It's not often a team is dominated so thoroughly that the opposition maintains possession of the ball for nearly three full quarters.
It's not often that an offense with one of the league's best running backs is held to only 22 rushing yards. And we should start checking if certain farm animals have learned to fly when a Chip Kelly offense doesn't take a snap in opposing territory until the 4:57 mark of the fourth quarter, earning only 11 first downs all game.
But a team being brought to its knees while not scoring a single offensive point and still being on the goal line with less than two minutes left and a chance to win the game? That really doesn’t happen often.
Yet there the Philadelphia Eagles were Sunday in San Francisco, with an opportunity to send the 49ers to 1-3, despite being absolutely squashed offensively during a game when Nick Foles averaged a mere 4.5 yards per pass attempt.
At the two-minute warning of the final quarter, they had advanced to the 49ers’ 1-yard line, and with third down coming up, they had two opportunities to get that measly yard. Had they done that and then held on to win, we’d look back on this game differently, and it would have been a shining example of a result-skewing reality.
They didn’t due to a combination of awful play-calling and even worse execution. It's fitting, because the spotlight should be shining brightly on the 49ers defense after a 26-21 San Francisco win.
Fully understanding the depth of the dismantling starts here...
LeSean McCoy may be off to a sputtering start. But when we talk about McCoy, we’re still discussing the league’s rushing leader in 2013, a running back who regularly torched anyone and everyone last year while averaging 100.4 rushing yards per game.
The 49ers’ front seven held him to 1.7 yards per carry, and only two of his 17 total rushing yards came in the first half. He was useless and irrelevant, just like the entire Eagles offense which had possession for only 17:43. That resulted in two other severe slants: a 407-213 advantage in overall offensive yardage for San Francisco, which included 218 rushing yards to Philly’s 22.
Wait, it actually gets better (or worse?).
The method of destruction was familiar for the 49ers, and it's one that needs to continue going forward. They generated constant pressure up the middle and right into Foles’ gut, often literally.
That was no doubt a focus prior to the game, with Philadelphia’s decimated offensive line missing four of its five starters from last year, rounding it out with all five when Jason Peters went down briefly.
Foles entered Week 4 with a body that was various shades of black and blue. And compared to his peers, the abuse he had taken is on a whole different level of pain.
Pressure was the driving force behind what the 49ers accomplished Sunday. They started the game with only four sacks over the previous three weeks. That number didn’t rise significantly (they sacked Foles once), but it didn’t have to, as it was a game when a sexy pass-rushing metric told a lie.
Foles was constantly harassed, and the maniac who provided the worst beatings was defensive end Justin Smith.
When the Niners were up by two late in the third quarter and Foles moved to step into a throw and find Jeremy Maclin deep, there was Smith. He laid into the quarterback squarely, causing an errant pass that landed in the hands of safety Antoine Bethea.
Before that, at the end of the first half, Philadelphia was driving and looking to tack on points to what was at the time a 21-13 lead. Then Chris Culliver jarred the ball loose and out of Riley Cooper’s hands, and there was Smith again. He recovered the fumble and brought it back 16 yards, ending the threat.
As the 49ers wait for the core of their pass rush to return when Aldon Smith’s suspension ends, a push up the middle from Smith and outside from Ahmad Brooks and Dan Skuta will remain a defensive heartbeat. That’s especially true if Tramaine Brock continues to miss time, and despite a solid performance Sunday, Bethea also isn’t quite himself while nursing an ankle injury.
The 49ers’ upcoming schedule prior to a Week 8 bye includes a Kansas City Chiefs offensive line that’s given up 11 sacks after thee weeks, the league’s second-highest total. And a donnybrook with the Denver Broncos’ O-line is on deck three weeks from now too. Hauling down Peyton Manning rarely happens, as he’s been sacked only 21 times since the start of last season.
Whatever hope the 49ers have in that game and beyond—with a game on the road against the New Orleans Saints in Week 10 teed up and two still late in the season against the division rival Seattle Seahawks and the slippery Russell Wilson—rests primarily with a pass-rush resurgence.
Of course, not completely undermining their own efforts will help too. At one point in the first half Sunday the Eagles led 21-10, even though their offense had been on the field for only 16 snaps. How we arrived there took some historical effort and 49ers creativity.
All three plays were the sort of gaffes we’ve come to expect early this season from the 49ers. The only surprise was the timing, as the Eagles had a point differential of minus-27 over the first three weeks, and the second half was where the Niners usually meet their doom.
Those three lapses in judgement and coverage—an interception when Colin Kaepernick simply didn’t see a defender again, a blocked punt in the end zone after poor protection and a loss of 13 yards on a sack and an 82-yard punt return by Darren Sproles—were nearly all that was required to erase both a defensive pummeling and a game when the Niners returned to their running roots with Frank Gore averaging five yards per carry.
The defense won’t generally be quite as crushing as recent years until Aldon Smith and NaVorro Bowman return. But Sunday the 49ers showed they can still control and minimize one of the league’s best offenses.
When those fundamental flaws and mistakes are corrected, this team will begin looking like the Jim Harbaugh 49ers we’ve come to know—or close to it.
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1rE2aEz
via IFTTT September 28, 2014 at 09:27PM
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