Fooch's Note: As a boxing fan, I enjoyed this perspective
I know a lot of people grow weary of the 49ers offense and with good reason... It is not made for action packed TV. I know we all get fascinated with the fancy Chip Kelly hurry up spread offense with Shady McCoy juking LBs out of their shorts or the heavily complex route combinations that sees drew brees throwing deep bombs to ridiculously athletic Wide Re.... ahem.. Tight Ends. But I do enjoy the 49ers game plan because it reminds me of many great fighters from the sweet science.
Most fans view the sport linearly, watching it play by play, drive by drive, Qtr by Qtr. That's why many complain about the slow starts or ugh why didn't we score on this drive or that drive etc... However like most great fighters, I believe the coaching staff views the game as a whole knowing that you have 4 Qtrs to win the game.
If you watch most great fighters you will see that they have different game plans for different opponents. Sometimes they come out swinging trying to build an early lead, sometimes they play counter punch for the first few rounds and then play the aggressor in other rounds, etc.. I remember when Winky Wright had his unbelievable streak of victories, it was apparent he was not the most gifted boxer but his style was rooted in fundamentals and superior planning. Sometimes the plan wasn't made for TV but it got the W's (unfortunately for wright, these days boxing is more about made for TV action and less about the sweet science of it all when it comes to getting paid by viewership).
So that brings me back to the 49ers. They seem to adopt a boxing mentality when it comes to the play calling. A lot of times they use the first few drives to see how the teams are going to react to certain plays, not necessarily worried about scoring as much as they are trying to set up the plays we will see in the 2nd qtr or 3rd qtr etc. They play it more conservative to reduce mistakes and take their shots very selectively in order to get big chunk plays, They rely on strong defense to keep the score manageable so they're never out of the fight. I love it.
If the offense ever looks to predictable, sometimes I think the 9ers want it this way. Just like a boxer who throws 100 jabs to set up a back breaking cross, the 9ers will sometime start their games looking as predictable as can be. And just when the defense gets comfortable and starts cheating, boom a huge chunk play.
My best example of this was last years first matchup with the cardinals at candlestick. I remember a lot of people complaining about how all the cardinals defense needs to do is follow Bruce Miller and that's were frank gore will be. And for the first 2 qtrs that was true. But we have to remember that these coaches aren't idiots, as much as we see it that way their record shows otherwise. Sure enough in the 3rd Qtr they ran a misdirection play that went for a huge gain. Bruce Miller went left, and every linebacker followed him. There was nothing but green grass for gore on the right side. I remember when that game ended people were saying well the game was a lot closer than it appeared, but deep down I was like man the 9ers had them right where they wanted them the whole game.
There are many more examples of this. They use wham/traps to keep the interior linemen honest. In the NFCCG last year they used a bunch of designed QB runs that looked like pass plays to make the seahawks grab and tug corners play a bit more honest etc... That isn't to say they don't have their problems, there are times when I think the 9ers drop the ball and fail to get in the end zone and it bites them in the backside. But sometimes you just have to recognize the personnel and hope that people like Vance McDonald and Bruce Ellington will shine this year in those areas as I think they could.
With that I wanted to bring to you the reason why I'm never concerned about the preseason. Because 1.) its the preseason, when did people start overanalyzing this. 2.) If you haven't been paying attention, the 9ers starters at best will see a 1.5 qtrs of playing time, and if you haven't seen the 9ers lately.... its usually not when the offense is hot.