Originally posted by SanFranDan21:I have so much to say so please stay with me....to start I am seeing two polar opposite sided reactions here in which i dont agree with either of them. First, anyone saying we need to move on from Kyle is overreacting. Yep, he messed up in the SB. He overthought things and was so worried about the other team it caused him to abandon what has made him so successful this year. He is a good coach but just messed up this one game. Granted. It was the SB. Makes it worse. But he is the best coach we have had in a long time.
Second, we need to hold people accountable despite loving them. These players make millions and its their 'profession'. In any profession, if in your job you really perform poorly, you will be pulled aside and talked to and expected to learn and improve. Same goes for coaches and players. Kyle messed up. Lynch and Jed, in a positive constructive way need to talk to Kyle about what went wrong. And this talk needs to happen with Jimmy G as well.
Jimmy G is an average game manager at best. This is not a diss. To be at the NFL level and be a game manager to me is actually good. Its not great and its not 'franchise' level play, but with how this team was put together it wasnt needed either. However we do need to be consistent, and there is my concern here. With the game tied at 10, having your timeouts with almost 2 minutes left, you must try to score. You must have that killer mentality and for a reason our coach didnt. That reason was the lack of consistency with the QB. After the game our very own coach stated he was comfortable being tied at 10 going into the half which is how he explains his play calling. When i heard that my heart sank. You simply can not win with that mindset going up vs a team that can put points up fast. You cant win by having the other team dictate your calls. And really what message do you think that sent to our players? What do tou think Kittle or Deebo (who set a record for wr in rushing and yet was not in our plays in the second half), or to Sanders and or defense? It tells them rhe coach is not confident in them. Its bad.
So it's obvious how the coach evaluated Jimmy G. And being honest yes, he played very poorly when it mattered most. Some talk about how he played in the first 3 quarters and how good it was. It looked good with the stats. Ut most of his yards were YAC yards. In reality he was throwing for an average of 4.7 yards per throw, and then our wrs expanded on after the catch to their credit. Most of the time he was a single read qb who threw lots of checkdowns. He was raddled the who game. A statue in the pocket. This is just who Jimmy G is, good and bad. Can the kid get better, calm down emotionally and improve? I really hope so. But if you are going to stick with him and expect to win, you must playcall a certain type of game designed around his limitations. And we did that all season long by creating a creative run game with tons of motion and trick zone runs and high percentage medium range passes and short passes thst allowed all those YAC yards. Can we win with this QB? Yes. But you have to call the right game in the right system to make it work. A QB like this can have a onevin awhile very good game such as vs the Saints and Cards, BUT wont deliver this type of result consistently. When he is focused and calmed down he is an average game manager and in this system i have no problem with that at all. Because we can wn with that, as we have all year.
Yes Jimmy played poorly. Because we abandoned the style of game that hides his weaknesses and highlights his strengths. That is what cost us this game. Kyle for some reason abandoned what has worked all year and asked Jimmy G to do things that dont play to what he can actually do.
Now that is just truth. You dont have to agree with or like it. And no i am not even saying we need to fire our coach. Thats silly. However IF you are going to keep this QB you must stick with the plan he can actually work with. If you are not going to then get a different QB. Go get Ryan Tannihill who is a bit better of a QB to be honest. However to win you dont even need to change QBs. You must however not allow yourself to once again overthink things and abandon what has worked all year. Kyle got freaked out, coached out of fear (which he practically eluded to after the game as he explained his actions before the half), and it resulted in overthinking, trying to protect a lead as opposed to expand it, went conservative, and it cost us a championship.
So what would help make this a bit more...idk, digestable? Honestly, if Kyle came out and simply stated that he made some mistakes, that he promises to take them to heart and learn from them, and said he will grow and lesrn from this and move forward. That type of self accountability is leadership to me. Failure doesnt define us its how we react to it. My biggest fear here is that he feels he didnt nothing at all wrong, refuses to acknowledge mistakes, and keeps doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Saying something like "We just failed to execute " to me is a cop out and deflects the blame on the players. Some players played poorly. Yes. But
I dont blame our defense. How much can we ask of them? They were not given a breather for god sake in the 4th because our offense could not get first downs. We were averaging 6 full yards per carry, in the first half Deebo set a SB record for WRs running the ball and Mostert was playing well. So what do we decide to do. We stopped doing that and forced our QB to do things he was not able to do. Fear causes us to do things that dont make sense. This made no sense.
Listen, im just a fan at the end if the day and i have been wrong just as much as i have right. Can i be totally wrong here? Sure. But its just a fans opinion (with commentators who have played the game having similar thoughts), who thinks that to stop doing not only what has worked so well all year but also abandoning how our very team is defined, simply does not work.
We dont need a new coach or even another QB (IF you are going to call a certain game plan consistently), but what is needed is accountability by our coach, who is our leader, that yes he messed up. Honestly id be so impressed with that type of statement and leadership I could much easier move on from this loss. Coach John H could not do this because of his ego. If Kyle cant for the same reason I fear we are doomed to a similar fate as what happened from 2012-2014. But....thats just one fan's opinion and a fan that will always be a fan of this Team.
Loosing this game is heartbreaking and will be hard to get over. But thats because we are all so invested. I feel i am particularly invested and was invested hard this year. I have Cystic Fibrosis end stage as well as Stage 4 Colon Cancer and my prognosis is like 3-4 years at best. Im fearful. I really wanted to see my 49ers win another SB before I pass. And i was very tearful after this game in that i was thinking it is not going to happen now. But its been a couple days now and I honestly dont feel our window has totally closed. IF and its a big IF, if we handle this right, with the leadership via accountability like i stated we need to hear from Kyle, and the coach and players can learn and grow, i feel we have the pieces in place to still make another run. With the above and the right decisions this offseason with our draft and FA, we can rise above this. And for me there is this new drug called Trikafta which may buy me some more time. Its all doable. I am forever Faithful.
Blessings all.
Blessings to you as well. I too wish you and all of us really, get a chance to see them win another one. It's been 25 years and I think some of us didn't realize how good we had it (at least I didn't). Prayers to you, stay strong!