerSickness]

Now you see why we needed Le’veon Bell. Other than Juice, our backs are useless in the passing game.

I'm on board. Trade Jimmy & use the cap space on a RB like Bell (and a CB & WR after cutting Kwon). Try a year with BDN.

...And I'm probably going to end every post this offseason with cut Mike Person. That's gotta be the most infuriating non-QB starter the Niners have had since Derek Smith (or at least since Michael Crabtree).

[Bald Bull]

[what did you do? you must have did something wrong lol

I committed the cardinal sin of predicting a 49ers victory, so I blessed the Chiefs with reverse my super powers. Almost as impressive as this dude's crybaby powers.

To be fair, I really thought posting the GDT powers where going to get us a W.

[Dodub]

It’s time to ask Jimmy to take a pay cut. If we want to keep him to see if he develops then that’s fine but we can’t do it at the detriment of the team. We can’t continue to pay him like a top level QB.

[NinerSickness]

[what did you do? you must have did something wrong lol

I committed the cardinal sin of predicting a 49ers victory, so I blessed the Chiefs with reverse my super powers. Almost as impressive as this dude's crybaby powers.

To be fair, I really thought posting the GDT powers where going to get us a W.

It was a fun ride, but you were not the chosen one. Calamity was the thread starter back in 2012, and it was not to be. You had this year, but it wasn't you.

Maybe I'm the chosen one. I clearly have super powers I'm not using properly.

I, Crimson, Dodub & the rest of the bunch will put our names in a hat next time the Niners are on a SB run.

[NinerSickness]

It’s time to ask Jimmy to take a pay cut. If we want to keep him to see if he develops then that’s fine but we can’t do it at the detriment of the team. We can’t continue to pay him like a top level QB.

He's not going to take a pay cut.

Time to trade him (yes, that's an extremely Sickness thing to say, but I was right when I said it about every other QB the Niners have had since Young, especially with Kaeptard). Go with a young & cheap next year (BDN).

[GS Warriors 1]

Worst possible time to be having defensive breakdowns in coverage. Niners were excellent vs Mahomes for 3 1/2 quarters then it all fell apart. Felt Garoppolo was sharp (was 16 for 18 in a stretch at one point)...until the 4th. Chiefs really did a good job stepping up their blitz packages but it definitely wasn't his finest hour. Shanahan, interestingly enough given the previous 2 games, became too aggressive up 20-17 in the 4th. I thought 2nd and 5 should've been called a run but I've seen it other games the last 2 years where he has this tick to call for a pass in situations that don't exactly call for it. Great if it works but can backfire if it doesn't. 3 and out and give them the ball back to take the lead. Ugh. Mahomes played great when he needed to but true best player on the field tonight was Chris Jones IMO. If not KC, some other team with cap space will pull up the Brinks truck for him.

[whocurrz]

Trading Jimmy is the dumbest thing ever. He wasn’t perfect but he was pretty good besides the pick. Another year off the ACL injury and In Shanny’s offense gets will be top 10 in efficiency stats. All of our guys believe In him and will go to bat for him. Yeah he’s paid a solid amount but a good QB who is clutch on 3rd down and can step up and I expect to improve is worth what we’re paying. Especially considering we won’t have pressure to sign some crazy RB deal.

Guys like Dak who is solid are about to get paid over 30 mil +. Besides Armstead this year, I think we can bring guys back at a good price. Our vets like Staley and Sherm have made their money and will stay. I think Sanders stays at a solid deal too. We’ll bring back a great squad that will face tougher opponents but have more experience together and as NFL players in general. This team was good enough to win a SB but given the age there is a nice window (even if it’s the NFL). Not like the last squad that was wasted under terrible coaching. But we hit a nice level at the beginning of our comppetitive run

[NinerSickness]

Trading Jimmy is the dumbest thing ever. He wasn’t perfect but he was pretty good besides the pick. Another year off the ACL injury and In Shanny’s offense gets will be top 10 in efficiency stats. All of our guys believe In him and will go to bat for him.

Either he’s a ton better than we all think, and Sanders / Deebo / Kittle / that O-line is riding his coat tails or vice versa.

But experience is not going to improve Jimmy. He is what he is. Either he needs to go, or they need to significantly upgrade the WR / RB core and / or OL. I’ll grant you Person sucks ass, and Richburg was out, but every team has a bad starter & injuries.

So your plan of bringing the same team back is insane. Either Jimmy’s not good enough or his guys weren’t. And if the latter, then who?

[Ray_Dogg]

Man, what a heart-breaking loss. To me, this one is worse than Baltimore because we had it and we choked it away. Baltimore outplayed us. Here, we beat ourselves.

