49ers vs. Dallas Cowboys

[wco81]

So one thing Takeo Spikes mentioned about the upcoming GB game is that the LBs didn't have enough depth in dropping back, to make it more difficult for Rodgers to hit Davante Adams, particularly on their last game-winning FG drive.

Hope they're making adjustments and the LBs are ready to take away those intermediate in-cuts and posts/slants.

But it's going to come down to them pressuring Rodgers, who is suppose to have some foot or toe problems limiting his mobility.

[thesack12]

49ers offense this season:

7th in total yards
1st in yards per pass attempt
1st in yards per pass play
1st in yards per completion
1st in yards per play overall
1st in red zone efficiency
3rd in explosive plays (plays over 20 yards)

QB's that finished in the top 10 in passer rating, completion %, and yards per attempt:

Rodgers
Kyler
Herbert
Dak
Burrow
Garoppolo

I'm as excited for Lance's future as anyone, but Trey wasn't going to lead this offense to that kind of production this season.

Jimmy G doesn't suck as he does make some big boy throws at some key times but a bulk of his throws are throwing to open receivers down the middle of the field and them getting a ton of YAC. That's not his fault but he's still not throwing it like the other guys you listed aside from Kyler who almost had an identical year as Jimmy.

But the biggest issue with Jimmy is he consistently makes mistakes of the backbreaking kind. Just look at his last 3 games that he's played and they all had one or more backbreaking mistakes on his part.

Titans game he threw that INT in the endzone when they had a chance to go up by 14 or at worse 10. Threw a 2nd INT that gave the Titans the ball on the 18. And that missed pass to Juice. I can give him a bit of a pass since he hurt his thumb but that endzone INT at least shouldn't have happened.

Rams game he again threw an INT in the endzone in the 4th quarter during a tied game where we could've at least gone up by 3 points. Luckily he won the game at the end but it was a hole that he dug in the first place.

This game he had a costly miss to Aiyuk that might've sealed the game and he had an INT that lead to a TD that could've lead to a loss.

So 3 games in a row he's made major costly mistakes.

It's speculation but with Lance starting Week 1 I do believe by the time we got to today he'd be able to mostly do what Jimmy is doing now with the added benefit hitting bigger plays with his arm, improving the run game, and likely less costly mistakes. He'd still have some INTs but at least so far the ones he's thrown have been early in games and not major momentum swings.

By no means is Jimmy a great QB, but the standards he is held to are unfair at times, and the amount of flak he gets is largely unwarranted.

As far as YAC goes, of course Jimmy benefits from that. That said, the QB delivering the ball in an accurate/timely fashion to set up the receivers to do YAC damage is absolutely part of that equation, and its an ingredient people rarely take into consideration.

To springboard off the above point, Garoppolo was 2nd in the NFL in on target % with 81.5% and the 2nd lowest bad throw % at 12.9%. Only Joe Burrow bested him in both categories.

As for Trey Lance, again I will say that like most I'm excited to for his future. He checks a lot of the boxes, he has the tools to be great, and has already shown real tangible development. I love his upside.

But lets look at things objectively for a minute. All of Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, and Mac Jones had illustrious college careers and all had SIGNIFICANTLY more experience coming into the NFL than Trey Lance did. Not to mention, Trevor/Fields/Mac all came from top flight college programs where the opposing competition was legitimate. Trey Lance was coming in with only 17 career college starts at the JV level of college football. And had only played in 1 game in like 18 months, and couldn't even formally practice during that timeframe.

How this year's rookie QB crop fared:

Lawrence: 31st Y/A, 29th Rating, 28th QBR, 29th comp%, 30th on target%, 28th in bad ball%, 24th INT%, 12/17 TD/INT ratio
Wilson: 30th Y/A, 31st Rating, 30th QBR, 31st comp%, 31st on target% 31st in bad ball%, 26th INT%, 9/11 TD/INT ratio
Fields: 22nd Y/A, 28th Rating, 31st QBR, 30th comp%, 29th on target%, 30th bad ball%, 31st INT%, 7/10 TD/INT ratio
Jones: 15th Y/A, 15th rating, 16th QBR, 8th comp%, 19th on target%, 17th in bad ball%, 19th INT%, 22/13 TD/INT ratio

With the exception of Mac Jones, (who you could argue is already close to a finished product) all the 1st round rookies struggled mightily this season. Actually they were downright bad, terrible would even apply.

