Well, the travel weary Niners came back from their 2 game roadie, I should say the defense came back from their 2 game roadie. The offense is circling Turlock in a holding pattern. A pattern where no one gets open and no one catches shit. In a game that saw very solid pressure from the base D, the 49ers befuddled and harassed Aaron Rodgers well enough to win this game. Unfortunately, the offense is circling the drain amid more sniping from T Smith, and ineffective blocking. Teams are daring us to beat them through the air, and since we can’t block, we are struggling mightily to even get first downs, let alone touchdowns.
CK had another underwhelming day, and the blocking was it’s usual porous self, but VMcD had a big drop on what would have been an early 1st down, the refs got CK on a call that was ludicrous at best, we had the 1st Packer drive stopped but for a ticky-tack illegal hands, and a missed facemask call on BJ Raji.
Granted, those are little things that decent teams can overcome. But not us. As the game progressed, there was less and less time, more and more pressure, and dwindling confidence offensively as a whole. CK did hit T Smith on a nice deep pass, but that ended in a 4th and 5 play where an all-out blitz was met with the usual slow-developing pass play that had zero chance of working.
This offense is struggling with the same things that they were last year. Poor line play, and no help for the relentless pass rush CK faces all the time. I’m not even going to mention screens, because they won’t work against teams playing us so close to the line. How about a slant? A play that gets the ball out in under 3 seconds?
Either CK isn’t able to do this, or we just don’t have this shit in the playbook. I hate to belabor this point, but the Previous QB suffered the same fate. No quick hitters. No hot-read passes. No slants. I can’t profess to know, but I know Reid throws quick passes, and Young Sir Alex can make that throw. No reason to think CK can’t do the same.
But until the line play improves significantly (shuffle the line already) and the team comes up with a different strategy to slow down the relentless pressure, we will continue down this path.
New thread is up