San Francisco 49ers broadcaster Ted Robinson joined ESPN 1320 to weight in on the team's performance against the Buffalo Bills.
The 49ers are coming off of their fifth-straight loss and have just one win in their first six games. That's one win less than the Jim Tomsula led squad from a year ago through six weeks. Robinson started by stating that the quarterback is not the answer nor the problem. "It's way deeper than that," he said.
Robinson spoke about the 49ers defense, which gave up 491 total yards to the Bills in the ugly 45-16 blowout loss. The defense gave up 312 rushing yards and RB LeSean McCoy had a dream fantasy football performance with 140 yards rushing and three touchdowns.
"The defense hung in there – even though it did give up some runs – it hung in there," Robinson said. "I mean, it was a 17-13 game with two minutes to go in the third. So, you're in the game and the defense completely collapsed in the fourth quarter. That's the part to me that you can't accept in the pros. And this has happened now several times to the 49ers this year. That 44-yard touchdown run by [Mike] Gillislee – that looked like Alabama playing Sacramento State in September. I mean, you just can't have that in the pros. You cannot allow a 44-yard touchdown run where the guy doesn't get touched.
"So anyway, to me, the run defense is very apparent to everyone and the run offense is a close second right now. And the run offense yesterday is what failed the team. You have 3rd-and-1 at their 40-yard line when it's 17-13 in the third quarter – and it's about three minutes to go in the quarter. So even if you kick the field goal on that drive, at 17-16, you're in the game going to the fourth quarter when you have the wind and at least you have a fighting chance."
Robinson pointed out that Chip Kelly said today that RB Carlos Hyde was not available on that play. "He was out," Kelly said during a press conference earlier today. "So, the third-and-one, the fourth-and-one, he wasn't available to us on those plays."
Robinson brings up that Hyde was in there on the first down play that proceeded and then was available during the next possession, so the comment by Kelly is worthy of some examination. "Carlos Hyde did run the first down play and Mike Davis ran the third and fourth downs on one yard to go and it's hard to explain," Robinson said.
"It Carlos Hyde can't impact the game, then the 49ers offense is in big trouble because they really don't have anybody else who can," Robinson said while discussing the running back's poor performances over the past two games.
Robinson went on to say that the defense's ineffectiveness on game days is a mystery because they devote a lot of time working on alignment and assignments during practice.
The conversation then moved on to Colin Kaepernick. "The first half, there were positives in Colin," said Robinson. "And I think the biggest positive was, again, to me, he stayed in the pocket a little bit longer and we knew, especially [2014] and [2015] when Colin just didn't play very well, he would just break a play down right away. Get out and start running. And yesterday, he stayed in a little bit longer in the first half and he tried to look and extend plays down the field and it was, I think, very apparent. Tim Ryan and I both made a point of that in the broadcast. That was really a positive in the first half."
Robinson brought up that the hope with Kaepernick over Blaine Gabbert was that the former would be able to bring big plays and the latter was not able to accomplish that.
You can listen to the entire interview on ESPN 1320.