Of course, every player is different and other than Mac those other guys were on bad teams with mostly questionable coaching staffs. All of that is valid counterpoints, but the rookie QB crop was so categorically board across the board and none of them really showed flashes, at least not to any thing resembling remotely consistent. Perhaps Trey Lance would have been able to make a meteoric rise, but its not likely. And the fact that Shanahan has insisted on continuing to roll with Garoppolo, even recently with his injured throwing thumb) speaks volumes to me. Its pretty obvious Kyle believes Jimmy gives the 49ers the best chance to win.

As for Trey himself, his lowly 57.7 completion % is well below the mendoza line. It actually puts him in between Fields and Wilson in the bottom 3 of the NFL. Of course, Lance's is a much smaller sample size.

To summarize, all things considered (Trey's inexperience/his reputation for being inaccurate/rookie QB struggles & growing pains, ect) In my opinion it would be a GIANT leap of faith to think that if Lance was driving this car from jump that the 9ers would currently be in the same position or actually in a better one. The 49ers offense this season was at the top of the league in most metrics.

Actually, if we are peeling away all the layers of the onion and looking at things objectively, this season has played out almost perfectly in regards to the QB position. We got our QB in the future. We didn't have to throw him to the wolves, and he is developing organically. He still got 2.5 games of very valuable experience. Jimmy played very solid football overall this season, and thus has raised his trade value. The team has already won a road playoff game, and has decent shot t0 maybe even take home the Lombardi.

I mean really, its playing out exactly as they hoped it would.

[wco81]

That pass that Jimmy missed where it was Aiyuk wide open along the left sideline, he didn't have to loft it at a all.

HE got to wind up and step into the throw. He could have layered it low, because there were no LBs or DBs in between.

It's possible a defensive linemen could have lunged and batted a low trajectory pass.

Kaepernick was criticized for throwing low passes, which were often tipped underneath. Trey may have a similar habit just try to overpower the throw rancher than loft it, which you have to often do over NFL defenders.

[thesack12]

That pass that Jimmy missed where it was Aiyuk wide open along the left sideline, he didn't have to loft it at a all.

HE got to wind up and step into the throw. He could have layered it low, because there were no LBs or DBs in between.

It's possible a defensive linemen could have lunged and batted a low trajectory pass.

Kaepernick was criticized for throwing low passes, which were often tipped underneath. Trey may have a similar habit just try to overpower the throw rancher than loft it, which you have to often do over NFL defenders.

I went back to watch that play, Jimmy had a pretty clean pocket he just missed the throw. Maybe the thumb was an issue, maybe not, but that's a play Jimmy needs to make.

I disagree with the people saying it would have been an easy TD though. Diggs has blinding speed, and he wasn't far off of Aiyuk and he would of had a good angle on Brandon after he turned upfield for YAC.

Regardless it would have still been a big play on 3rd and 11, that at the very least would have set up the 9ers with a 1st down in Cowboys' territory....

As for Lance and tipped passes, yes he is prone to getting passes batted down at an extremely high rate. He had 5 passes batted down in only 71 attempts.

For context, Garoppolo had 5 batted passes in 441 attempts, and Herbert led the NFL with 17 passes batted in 672 attempts.

So yeah, moving forward Trey has got to read the throwing windows/angles better and not telegraph his passes so much.

[thesack12]

Read on Twitter

I'm actually surprised that 49ers special teams are only the 6th worst.

Packers ST ranked dead last, but I'd wager they haven't committed as many crushing, game altering mistakes as the 9ers have.

Special teams could be a huge factor in this game. Which is a recipe that has not been kind to the 49ers this season.

[thesack12]

Read on Twitter

I'm actually surprised that 49ers special teams are only the 6th worst.

Packers ST ranked dead last, but I'd wager they haven't committed as many crushing, game changing mistakes as the 9ers have.

Special teams could be a huge factor in this game. Which is a recipe that has not been kind to the 49ers this season.