I can't see blaming the D here. Sure, they allowed a crucial drive for a TD when we needed a stop, but they effectively held Mahomes and the Chiefs to 24. That's a good outing for any D. The offense lost this one for us. I think there's blame to go around between Shanahan and Garoppolo, but the playcalling was disastrous as the end. After not punting for three quarters, we had three chances to score and win the game and we couldn't do a damn thing. We had no answers for their blitzes. Got to mostly put that on Shanahan, but Garoppolo has to see it and get the ball out. It's odd, but that's something he was much better at in his five-game stint in 2017. Now he seems to freeze in the face of pressure and make just awful decisions (today, the INT, that bizarre third-and-long where he slipped the first tackler, had time to make a throw, and just ran for like two yards).

Once again, we get the ball with plenty of time to end the first half and we do nothing. That's inexcusable to me. All season we've done that BS, and it's cost us. First game against Seattle, we had the ball with like 40 seconds from our 19, one TO, and we kneel it out. Against Baltimore we dinked and dunked it down and missed a 50-yard FG. Second game against Seattle was a win, but barely. We got the ball at our 31 with 45 seconds and two TOs and we don't even try to score. And then today, we let them take like 50 seconds off the clock by not calling a TO after they didn't pick up third down. Kind of try, but don't, then run out of time because we had to go long to Kittle and he pushed off (that was PI, even though it was unnecessary). Lynch was begging for a TO. Shanahan sucks at game management. He needs to bring someone in to do that for him.

There are lots of things to like with Garoppolo, but he's also got plenty of issues, too, and I don't see real improvement. He can't throw the deep ball really at all, though the ball to Kittle today was probably the best that he's ever thrown. Without the deep, he needs to be perfect on the other stuff. And he's not. He doesn't see the field well at all. He's late in his reads. His pocket presence is mediocre, and once he's out of rhythm, it's almost as bad as Alex Smith rolling right at full speed. You just know the play is over. Whoever was saying that our passing game is inhibited because we don't have fast receivers, I disagree. It's inhibited because our QB can't hit deep balls consistently. Even on his completions this year, the ball has almost always been badly overthrown. Why worry about getting beaten deep when you know a) the QB probably isn't looking deep, b) the OL probably can't hold up long enough to get deep, and c) even if the QB throws deep, it probably won't be accurate? There have been plenty of good and even great QBs who haven't been great at the deep ball, but again, there isn't room for error elsewhere.

We're not going to go knee-jerk and can Shanahan or Garoppolo. And I can forgive Shanahan for this choke job because he's still the best playcaller in the league. But if he can't win with this QB, then we need to move on. Garoppolo has to show something more this next season, that he can elevate the team around him. Right now, we're not there.

I know this ended up as more of a Garoppolo rant, and really I do hold Shanahan like 87% responsible for this one. But it's pretty clear that he's being held back by the QB play.

To me this loss was 100% on our offense/Kyle/Jimmy/interior oline. We scored a whopping 10 points in the first half and zero points in the 4th quarter. Kyle's approach to closing out the half was playing scared.

The defense did all they could imo. You can't completely shutdown that Chiefs offense and Mahomes. We needed one freaking TD in the 4th quarter and we win. VERY DISAPPOINTING.

[wco81]

Trading Jimmy is the dumbest thing ever. He wasn’t perfect but he was pretty good besides the pick. Another year off the ACL injury and In Shanny’s offense gets will be top 10 in efficiency stats. All of our guys believe In him and will go to bat for him.

Either he’s a ton better than we all think, and Sanders / Deebo / Kittle / that O-line is riding his coat tails or vice versa.

But experience is not going to improve Jimmy. He is what he is. Either he needs to go, or they need to significantly upgrade the WR / RB core and / or OL. I’ll grant you Person sucks ass, and Richburg was out, but every team has a bad starter & injuries.

So your plan of bringing the same team back is insane. Either Jimmy’s not good enough or his guys weren’t. And if the latter, then who?

I suspect even if Kyle had an elite QB, he'd rein him in because he is so in love with his play design.

If the 49ers had drafted Mahomes, he's still go with the run-heavy, motion-centric design to get guys open. Kyle would not like Mahomes making too many sandlot football plays.

If you think about the late success Elway had under Mike Shanahan, it was based on Terrell Davis and lesser-known RBs gashing defenses.

Look if they didn't make the trade, they might have tried to sign Cousins.

[CrimsonCrew]

One thing I had forgotten that I was reminded of while listening to the radio this morning: Garoppolo took a real good shot to the head in the 4th quarter. He stayed down and grabbed his facemask before getting up. I don't think he was concussed, but it seemed to affect his play in retrospect. He was really skittish late in the game, indecisive (even for him), missing open guys, just shutting down when pressure got close. I think that could at least partially explain his dramatic shift late in the game (18-22 followed by 2-9). We also seemed to go away from the play action, and that's where the Chiefs' D really struggles.

