There were a lot of "interesting" things to come from the San Francisco 49ers Week 5 loss to the New York Giants. I put "interesting" in quotation marks because they were not all interesting in a good way. The most notable example has to be Bruce Ellington.
The 49ers rolled Ellington out fairly quickly in the game. After Carlos Hyde rushed for five yards on the first play, Geep Chryst dialed up back-to-back screen passes to wide receiver Bruce Ellington. He turned the first one into a 30-yard gain, and picked up nine yards on the second one. After that, he did not touch the field on offense again.
I was wondering what the reasoning for that was, and Jim Tomsula was asked about that on Monday. He had this to say:
"Yeah, I mean, we think Bruce is, obviously he's got some explosive attributes. But, no, we went with how we game planned and Bruce could have been in there. I haven't finished up the whole rep-count reason why thing yet. I'll finish that up with the offensive coaches here at lunch. So, but when Bruce was in there he did a good job. We liked the other guys and what they were doing in there. So, that's just why we went that way."
I have generally thought people have been a bit overblown with the criticisms of Tomsula's speaking manner. I don't think how he speaks to the media should reflect entirely on how he acts with the team in the locker room and on the field.
This rambling answer on Monday is not so much about how he said what he said, but rather what it indicates about his involvement. Tomsula has experience working with offensive coaches in NFL Europe, but he is a defensive coach. This answer would seem to indicate a significant lack of involvement on the offensive side of the ball. This is not exactly shocking given his defensive history, but you'd think he would have a better handle on this.
Tomsula meets with the media on Wednesday, and Geep Chryst follows up on Thursday. I don't know if Tomsula will have anything else to say, but Chryst should get at least one question about that. I get that the 49ers cannot just go to the WR screen every play, but you'd think they would have worked Ellington's skill-set into the offense a bit more. We'll see what Chryst says, and what this weekend brings.