[zman1]

49ers offense this season:

7th in total yards
1st in yards per pass attempt
1st in yards per pass play
1st in yards per completion
1st in yards per play overall
1st in red zone efficiency
3rd in explosive plays (plays over 20 yards)

QB's that finished in the top 10 in passer rating, completion %, and yards per attempt:

Rodgers
Kyler
Herbert
Dak
Burrow
Garoppolo

I'm as excited for Lance's future as anyone, but Trey wasn't going to lead this offense to that kind of production this season.

Jimmy G doesn't suck as he does make some big boy throws at some key times but a bulk of his throws are throwing to open receivers down the middle of the field and them getting a ton of YAC. That's not his fault but he's still not throwing it like the other guys you listed aside from Kyler who almost had an identical year as Jimmy.

But the biggest issue with Jimmy is he consistently makes mistakes of the backbreaking kind. Just look at his last 3 games that he's played and they all had one or more backbreaking mistakes on his part.

Titans game he threw that INT in the endzone when they had a chance to go up by 14 or at worse 10. Threw a 2nd INT that gave the Titans the ball on the 18. And that missed pass to Juice. I can give him a bit of a pass since he hurt his thumb but that endzone INT at least shouldn't have happened.

Rams game he again threw an INT in the endzone in the 4th quarter during a tied game where we could've at least gone up by 3 points. Luckily he won the game at the end but it was a hole that he dug in the first place.

This game he had a costly miss to Aiyuk that might've sealed the game and he had an INT that lead to a TD that could've lead to a loss.

So 3 games in a row he's made major costly mistakes.

It's speculation but with Lance starting Week 1 I do believe by the time we got to today he'd be able to mostly do what Jimmy is doing now with the added benefit hitting bigger plays with his arm, improving the run game, and likely less costly mistakes. He'd still have some INTs but at least so far the ones he's thrown have been early in games and not major momentum swings.

By no means is Jimmy a great QB, but the standards he is held to are unfair at times, and the amount of flak he gets is largely unwarranted.

As far as YAC goes, of course Jimmy benefits from that. That said, the QB delivering the ball in an accurate/timely fashion to set up the receivers to do YAC damage is absolutely part of that equation, and its an ingredient people rarely take into consideration.

To springboard off the above point, Garoppolo was 2nd in the NFL in on target % with 81.5% and the 2nd lowest bad throw % at 12.9%. Only Joe Burrow bested him in both categories.

As for Trey Lance, again I will say that like most I'm excited to for his future. He checks a lot of the boxes, he has the tools to be great, and has already shown real tangible development. I love his upside.

But lets look at things objectively for a minute. All of Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, and Mac Jones had illustrious college careers and all had SIGNIFICANTLY more experience coming into the NFL than Trey Lance did. Not to mention, Trevor/Fields/Mac all came from top flight college programs where the opposing competition was legitimate. Trey Lance was coming in with only 17 career college starts at the JV level of college football. And had only played in 1 game in like 18 months, and couldn't even formally practice during that timeframe.

How this year's rookie QB crop fared:

Lawrence: 31st Y/A, 29th Rating, 28th QBR, 29th comp%, 30th on target%, 28th in bad ball%, 24th INT%, 12/17 TD/INT ratio
Wilson: 30th Y/A, 31st Rating, 30th QBR, 31st comp%, 31st on target% 31st in bad ball%, 26th INT%, 9/11 TD/INT ratio
Fields: 22nd Y/A, 28th Rating, 31st QBR, 30th comp%, 29th on target%, 30th bad ball%, 31st INT%, 7/10 TD/INT ratio
Jones: 15th Y/A, 15th rating, 16th QBR, 8th comp%, 19th on target%, 17th in bad ball%, 19th INT%, 22/13 TD/INT ratio

With the exception of Mac Jones, (who you could argue is already close to a finished product) all the 1st round rookies struggled mightily this season. Actually they were downright bad, terrible would even apply.

Of course, every player is different and other than Mac those other guys were on bad teams with mostly questionable coaching staffs. All of that is valid counterpoints, but the rookie QB crop was so categorically board across the board and none of them really showed flashes, at least not to any thing resembling remotely consistent. Perhaps Trey Lance would have been able to make a meteoric rise, but its not likely. And the fact that Shanahan has insisted on continuing to roll with Garoppolo, even recently with his injured throwing thumb) speaks volumes to me. Its pretty obvious Kyle believes Jimmy gives the 49ers the best chance to win.

