It was a day like any other. And I truly mean that, because this football Sunday ended like any other for the San Francisco 49ers. Same story. Different day. The 49ers came out looking decent against a bad New Orleans Saints team, and then they fell apart, losing their seventh in a row. The story of the day was bad defense and four Niner turnovers.
As per usual, the Niner run defense didn’t defend anything, giving up 248 yards on the ground. Running back Mark Ingram was the latest in a long line of NFL rushers to gain over 100 yards against the red and gold, finishing with 158 yards and a touchdown. Linebacker Eli Harold says it’s not for lack of trying, but that’s not changing the result.
“It’s real frustrating, because we put such an emphasis on it,” said Harold. “And we work our tails off week in and week out in practice man. And the game plan just gets simpler and simpler and simpler…I don’t know. It’s unexplainable.”
As the season goes on, it is clear that the 49ers have no explanation or plan to stop the run, which is awesome since next up are David Johnson and the Arizona Cardinals. Overall, they gave up 571 total yards of offense and fun fact, that’s not good. This loss was very much on the defense, but there’s plenty of blame to go around.
“You get them into situations where you feel comfortable – it’s third-and-long and then all of a sudden Drew [Brees] just keeps hitting those back shoulder throws where our guys are there but then don’t make a play on the ball,” said head coach Chip Kelly. “It’s unfortunate when you’re playing against somebody as talented as him, really, truly a Hall of Fame quarterback you’ve got to make plays and we didn’t. The story of the game was he had too many [explosive] plays on the defensive side of the ball and three times we had an opportunity down in the red zone and we came away with zero points. We fumbled on the one. We fumbled on the 10. Then we have a fourth-and-one that we don’t convert..Both sides of the ball contributed to it.”
Speaking of the offense, the Niners had 491 total yards of it, which is the most they’ve had all season. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick finished the day 24 of 29 for 398 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. It was still an up and down day for Kaepernick, but he looked the best he has all season; really, he looked the best he has in a couple of seasons.
“I think for me, I get more and more comfortable every week…,” said Kaepernick. “[T]his is my first real opportunity getting live reps. So, being a few games in now, everything’s more and more clear, more and more comfortable and [I’m] able to into a rhythm with this offense.”
The Niner offense did provide a couple bright spots. Running back DuJuan Harris had a pretty good day, with 59 yards rushing, 83 yards receiving and a touchdown. Though that’s probably feels good personally, the loss is no less frustrating.
“In this locker room we know that we could have won that game,” said Harris. “We could have won a lot of games this season. We are just killing ourselves, that is the main thing.”
Quinton Patton hit over 100 receiving yards for the first time in his career and he and Kaepernick seem to getting in a good rhythm. On special teams, JaCorey Shepherd surprised literally everyone with three kickoff returns for a total of 104 yards, so that was exciting.
But turnovers. Four is bad enough, but the Mike Davis fumble at the one-yard line in the third quarter shifted the momentum and that was that.
“I think today was a step in the right direction,” said Kaepernick. “We had a lot of opportunities out there where a few different plays here and there, it’s a different ballgame. Those are things that moving forward we have to correct. Those are the corrections we have to make that make a difference whether you win or lose football games.”
The 49ers have played eight games and have eight to go, which sounds daunting, but this is what they do.
“You have to keep working and keep trying to be better every week because complaining about it, worrying about it, all of those things aren’t going to help you correct it,” said Kaepernick. “And ultimately that’s what we have to do is correct things offensively, defensively, special teams. As a team, we have to correct our mistakes so we can start winning football games.”
At the very least, they have to start being competitive in football games, because right now, they are an easy win on everyone’s schedule and that’s not lost on the players.
“I just feel like every team circles us on all their calendars and that’s something we’ve got to get better at.” said Harold. “We can’t be the target. We can’t be the laughingstock.”
Sadly, right now, the 49ers are very much the laughingstock of the NFL. Next week is another week. To Arizona they go.