Week 2 2015: Thoughts after rewatching the game...

Ouch.


1) Kap: I gotta say...Yes, he got a lot of his yards after the score got out of control. Yes, the Pittsburg secondary isn't stellar...but MAN there were times he looked good. It didn't start after the score got crazy either. The yards didn't show it, but he played poised under pressure, kept his eyes downfield, and checked off to a RB more often than I've ever seen. The combination of sacks, penalties, drops, and screen plays that lost yardage made the statline look horrible early, but in rewatching the game I made a point to really watch him closely from beginning to end.

I can't see what's going on downfield so I'm sure the breakdowns will give us a better idea there, but his body language in the pocket and presence were very good...possibly better than I've ever seen.

There was even TOUCH on some of those throws. The 2 point conversion to Torrey? Nice. Lob to Vernon for a 1st down? Really Nice. :)

I came away from this game very encouraged by his play...unfortunately I watched the rest of the players as well.



2) Hyde: I said it last week and it came to pass. I love his running style, but he way to often exposes himself to injury. When he took that shot to the knee I was amazed he got up and I though he might be done for the year.



3) O-Line: Yikes. What concerned me most was the inside pressure on several of those plays. One of the things Kap needs to learn and has been getting musch better at is stepping up in the pocket and continuing to look downfield. That ain't gonna happen if the Tackles are pushing the DE wide and when he tries to step up there's a 300 DT bearing down on him.

They weren't much better in the run game, but I kinda have to give them at least a bit of a pass on this one., When I heard they were making the transition to Zone-Blocking this summer, I really liked the idea...but I also knew there would be some growing pains. There were. They just didn't show up till week 2.



4) Pass Rush: What's this Pass Rush thing you speak of? Again...I said it last week and it came to pass in week 2. Blitzing is great, but what made the 49er defense so good in recent years against big name QBs was that they could apply pressure and stop the run with 4 and they could drop 7. Not so much anymore. They didn't get pressure and I'll talk about the secondary in a bit. This concerns me because I don't see any magic pill coming along that will improve the pass rush. Losing Aldon in this regard is simply huge. Can't be understated. To me, he and Anthony Davis were the biggest losses of the offseason.



5) Secondary: Its really easy to put this one on the secondary and no doubt they had their struggles...but the entire defense had their fingerprints on what went down in Pittsburg. No pressure, young DBs, breakdowns in coverage...and lets be real...a really good QB-WR combination. Hopefully this can searve as a lesson they can learn from, but I had concerns here BEFORE the game and this game did nothing to calm my fears.



6) Jarryd Hayne: Please stop giving him carries as a RB. He's NOT a RB. Not yet anyway.



7) Torrey: Was Nice to see him get some shots in there. That pass to him on the long TD reminded me of Kap in 2012. Garbage time, but still nice to see.



8) Vernon: Nice to see him get involved, but he's just never been a "go find empty space and sit down in it" TE. Hopefully though this was a sign of things to come for him.



9) Drops: OMG the drops. So frustrating. Kap can throw the ball. He can't catch it too. It was maddening. I dunno if it was the crazy schedule or what, but those drops just drove me up the wall. Perfectly delivered passes time and time again that they just couldn't hang onto. I mean Hell, ANQUAN dropped 2. What the hell is THAT about?



10) Reset: OK. Lets get this out of the system. Lets move on. Seattle lost. Their 0-2. Niners Play the Cards and believe it or not the Niners would actually be tied for 1st place in the division with a win. Yes, Palmer will present a huge issue just as Big Ben did...but we'll see about that one on Sunday. The Cards won't be on 10 days rest and breathing fire off an embarrassing loss the way Pittsburg was.

Until they fix the OL and get a pass rush this will be a bad team. I know there were drops and the DL was awful but at the end of the day it simply came down to the line play and the pressure (or lack thereof) on the QB.

Agreed. We can't forget that PIT had 10 days vs our short week and it was an 11am east coast game. That's a lot of situational advantage to give up before the game even starts. The real test is what they do against the Cards.

