San Francisco 49ers’ Third-Quarter Season Grade
By Jeff Pearlman
@thedadeeoh
Getty Images
A bevy of NFL teams would love to be sitting at 7-4 right now, like the entire NFC South, for example. However, for the San Francisco 49ers, it’s not good enough.
Sent home if the NFL Playoffs were to start today, the 49ers need to win at least three of their remaining five games to have a shot at the postseason, and even then they’ll need help from the likes of the Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals and Detroit Lions to name a few. Erase a few costly mistakes against the Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams from the annals of history, and the 49ers are a healthy 9-2 and in full control of their destiny.
Instead, the 49ers are on the outside looking in and their fate is being supervised by others.
This season, the 49ers’ offense is scoring 4.7 fewer points per game than they were a year ago and 4.1 fewer than they did in the 2012 season. That’s a massive drop-off and when you combine it with the fact that the defense is giving up 3.5 more points per game than it did in 2013 (3.4 more than in 2012), you begin to understand why the 49ers are still fighting to master their future.
Oh, it would be very remiss of me not to mention the fact that it took the 49ers’ offense 12 NFL weeks to score a touchdown in the fourth quarter. The late-game score against the Washington Redskins brought the 49ers’ 2014 fourth-quarter TD total to one. That’s right, one.
It’s difficult to place any of the blame on Vic Fangio and the 49ers’ defense. If it weren’t for Fangio’s brilliance and unique ability to get the absolute most out of every player not named Ray McDonald, San Francisco could very well be out of every postseason discussion already. Forced to be without NaVorro Bowman, Patrick Willis and Glenn Dorsey due to injury and Aldon Smith due to audacious stupidity, the defense should’ve folded up shop months ago.
But, newcomers Chris Borland, Aaron Lynch and Michael Wilhoite, along with wily veterans Justin Smith and Antoine Bethea, have done a remarkable job for a defense currently ranking among the NFL’s best.
As for the offense, the blame starts with Greg Roman, but it ends with Colin Kaepernick with an honorable mention of the offensive line somewhere in the middle. Roman is delusional in both his belief of how the offense is performing, and in continuing to try the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result every time. Can anyone explain why the 49ers have more weapons now but are scoring less than they were last year? It’s a rhetorical question; the answer is Roman.
The sieve-like nature of the offensive line aside, Kaepernick hasn’t been nearly good enough this season. The new-money quarterback is set to record career-lows in total QBR (56.4) and YPC (7.54), and he’s on pace to throw more INTs than ever before. He is the most sacked quarterback in the NFL and while it’s easy to blame the offensive line, don’t forget that Kaepernick is as mobile as any QB and he has a variety of quality weapons to target when under pressure.
Offensive football is the ultimate team sport, so one cannot place all of the blame on him; that said, he is the leader of the squad and simply put, he needs to do a better job.
Third quarter grade: C+
Jeff Pearlman is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
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