It is hard to understate just how poorly the San Francisco 49ers are playing.
I know that's not what you want to hear. Fans rightly want any indication that the 49ers just got a few things wrong, can correct them and turn around next week with an energizing win over the Dallas Cowboys and recover over the bye.
To be clear, the Cowboys are also a mess. They might be the salve for the 49ers' wounds. San Francisco can beat them and go into the bye to recover and regroup and sure, maybe turn this thing around.
But for that to happen, they need structural change. The tape against the Chiefs shows glaring weaknesses that were identified before the game, and which the 49ers were glaringly unprepared to fix.
Purdy and the protections
The offense is damning. Brock Purdy had some of his worst plays of his career. The first interception has no excuse. It was pitiful. The red zone interception needs to be a sack he takes. Regardless of what they say on the one thrown towards Ronnie Bell, I'll believe Purdy's expectations for a speed out route were right over Bell's, who snapped open — and admittedly wide open, maybe his only rep of the day doing that.
Those mistakes by Purdy were mostly independent of larger issues. But there are larger issues, and they're the real reason Purdy is playing inconsistent football. He's sped up because he doesn't trust anything, most importantly his eyes, which is exactly what has separated him in his early career.
The Chiefs played aggressive man coverage for most of the game. They blitzed, often with defensive backs, often away from Chris Jones. Those were obvious points from the Super Bowl. And the 49ers weren't close to ready.
On the offensive line, Jake Brendel is struggling to set protections consistently. The 49ers were monumentally unprepared for some of the Chiefs' blitzes, which they were disrupted by against the Seattle Seahawks' Mike Macdonald especially last year in Baltimore, and Brian Flores with the Vikings. Trent Williams laid out how Steve Spagnuolo likes to run them before the game.
“He definitely mixes it up,” Williams said. “He loves to go to zero [blitzes] especially at big times of the game, gotta-have-it situations, third-and-long, fourth-and-long, you can expect him to heat you up. He does a lot of blitzes away from 95 (Chris Jones) because he understands that most gameplans are to put two people on him, so it kind of leaves you shorthanded on the backside. He mixes it up. He’s one of the best defensive coaches in the NFL.”
Guess what the Chiefs did on on a 3rd-and-11 late in the second quarter, up 14-3 with the 49ers at their own 41-yard line? They lined up Jones over Williams and blitzed from the right side with Trent McDuffie. Not only was McDuffie unblocked, but so was defensive end George Karlaftis. Purdy threw a bad ball to Brandon Aiyuk, but the protection was wrong.
Colton McKivitz slid inside for an unnecessary double team. Purdy overthrew Aiyuk, but the fact that his hot answer — where to throw when there's an unabated pressure coming at you — was away from the pressure, is damning.
Purdy said before the game he'd need to have his hot answers, and the 49ers' scheme has left him largely devoid of them. Instead of isolating Williams on Jones and sliding the protection right so that, if pressure came left, Purdy would be throwing while looking at it, the 49ers did the opposite, and Purdy braced, understandably, to take a shot from two players.
When the 49ers set the right protection, the offensive line often had someone get beat quickly. When it held up, no one separated against man coverage. The frequency of plays in which the protection holds up and there is a clear throw for Purdy is damningly few and far between.
It doesn't help that the 49ers struggle against beefy fronts like the Chiefs in the run game. It didn't start going until the second half. But even when Jordan Mason gets going, Purdy can't trust him as a receiver. Christian McCaffrey was the reason the 49ers could beat man. Maybe he can save them if/when he returns. But they have structural issues to solve even with him.
That's even before mentioning Brandon Aiyuk's season-ending injury, and the fact that Deebo Samuel (pneumonia) and Jauan Jennings (hip) could both miss this week. So, too, could Chris Conley (ankle sprain) and George Kittle (foot sprain), who are both day-to-day.
Defense and whiffed picks
We haven't even gotten to the defense, where players are sometimes mixed up on assignments.
De'Vondre Campbell isn't moving at the right speed mentally or physically. Winters plays with his hair on fire, but his inexperience shows. Their young safeties are promising but tested every game. The positives from Sunday were Malik Mustapha, Renardo Green, and some well-timed stunts for Nick Bosa and Maliek Collins that led to pressures and incompletions.
On the whole, the 49ers are damned by their horrific 2022 draft class, many of whom should have been key contributors at this point. Only Brock Purdy, Spencer Burford, Nick Zakelj and Kalia Davis are still on the team, and three others are on the Eagles' practice squad. Only Purdy, and now, finally Davis, are key contributors right now:
Round 2, Pick 61: EDGE Drake Jackson (out for the year)
Round 3, Pick 93: RB Ty Davis-Price (Eagles practice squad)
Round 3, Pick 105: WR Danny Gray (Eagles practice squad, one career reception)
Round 4, Pick 134: OL Spencer Burford
Round 5, Pick 176: CB Samuel Womack (on Colts' roster)
Round 6, Pick 187: OL Nick Zakelj
Round 6, Pick 220: DL Kalia Davis
Round 6, Pick 221: CB Tariq Castro-Fields (on Eagles' practice squad)
Round 7, Pick 262: QB Brock Purdy
There isn't enough talent that's ready to step up at the right time for the 49ers (who also drafted Aaron Banks over Creed Humphrey in 2021), and they're not adapting to teams who have stolen the Chiefs' recipe.
In summary, teams are going to keep throwing man coverage against the 49ers until they prove they can beat it. Their only true man coverage separator as a receiver was Brandon Aiyuk. Jennings can win against man coverage, but his hip injury is worrisome. Deebo Samuel doesn't win against man coverage, and rookie Ricky Pearsall showed promising signs at times, but also got clamped. It was a lot to ask of him in his first game at multiple positions.
Pearsall will have to step up, and the 49ers must play Jacob Cowing, who should very encouraging signs in his limited reps Sunday.
More crucial than anything is solving the protections. Some teams have answered Cover-0 blitzes by motioning a wide receiver into the protection to block (the 49ers have not done this as far as I can tell). At the very least, if the protection holds up, Purdy can trust what he sees.
He's not trusting anything because the protections are a mess, the receivers are inconsistent at separating against man, and he feels like he has to run most snaps, even when that's not the case. Solve the protections and provide Purdy with hot answers where he can see where the pressure is coming from. That's the main challenge the 49ers need to solve. Until they do that, they cannot be taken seriously, even if they do beat Dallas.