49ers 24, Rams 27
Last week’s loss was a complicated mess of factors against an ascending team. This one was just a bed shitting.
In a game that felt like a classic Seahawks tilt from the jump—where the other team hangs around too long and a game that never should have been a game becomes one late—we arrived as the much better squad and looked it for the majority of the contest. But game flow issues, limited possessions, horrendous special teams, and massive execution issues down the stretch led to a truly pathetic giveaway. Our schedule is weeks from getting into its toughest stretch. This was not a game we could afford to lose.
Breaking Backs. For the second straight week, the swing plays killed us. If you wanna see how a team that racks up 425 yards of offense on 6.5 ypp can struggle to shut the door when they’re moving the ball steadily all day, look at the six drops, the soft holding call in the fourth quarter on a five-yard first down run that took us out of field goal range, or the massive miscues on special teams.
Football has never been a game about who dominates the largest majority of plays because so many of those plays are just set-ups for the critical moments that truly dictate the game. Chances to extend or steal possessions. Scoring opportunities on offense and defense. Losing a game like this means faltering in those moments, and we did exactly that in all three phases. On offense, it was mostly drops. On defense and special teams, it was unfortunately everything.
On the bright side, we’ve been here before—flailing early in a season and giving up games to lesser opponents—only to turn things around with massive win streaks and deep post-season runs down the stretch. But that doesn’t make it easier to stomach in the moment. And those seasons were brutally dramatic. So while we shouldn’t be anywhere close to writing off these Niners and their long-term goals, we should brace ourselves for a stressful season.
OFFENSE
The game plan was sound from the jump. Since the Rams are a quarters-dominant defense, we wanted to pound the rock and chip away in the passing game with intermediate routes. But accomplishing this required consistent execution, and–with three stars out on offense–our overall performance hinged largely on which of our lesser-used skill players would step up and which would falter.
Highs and Lows. Blowing past the expectations of even the most ardent Jauan Jennings stan, our bully ball receiver posted career highs across the board–dominating to the tune of 11 catches for 175 yards and 3 touchdowns. Some of those catches were more impressive than others…
…but all of them were desperately needed in a game where few other receivers stepped up.
Brandon Aiyuk was once again out-of-sorts with Purdy, dropping two balls–one a third down killer on a drive that could have broken the game open in the first half–and often struggling to get on the same page on timing routes. Meanwhile, Ronnie Bell tallied three drops, including a back-breaker on our last offensive drive which would have likely sealed a victory. In the post-game presser, Shanahan politely alluded to the idea that rookie Jacob Cowing was still grasping the offense (aka, he doesn’t know the whole playbook). Well, he’d better learn quick. Cause we’ve seen enough to know what Bell is and what he’s not. He seems like a hard worker and a good practice player, but once a roster spot has to open for Ricky Pearsall’s return from the PUP list, it would be surprising if Ronnie Bell were still on the active roster.
OL Stock Watch. Trent Williams has yet to round into the “destroyer of worlds” form we’ve come to expect from him, but he’s still playing at a very high level. Beside him, Banks has been consistently solid. Puni has taken some rookie lumps, but the arrow is still sky-high in his projections. And he’s not exactly being helped by the guys he’s paired with.
Any hope that McKivitz’s relatively strong finish to last year would roll over into this season has proved unfounded. His run blocking has improved, but he still paces our team in pressures allowed, and his whiff in pass pro directly led to Purdy’s fumble against the Rams. Meanwhile, Jake Brendel has joined him in receiving at least one absolute ass-beating in pass pro per game. Our 32-year-old center took a big step back in pass pro last season and he’s unfortunately still trending in that direction. The game against the Rams wasn’t as alarming as his first two contests but—after more than doubling his number of pressures allowed from 2022 to 2023—he’s currently on track to set another career-worst mark.
This is where it would be nice to have any young talent whatsoever at tackle or the point position. At tackle, we have Jaylon Moore and that’s about it. One injury puts us in a tough position. Two means we’re calling dudes off the street.
