If you missed out on the weekend's 49ers-Texans excitement, well, it really wasn't all that exciting. The 49ers were working on some things and those things sort of bit the team in the butt. If you didn't pay much attention to Coach Harbaugh leading up to the game, the team mixed in a lot of their second string players fairly early in the game to get them some snaps against the Texans number ones.
While the 49ers did force some turnovers, the Texans offense seemed to have their way with the 49ers throughout the evening. The 49ers offense faced numerous struggles of their own as they could get nothing remotely approaching consistency. The scoring highlight of the game for the 49ers saw Ahmad Brooks running back an interception for a score on the first play of the game. That was the team's only trip to the end zone as the offense struggled mightily the rest of the game.
If you're looking for preseason victories, we can always point to the 49ers 4-0 preseason in 2010 and 3-1 preseason in 2009 as proof that exhibition victories do not always make for sustained regular season success. However, while that's all well and good, the real concern for many fans was in some basic technique and execution. The team doesn't need to win all their preseason games, but they do need to show that basic technique and execution.
Coach Harbaugh discussed this in his conference call yesterday. When discussing the offensive line in particular, he did say there were some technique issues and some problems with fundamentals, as well as just getting beat to the punch. The 49ers may have been trying things out and working on some situations, but no matter how you look at it, the end result wasn't pretty.
Some of the post-game discussion centered on whether the 49ers were somehow holding back and keeping things fairly vanilla. At this point, I just find myself hoping patience will pay off. Even if the team is holding something back for the regular season, I do think there will be a transition period. However, I do continue to hope the team will figure out whatever it is it needs to figure out.
The last decade has dried up any and all cache the 49ers have with the fans. Right now Coach Harbaugh has bought the team some time with the fans, but even that is wearing out. Patience remains for now as we sit with fingers crossed for the start of the season.