49ers offense rallied around Colin Kaepernick with a new attitude

After a horrific three game slide by the San Francisco 49ers offense, the entire group rallied around Colin Kaepernick and the result was a significant rise in production. There were several comments made by the broadcast team regarding the support of Kaepernick throughout the week, trying to encourage a rebound of sorts.

Kaepernick is known to internalize when he is struggling, essentially shutting out the "external noise." In the process he can shut out people, including coaches and teammates. During the broadcast Cris Collinsworth said this, regarding what he heard while talking to 49ers personnel this week:

There were thoughts, was he losing the touch of being the leader of this football team, but they were really excited the way he handled himself this week. Sometimes when things don't go well with Colin, they called it 'going into quiet warrior' where he goes 'Ok, I got it' and doesn't say anything the rest of the week. But this week, despite some of the issues he's had, he's been interacting with his teammates, he's had a smile on his face, and things have been going much better and I think reflective of how he's played. He didn't go into a shell this week.

Anquan Boldin, who was so frustrated that he refused to talk to the media following the loss to the Packers, was one of the players who apparently helped lead the move to relieve some of the pressure on Kaepernick. He told Kaepernick to have fun and be himself on the field.

I told him that. I didn't want him to put pressure on himself. I told him to just put it on us. Let us make the plays for you. Just take the pressure off of yourself and go out and have fun and let it rip. He did a great job of doing that tonight.

Torrey Smith, who showed his frustration in his body language during the Packers game, was very positive after the game this week as well.

Kap did a hell of a job, I'm very proud of him and how he bounced back you know these past couple weeks and he put us in position to win.

Carlos Hyde on what opened the running game up:

Kap making plays on they field opened it up for me. He was on tonight. When he's on, I'm able to get on. Offensively, we were able to get the run game going, which was good. We've been struggling the past few weeks, so it was good to get that going. It was good to see Kap out there just passing it around.

It was an entirely different atmosphere in the locker room than the prior three weeks. Not playing to their potential was owned up to by all parties. Hyde and Boldin touched on rallying around Kaepernick during the week of preparation for their visit to the Northeast, maybe that is what kept him out of his shell. The Arizona loss, which Kaepernick put entirely on his shoulders, seemed to carry over to the Green Bay game where he seemed tentative and skittish. The blame seemed to carry over as well. This past week however, it was a new attitude where players admitted the they all could have been playing better and their collective effort made a difference.

Throughout Ravens prep week, during media availability, players have been hinting that there was a coming together and maybe airing of grievances of sorts, (Festivus for you Seinfeld fans) and that there's been more communication between Kaepernick and the rest of the offense. All of this begs the question, shouldn't they always be talking? Garrett Celek had this to say regarding if he comminicated more with Kaepernick in prep for the Giants:

Yeah, I think so. You know, we all kind of had a look inside and tried to figure out what each other [was] doing wrong and I think we did that last week and I mean it showed up on Sunday.

Torrey Smith also confirmed that there was more dialogue during the week than usual. No confirmation on whether this new approach was instigated by the coaching staff or veteran players, or whether Kaepernick being on a proverbial short leash in New York was the impetus. Either way, supporting each other was the end point and it's really all that matters.