For better or worse, I finally resolved my Game Pass access issues with NFL.com (your customer service sucks, by the way) and I can make gifs again. So here we go...

The Good

Great play here by Gabbert to avoid the rush and solid YAC by Patton. I like how he covered up the ball at the end. Nice play!

I like touchdowns. Great move by Celek. It's not the most difficult of throws, but this type of completion has been rare in our RZ offense. Nicely done Gabbert.

The back shoulder throw to Patton was nice as well. I hope some of these plays will work in Seattle...

The Bad

Where have I seen this before? Throw it to the RB and it's a guaranteed first down, plus he might score. I don't know what Gabbert was thinking to force it to Vance, unless it was a pure throwaway (which is still the wrong decision). The Niners would settle for a FG on this drive, shockingly.

Bad throws and dropsies. I went back through the plays are there were 3 drops on the WRs when Gabbert was throwing. Two close plays were on Gabbert, including the terrible ball low and behind Torrey. While he could have made a great catch, this is a really poor throw in a clean pocket. If anyone asks, please explain clean pocket for me, since he won't be able to interpret without the blocking scheme called out. Given the amount of times I've seen Kap criticized for being off a couple inches, this seems indefensible from the QBs perspective.

Chucking the ball at Draughn's face from 2 yards away as he was just turning around is on Gabbert, as well. The back shoulder throw to Simpson was on Jerome. I thought it was a bad pass when I first saw it on the condensed version (no replay), but I was able to see that he got his hands on it when I re-watched. So 2 drops for Simpson (including the INT) and 1 on Smith (not the play above). A drop for Vance from Kap, on a catchable ball that could have been a couple inches lower.

Another aside, both dump offs to Draughn over the middle were behind him. One he made a great play regardless and the other he got tackled immediately after he got done catching the ball and turning back around. The swing passes were on target and in stride, though.

The Ugly

Headed into this season, my biggest concern with the coaching staff was Geep. This was primarily for 2 reasons. First, the Niners have run the same plays over and over for years now and I wasn't sure he'd fix it. We've continued to see him call the same rollout pass 6-8 times a game this year. I guess mixing it up for him was running it to the left side with Gabbert. It did work for a gimme TD, so there's that.

The second reason was the play designs that overload one side of the field and put the receivers in the same areas with no spacing. Facing 3rd and 5 in the first quarter, this is what Geep draws up:

3 vertical routes within about 10 yards of each other?? 2 guys within 3 yards? I don't know how to rationalize this. I guess it helps the QB to focus on one side of the field, but why not spread out the defenders with, you know, the other half of the football field? Gabbert would try to force this underneath and had a dangerous throw knocked down.

Ahh...the good ol' 4 verts with no outlet. Even worse, Gabbert picks the side with the safety over the top. Then he picks Vance McDonald to underthrow one to. Interception time.

Overall, I think this was a "decent" game from Gabbert. If nothing else, he was pretty decisive, which had some good and some bad results. I'm concerned that it's going to get ugly in Seattle, as the pass pro and running game will be much worse than what he saw against Atlanta. Gabbert floated a number of balls, including a deep underthrown lob to Torrey, that could be an Earl Thomas INT instead of a completion to Smith next week.