OTC's Causal Analysis: Why We Suck & Who's to Blame

Cliff Notes version for the ADHD or reading impaired individual:

1) Lynch is not getting held accountable enough as it's his fault for our incredibly poor personnel due to his awful decision to trade up for Lance and absolutely horrific 2022 & 2023 drafts, which netted next to zero quality depth, no quality special teams players, and only 2 starters (Purdy, Jayir Brown).

2) Kyle is fielding a competitive team in spite of this, with an average margin of loss of just 4.6 pts/game this year. Shanahan is not blameless, but he's near the bottom of the list of problems. There's evidence he's trying to adjust the offense, but indeed still has more work to do. His DC choices the past two years haven't worked, but we cannot ignore the lack of options being available as we played late in the postseason both times, so leeway is certainly deserved there.

3) Purdy needs to step up. Poor decisions/mental mistakes have cost us in 4/5 close losses this year. He's still not fully developed mechanically either, but the issues are fixable. Data suggests most QBs see huge drops in turnovers between year 4-6. Mentally, he needs to realize that if the team is struggling, he can help it more by protecting the ball than by taking chances. TBD if he can fix this going forward.

4) Schneider and Sorensen both deserve to be fired. Unlike Kyle, who is the only coach producing something in spite of poor and/or depleted personnel, Schneider's group is the worst in the NFL, and Sorensen's group folds in nearly every critical situation and often can't even get off the field in spots where they should have a huge edge. Saleh had no talent for awhile and tons of injuries and still got more out of his guys. If Schneider and Sorensen were quality, they would be able to do the same.

Nice write up OTC! I can't say that I disagree with anything

What is the Lynch percentage? If he has more blame or should be blamed more than Kyle, overall?

Originally posted by Montana:
What is the Lynch percentage? If he has more blame or should be blamed more than Kyle, overall?

That's a good question Montana.

My opinion is that it would be hard to give Lynch a stand alone percentage because he's essentially tied to the hip with Shanny. All decisions are through Shanny and with his ultimate approval/disapproval; he's said as much multiple times. I don't think people realize how much power Shanny has; I think he's pretty much the GM too, much like Belichek was, and Lynch is pretty much the mouthpiece/face/in front of media guy.

Originally posted by Montana:

What is the Lynch percentage? If he has more blame or should be blamed more than Kyle, overall?

In terms of overall state of the team/personnel, I would put it at 80/20 split. Lynch being more at fault.

The few things Shanahan could do different with personnel is: with the receivers, ease them in more without forcing them to learn every position simultaneously. Also, I'd like him to not be too conservative, but in fairness.. Purdy has not been careful this year -- after an early pick Sunday, he forced another one into triple coverage right before the half that could've been disastrous.

I don't think Kyle makes the best challenges at time and I don't always love the clock management but I'd say he's mid there.

Overall though, he's still shown to be one of the better game planners and finding weaknesses in opposing defenses. Might not be top five in play calls this year but still top ten.

Kyle may have a lot of power and input as the HC, but he ultimately puts a lot of trust in Lynch, the scouting team, and the rest of his coaching staff to do their jobs. He fired Wilks and Hightower when they weren't performing. He has no problem replacing coaches.

Lynch and Shanahan have to shoulder more blame. 4 years of disaster drafts and the fleecing of the team with terrible contracts to players who are not preforming. IE. Deboo, Williams, Juice, Hargrave, Floyd, Warner and to some extent Bosa. Shanahan should shoulder the most. He is responsible for all of the other coaches and seems unable or unwilling to fire coaches during the season. His refusal to use certain players or over use others hen not even rotating players more is also a huge problem. The fact he cannot see that Deboo is not going to break any runs or jet sweeps anymore just shows stubbornness or ignorance on his part. I put 75% 0n the supposed genius.

When you say incredibly poor personnel, are you referring to those 2 drafts and what they netted, or the roster as a whole?

one thing i don't understand and i've seen this all over the board, is moody misses a field goal and it's on 'special teams'. no it's on moody. unless you have some other problem with the operation.

Good write up and i agree a little but not with all.

They swung and missed with Trey Lance. You blame Lynch for the trade up but did Kyle tell him to do whatever it takes to get him another QB? Who knows... Its going to go down and the worse trade in franchise history however i'm not mad at them for swinging for the fences. It takes balls to move on from an avg QB (Jimmy was successful here) and mortgage the future on a kid. Plus they recovered with Brock. I think the lesson i have learned is not to trade your future for a QB. Looking around the NFL and watching the majority of these young QBS fail is telling. Nobody has figured out how to draft a QB.

The 22 and 23 drafts are poor but again, we mortgaged the future for Trey Lance so that was kind of expected. I hated some picks but overall they have been ok with drafting and have found their fair share of gems. This year's class seems to be decent. Every team has some really bad drafts and if you dont believe me go look for yourselves.

I think one thing that is overlooked is the turnaround of coaches. We want the ST and DEF coordinator fired but look how many coaches we lose every year. Its astonishing. I'm not sure who we loss this past year on the offensive side of the ball but its starting to bite us in the butt. I'd fire the ST coach for sure but not sure what the point would be to fire him midway through the year. They maybe want to but they probably dont have anyone to replace him.

I still have hope for this team buts admittedly its dwindling.
__PRESENT

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

When you say incredibly poor personnel, are you referring to those 2 drafts and what they netted, or the roster as a whole?

Both really. Collectively, the roster is not the same in terms of depth, and particularly our special teams. Usually those are your depth guys.

We have aging, declining, and or injury prone players with no one waiting in the wings because we missed on so many players or ignored those areas. Specifically at LB, OL, TE, DT and DE.

TE Latu, Willis
DE Jackson, Beal
OL Moore, Zakelj, Burford, McKivitz
WR Bell, Gray
LB Graham, Winters

At least we got guys who can replace Deebo, Hufanga, and Ch Ward, but we need upgrades at DT, DE, LB, C, LG, and RT still. Wars are won in the trenches and we've been horrible at picking those guys outside Puni, Fred, Dre and Bosa.

Sorry OTC I didn't read your post just responding to the title. BUT, IMO the reason why the 49ers suck, Shanahan/Foerster won't make changes to the O-line, mainly at Center. No misdirection plays anymore. Sorensen sucks, this defense got their balls snipped. Instead of an attacking defense Sorensen mentioned when he was first hired, we get a "hope we don't f**k up" defense. They refused to spend money on a veteran Safety, Mustapha, Odum and Brown's inexperience has showed this season.

Wide-9 is wack, teams expose the s**t out of it by just running the ball down the defenses throat, not to mention DeVondre Campbell isn't helping the cause either. Shanahan's over use of one RB, mix s**t up like Detroit does and how you use to back in 2019 with Raheem Mostert and Tevin Coleman. In the end, Brock Purdy needs better protection, all the top QB's in the league have a solid Center.

Some of those Purdy percentage blames need to be on Kyle and Lynch. Purdy executes the plays called to him. The TDS last week were because of his extra effort, just like he did during summer of our wins this year and last years playoffs.
He has open blitzers, failed blocks and he's running for his life. That's the scheme and the personnel.

Originally posted by mitpdub:
Some of those Purdy percentage blames need to be on Kyle and Lynch. Purdy executes the plays called to him. The TDS last week were because of his extra effort, just like he did during summer of our wins this year and last years playoffs.
He has open blitzers, failed blocks and he's running for his life. That's the scheme and the personnel.

Purdy does tend to hold onto the ball too f**kin long.

The head coach is responsible for all of that. So it's Shany.