49ers vs. Bengals

[CrimsonCrew]

I realized after that post that it probably came off as overly negative. On the whole - and I listened to about 1/3 of the game on the radio rather than watching live - he played a good game. I agree, he made throws in this one that he usually doesn't, and two of his better throws weren't brought in (deep ball to Kittle and the would-be TD to Aiyuk). If we had lost, unless it had been on the pick-six in the fourth, it wouldn't have been his fault.

There's still plenty of room to improve. He took a few sacks he probably should not have, and he was short on the deep ball to Benjamin that could have been a TD (though Benjamin still should have caught it). But he played well enough for us to win that one going away, as we should have given the mistakes that Cincy made.

[CrimsonCrew]

If this team is going to make the playoffs and potential run in them, there are a few things that are going to need to change.

1) Stop committing back breaking penalties. Off the top of my head yesterday, there were the 2 Ambry Thomas hands to the face flags that negated an interception and a sack. There was also the holding call on Trent Williams in the 1st quarter that called back a completed pass to Hasty that would have set up the 9ers 1st and goal. Instead it became 3rd and 14 from the 27 which ended resulting in a FG. There are several instances of these types crushing penalties throughout the season.

2) Special teams has got to stop making critical mistakes and at least be a neutral commodity. Sure they recovered 2 fumbles this last game, but they were on muffed catches which obviously still counts but did they actually make a play on those? Gould missed a game winning FG. Last week against Seattle special teams gave up a LONG TD on a fake FG, fumbled a kickoff return, and Gould missed a PAT. Can't have these types of game shifting mistakes, especially when the special teams doesn't really do much to provide a positive impact.

3) The defensive secondary has to get better, period. There are way too many times where receivers are just WIDE open and many times its far downfield. This group has routinely got beaten like a drum all season. Of course losing Verrett in week 1 and not having Moseley for a few games doesn't help, but my god man the secondary has been consistently terrible. Even on a lot of the plays where they cover well, they won't get their head around to play the ball and get called for easy PI penalties. The Colts game was an unmitigated disaster in that regard. The pass rush has thankfully finally started to get rolling the last couple weeks, its time the secondary starts to pull some of their weight. They might get Moseley back for the Texans game in 2 weeks, hopefully so because he is easily the best CB "available" for them.

4) The running game needs find a way to be serviceable when Elijah Mitchell is not on the field. Its a night and day type difference when he's not on the field. The passing game thrives off play action, and the run threat is a critical component of play action. Defense are not going to bite on a fake, if the running game is stuck in mud.

5) Springboarding off the running game, as we all know Deebo is truly dynamic with the ball in his hands. However, he spends far too much time in the backfield. In his last 3 games played he only has 3 catches for 49 yards on 7 targets. This is the same guy that at one point was leading the NFL in receiving yardage and had damn near 1000 yards in 9 games at a rate of north of 18 yards per catch. We all love to see Deebo with the ball in his hands, but we don't love seeing him take extra hits and running the ball up the middle. Having your #1 WR spend most of his time in the backfield is probably not a sustainable model.

6) The O-line and its pass protection, most especially the right side. This one probably doesn't have a realistic chance to get much better. However, augmenting some play designs could help. Have Jimmy roll out more, keep Juice in the backfield more often, run a few more 2 TE sets, utilize chip blocks by the RB's more often, etc.

7) Jimmy is Jimmy. We are all well aware of Garoppolo brings to the table. The two biggest things for him, is just limiting his mistakes and keeping the elevation on his throws down, in which the higher than desired throws are usually the cause of the mistakes. Every game he'll make some errant throws and he'll also make some great throws. If he can minimize the mistakes, the offense will be able to consistently move the ball.

All good points. The Deebo usage is particularly troubling. Dude makes the leap to legit #1 receiver, and how do we handle it? By treating him like a RB and effectively refusing to use him in the passing game. I just don't get it. Shanahan is a really good offensive mind, but he does some really confounding stuff at times. Here's a thought: we have three REALLY good receiving threats in Kittle, Samuel, and Aiyuk. Let's consistently utilize them all that way. Some of this could be on Jimmy, but it's got to stop if we want to make a run. We need all of those guys on their A game to challenge the division winners.

[Samurai]

All good points. The Deebo usage is particularly troubling. Dude makes the leap to legit #1 receiver, and how do we handle it? By treating him like a RB and effectively refusing to use him in the passing game. I just don't get it. Shanahan is a really good offensive mind, but he does some really confounding stuff at times. Here's a thought: we have three REALLY good receiving threats in Kittle, Samuel, and Aiyuk. Let's consistently utilize them all that way. Some of this could be on Jimmy, but it's got to stop if we want to make a run. We need all of those guys on their A game to challenge the division winners.

The way we use Deebo is very frustrating. My assumption is that first and foremost, Shanahan loves the running game. Specifically the zone runs to the edges. The problem is you need speed to do that and our best guy for that (Mostert) is out for the year. The next closest RB to that is Mitchell who is injured. Without those two, the only guy with enough speed to even try that with is Deebo, as evidenced by his 27-yard TD run around the right end. The alternative is to give up on that entire concept and just keep slamming Wilson into a mass of very large humans between the tackles, but unless we are playing a particularly weak team that won't produce the dominant (40+ rushing attempts) running game that Shanahan loves and thus far has produced victories. I don't understand why we didn't give Hasty some run when Wilson needed a blow instead of risking further injury to Deebo.