While at center, Drake Nugent is intriguing—as far as an undrafted free agent rookie on the practice squad can be intriguing—but certainly shouldn’t be playing any snaps this year. The same could have been said for Jarrett Kingston, even if his size and athleticism projected better before he got poached by the Panthers. Personally, I’d have rather kept Kingston than our current backup center, Nick Zakelj, who seems destined to follow in the footsteps of the Justin Skules before him—hanging around on the roster due to his intelligence, blocking more promising prospects, and never having the athleticism to ever give us valuable snaps. If things get really bad for Brendel, maybe the stopgap solution is Jon Feliciano, who likely has a claim to being one of our top five linemen once he returns from injury. But the most likely scenario is Brendel and McKivitz remain our starters at C and RT, pass pro issues be damned.
Purdy Good Though. The silver lining of this thoroughly messy start to the season is that Purdy–despite lesser stats than last year–has taken a sizable step forward in his play. His pocket presence is better, the out-of-structure plays he flashed have become a more regular (and more impressive) occurrence, and his accuracy and reads have gotten much more consistent. Yes, he had one fumble and missed the read on the shot play to Aiyuk that could have flipped this game in our favor, but the fumble was more of a McKivitz issue than a Purdy one, and Purdy created much more yardage out of structure than he missed within it.
Since his emergence, the constant knock on Purdy has been “Well, what would he do without all that talent around him?” Sunday, while playing without three All-Pros on offense, with his highly-paid receiver in a middling rut, and with only one guy consistently getting open and catching the ball, Purdy extended plays, rushed for 32 yards, and threw three tugs and only eight incomplete passes despite six drops. Sure, at least one of those drops was wiped away due to penalty, but Purdy kept us in the game. He’s taken the next step. If we can get healthy and clean up the execution elsewhere, our offense should be fine.
Through three up-and-down games, we’re third in yardage, fourth in yards per play, and seventh in scoring. Lots to clean up, and it would be nice to do so sooner rather than later, but I’m not particularly worried about our offense long-term.
DEFENSE
For now, I am stressing patience because it’s still early. But the second half of this contest was another L for Sorensen. Some hiccups from the offense were expected with so much talent missing, but we just allowed an undermanned Rams team to score on their last four straight possessions. Just three weeks into the season, opposing offenses have targeted the weak spots in our defense, and we’ve been happy to let them. Things will only get harder with the surprising news that Javon Hargrave—fresh off his best game of the season—is now out for the season (or at least the regular season) with a torn triceps.
Connectivity Problems. The one thing no one can argue about the short-lived Steve Wilks era is that he got excellent play from our secondary. So far, things have been much looser this year, whether that’s our coverage (Yiadom) or our communication. I didn’t notice nearly as many communication breakdowns this week, but it’s not a good sign how much separation this depleted crop of Rams receivers was able to generate when it mattered most.
Tutu Atwell and Demarcus Robinson, two absolute randos deep on the Rams receiver depth chart, combined for 125 yards receiving against a fully healthy secondary. If that’s the sort of performance we can look forward to, what happens when we play a good receiver corps?
Where’s the rat? One of the major inflection points of the DeMeco Ryans DC era was when he started deploying Fred Warner in mug looks on critical downs, putting our star linebacker into the A gap on the line of scrimmage, forcing the OL into one-on-one looks against our pass rush, and then dropping Warner into coverage where he could take away anything across the middle. Sorensen has started to lean on something kind of similar, but the scheme behind those looks has changed and the execution has left much to be desired.
Here the Rams are facing a 3rd-and-8 in the first half.
We’re in a Cover 1 with Huf helping on anything deep. We’ve lined up six men on the line of scrimmage and four defenders to the weak side of the formation to force the OL to open their pass pro to the defensive left. The plan is to have our two tackles slant weak, occupy (hopefully) three linemen, and loop Floyd inside. Warner is rushing as well. Dee Winters (in yellow) is also looping across, but my guess is he’s on an adaptive loop path where he’ll bail off the rush and match up with the running back if he releases on a route.
This isn’t inherently unsound, but situationally, I have some issues. The Rams (and the Vikings last week) LOVE crossing routes, which inherently play to the weaknesses of this coverage. On third downs like these, our expectation should be a crossing route and our call should be one that understands that and has a defender patrolling the area. This is only exacerbated by the loss of Kupp and Nacua and the limitations of their remaining receivers.
Tutu Atwell—who is lined up in the slot—is a 5’9 155 pound wide receiver who ran a 4.39 at his pro day. That alone should tell you exactly what he runs. Deep routes and crossers. That’s what he ran against us on Sunday…
…and that’s what he’s running against us on this third down.