As for Trey himself, his lowly 57.7 completion % is well below the mendoza line. It actually puts him in between Fields and Wilson in the bottom 3 of the NFL. Of course, Lance's is a much smaller sample size.

To summarize, all things considered (Trey's inexperience/his reputation for being inaccurate/rookie QB struggles & growing pains, ect) In my opinion it would be a GIANT leap of faith to think that if Lance was driving this car from jump that the 9ers would currently be in the same position or actually in a better one. The 49ers offense this season was at the top of the league in most metrics.

Actually, if we are peeling away all the layers of the onion and looking at things objectively, this season has played out almost perfectly in regards to the QB position. We got our QB in the future. We didn't have to throw him to the wolves, and he is developing organically. He still got 2.5 games of very valuable experience. Jimmy played very solid football overall this season, and thus has raised his trade value. The team has already won a road playoff game, and has decent shot t0 maybe even take home the Lombardi.

I mean really, its playing out exactly as they hoped it would.

Well said. There was really little chance that trey could have outperformed Jimmy this year. Yes, Jimmy pulls some dumb plays but he is a winner and almost got us the Lombardi not so long ago. Trey will likely struggle quite a bit next year too.

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[zman1]

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I'm actually surprised that 49ers special teams are only the 6th worst.

Packers ST ranked dead last, but I'd wager they haven't committed as many crushing, game changing mistakes as the 9ers have.

Special teams could be a huge factor in this game. Which is a recipe that has not been kind to the 49ers this season.

Encouraging stats. Didn't know their defense was that poor.

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[zman1]

Just read an article on sportsnaut by Matt Johnson. He ranks GB defense #2, our #5 of teams still in the playoffs.

https://sportsnaut.com/nfl-defense-rankings/

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[CrimsonCrew]

Just read an article on sportsnaut by Matt Johnson. He ranks GB defense #2, our #5 of teams still in the playoffs.

https://sportsnaut.com/nfl-defense-rankings/

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I'm not sure who Matt Johnson is, but this is just his personal ranking, so it's not terribly relevant. Though Green Bay has been doing it while missing two of its better players on defense, and they've still been pretty good. That said, we match up with them fairly well as they aren't great against the run, and as impressive as their metrics are against QBs, they don't withstand a terribly high degree of scrutiny.

Since week six, they've played Fields (twice), Heinicke, Murray (game in which he was hurt, though he was hurt late), Mahomes (game without Rodgers, and it was just kind of a weird one), Wilson (first game coming back from injury too soon), Cousins (he lit them up with 341 and 3 TDs, 128.4 rating), Stafford (also a decent game with 301, 3 TDs, and an INT, 96.6 rating), Huntley, Mayfield, Mannion, and Goff.

Again, the Mahomes game was kind of a bizarre one that the Chiefs dominated by playing it safe. Cousins and Stafford generally had good games, though both still lost. But that's a laundry list of awful QBs, or including two games against a struggling rookie and three against backups (granted Heinicke was a season-long backup).

We'll be a significant underdog for a reason, but we can stay in it against these guys.

[zman1]

Of course. I suspect and hope that the DVOA is a better indicator of their defense.

In our first game with them we had trey sermon at running back. And kittle had a big game. Good indicators for us.

Before Sunday, I wonder how many of our fans would have voted to have kyler Murray instead of Jimmy. Poor AZ fans, they have to be wondering what kind of QB they have now.

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[CrimsonCrew]

I wanted to return to this question of the Packers' D, because I also don't think the YPC necessarily does them justice. They've played a number of games in which the QB was the leading rusher for the other team, and they have been pretty good - or even elite - at shutting down opposing RBs at times this year, including last time we played (granted with Sermon at RB). That said, Cleveland gashed them badly late in the season, and that's probably the closest comparison to our offense.

As with most things, the truth of their defense's ability probably lies somewhere between their #22 DVOA and Matt Johnson's #2 in the playoff field ranking. I expect us to have to fight in this one, and I'm not expecting us to run all over them the way we did two years ago. But if we play well for four quarters - which, honestly, we haven't done all year except maybe that first game against the Rams - we can definitely win this one.

