The San Francisco 49ers play the St. Louis Rams today in a match that doesn't seem important to most of the league given the struggles of both teams, but if there's any positives to be drawn from this season, a win over a division rival sure would be nice. So I've been looking at the game and trying to think about what I think the most important aspect of it is and I've come to a conclusion: Jordan Devey.
That is to say, I hope we don't see any of him today. We probably will, as the 49ers have given no indication that the battle at right guard is at all settled, and will likely rotate him with Andrew Tiller once again. This is despite the fact that Tiller has looked better than Devey in just about every area, only getting the better of him way out in space from where I'm sitting.
But it's not just that Tiller is playing better, it's that Devey is so bad that he's a massive detriment to the safety and future of quarterback Colin Kaepernick. No, Joe Staley, Alex Boone and Marcus Martin are not playing perfect football and let's not kid ourselves with Erik Pears but how much is enough? I credited Devey with letting Kepernick get hit a minimum of five times against the Seattle Seahawks.
FIVE TIMES!
What is the thinking here? At what point did the 49ers go back to the locker room, look at the film and say "Yeah, this is working." Unless there's some unknown snap limit at which Tiller-bot shuts down and can no longer function without some Gatorade and a pat on the ass I seriously cannot figure it out. This is beyond armchair quarterbacking and assuming I know everything about football. This is beyond rooting for a backup...
This is being completely shut out of reasoning to explain a situation. This is being 100 percent completely devoid of understanding why a thing is happening. There is zero reason for Devey to play that I can tell looking at the film.
I'm not an NFL coach. I'm not an NFL scout. I don't claim to offer the most in-depth breakdowns and I sure as heck don't have the most football knowledge of even the writers who put words to coherent thought for our awesome little website here. But I feel pretty good about my ability to look at a body of work and at least identify some kind of strength or reason for a player being in a position like the one Devey is in now.
I can find nothing.
So I don't know, maybe I'm just not as good at this whole "understanding football" thing as I thought I was. I desperately hope that the Devey/Tiller battle is done, but I know in my heart it isn't. If any of you have any information that I might be missing on why in the world this guy is starting over Tiller or, really, anybody, please tell me. Please ease my fractured mind.