American Football Spectacular: Blown Away In The Windy City
On an average Autumn Sunday, the current Chicago Bears are among the most powerful squads in the National Football League. So, this past Sunday, when the 49ers went on over to Soldier Field to face Da Bearss, our team was torn apart on defense and on offense.
Why? Third down problems on both offense and defense.
And why did the situation not improve? Because the 49ers made no perceptible coaching adjustments.
As any reader of the brilliant webcomic
Pokey The Penguin knows,
to do something Chicago-style means to do it without your pants on. And indeed, so thorough was this beatdown, that it could be said that the Niners took this horrible beatdown Chicago-style.
It was an agony to watch the same issues crop up again and again as the Bears processed SF and did what they cared to. When a tactic or scheme results poorly, it is in the team's best interest to try something else! And this, the Niners failed to do.
By SFist
Christopher Rogers for "
American Football Spectacular," contributing
On defense, the most egregious conceit that most directly to the Niners' destruction was the failure to pressure Bears' QB Rex Grossman. The physically-fragile Rex was able to stand back in the pocket, make his read, and deliver the ball without fear of being hit. In fact, when he left the field that day, his jersey did not contain the slightest bit of grass. Unless, of course, he'd picked up some from celebrating with a dirtier teammate jumping on him after one of his effortless touchdown throws.
The Niners can stop the run pretty well. They can swarm to a ballcarrier fine enough. But they still cannot reach the opposing quarterback when it's most critical. Or any other time, for that matter.
Having committed during the bye week to to the 4-3 defensive set, the Niners kept sending four men on pass-rush on passing downs. Those men would not pressure Grossman, he would find his man and throw the ball. The process would then repeat.
The Niners' defensive line is in disarray. Bless his heart, but
Ron Fields is not the answer at defensive tackle.
Anthony Adams can't play defensive tackle; he's more of a heavy defensive end.
Marques Douglas -- a good Nolan soldier from back in Baltimore-- has no place playing on the interior line. And good ol'
Bryant Young, one of the best that the Niners have ever fielded, can't do it alone at his age. And where was
Isaac Sopoaga? The situation is clear: the Niners must pick up a big, powerful defensive tackle in the next offseason. To fail to do so would be to doom the team to another season full of games like that witnessed at Soldier Field this Sunday. All defensive play begins with the d-line. You can kiiinda get by with a average d-line and a poor secondary, but a team with a poor d-line and an average secondary can expect very little success. Our current Niners have a poor secondary, and no cohesive d-line set.
Now, on the other side of things, the Bears are an example of a team that can send a four man pass-rush with consistent success due to the talent of their line. They hit, hurried, and harried poor Alex Smith throughout the day. That's the sort of talent we need.
At the point when the Bears' not-really-heralded offensive line was proving so much a problem, the onus should have been on the Niners' defensive coaches make an adjustment to get the QB. Pressuring Grossman was the difference in Arizona (while that game was still competitive) when the Cardinals were able to make Rex force errors. But the Niners, even in the face of blatantly unfavorable results, did not make a change to how they were coming after Rex. A third down, four men rush, the secondary unit can't hope to maintain coverage when Rex has so much time, pass completed. A recurring fault.
The blame and burden for this rests with Coach Nolan II. The whole point of him is defense, right? So why has the Niners' defense failed to coalesce this season? Personnel indeed has been an issue, as the new guys like
Manny Lawson are brought in, some guys like
Spencer are kept, and other guys from the old regime like Ronnie Heard are flushed away. Here at
American Football Spectacular, we do believe that Nolan has A Plan, and that That Plan is in progress: to make over the 49ers into the West Coast Ravens. Ball control offense and a voracious defense. There is much to be done, and though questions are beginning to swirl about results vs expectations in
the local fishwrap, let us ask the hard questions directly:
What does it mean that this result has come from Nolan's framework? Are the results matching expectations? Is there improvement? Does that improvement warrant Nolan's power?
At this point, we would say that it is too soon to make a command decision on whether or not Nolan should stay or go, so he must stay. Nolan does have a clear vision for the team. That's good. Things're tough right now and that's part of a turnaround. It's hard to be patient as a Niner fan. That's hard. Is there improvement? Yes, mostly. The players brought in look good, on the whole. There's a nascent team character building here, the players fight hard and don't give in. Now, when the team has greater talent and is built for their coach's specific schemes, that character will make them much greater than the sum of their parts. But for now, we have this: coaching errors, player errors, and a painful view of our franchise torn up by a smooth-running team. It hurts to watch, but one day, if Nolan can fulfill his charter, the favor will be returned... San Francisco-style.
Next up on
your American Football Spectacular: Previewing our Bay Area week nine matchups. Buy cheap Halloween candy now if you haven't already. Mmm, candy.