I completely agree with all of this. We miss Aldon BAD. Lynch needs to play wolb and stay there. Kaep mentioned in his presser that they played two-deep safety most of the game, why didn't we? I'm REALLY curious to know if the lack of safety help was by design or was it blown assignments. Eric Reid looked awful and slow. IMO he has never looked like a first rounder.

Originally posted by Ninerjohn:
Until they fix the OL and get a pass rush this will be a bad team. I know there were drops and the DL was awful but at the end of the day it simply came down to the line play and the pressure (or lack thereof) on the QB.

I think Kilgore will help out a lot.

Originally posted by All22:

Originally posted by Ninerjohn:

Until they fix the OL and get a pass rush this will be a bad team. I know there were drops and the DL was awful but at the end of the day it simply came down to the line play and the pressure (or lack thereof) on the QB.

I think Kilgore will help out a lot.

Yes! Marcus Martin is f**king awful!

Originally posted by sdaddy101269:
I completely agree with all of this. We miss Aldon BAD. Lynch needs to play wolf and stay there. Kaep mentioned in his presser that they played two-deep safety most of the game, why didn't we? I'm REALLY curious to know if the lack of safety help was by design or was it blown assignments. Eric Reid looked awful and slow. IMO he has never looked like a first rounder.

Neither does Ward... I'd like to see Ward and Reid swap positions.

Originally posted by sdaddy101269:
I completely agree with all of this. We miss Aldon BAD. Lynch needs to play wolb and stay there. Kaep mentioned in his presser that they played two-deep safety most of the game, why didn't we? I'm REALLY curious to know if the lack of safety help was by design or was it blown assignments. Eric Reid looked awful and slow. IMO he has never looked like a first rounder.

I think Reid will be fine. Over-reacting a bit there. Entire D had a bad day.

You forgot to mention poor game planning on both sides of the ball. Tomsula looked puzzled on the sidelines. Mangini should be embarrassed and Geep didn't fix our red zone woes.

Re: hit to Hyde's knee, I also thought he was done. It was a cheap shot...that's not a bang-bang play where the ball carrier moves at the last second changing the "impact zone", instead that's a defender coming in low with intent to hit the lower leg.

Those hits should be outlawed and policed just like hits to the head/neck area...and I said the same thing last week when Acker came in low on "defenseless" Minn WR when he easily could've hit him in the thigh instead.

Anyway, glad Hyde is okay, that game sucked, hoping for much better next wk @ Arizona.

I think it's time to see what we have in Trenton Brown. I have a hard time believing he could be worse than Pears at right tackle.

Originally posted by sdaddy101269:

Originally posted by All22:

Originally posted by Ninerjohn:
Until they fix the OL and get a pass rush this will be a bad team. I know there were drops and the DL was awful but at the end of the day it simply came down to the line play and the pressure (or lack thereof) on the QB.

I think Kilgore will help out a lot.

Yes! Marcus Martin is f**king awful!

This. He gets pushed back way too often. Combine that with Devey and Pears being mediocre at best it's no wonder Kap was side stepping right away.

Our main defensive problem was lack of pass rush. Put more pressure on Ben, and it would have been a completely different ballgame. Our offense was doing enough, but the complete lack of pass rush allowed ben to scan the field all day. I think anyone of us could have done that with all the time he had.

Originally posted by sdaddy101269:
I completely agree with all of this. We miss Aldon BAD. Lynch needs to play wolb and stay there. Kaep mentioned in his presser that they played two-deep safety most of the game, why didn't we? I'm REALLY curious to know if the lack of safety help was by design or was it blown assignments. Eric Reid looked awful and slow. IMO he has never looked like a first rounder.

We were playing 2-deep, just that on some of those, the FS started the 2-deep at the LOS.

Originally posted by Ninerjohn:
Until they fix the OL and get a pass rush this will be a bad team. I know there were drops and the DL was awful but at the end of the day it simply came down to the line play and the pressure (or lack thereof) on the QB.

Yep.

Thanks Anthony Davis and Aldon Smith for f**king us over!