In the immortal words of Axl Rose, where do we go now? Or would you prefer Louis Burton Lindley, Jr. (aka Slim Pickens), who said, what in the wide wide world of sports is goin’ on here? The 49ers, fresh off their midseason break spent getting healthyed up and ready to make a serious push to the playoffs, instead lay one of the biggest turds on the newly christened Levis field since the Singletary days.

After crawling out to a 10-3 lead in the 2nd quarter, the 49ers went:

• punt
• fumble
• missed FG
• punt
• punt
• punt
• punt
• fumble

Not the best of days for Colin Kaepernick, with his holding the ball too long, not getting rid of the ball when pressured, not feeling pressure when it is coming for the back side, and getting strip-sacked again, and, of course the final fumble that he actually fumbled twice. Then again, what galls me even more is the lack of ANY adjustments made by the coaching staff. After giving up 6 sacks in the 1st half, did the Niners try to circumvent the pressure by designing quicker plays, and go away from the 5 and 7 step drops? Of course not. This has been a problem all year. Kappy rarely has time to throw a pass from a deep drop yet, under intense pressure from non-existent blocking across the entire O line, Kappy was sacked a total of 8 times. That’s a total of 14 in the last 2 games. By comparison, the ’71 Niners under John Brodie gave up a total of 16 all year. Yes, Kappy is holding the ball too long, and tries to use his athleticism, and it gets him into trouble.

But again, the team refuses to use plays that counteract blitzes. They threw TWO misdirection plays to Boldin that worked great. Naturally, they shied away from that play all day. One screen that gaind 5 yards, and one delay that gained 0. Like I said before the game, they refuse to exploit things that they find to work.  The Rams had NO business being in this game, but the ineffective offense failed miserably all game.

The banged-up unit on the team, the defense again played spectacularly. Chris Borland, subbing for the ailing toe of Patrick Willis, had 18 tackles in a big day. Although he did blow the coverage on the TD. Austin Davis played terrible, threw 2 picks, and had a losing effort of a day. If not for the absolute wasteland of an offense. Throw in ONE mistimed 23 yard punt from the 5 and there you have it. Game over.

There are so many problems with this offense that it defies explanation in one thread.