This is the record of Blaine Gabbert as a starter, and as a 49er starter. Don’t kid yourself, though. this was an eminently winnable game. At least in regards of our offense going against their defense. They are not very good against the pass. 19th in the league.
The surprise to me was the very stout defense vs a) the #1 rusher in the league in Devonta Freeman, b) the #1 wide receiver in Julio Jones, and c) the #5 overall offense in the league.
Granted, I do think our front line is solid and deep, so stopping Freeman isn’t that big a shock. Still, 12 yards in 12 carries IS a shock. That is flat dominating. My bigger concern was our makeshift cornerback situation. Dontae Johnson was bumped from his starting spot last year, and Marcus Cromartie was on the practice squad last week, as Tremaine Brock, Kenneth Acker, and Keith Reaser were all out due to injury. Throw in Antoine Bethea being out all year, and you have a very green defensive backfield. Although I will say Jaquiski Tartt is playing very well. As it was, 3rd year safety Eric Ried was the elder statesman out there.
Johnson and Cromartie both had very solid games and shut down a very potent offense. In fact the only blown play was near the end of the first half, when the Niners should have gone into a dime package, but instead ended up with NaVorro Bowman lined up against Julio Jones. The ensuing 54 yards pass to Jones set up Atlanta’s only TD to close the scoring in the 1st half. The 2nd half was the defense doing just enough to keep Atl (mostly) out of scoring range.
The Niners run game, while not outstanding, still did well for another squad built with spare parts on short notice. Shaun Draughn had 58 yards with a 30 yard scamper to set up Gabbert’s 2nd TD to Garrett (VD who?) Celek. They managed to rack up 133 yards on the ground (to Atl’s 17) to go with the 185 in the air. The Niners didn’t get a ton of pressure on Matty Ice, but the D line batted down a lot of passes, and Ryan wasn’t comfortable in the pocket. 2 sacks and 2 yards rushing tell the tale that the line did well containing him.
The good news in all this is the team is seeing a lot of young players step up and make plays. Unfortunately they all seem to be on defense. The offense didn’t help Gabbert with 6 drops. Jerome Simpson and Torrey Smith both had costly drive killing (and one turnover-creating) drops. Vance McDonald had a drop on the one pass Colin Kaepernick threw (and BTW, what a bunch of gutless fans who booed CK) as Gabbert was knocked from the game temporarily. Which would have been a 28 yard gain.
And finally, I have to wonder how much heat Atl’s head coach Dan Quinn is taking for kicking the FG with 3 minutes to play and facing a 4th and 1 from the 1. Sure, their defense was doing OK in the 2nd half, but on the road you have to go for the win. Very wimpy call.
San Francisco 49ers Forever 
Ahhhh.. Shoulda looked up ESPN to determine our spot in the standings. Thanks, RTF.
Yes, we are 9th as of now. Guess we either hope for a Chicago loss tonight to stay ahead of them in our faint playoff hopes, or a Chicago win to position ourselves better for the 2016 draft.
Funny thing is, the 2 wildcard teams are, if the season ended today, the Vikings and the Falcons. Teams we beat. 12 wins between them.
Just need to jump 7 teams to get there. Starting with Seattle in 2 weeks. Stupider shit HAS happened. None of the teams ahead of us are all that good. But neither are we. Thing is, though, if the defense can keep up its recent uptick, we can take some teams down.
Our 2nd half schedule is a LITTLE easier than the first half, but we can only realistically lose one more game to have a chance. Then again, there are a lot of shitty teams in the NFL this year. I can’t even come close to remembering a time where the NFL was so deep in mediocre teams.
From a Falcon thread.
DQ..Now is the time to make a Head Coach Decision ..Get rid of Shannahannahann!!!! Run a wide open offense and throw the ball down field!! Put Ryan under center and keep him there!! That is where this team has had its greatest success..Not some b/s that is so predictable that a child can figure out how to defend against it!!
You want to keep your job?? It’s time to cut rope!!
____________________________
Funny, I had wondered what happened to Rowdy Roddy White. He wasn’t even targeted.
