Culture

49ers mailbag: Dissecting defensive doom, Shanahan’s fate


SANTA CLARA – Before shipping off to Green Bay and then Buffalo over the next two Sundays, the .500 49ers (5-5) have some questions to answer, or at least we do in this Week 12 mailbag via our social media fan club:

Can you please ask Shanahan why he’s so conservative with his fourth-down decisions? (@FowleBall15)

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They’re 3-of-7 this season on fourth-down calls, just under their average pace (7-of-15) in Kyle Shanahan’s 7 1/2 seasons, only one of which they finished in the top half of the league for fourth-down efficiency (tied for sixth in 2019; 7-of-12).

Shanahan said Monday he hypothetically would have gone for it (or kicked a field goal, but definitely not punt) on fourth-and-1 from the Seattle 37-yard line … if officials correctly penalized the Seahawks for calling consecutive timeouts with 2:45 remaining. Officials told him there was no double timeout, that the Seahawks “alerted them something was wrong with something the refs were doing and then they fixed it.”

However, Mike Pereira, a Fox Sports analyst and the NFL’s former officiating czar, told KNBR 680-AM his film review showed “it is clear Seattle asked for a second timeout, and what you are to do when they are not entitled to it … you ignore it. It did not get ignored; it got granted. It is a 5-yard penalty even though the official shouldn’t have stopped it.”

How’s this “Wide-9” Defense working out for the 49ers? (@Bigfella1911)

I’ve grown skeptical with its predictability, of lining defensive ends up extra wide to pursue the quarterbacks, who often duck inside or lob a pass over defenders. Seattle’s Geno Smith escaped through the defensive front on his two late scrambles, seizing more so on interior lineman Yetur Gross-Matos’ lack of gap integrity, as Kyle Shanahan confirmed Monday.

What’s also maddening is the 49ers’ stubborn insistence on a four-man pass rush and a reluctance to blitz more, even when Nick Bosa is sidelined by injury and/or when Seattle is starting a new center that could be prone to pressures up the gut.

We don’t have the quality depth on the defensive line to be a contender this year. (@devious_db)

No …read more

Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment

      

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