Sloppy Play and Injuries Sink the 49ers Below .500 Once Again
A highly anticipated Super Bowl rematch for the 49ers fell flat due to a dormant offense and major injuries to key WRs.
49ers versus Chiefs. The Super Bowl rematch. Shanahan vs Spags. Purdy vs Mahomes. It had all the makings of the best game of the weekend until one team forgot to show up. In a massive revenge game, the 49ers struggled to get anything going on offense in a 28-18 loss on Sunday.
Before digging into what went wrong, which was a lot, lets start with some positives first, most of which came from the defense. A unit that had been under much scrutiny to start the year, played an excellent 3 quarters and some change before running out of steam. They held Patrick Mahomes to only 154 yards through the air while forcing 2 turnovers (3 if you count the stopped fake punt) and sacking him 4 times. The ending totals of 28 points and over 190 yards on the ground don’t due the defenses efforts justice, but they more than held their end of the bargain for most of the game. Prior to the last time wasting drive they had held the Chiefs offense to under 5 yards a play with a negative EPA/P, giving their offense multiple chances to make it a game.
The one aspect that kept a good performance from being great was the run defense. Coming into the week the Chiefs had the best run game in football in terms of success rate, a style and approach that had given the 49ers trouble all year (see Cardinals Week 5 and Rams Week 3), and it continued to be an issue in Week 7. Kansas City finished with a 50% success rate on the ground and really started to get going late in the game as their play total and time of possession climbed over 60 plays and 30 minutes respectively, when the defense began to run out of gas.
While the defense wasn’t perfect it more than pulled its weight, unlike the other side of the ball. The 49ers offense was a mess from the jump, punting four times and turning it over once on 7 first half drives. They struggled to get anything going in the run game, where Kansas City’s talented interior routinely beat theirs.
The lack of Jauan Jennings as a blocker was also very apparent as the Chiefs slot defenders did a fantastic job of undercutting the 49ers WRs blocks and destroying plays before they even got started.
Even when they did get solid runs, half the time they would come back due to holds.
The blocking miscues also showed up in the passing game where the Chiefs frequently got free runners, as DC Steve Spagnuolo continued his success at attacking the 49ers protection rules in pure dropback scenarios.
Sometimes they didn’t even have to do anything, as 49ers blockers would take each other out for them.
And if a full 60 minutes of poor offensive football from an execution stand point wasn’t enough, the cherry on top was Brock Purdy having his worse day of the season. Purdy finished the day with just over 200 yards passing and 3 turnovers with an EPA/DB of -0.34. He never quite looked comfortable sorting through the exotic looks the Chiefs gave him. He was typically a tick slow to get the ball out and more than one occasion just misread a play. Like this early third quarter throw where the Chiefs blitzed the RB and he just choses not to throw the easy seam route to Jordan Mason.
Purdy’s trio of turnovers were also extremely ill-timed and closed the door on any miracle comeback. His first pick of the game came early in the first after a huge forced turnover from the defense, on a play where he just didn’t pick up a lurking safety.
His second was arguably worse, coming with the 49ers down 2 in the middle of the third quarter. A throw that he simply just missed.
Even his two biggest completions could have been touchdowns with better throws.
Yes, the offense was down it’s top three WRs, with the losses of Aiyuk and Samuel for the entire 2nd half but even with those two in the game they struggled to show any consistency. Now with the season getting later and later the 49ers find themselves once again below .500 as they continue to stack lack luster performances in 2024.
The silver lining, a loss to an AFC opponent, even if it would have been a big emotional boost, isn’t the end of the world. The 49ers are only a game out of the division with two reeling NFC opponents in Dallas and Tampa Bay sandwiched around the bye. Despite the loss of Brandon Aiyuk for the season due to a torn ACL a bye week to get some rest and the return of Christian McCaffery could help turn around a sluggish start to the season.