Week 7: Chiefs @ 49ers

[Jikkle]

Awful on every level and I have a tough time pulling anything positive from it.

While the entire team contributed to the loss I do give the largest chunk to the defense. I gave them slack last week because of all the starters missing but that excuse doesn't fly this week. Can't give up 44 points and expect to win games and you can't give up huge 3rd and longs the eventually lead to TDs when you should've just give up 3 points. And how many plays are we going to give up with people running to the outside? It's pathetic watching guys get outside and run untouched for 10+ yards.

Don't know what it is but the defense just feels unfocused and lifeless for the previous two weeks and Ryans has got to figure it out.

Offense is not too far behind in the blame game. The running game wasn't bad and the passing attack wasn't awful but just too many penalties to take us off schedule and Jimmy just had too many low football IQ moments. It was just another game where the offense kept falling short of putting TDs on the board and didn't get the points it should've to win the game or at least make it more competitive.

Even if this team makes the playoffs I see almost 0 chance of winning a Super Bowl.

[Samurai]

Going forward, CMC will definitely strengthen our offense. If that was the intent, then the goal will be met as long as he stays healthy. But if the intent was to win a Super Bowl, then adding CMC doesn't address the holes in our O-line or the collapse of our defense shown in the last 2 games. I don't see winning a SB as a realistic goal as long as those issues remain in their current condition.

[zman1]

Read on Twitter

This was an other wordly bad performance from the defense.

10+ yards per play is unfathomable

Wonder how that ranks, 10.2 yards per play?

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[thesack12]

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This was an other wordly bad performance from the defense.

10+ yards per play is unfathomable

Wonder how that ranks, 10.2 yards per play?

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Looks like 10.2 yards per play, is the 7th worst in NFL history.

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/highest-yards-per-play-by-a-team-in-a-game

I have no idea how garbage time effected any of those other games on that list.

Regardless, the defense's performance yesterday was Historically bad and firmly slots into being an all timer.

[thesack12]

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To piggyback on this, the only reason that FG attempt even happened is because the play before that KC had a TD called back due to a pretty bad low block penalty.

Refs did a better job keeping KC from scoring than the 49ers defense did.

[Pattersonca65]

This game was ugly all around. Offensively the game started out good enough. The running game got going and Jimmy G was playing well enough. As the game went on both got worse. Jimmy's accuracy started waning and the running game was getting worse. The interception at the goal line was inexcusable. Jimmy should have just thrown that ball away. In the end that was not the difference in this game. The offensive line pass blocked much better last week. Jimmy was hit several times right after the throw or was under pressure to get rid of the ball quickly. This team struggles picking up blitzes. McClinchey was manhandled by Chris Jones. He will always be a liability in the pass game. The defense was bad again. Third down was atrocious. Watching Ambry Thomas come in was painful. Getting the feeling he will be another bust pick. That 3rd and 20 screen for a touchdown reminded me of Jim O'Neill era. The game was over after that.

[Pattersonca65]

It also seems to me Deebo Samuel playing running back is becoming less effective. Seems the 49ers have gone to it so often teams are defending it better now. Hopefully CMC means less of Deebo playing RB

[CrimsonCrew]

Man, so much to process during and after that one. I'm trying to maintain my perspective, because I always figured they would lose this one - and potentially badly - but it still came as something of a shock.

I think the reason it was so upsetting was because of how the game went early on. We were moving the ball really well, granted we weren't scoring TDs. That first-drive pick of Mahomes was huge, and we actually capitalized on it. That got my hopes up. But man... I thought there was a pretty good chance our defense would get exposed a bit in this one. A bit doesn't even begin to capture what happened. This was a shellacking, the type that can either result in a bounce back for a unit, or could signal problems ahead.

I'll start with the offense. I was actually pretty encouraged by what I saw early. We moved the ball well, and everything seemed to be mostly clicking, though again, we stalled in the red zone (a fairly common theme of the 49ers under Shanahan). McCaffrey looked pretty scintillating despite limited touches, finding holes, making decisive cuts. That should only improve as he familiarizes himself with the system. We were also able to play off the space that he created by drawing the defense's attention.

Jimmy had a mixed day. Overall he was alright. Some really nice throws, some really bad. The INT in the endzone at the end of the half was pretty devastating. That was a huge momentum shift, although holding them to a missed FG made it slightly less painful. He also kept throwing high, and it's a small miracle he didn't get one of his guys injured. Kittle and Deebo both went high in traffic to make catches that could have resulted in huge hits. Thankfully they seemed to avoid the worst of them.

