In week 16 of the NFL season the San Fransisco 49ers traveled as far away from the Bay Area as they can to take on the Miami Dolphins.  The long flight home is not going to be a fun one as the Niners fell to the Phins 29-17.  Let’s take a look at what went wrong and if anything went right for the Bang Bang Niner Gang. 

In a tradition I really really hope ends in 2 weeks, we have to start with the injuries.  RB Isaac Guerendo, the Niners 4^th running back, joined the list of players who would not suit up for this one.  Trent Williams missed this one as well as he is most likely don’t for the season.  This would come into play as his replacement, Jaylon Moore would get injured and the 49ers would have to play Spencer Burford, who is a guard, at left tackle.  That would also mean that when starting left guard Aaron Banks was injured, they had to put Nick Zakelj in at left guard.  Dre Greenlaw returned to the starting line up this week and lasted one possession before leaving the game with a calf injury.  I really hope the 49ers shut him down for the rest of the season.  And finally, Dee Winters left the game with a chest injury and did not return. 

The injuries to the offensive line exasperated the biggest issue the 49ers had coming into the game.  The line was not playing well to start the game and then guys started getting hurt.  They gave up a ton of pressure on Purdy and were just OK in run blocking.  They also committed a ton of penalties trying not to give up more pressure.  As I have been saying all season and as Richard Sherman said today, the O-line needs to be the biggest priority in the offseason.  Hopefully Lynch and Shanahan agree. 

When they had time and were not committing penalties, the passing game was pretty good in this one.  Kittle continues to be the 49ers best player this season as he had another big game.  More importantly, though is anything important at this point, we finally got a Deebo game out of Deebo Samuel.  Deebo looked like the guy he has been throughout his career in what was easily his best game of the season.  He had 25 yards rushing, 96 yards receiving, and a TD where he ran through 3 defenders.  Ricky Pearsall had 4 catches on the day but he also had back-to-back plays where he committed an illegal formation costing the 49ers as they would have had the ball inside the 5-yard line and instead had to settle for a field goal attempt, which was missed. 

As far as Purdy goes, he was OK in this one.  Nothing spectacular but he did well considering all the pressure he had to deal with.  He had a better passer rating and QBR than Tua did in this one.  He made some plays with his feet as usual and the INT came with a rather large man running into him as he threw the ball.  Not his best game but no real complaints in his outing. 

The defense actually played pretty well in this one.  It was a bit of a bend, don’t break game for them until the very end. Up until that last break away TD when they were trying to stuff the run and the back got outside of them, they only gave up 22 points to Miami at home.  That’s pretty good.  The run defense was not good in this game even without the 50-yard TD.  Miami had all three running backs have success in the run game and the 49ers couldn’t get the stop when they were desperate.  The passing defense was better than the run defense.  They only gave up 215 and 1 TD in the air.  Of course they were helped by Tyreek Hill not having his best day. 

The only bad play on special teams was the missed field goal by Moody that really changed the game.  The 49ers would have been within 3 points of the Dolphins 6 minutes into the second half had he not pushed the ball to the right of the goal posts.  Neither team had any big returns or turnovers in the kicking game this week. 

Some Quick Hitters…

–The Penalties really killed the 49ers in this one on both offense and defense. 

–This was a matchup between Kyle Shanahan and his padawan Mike McDaniel.  The student got the best of the teacher this time around. 

–With all the motion teams use nowadays it seems the NFL is being very relaxed with its illegal motion rules in that players in motion seem to be turning towards the line of scrimmage as the reach the end of their motion.  It’s illegal for a player to be moving towards the line of scrimmage at the snap but I feel it happens a lot and is never called.     

–The 49ers were officially eliminated from playoff contention just before the kick off.  Now this season is officially all about guys not getting hurt. 

–This was a good loss for the 49ers as they and Miami were tied in the standings, with this loss the Niners move ahead of Miami in the draft order.  It seems the best the Niners can do is the 10^th pick if they lose out and New Orleans can manage to win another game. 

Well, two more games to go in this season from hell.  Next week the Detroit Lions come into Levi’s Stadium for Monday Night Football.  At least for now, I don’t know how late they can flex a MNF game out.