OC Kyle Shanahan is under the gun.
Here’s the full Atl story . . .
http://atlantafalcons.blog.ajc.com/2015/11/09/report-card-49ers-figure-out-falcons-is-disturbing-loss/
Even funnier is NoFear posting some blather about something that doesn’t even come within 1,000 parsecs of reality. I certainly see enough of people talking in circles, but he talks in Mobius strips.
Keep on toking, NoFear. Didn’t figure you for one of the flower children. But hey, peace, love and granola. Roll another one, just like the other one . . .
Spitty, another guarantee bites the dust? With the current state of the mediocrity of this season’s NFL, the playoffs ARE in the cards. Atl can certainly fall out of them very easily.
Sure it likely won’t happen, but then again, neither will you be able to talk to a real woman without a credit card number.
Thanks for reading, BTW. And go fuck yourself with a rusty pipe, Bullit! What’s funny is Dennis is banned on Skeeb’s site snd he gives me shit for it? Why is that, Bullit? Figured that out? You are fucking dumber than 2 bags of dicks. In fact Skeebs has blocked and driven off more people than me, so who is the censor? Who is the North Korean dick-tater? Keep hiding Skeebs. Hide behind Tweedle-Bullit, Tweedle-Bakken and Tweedle-NoPrediction.
Hmmm. Atlanta has the 32nd toughest schedule in the NFL. According to Bullit and NoFear, beating the Falcons is akin to beating Seattle. Idiots. Strength of schedule doesn’t come in to play when it doesn’t fit the agenda.
Too goddamn funny, folks. It’s no great shakes to predict a win, but getting the point differential spot-on takes a certain amount of genius.
Hyuk!
Skeebers blog takes a hit and enjoys every minute of it. They’re always thinking of Chuck! They see Chuck in their soup!
Chuck Soup. Wasn’t that a Groucho Marx movie?
The insults are flying around on the “other” blog. Sir Spit is taking on everyone and especially Bullit. I guess they will not be exchanging Xmas Cards this merry season.
Diss-function
Bullitt’s just heading towards the corner. I’m just sliding the paint across the floor…
Too funny. The Monday night football crew is gushing over xhicago’s win over SD.
Jesus. Selling bullshit by the pound.
Did you see Stevie Johnson blow the game? Late in the 4th, Chargers lead by 2, Chargers ball, Rivers to Johnson on third down – huge play, first down at the Bears 4. Stevie spikes the ball. Delay of game, 10 yard penalty, 1st and goal from the 14. The Chargers followed that up with a delay of game and then an illegal man downfield (RG 5 yds downfield on a beautiful scramble and TD pass by Rivers). LOL, the Chargers went on to get a FG which proved not enough as Cutlets led a TD drive.
The winner of the Who Wants It Less Bowl was undoubtedly Stevie. Others tried to give him a run for his money, but spiking the ball to turn the 1st and goal from the 4 into 1st and goal from the 14 with the lead and only a few minutes left wins the prize.
rt- I think we had a few calls like that last year too. Total fucking drive killers.
Hi Chuck. Those DBs are green but they hit like Hell. There should be a lot of spaghetti arms going down the middle.
Hey Twinnie, good to see you! I hope you’re recovering well from losing your house.
Nice to see you as well. We were able to buy a new house cash from the insurance settlement but as the saying goes a house is not a home. But one moves on, what’s the alternative?
Good to see you here Twin, after all you’ve been through. I appreciate the contact. Also good to see that you didn’t get the usual run-around from the ins co.
Yeah, the DBs were outstanding, but I have to wonder how much Atlanta’s offensive problems stem from Shanahan? He’s catching a ton of heat for not even using Roddy White and forcing everything through Jones. Not that that’s a terrible idea, just that we were keying on him big time with double coverage, so that should have left White in better situations.
Dontea Johnson’s good game comes as no surprise. Neither does our run D coming up big vs.a small RB
The big hitter’s in the secondary are acker and reid . Add Tartt to that list too.
