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The San Francisco 49ers would probably be the best team in the NFL if the offense was even average. But the offense isn't average, or even close to it. They hardly managed to overcome bad Washington and New York Giants football teams, and this time, the defense wasn't able to bail them out, as the Seattle Seahawks took a decisive 19-3 victory.
There were some aspects of the offense that were actually working well, but it didn't help the overall production one bit. When one aspect of the game is struggling so badly, it has a tendency to bring the rest down with it. Colin Kaepernick threw some very bad passes today. He also made some very bad decisions and I honestly think he was the reason the offense was bad in the game. The play-calling didn't help him and the running game wasn't doing anything either, but at the end of the day, he looks lost out there.
Here's your overfill recap thread. Here's some notes I took during the game, none of which are good.
- Obviously, I don't think there's any reason to regret getting rid of DeMarcus Dobbs in the grand scheme of things but boy did he have a pretty solid day stopping the run. Those back-to-back plays in the first quarter, he absolutely had Carlos Hyde's number. That was impressive.
- Colin Kaepernick's first quarter interception was one of the worst throws he's made. Richard Sherman gets credit for being in the right place at the right time, but Kaepernick absolutely gave that ball to him, nowhere near his receiver. And it killed that drive, leading to Seattle's first touchdown. He doesn't throw many interceptions of course, but the ones he does throw are really, really bad.
- Kaepernick is still totally incapable of making reads and not locking on to one receiver. I don't get it. It's like he's unable to turn his head, as he's always looking down one side of the field. And don't say he didn't have time -- he had excellent blocking on multiple passes that went nowhere, were forced into coverage or that simply didn't exist because he didn't try and throw it. He's not getting better, he's getting worse.
- That said, Russell Wilson is pretty darn good at this. On the 34-yard reception to Robert Turbin, Wilson was looking all over the field, and eventually locked in on his right side. Michael Wilhoite was already over there and Chris Borland, noted rookie, strayed over there as well, leaving Turbin wide open in the flat. Wilson's patience and ability to sell the play led to Borland getting out of possession.
- Speaking of Borland, he had his usual 9045904 tackles on the day, but he also had the poor play above, at least one other blown coverage and two particularly poor missed tackles in the second half. It was his worst game yet, to be sure.
- Richard Sherman is a very good football player. He might be kind of a turd -- I wouldn't really know, because I haven't met him. But the 49ers thought they had some kind of matchup advantage with Brandon Lloyd of all people, and Kaepernick kept forcing the ball in his direction. I'm not sure why -- Lloyd was never open and Sherman is a guy you're supposed to avoid. But the absolute worst thing about all of this is the fact that Sherman didn't even have to try to break up those passes, because they were thrown so horribly. Most of them looked like Sherman was the target.
- The play-calling wasn't great, but that's pretty much a constant these days, right? One thing I did notice is that the 49ers' receivers seemed to be getting open quicker than usual. On top of that, the offensive line was giving Kaepernick an awful lot of time to throw for most of the game. But Kaepernick was still reacting the way he usually does -- running from phantom pressure and throwing bad passes. I just don't get it. What happened to him?