In week 12 of the NFL season the San Francisco 49ers traveled to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field to take on the Green Bay Packers.  This season from hell for the 49ers continued as they fell to the Packers 38-10.  The Niners were never really in the game but were also in the game until the 4^th quarter.  It was a weird game.  Let’s look at what went wrong and if anything went right for the Bang Bang Niners Gang. 

A tradition like no other, we start with the injuries.  This is going to take a while.  The big injury news in this one is that Brock Purdy missed his first game of the season with shoulder soreness.  The Niners do not know if he will be able to play next week.  All world left tackle Trent Williams missed this game as well.  Nick Bosa sat this one out as did Moony Ward.  That’s 4 pro-bowlers not in the line up at extremely important positions.  Cowing also missed this one.   Let us not forget that Aiyuk is out for the season as is Hargrave.  Hufanga is still out and Dre Greenlaw has yet to play this season.  And of course, Wishnowsky is on the IR. 

And that was just to start the game.  During the game the Niners lost Jordan Elliot and Aaron Banks to concussions, Renardo Green to a neck injury and LB Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles went out with a knee.  People can say everyone deals with injuries and next man up and all that stuff but there is a reason some guys get paid more than others.  There is a reason that we have Halls of Fame.  Some players are better than others. Teams and players can say injuries are not an excuse and they have to have that mentality.  However, in reality, they can most definitely be the reason a team struggles.  Especially when most of your top players are out.   

There was one bit of good injury news heading into this game, George Kittle returned to the field.  Not only did he return but he was their best offensive player.  He had 6 catches on 6 targets for 82 yards and a TD as he continues to be their best red zone weapon.  It’s not a huge game but it was easily the best game.  Jennings had only 5 catches for 40 yards and no one else did anything in the passing game.  Something I think the Niners really have to work on is that for the second straight week, Pearsall did not have a touch.  He wasn’t targeted in the passing game this week and they did not run any sweeps or anything for him.  I think this kid can be utilized better especially with the offense struggling at times. 

One of the reasons that the passing game struggled was because Brandon Allen was at quarterback.  Allen had a bit of a weird game.  He started off looking like ha hadn’t played in a real game in 3 years (he hadn’t), but then he settled down and looked OK for a while, then he started forcing things and turned the ball over.  He threw a pick that went right through Deebo’s hands.  Deebo had two balls go right through his hands.  The pick looked really bad in slow motion but in real time it wasn’t as bad as he was trying to stop and was twisting when the ball arrived.  Still hit him in the hands though.  Allen also fumbled twice but was able to recover one of them.  His pocket awareness was inexistent and unlike Purdy, he didn’t make any plays with his feet.  He did throw a nice ball when he did get a pass off. 

The running game was actually worse than the passing game.  Now, it’s true that the 49ers were playing catch up all game and had to pass to try to get back in the game, but when they did run the ball it was usually for little gain.  CMC has been entirely ineffective since returning form injury and even fumbled.  Some of this has to do with the Niners outside rushes being snuffed out by the defense every week.  They have had some success running up the middle but everything to the outside has been shut down.  I don’t know if it’s the blocking or if the defenses are just game planning for it very effectively but the Niners really need to get their run game going if they want to win more games.  2.8 yards per carry just isn’t getting it done.

It may be a passing league now but you still have to be able to run the football.  For Example.  Green Bay ran the ball very well, especially in the first half, and dominated the game.  Josh Jacobs ran through the 49ers like they were tackling dummies.  The Niners had 20 missed tackles in this game, 15 of them in the first half.  That is just unacceptable.  It led to the Niners not being able to get off the field on 3^rd down.  The Pack were 6 for 13 on 3^rd downs but I want to say they were 5 for 6 in the first half.  

The pass defense wasn’t awful.   Leonard Floyd had 2 sacks and Green Bay only passed for 169 yards and no one on the Packers had a big receiving game.  The defense also dropped two interceptions that really could have turned the game around.  Of course, when you are running the ball the way they were, there wasn’t much reason to throw the ball.  

The Niners’ Special Teams really didn’t screw anything up.  They tried to turn the ball over but were able to recover the fumble and Moody made all of his kicks.  However, there were two really good returns, including an 87 yard kick off return by Deebo to start the second half, that were called back due to penalties.  

This brings us to the biggest issue the 49ers had in this game, penalties.  There were just too many of them and most of them really hurt the team.  They had 9 penalties for 77 yards but that yardage doesn’t account for yards lost on the plays that were brought back, such as the aforementioned 86-yard return.  Dominick Puni had his worst game of the year getting flagged three times.  Coming into the game he had only committed 1 penalty all season so this was an aberration, at least we hope it was, or bad refereeing.  To be honest, a lot of the flags in this one were questionable.  The Refs are not the reason the Niners lost, but they really didn’t help.  This illustrates a major theme to this year’s problems for the Niners in that it isn’t just one thing.  Puni has been great all season then in this one he has a bad game.  You can’t see that coming.  There is nothing a coach can do about it.  Each week it’s something new.  Who expects Deebo to have 2 passes go right through his hands?  This is why they can’t right the ship, there isn’t one thing that needs to be fixed. 

Some quick hitters…

–Saturday night I caught a bit of a college football game and a team ran a double reverse flee flicker into a screen pass and I thought “that was a lot of work just to set up a screen pass”.  Less than 24 hours later the 49ers ran a double reverse flee flicker in to screen pass.   

–When the Patriots game ended and they were blown out 34-15 I thought “Well, that’s the bar, let’s see if the Niners can keep it that close”.   They did not. 

–The 49ers decided that even though they have back-to-back games out East, they were going to return to the Bay area between games so that the players, coaches, and staff can enjoy Thanksgiving with their families.  It’s the right call but yet again, something goes wrong for the Niners.  Any other week and they would have been able to stay out East. 

–I thought it was weird for Kyle Shannahan to change his system for this game.  I mean, I have been told Brock Purdy is a system QB for 3 years now.  So, for Allen to not be as good as Purdy is, it must be because Shanny changed his system for this game. It’s strange he would do that for a random game in November.  (this is sarcasm if you didn’t pick up on it). 

–I think the reason the 49ers are having a season from hell is pretty obvious.  CMC is on the cover of Madden this year.  Curses suck. 

Well, hopefully this is the 49ers season bottoming out.  They need to get healthy if they are going to win anymore games.  Their schedule sucks.  Even with the loss they are still only a game out of first so the season isn’t lost yet.  Yet.  Next week isn’t going to be easy in Buffalo on a Sunday night. We are getting close to start looking at mock drafts.