Stafford sees we’re in man coverage, checks the play at the line of scrimmage, motions Tutu Atwell into a bunch formation, and runs a full man-beater concept. The vertical man acts as a rub for the angle route, the crosser is out-leveraged by the late motion, and the return to the solo side is the fallback in case nothing else works.
It’s one thing to lose the rock-paper-scissors battle of playcalling. That happens to everyone. But we’re beat in multiple ways before the ball’s even snapped because we’re trotting out a defense whose greatest weakness is one of their single most common concepts. And we’re showing it pre-snap.
Not to mention, this kinda misses the point of why we went to those mug looks in the first place. Half the reason they work is because Warner is the best coverage linebacker in football. He can line up over the center on the line of scrimmage but is still fast enough to take away a wideout on a deep crosser. He’s the only person in the world who can do that. Use it. Drop him back and take out their crosser. Or have Dee Winters take a bluff rush step then drop back into the hole with eyes towards the first threat from the trips side.
Warner’s a strong pass rusher, and you gotta send him sometimes in these looks just to keep the offense honest. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Either deploy a defense that matches up against what they wanna do most or bluff them one way or another. We’re making it too easy.
Hard Targets. In Sorensen’s defense, everything he does is limited by the fact that he has to hide two guys in coverage. Two guys who opposing offenses are hunting with regularity. Isaac Yiadom’s been in the vicinity but is consistently too loose in coverage—allowing 5-of-5 passes for 52 yards and committing a costly pass interference call on the Rams’ first scoring drive. While Devondre Campell let up 3-for-3 for 53 yards, a touchdown, and a 25-yard pass interference that set up the Rams’ game-winning field goal. Through three games, he’s now allowed 14-of-16 for 149 yards and a score.
At cornerback, we at least have bodies to throw at the problem. After adding Yiadom and Rock Ya-Sin, drafting Renardo Green in the second round, and the healthy return of Darrell Luter Jr. this should (theoretically) be the deepest cornerback room we’ve had in the ShanaLynch era. But Green is the only one of those guys who has been playing and it’s uncertain how much the coaching staff wants to throw him into the fire less than a month into his career.
Dee Winters—who had a strong off-season but missed the first two weeks of the season while recovering from an ankle injury—was rotating in and out with Campbell before re-injuring that ankle on the fake punt conversion—a plan the coaching staff said was in place during the summer. So they’re not blind to Campbell’s limitations. We also deployed a lot of five-man DL fronts in this game—likely to overload against the run (it didn’t really work) but also to find another way to put one less linebacker on the field. But given Winters could miss more time and Dre won’t return until mid-season at the earliest, we’ve gotta get creative.
Against the run, Campbell is decent. And according to PFF, he’s registered a pass rush grade of over 70+ in all three of his seasons in Green Bay. Maybe that means he’s more of an early-down player and—on passing downs—we either blitz him or pull him for a third safety. Maybe he can get by in coverage if we put less on his plate, deploying him only on a few different assignments with plenty of help. Whatever it is, we have to adjust our scheme and what we’re asking of our players so that Campbell and Yiadom aren’t so heavily targeted. Easier said than done, but if we don’t at least put in the effort, things are going to get worse before they get better. Or at least stay the same. Which is bad.
You can’t spell “special teams” without “ass.” A narrowly missed 55-yard field goal is annoying but at least excusable. But how many times do we have to see a coulda/shoulda blowout become a game due to a fake punt, a muffed punt, or a big punt return against us? This game ends before it begins if the Rams don’t convert on that fake (a fake that we expected but somehow still couldn’t stop). It likely goes to OT if we cover down on our punt. In the past two weeks, we’ve had a punt blocked, a punt muffed, a long punt return that led to the go-ahead points, and a fake punt that was converted against us on a touchdown drive.
That is unacceptable.
Depth Disparity. It’s worth noting that there were depth wins in this game. Jennings was the first Niners receiver to tally three touchdowns in a game since T.O. in 2001. Eric Saubert had a whiff in pass pro but otherwise looks like a sizeable improvement over Charlie Woerner at backup tight end. Jordan Mason—as the only one of our top three running backs who is healthy—is an absolute wrecking ball. But as much as those players were featured in a positive light, our issues elsewhere were just as bright.