Bullit has declared he’s the sports guru on Skeebers but Sir Spit begs to differ. I guess it’s “a failure to communicate” issue. Too bad…….life goes on.
Yeah chuck- every game is audition time for the youngsters, I hope they play the whole bench. Hard to tell who’s got the big heart if they don’t get on the field. I don’t expect the same results in Seattle but it sure was nice to see us move the ball. Even if we can do half of what we did in the Atl. game it just might be enough to keep Seattle’s defense honest and on their heels. This one is gonna be on coaching and the game plan.
Play dirty or lose it in Seattle. Time for hand to hand combat. A twist here and a crunch there and pretty soon one big bad ouch! Of course our Niners want to win with class and up in the white wine suites everyone prays the players ignore that stupidity on the field. Jed must yell in the men’s room “just crush those bastards!” And perhaps they will!
Contrary to prevailing “wisdom” I predict Kap not only plays for us again but does so this year
17-6 Seattle
I hope you’re right and I’m wrong, Rob. I’m quite happy that I can’t read Jed’s mind.
Well RT. I meant to say this before now but the way things are , how long do you suppose Gabbert can last. I give him 2 more games. Jed york not withstanding
I don’t know, Rob. I wrote this to Winder: it’s like a really bad poker player playing in a new town with new players. Gabbert might have some limited success for a short time. The next couple games could be brutal though, and then how long will his teammates stand up for him? Miami looked really good for a couple games under their new HC. Then they played a couple good teams and reality set in. Suddenly, the honeymoon’s over.
But Kap’s contract is the kicker, the wildcard that makes me completely unsure. The best thing for the Niner bottom line is keeping Kappy healthy until April 1st, and we all know how Jed loves his bottom line. That would mean benching him for the duration no matter what.
Yeah. Atl is a lot like Mnn. Soft schedule and a fair to middling defense.
Seattle is a different story. The d looked great against a very good offense. Which
H is encouraging.
As it was befor e the season started its all qbout the offense. If Gabbert wins, I’ll be surprised. If he wins there is a shot at sneaking back in the playoff hunt. Lots of teams are scuffling. Not that well go far should it even come to pass, but what do you do? Tank?
I think it’s a fool’s errand to stick with Gabbert. In the long run. Losing Kappy means starting back at square zero next season with a rookie QB and a low-level backup.
What I’d like to see happen is for Jed to get rid of Baalke at season’s end and let the next GM deal with the personnel on the team and hire his own coaching staff. You know, the proper way to do this.
Instead, we’l get Baalke cutting Kap, another fair to shit draft, and a couple more crappy years as Jed fails to realize that his problems stem from his GM, not from the make-shift coaching staffs he cobbles together.
In football you either play hard and to win or you may get killed. Tanking games is not a possibility.
NJ, you seriously think dumping Kaepernick and getting Aldon Smith back is a good thing?
Wouldn’t go there ever.
So Tank goes from 30 snaps against the Seahawks to 9 snaps against the Rams to being the only player suited up to not play against the Falcons to now being a situational pass rusher (who apparently doesn’t play).
Another one, this time a 2nd rounder, bites the dust.
chuck- No matter how anyone feels our situation calls for drastic measures. This whole shitpile starts at the top. I agree that Baalke has to go and I am surprised he hasn’t gone yet. Personally, I don’t want to see another Baalke draft. As far as Kappy goes my feelings are he has to get the basics down or defenses will continue to hammer him. He’s not fooling anyone and you have to keep them guessing. Part of that is coaching but I think most of it is on his play. It’s time to admit we are in a full rebuild and do it right. Bringing in a QUALIFIED GM will handle the coaching situation and the draft. And all this will take a couple to few years unless we continue with Baalke then we are truly fucked.
The bottom line is I’d rather see Kappy without Baalke rather than Baalke and a rookie QB
How about both ……GONE! Seems good to me. Kap just doesn’t get the job done for whatever the reason. He better move on ASAP for everyone’s sake. Baalke’s drafts are lame fatal for a GM. He needs another town to ply his trade.
New thread is up.