McDonald: 49ers are the apple of the football world’s eye. What issues could bite them against the Rams?
SANTA CLARA — Ran into one of the Faithful the other day who has concerns about the 49ers — none of which had to do with the team itself.
The fan — his name is Neil — felt the damn media was being far too nice.
“Everyone is gushing over them and it makes me uncomfortable,” he said.
I explained it was hard to come up with a lot of negative things to say about a 30-7 road beatdown in Pittsburgh. Considering the 49ers came in 2-4 under coach Kyle Shanahan in Week 1, taking apart a supposed AFC contender and finishing it off with no injuries was worthy of praise and optimism.
Fortunately, Shanahan is around with a bucket of cold water for anyone who believes the 49ers have “arrived” with one-seventeenth of all precincts reporting. It’s a long NFL season and the Los Angeles Rams are up next Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
To guard against overconfidence, former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh turned to an imaginary character named Freddy P. Soft. Freddy, Harbaugh reasoned, would ruin the team through an overly positive characterization of the team dynamic.
Since Freddy followed Harbaugh to Michigan, Shanahan instead goes straight to the video to make his point.
“I mean, usually it’s off the tape and the tape to me wasn’t totally what everyone thinks,” Shanahan said. “It wasn’t our best performance. There’s a lot of things in there that could have gone a different way. A bunch.”
There were three sacks by Pittsburgh edge rusher T.J. Watt, with right tackle Colton McKivitz and right guard Spencer Burford both showing room for improvement. A 95-yard drive for a Pittsburgh touchdown at the end of the first half which came after the 49ers failed to run out the clock. Quarterback Brock Purdy taking an unnecessary sack by failing to get the ball away in the second half.
So rest assured that if the 49ers were feeling a little too good about themselves, Shanahan had enough tape to bring them back down to earth. The 49ers’ veterans know the drill.
“The games are like that and the practices are like that,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. “There’s a lot of accountability — good and bad.”
Linebacker Fred Warner has been in a fix-it mode all week despite having a monster game against Pittsburgh.
“As a veteran and a guy that’s been in it for a long time now, there’s always things to clean up,” Warner said. “You always look at what you did well, things you need to correct and move on.”
Added edge rusher Nick Bosa: “I think everybody is pretty mature in here and knows that division games are pretty huge.”
So what is truly worth worrying about?
A few areas of concern:
Shanahan’s substitution paranoia
The 49ers coach will never forget the opener of two seasons ago when they somehow let a 41-17 lead with just under two minutes shrink to the point where Detroit was in a position to tie. The 49ers won 41-33, but Shanahan still can’t believe it happened.
Which helps explain why players such as McCaffrey, Bosa, Warner, George Kittle and others were on the field in the second half with the game under control against Pittsburgh after McCaffrey’s 65-yard scoring run on the first possession of the third quarter.
“Trust me, we want guys out of there, we want to go put them in bubble wrap and wait for them next week,” Shanahan said. “But once you start to go there, bad things happen a lot. So, yeah, we wish we could’ve gone there sooner but we didn’t.”
After the Rams, the 49ers host the New York Giants on a Thursday night in their home opener. So getting starters out of the game in Los Angeles if at all possible would be beneficial.
Purdy’s bravado
Brock Purdy puttin the MOVES on the Steelers’ defense pic.twitter.com/ehyVi0P17D
— NinersNationCP (@CpNiners) September 10, 2023
The 49ers’ quarterback isn’t giving the Haason Reddick sack that wrecked his elbow a second thought. He hung in too long on a play or two with Watt screaming off the edge and later scrambled 17 yards for a first down on third-and-11 with the 49ers leading 30-7 and 7:50 to play.
If presented with the same scenario, Purdy sounded Thursday as if he’d do it all over again.
“It wasn’t something like, `Don’t scramble, check it down,” Purdy said. “It wasn’t like that. We want to win and we’re going to do whatever it takes and hopefully when I’m in the right situation, I’ll do what it takes.”
We’ve learned a lot about Purdy through what he did last season, his recovery from injury and how good he looked in Week 1. What we don’t know is if he can play 17 games. The 49ers would love to find out.
Sam Darnold could be a capable backup if Purdy gets hurt. But something tells me that what happened with the 49ers last season — losing the starter and getting better with the backup, and then losing the backup and getting even better with a third-stringer — will never happen again in our lifetime.
Cave-in on the right side
Watt worked over McKivitz and fellow Steeler Larry Ogunjobi had his moments against Burford.
It so happens that both are very good players who had good days. Run-game coordinator Chris Foerster, not wanting to single anyone out, said the whole offensive line needed to be better.
McKivitz was left one-on-one with Watt so often it’s clear the 49ers thought he was up to it. They’re not about to pull the plug because of a bad day against a great opponent. It’s way, way too early to start thinking about Matt Pryor or Jaylon Moore at right tackle or Jon Feliciano at right guard.
Cornerback depth
If Week 1 against Seattle was any indication, Matthew Stafford (24 of 38 for 334 yards) is back and healthy as one of the NFL’s top pure passers. And he looked just fine without Cooper Kupp while throwing to Puka Nacua (10 catches for 119 yards) and Tutu Atwell (six catches for 119 yards).
While Shanahan didn’t come out and say it, cornerback Ambry Thomas got a seat on the bench after being victimized against Pittsburgh late in the first half, scuttling the plan to have Deommdore Lenoir play at nickel. Lenoir was back outside in the second half, with Isaiah Oliver at nickel.
If Stafford can get rid of the ball quick enough against the 49ers’ rush, he could flood the secondary with passes while avoiding Charvarius Ward, who is the closest thing to a shutdown corner the 49ers have on the roster.
Hopefully pointing out these potential problems this makes Neil a little less concerned.