The problem on offense (one of them, anyway), again, was discipline and execution. 10 penalties for 80 yards, a lot of them resulting in stalled drives. In the second half, we were repeatedly moving backward. And that's on the HC, in my opinion. Shanahan's teams have never been all that disciplined, have never truly executed well on a consistent basis. And on offense, we just don't have much room for error as we're a ball control, work down the field gradually sort of offense. The two offsides penalties on Bosa were frustrating, but totally legit. He constantly lines up in the neutral zone, and should have been called for it sooner. Just sucks they came at such important moments.

The defense...where to begin? I hope that several of our players are still dealing with injuries, because Mooney Ward and Hufanga in particular had bad days, and they've been a huge part of our defensive resurgence. Ward didn't seem like himself, just giving up a bit more of a cushion and reacting more slowly than he has over for first five weeks. To say nothing of that awful blown assignment against Valdez-Scantling (I think?) on the third and long. Hufanga was taking awful angles. It seemed like on every sideline run, he came hurtling in a second late, launched himself, and got a single hand on the runner as he went by. Bosa was alright, but not dominant, and lost contain or blew screens with some regularity. I can't believe how many long conversions they completed. We were just completely outplayed on that side of the ball, and have one week to get our act together.

And I've got to add a special category for STs in this one. Why do we keep giving returners a chance on kickoffs? Haven't the coaches realized that our coverage units sucked yet? Ultimately it seemed like only a footnote, but allowing that huge return to start the second half really shifted the momentum of a tight game in a tangible way. Awful.

As said, I put a lot of this one on the coaching. This team lacks discipline, and that's the most fundamental job of the coaching staff IMO. Ultimately, the result is what I expected, so as long as we can bounce back, we're still in the thick of it to make the playoffs and maybe even make some noise. But we absolutely have to beat the Rams next week. Win that game, and we're still in good shape. Lose it, and we may miss out on the division to the Seahawks. Speaking of coaching, Carroll is really burnishing his reputation this season with a team of young guys and cast-offs who do the little things well. We could use more of that. Wild card may be off the table given how things are going, though the remaining AFC West games look a lot more winnable now than they did at the start of the season.

Still a lot of games left, including six home games and a game against the Cards in Mexico that should basically be a home game. We need to capitalize on them and win the games we should.

[CrimsonCrew]

Totally forgot about the safety. One of my biggest Jimmy G complaints is his absolute inability to just throw the damn ball away. He's terrible playing in chaos if the first reads aren't there. Just throw the ball at your receiver's feet and live to fight another day. He can't do it. We saw it on the sack at the end of the first quarter last week, and again with the safety this week (and the INT, too). In each case, the one thing he absolutely could not do was take a sack. You would expect any NFL QB with more than a handful of starts to appreciate the situation. He had time, could have gotten rid of the ball, but he didn't, with disastrous consequences.

[Pattersonca65]

Totally forgot about the safety. One of my biggest Jimmy G complaints is his absolute inability to just throw the damn ball away. He's terrible playing in chaos if the first reads aren't there. Just throw the ball at your receiver's feet and live to fight another day. He can't do it. We saw it on the sack at the end of the first quarter last week, and again with the safety this week (and the INT, too). In each case, the one thing he absolutely could not do was take a sack. You would expect any NFL QB with more than a handful of starts to appreciate the situation. He had time, could have gotten rid of the ball, but he didn't, with disastrous consequences.

I didn't even see that. He should have done that at the goal line earlier and taken the field goal. I had pressing things to do yesterday and once KC scored on 3rd and 20 from a screen pass the game was over to me.

[CrimsonCrew]

Totally forgot about the safety. One of my biggest Jimmy G complaints is his absolute inability to just throw the damn ball away. He's terrible playing in chaos if the first reads aren't there. Just throw the ball at your receiver's feet and live to fight another day. He can't do it. We saw it on the sack at the end of the first quarter last week, and again with the safety this week (and the INT, too). In each case, the one thing he absolutely could not do was take a sack. You would expect any NFL QB with more than a handful of starts to appreciate the situation. He had time, could have gotten rid of the ball, but he didn't, with disastrous consequences.

I didn't even see that. He should have done that at the goal line earlier and taken the field goal. I had pressing things to do yesterday and once KC scored on 3rd and 20 from a screen pass the game was over to me.

It was pretty bad. Chiefs got quick pressure, but you have to expect that. If you're running a pass play in your own endzone, the ball has to come out immediately. Jimmy was flushed, and Trent was beaten pretty cleanly, but Jimmy was running to the right, was out of the pocket, and could have just airmailed the ball. Instead, he took a safety. You just can't have that sort of play if you have Jimmy's limitations. It reinforces why the team tried to move one from him. With his physical limitations, you just can't have that sort of dumb mistake.

[CrimsonCrew]

Oh, Jimmy also put a ball right on L'Jarius Snead's hands (then Aiyuk's, and maybe another defender's?) deep in the red zone. Totally forgot about that. I think that was on first down, on the drive in which Kittle later scored a TD to put us within five points.