[wco81]

IIRC, their edge rushers, one of the Smiths, gave the 49er tackles all kinds of problems.

I see on their depth chart that Zedarius Smith is in the IR while Preston Smith has 9 sacks.

So maybe it was Preston Smith or someone else but they were causing problems in the first part of that game.

Or maybe Zedarius Smith was playing for them early in the season.

[thesack12]

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The advanced metrics don't shine a bright light on the Packers run D.

However, I'm not sure if those numbers match the eye test or not as I haven't watched a lot of the Packers this season...

In my opinion special teams is going to play a big factor this weekend, especially with the cold weather. Both teams have very poor ST play, so it might be a simple matter of which unit sucks the least. We just got to hope that the 9ers ST don't commit any crushing gaffes.

[thesack12]

Of course. I suspect and hope that the DVOA is a better indicator of their defense.

In our first game with them we had trey sermon at running back. And kittle had a big game. Good indicators for us.

Before Sunday, I wonder how many of our fans would have voted to have kyler Murray instead of Jimmy. Poor AZ fans, they have to be wondering what kind of QB they have now.

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Man, that pick 6 Kyler "threw" in the end zone was truly a mind melting decision.

I get that he was trying to avoid a safety, but he just hap hazardly blindly tossed the ball up for grabs. It wasn't a pass, it wasn't a throw, it was basically just a hookshot type fling up into the air creating the easiest defensive TD you'll see. Funny thing is, even if that blind lob somehow managed to hit the turf, it would have been intentional grounding and it would have been a safety anyways.

I know we currently live a very recency bias type society, where everything is always the best or worst ever. But man, that decision/play was an all timer for sure.

[thesack12]

Read on Twitter

This mirrors Andrew Luck, in that he was 24-7 vs the AFC South and 29-26 versus everybody else...

Man, it must be quite nice to reside in a division that is consistently trash.

[CrimsonCrew]

Of course. I suspect and hope that the DVOA is a better indicator of their defense.

In our first game with them we had trey sermon at running back. And kittle had a big game. Good indicators for us.

Before Sunday, I wonder how many of our fans would have voted to have kyler Murray instead of Jimmy. Poor AZ fans, they have to be wondering what kind of QB they have now.

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Man, that pick 6 Kyler "threw" in the end zone was truly a mind melting decision.

I get that he was trying to avoid a safety, but he just hap hazardly blindly tossed the ball up for grabs. It wasn't a pass, it wasn't a throw, it was basically just a hookshot type fling up into the air creating the easiest defensive TD you'll see. Funny thing is, even if that blind lob somehow managed to hit the turf, it would have been intentional grounding and it would have been a safety anyways.

I know we currently live a very recency bias type society, where everything is always the best or worst ever. But man, that decision/play was an all timer for sure.

It was an awful play, but there was a receiver in the vicinity, so it wouldn't have been grounding.

[wco81]

I used to dread having to go up to Green Bay for playoffs games, mostly during the years Favre was the QB there.

Mostly the big issue was rain more than cold weather. Freezing rain and wind, meaning there was higher possibility of fumbles and maybe defensive players slipping and giving up big plays.

I think the last time the 49ers went up there, 49ers dominated the LOS, particularly keeping Rodgers contained because the rush was on him most of the game.

Kaepernick controlled the game and made a late drive to either get the go ahead score or just keep the ball away with 3rd down conversions.

[CrimsonCrew]

Looks like we're just going to use this thread to talk Packers until that game starts. I was reading over some game previews, and forgot that they were missing their two best OL, including starting their third or fourth LT, who did a surprisingly good job against Bosa. We were missing Mitchell, and Aiyuk was in the middle of his doghouse phase, but that was a huge advantage that we blew, and extrapolating from that game may not be particularly fair or accurate. Gotta hope Bosa can make it back.

[CrimsonCrew]

Word is the Randall Cobb may be able to play. I actually think I like that news. He's the perfect slot receiver for K'Waun Williams to go against: an old, crafty route-runner who has lost what dynamism he once possessed (you could basically say the same thing for Williams). I'd much rather have him in the slot than, say, Adams.