Ronnie Bell is the most obvious scapegoat, but the fact that Devondre is even on the field is a testament to how our young linebackers taken in the past two drafts haven’t developed into playable territory. While Yiadom was added—and made a starter—this off-season because none of the many cornerbacks we’ve drafted over the years have asserted themselves beyond Lenoir. And while you could certainly point to the Trey Lance and CMC and Chase Young trades over the past years as gutting our high-round draft capital and leading to that lack of depth, our third-round whiffs have been at least equally as responsible.
I’ve always believed that any picks made in the first two days of the draft should be expected to play major snaps within a calendar year, and the third round is a natural place to add depth pieces who you can bring along slowly as rookies. But our third rounds have been barren for years. And that’s just magnified when we’ve been without so many first and second-round picks.
Ji’Ayir Brown (2023) and Jake Moody (2023) are regular starters. Dominick Puni (2024) has started right away and could round into a stud. But Cameron Latu (2023), Tyrion Davis-Price (2022), Danny Gray (2022), and Trey Sermon (2021) were all whiffs. Ambry Thomas (2021) at least started some games but if we were at all confident in his ability in that role, we wouldn’t have imported Yiadom. While Drake Jackson (2022)—our only second-round pick over a two-year stretch—is out the year with a preseason injury. His most valuable contribution may wind up the three-sack season opener from last year. That’s half of his career sack total.
Now there are some important caveats to be applied here before we get too out of control. We were missing three All-Pros on one side of the ball. There isn’t a unit in football (offensive or defensive) that’s not going to miss a beat with that kind of talent sidelined. And offensively, we only really felt that dropoff with Ronnie Bell’s disastrous outing at wideout—a position we did try to address in the off-season, both in the fourth round with Jacob Cowing—who likely doesn’t know the whole playbook after missing a big chunk of training camp—and in the first with Ricky Pearsall. He just happens to be on the PUP list for, you know… getting shot. Even Grant Cohn couldn’t pretend that was our fault. And while we don’t know a ton about Ricky as a pro due to his injury, we know that his hands were lauded as some of the best in a historically deep receiver class. So we can safely assume he’s probably not dropping three passes on four targets.
While at linebacker, even a team as dependent as ours on quality LB play still only regularly plays two of them. So it’s not like we were going to be spending first or second-round picks on the position when the two we have are top 10 talents who are just now 27 years old. It’s also worth noting that we have had, over the years, Kwon Alexander and Azeez Al-Shaair—a current plus starter for the Titans—as our third linebacker. And there is at least talk of Dee Winters as a rising player. So how much capital were we really supposed to spend at linebacker prior to last year?
But the short careers and wealth of injuries in the NFL means roster building is always a multi-year process. It takes years to develop the players you play now and years of preparation to fill the holes that form when they depart. We’ve known we needed CB depth for years. Just cause we threw numbers at the problem this off-season doesn’t mean that would necessarily fix it.
So while CMC, Deebo, Kittle, and Greenlaw should all return at some point this season, this does shine a light on depth concerns moving forward and our upcoming cap crunch after this year. Our incredible late-round and undrafted track record has helped us paper over some of those issues to this point, but this class needs to hit (and so does the next one) if we want to keep this window open through the primes of many of our top players.
NEXT UP: SUNDAY VS. NEW ENGLAND (1-2) @ 1:05 PM PT
Rookie Drake Maye got some run late in last Thursday’s game and the Pats have a few extra rest days to prep him this week to take over starting duties, but veteran placeholder Jacoby Brissett is expected to remain as the Pats’ QB1 for a largely anemic offense. This could very well be the right call in the long term, but it does put a rather obvious short-term cap on a passing attack that has some developmental weapons but little consistency or explosive potential. RB Rhamondre Stevenson is the weapon to key in this matchup and forcing them into a pass-heavy attack is the best way to stifle what should be a very stifle-able offense. The Jets, who run our scheme, just held them to 3 points and 2.9(!) yards per play. Let’s do that plz.
Defense is Jerod Mayo’s specialty, and he adheres to the “blitz and play man with versatile pieces” approach that New England has employed for years. It’s a sound scheme and one that could present some problems depending on how many of our weapons we have injured. But it’s also a unit that just allowed 400 yards of offense to the Jets. The talent level just isn’t what it used to be. There will be openings but we’ll need to find them in the passing game to loosen up what is generally a stout run defense.
Despite a week one upset of the Bengals, the Patriots seem well on their way to a top 5 draft pick as they continue their quasi-rebuild. If we lose this one, it’s time to panic.
Go Niners 🏈👍