Yeah, not a great game for Jimmy this week. I'll be interested to see how PFF evaluates him.

[CrimsonCrew]

Oh, Jimmy also put a ball right on L'Jarius Snead's hands (then Aiyuk's, and maybe another defender's?) deep in the red zone. Totally forgot about that. I think that was on first down, on the drive in which Kittle later scored a TD to put us within five points.

Yeah, not a great game for Jimmy this week. I'll be interested to see how PFF evaluates him.

Update: apparently it was 54.9. His second-lowest grade this season.

Aaron Banks continued his strong performance. Amazingly, Hufanga was the highest graded defender at 71.4. Not sure how. His angles were awful.

[thesack12]

Yes sir, Jimmy straight up had 2 bone headed decisions which were brutally bad plays. Absolutely can't throw a pick in the endzone, and absolutely can't take a sack in the end zone either. No excuses, bad is bad and should be called out as such.

Which leads me to....

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The defense was historically bad. The story of this game begins and ends there.

[CrimsonCrew]

Defense was terrible outside the INT. The only reason I would even cut them a little slack is because so many of them were out or were coming back from injury and didn't appear fully healthy. But that would account for a performance in which they struggled a bit. This was just a wholesale collapse at all levels.

Re: Jimmy Ward, not meant as a defense, but I think he mostly played out of the slot, which really isn't his best position. That said, that may just be the reality for the rest of this year.

That said, like last week - and like the SB for that matter - this was a game where we needed the offense to be nearly flawless to keep pace (didn't need flawless play in the SB, just semi-competent in the second half), and they fell well short of that benchmark. It's not on one guy. The OL was generally really bad. RBs seemed to play pretty well, as did the receivers, but way too many mistakes overall, and more than enough blame to go around to lead to four trips into the red zone that led to FGs or an INT.

You know, I was having trouble with my DVR yesterday - it kept restarting the game and I'd have to fast-forward back to where I'd left off - and around the time that it was 44-23, I just gave up and started watching live. So I missed the drive that ended with the Jimmy sack and fumble. I'll have to remember to watch that later.

[CrimsonCrew]

Just re-watched the highlights, and a few thoughts.

Got to question the playcall on the safety. We had the ball on the 6, Garoppolo was in shotgun, and then dropped back several steps from there. Why? There was just no reason for him to go into the endzone on that play. Get the snap and throw the ball. It also led to Garoppolo being some ten yards back from the LOS at the end of his drop, which allowed Frank Clark to get up and around Trent (who may still be hobbled somewhat by the ankle).

Sack-and-fumble...I don't know. He had a fair bit of time in the pocket, and arguably should have seen Jones coming. Tough to get all that fired up at that point in the game. Man, McGlinchey is awful, though. Can't handle speed. Can't handle power. What's his game?

[Pattersonca65]

Just re-watched the highlights, and a few thoughts.

Got to question the playcall on the safety. We had the ball on the 6, Garoppolo was in shotgun, and then dropped back several steps from there. Why? There was just no reason for him to go into the endzone on that play. Get the snap and throw the ball. It also led to Garoppolo being some ten yards back from the LOS at the end of his drop, which allowed Frank Clark to get up and around Trent (who may still be hobbled somewhat by the ankle).

Sack-and-fumble...I don't know. He had a fair bit of time in the pocket, and arguably should have seen Jones coming. Tough to get all that fired up at that point in the game. Man, McGlinchey is awful, though. Can't handle speed. Can't handle power. What's his game?

McClingchey was not known as a good pass blocker out of college. He just never improved and will always be a liability. I don't always watch individual oline play but seeing him just get physically pushed back just stood out. They could probably start Brunskill at tackle and the difference wouldn't be all that different.

[thesack12]

That said, like last week - and like the SB for that matter - this was a game where we needed the offense to be nearly flawless to keep pace (didn't need flawless play in the SB, just semi-competent in the second half), and they fell well short of that benchmark. It's not on one guy. The OL was generally really bad. RBs seemed to play pretty well, as did the receivers, but way too many mistakes overall, and more than enough blame to go around to lead to four trips into the red zone that led to FGs or an INT.

I carved up your quoted post here, but I specifically wanted to comment on this part.

I agree, the offense is definitely not beyond reproach here. Jimmy's 2 blunders stand out like a sore thumb, but it goes deeper than that. As you mentioned in an earlier post penalties consistently kept moving the backwards. Some of which are just inexcusable, like both Danny Gray and Jeff Wilson picking up false start flags. The O-line run blocked pretty well, but as has been all too common their pass protection was poor at best. Jimmy was under siege most of the game, and routinely got hit. He consistently bailed out the O-line job by getting the ball out. The TD to McCloud, and the entire possession resulting in the Kittle TD immediately come to mind. He didn't get the ball out every time of course (namely the safety).

