Fun 49ers facts!

Fun fact #1

# of opponents drives that have started with under 2 minutes left in a half in which the other team tried to score: 6*
# times scored on those drives:5

Points scored on those drives: 19

* - This counts Nate Clements' interception as stopping a drive and his fumble starting another drive. In other words, they've had 6 drives against them, stopped one, and gifted it right back.

Our defense has had 5 opportunities to stop an opponent from scoring with under 2 minutes left in a half. They haven't stopped any of them. They've given up drives of 13, 51, 44, 49, and 68. Bold underlined drives are game winning drives. Furthermore, they failed to stop the Saints from running out the clock at the end of the first half when they had a chance to get the offense the ball back in great field position.

Look, defense has certainly been better than the offense. However, they're unable to stop an opponent who has to score. Our defense is in the bottom third of the league in all significant statistical categories. Our offense has been at least equally bad, but let's not say our offense is letting our defense down. They are both letting each other down. Our defense has given up 24, 25, 31, and 16 points. That's nothing to hang your hat on. Our opponents' QBs have a fantastic 95 QB rating and are completing 67% of their passes. Sure, we've played Drew Brees and Matt Ryan... but they made Matt Cassel look like a superstar as well.

This is not to say our offense isn't to blame, or that there are serious question marks about Alex Smith's future as an NFL QB and as a 49er. It's meant to balance the discussion here. Our defense is playing like:

via common.csnstores.com

And there's no getting around it. If our defense was who we thought they were, we'd potentially be sitting at 2-2 with two great wins against quality teams and two confusing losses... thinking that "If our offense gets even a little in gear, we're going to be scary in the playoffs!"

Instead, our offense is this big questionmark of inconsistency, while our defense is good, not great, until it matters... when they turn back into a pumpkin.

Fun fact #2

First half scoring (49ers-opponents): 30-43

Second half scoring (49ers-opponents): 22-60*

* - Second half scoring includes the infamous "last play injurious TD" from the Chiefs game.

In short, we're pretty competitive in the first half, only being outscored by 3 points per game. Then, we're getting dominated in the second half. When you account for the fact that of the 43 points our opponents have scored in first halves, 13 have come in the last two minutes, we're playing the first 28 minutes of the game even with our opponents (who currently have a 11-4 record, 7-4 against other opponents, and include last year's super bowl winner, the team that beat last year's super bowl winner, and the last remaining undefeated team). Our opponents have not been slouches, and we've played 3 tough road games. I can't explain what's happening, but we're tied 30-30 after 28 minutes, and losing the rest of the meaningful minutes 15-73 (ignoring Josh Morgan's meaningless TD at the end of the Chiefs game).

This team falls apart. The offense sputters in the second half, the defense opens up, and the defense can't stop anybody under 2 minutes.

Fun fact #3

The 49ers start the youngest offense in the NFL. Let's just say they're still growing together. Given this fact, and the fact that the O Line is comprised of 2 rookies and is missing its elder statesman/starting center, there's plenty of reason to hope that things will get better going forward. They offense needs time to gel. They need to learn a lot, and it's a difficult situation for a QB to work with if you don't know if you can trust your WRs and linemen to be where they need to be and block who they need to block. I'm not making excuses for Alex Smith, he certainly has his fair share of the faults in the failures, but he's by far not the only problem with our offense and our team. What the Niners need now is leadership, not panic. This is still true.

I still see silver linings: We've played some really tough competition, far and away the toughest quarter of our schedule. We're only 2 games back in our division with 5 division games left to play, so we can easily make up that ground. Our offense looked much better than in previous games... they didn't come away with any more points or yards, but it looked better from what I saw. The defense wasn't simply able to dictate everything that happened. They converted a few third downs. With another week in the Mike Johnson version of the Jimmy Raye system, I think we'll see even more wrinkles and even more success. We still have tons of talent on both sides of the ball. And we still play in the NFC West.