[CrimsonCrew]

And the more I think about this one, the harder it is to fault the D. Yes, they kind of fell apart late. But with 8:33 remaining in the game, they had allowed ten points, had sacked Mahomes four times, picked him off twice, forced two fumbles, hit him a bunch, didn't allow a passing TD. It was a tremendous performance, they just couldn't sustain it late with no help from the offense (KC ran 71 plays to our 53). Just for some perspective, in the 16 games he played this regular and postseason leading up to the SB, Mahomes threw 0.31 INTs a game, took 1.19 sacks per game, and threw 2.13 TDs (surprised that number is as low as it is, honestly). If the offense could have mustered one TD drive in three attempts late, I think we win this one.

[wco81]

Yeah no penalty on that hit to the head.

But the 49ers showed they couldn't handle the blitz. Not sure if they saw something in film or they were behind and they had no choice but to gamble.

Going back to the season, the 49ers had trouble with the blazing by Baltimore.

[CrimsonCrew]

Man, apparently they only called four run plays after taking a 20-10 lead, and gained 6, 5, 1, and 17 yards on them. Why did they stop running? How could Shanahan of all people stop leaning on the run at that point? We were gashing them.

[Samurai]

One thing I had forgotten that I was reminded of while listening to the radio this morning: Garoppolo took a real good shot to the head in the 4th quarter. He stayed down and grabbed his facemask before getting up. I don't think he was concussed, but it seemed to affect his play in retrospect. He was really skittish late in the game, indecisive (even for him), missing open guys, just shutting down when pressure got close. I think that could at least partially explain his dramatic shift late in the game (18-22 followed by 2-9). We also seemed to go away from the play action, and that's where the Chiefs' D really struggles.

Yeah, the helmet-to-helmet blow really rattled Jimmy and I was surprised that he didn't go to the blue tent to enter concussion protocol. Whether he was or wasn't concussed, you could see a distinct difference in his play and decision-making after that hit. And while not nearly as important as his health, it was shocking to me that no penalty was called on that hit. I understand refs want to hold on to their hankies in the Super Bowl, but when it comes to player safety they should opt to do the right thing. Super Bowl or not, you just can't let defenseless quarterbacks take a helmet-to-helmet hit without penalizing it.

[CrimsonCrew]

Barnwell on the game:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28624233/barnwell-super-bowl-liv-andy-reid-masterpiece-how-chiefs-came-back-49ers-blew-it

Defends the playcalling by Shanahan. He's got some sound arguments - though that 3rd and long pass to Sanders was highly suspect IMO. And the obvious conclusion here is that Garoppolo choked in a big way, repeatedly missing open receivers. Oddly, Kittle was open a bunch on those late drives and we didn't throw to him. And as I noted above, the flat was wide open all game and we rarely used it.

[CrimsonCrew]

The 49ers should have been concerned about what would happen if their pass rush slowed down. As I mentioned on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt last week, the 49ers' defense ranked second in QBR allowed during the first three quarters of the game when they had a lead of 10 points or fewer, but in the fourth quarter, with the pass rush presumably slowing down, that mark fell all the way to 27th. When the Chiefs were able to block the front four, Mahomes & Co. were able to make plays.

This is why we needed to add more to the secondary this offseason. And why we need to come out of this draft with a relatively high pick at DB unless the talent just isn't there.

Along those lines, Amani Oruwariye didn't get a whole lot of playing time this year, but showed well when he did. From PFF after week 13:

The Lions may have finally solved their second CB problem
Darius Slay is one of the better cover corners in football, but Detroit’s big issue has been finding someone who could hold up on the opposite side. The early returns suggest they may have done just that with fifth-round draft pick Amani Oruwariye. He has only played in three games this season, and only two with a representative amount of snaps, but those two games have seen impressive PFF grades (85.6 and 73.7), and he has yet to be beaten for a pass longer than 19 yards. It’s still very early, but anybody showing the ability to lock down that second starting cornerback spot would be a huge boost for this Lions defense.

I was calling for Oruwariye in the 4th, and if he pans out, I'm gonna be super pissed we passed on him for a punter.

[CrimsonCrew]

Every pressure counted in a game in which Garoppolo was basically rendered irrelevant by them. He was 18-of-22 for 188 yards and a passer rating of 117.4 when unpressured, but he was a scarcely believable 2-of-9 for 31 yards with two picks and a passer rating of 1.9 when the Chiefs pressured him.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Can't be the type of QB that Garoppolo is without performing under pressure.

[wco81]

Mike Lombardi said there was no way the Chiefs should have gone the whole game without being called for one holding call.

He also said the 49ers need diversity of defenses. No matter how good they are in the cover 3, eventually hitters are going to catch up to the great fastball if that's all you use the whole game.

[goober]

i saw a bunch of holds that the refs didn’t call, but it’s whatever, that’s the only way to really defend our defensive line