There were a couple of key drops, that hurt. One was by Aiyuk on the first possession. He had both hands on the ball for a split second, but couldn't end up completing the catch. If he comes up with that, we are looking at 1st and goal, instead they had to kick a chip shot FG. The other was Kittle's on the 1st possession after halftime. Now to be fair, I still haven't seen a great angle of that play, but it sure looked like it bounced off Kittle's hands and his arms weren't real far from his body. If that catch is made we're looking at 1st and 10 inside the redzone, instead it resulted in another FG.

I'm overly sensitive to dropped passes. I played WR in high school and juco. My HS position coach constantly drilled into our heads, that if a receiver gets 2 hands on the ball and doesn't come up with the catch its 100% on you. The only exceptions he allowed were tipped balls, if you take a big shot when the ball arrives, or if making the catch required improvised body positioning (i.e, having to dive for it, having turn back to make a shoestring catch, etc.) Every dropped pass in a game required 2 gassers the following practice (which for us was starting from the 1 yard line sprinting to each 10 yard line increment and touching it and sprinting back to the 1 each time.) So yeah, those sucked. Coincidentally the coaching staff on my juco team wasn't as big and we didn't even have a dedicated WR position coach. But the OC still emphasized dropped passes as being mostly the receiver's responsibility, although he wasn't as strict about it. So yeah, dropped passes bug the hell out of me, personally.

Anyways getting back on track, no fault of the offense but RMC's insistence to keep bringing the ball out of the end zone on kickoffs hurt field position a few times, which of course handicapped the offense. One of which was compounded by a penalty which backed them up even further. This ultimately resulted in Jimmy's safety.

So yeah the offense is not undeserving of criticism. But as you alluded to, short of playing a basically perfect game with 0 turnovers, no penalties, and scoring a TD on every possession, with the way the defense played this was an unwinnable game.

[thesack12]

Just re-watched the highlights, and a few thoughts.

Got to question the playcall on the safety. We had the ball on the 6, Garoppolo was in shotgun, and then dropped back several steps from there. Why? There was just no reason for him to go into the endzone on that play. Get the snap and throw the ball. It also led to Garoppolo being some ten yards back from the LOS at the end of his drop, which allowed Frank Clark to get up and around Trent (who may still be hobbled somewhat by the ankle).

Sack-and-fumble...I don't know. He had a fair bit of time in the pocket, and arguably should have seen Jones coming. Tough to get all that fired up at that point in the game. Man, McGlinchey is awful, though. Can't handle speed. Can't handle power. What's his game?

Playcall on the safety didn't help, but Jimmy still needs to know what the situation is. I went back and read the game thread, and after it happened, I said he needs to have better pocket awareness. However, I misspoke. His pocket presence was fine on the play, he sensed the pressure was coming and flushed out of the pocket to the right. Field awareness was the problem there. Can't hold the ball in the end zone. Just can't do it.

I get that he along with the entire world watching that game realized that the defense wasn't going to prevent KC from scoring at all, so since it was 3rd down he was trying to extend the play and make something happen to try and keep possession of the ball. He did a good job of initially evading the pressure, but again you have to know where you are on the field. You absolutely need to have more urgency getting the ball out when you are in your own end zone.

Sack fumble, I can't really say. By that point, I had basically checked out. I only zoned back in when Purdy entered the game to see what he did out there.

But yes, McGlinchey is painfully bad. You know its bad when Mike makes you long for the days of Tom Compton.

The bad news is the 9ers don't have a lot of options to replace him this offseason. Really short on picks, and not flush with cap space.

The good news is, McGlinchey is so bad it won't take much to get somebody who is a net upgrade.

[thesack12]

Just re-watched the highlights, and a few thoughts.

Got to question the playcall on the safety. We had the ball on the 6, Garoppolo was in shotgun, and then dropped back several steps from there. Why? There was just no reason for him to go into the endzone on that play. Get the snap and throw the ball. It also led to Garoppolo being some ten yards back from the LOS at the end of his drop, which allowed Frank Clark to get up and around Trent (who may still be hobbled somewhat by the ankle).

Sack-and-fumble...I don't know. He had a fair bit of time in the pocket, and arguably should have seen Jones coming. Tough to get all that fired up at that point in the game. Man, McGlinchey is awful, though. Can't handle speed. Can't handle power. What's his game?

McClingchey was not known as a good pass blocker out of college. He just never improved and will always be a liability. I don't always watch individual oline play but seeing him just get physically pushed back just stood out. They could probably start Brunskill at tackle and the difference wouldn't be all that different.

+1

That play where Jones basically picked up McGlinchey and carried him all the way to the QB was straight up embarrassing.