The San Francisco 49ers returned to their slow offensive ways in Detroit but not until the second half. The offense put up 17 points in the first half as a result of a balanced 265 yards of which 143 were in the air and 122 on the ground. In the second half, the 49ers were held to 57 total yards, -1 yard rushing, 58 in the air. The lack of third down conversions continued to be the achilles heel of the team, at 11% or 1 of 9. Both DuJuan Harris and Jarryd Hayne, who were productive in the first half, were limited to three carries for -1. Yes, there were only three rushing attempts in the entire second half.
Jim Tomsula who is not the most eloquent of speakers, especially after a frustrating loss, stammered a bit and sounded somewhat like a former 49ers head coach with whom we are all familiar with. David already picked his favorite quote from this presser, what's yours? Can you guess mine?
Introduction:
The only injury to report is Quinton Dial with a back strain, other than that, bumps and bruises but we're alright.
With the neutral zone infractions and offsides penalties, is that a lack of discipline?
What did we have six?
Seven.
Seven, I mean, there's no excuse for that. None. So, we just gotta go back and look at that but I can't for the life of me give you any kind of excuse for that. That's inexcusable.
You talked about getting off the bus and being aggressive. Was it a product of that?
No...no, no. That's just, you have to watch the ball, and I know the ball is moving around and there's things here and I'm not going to get into all that but we uh, you can't have that. You just can't have it.
Do you have any answers as to why your team plays better at home than on the road?
No, I mean, I felt like we came off the bus and I thought the team started fast today and I thought we were doing that and getting going and going into halftime, felt good about where we were, other than those offside penalties. But second half we gotta keep that ramping. And you know, missed tackles start creeping in there, can't have it. Penalties in the kicking game, we had a couple of really good kick returns negated by foul and changed the field position, so, you know, that was, can't have it. So.
The offense came out well, what changed in the second half?
I mean we were playing, you know the execution was really on point and we started with a couple of misses in the protection and then we had some balls, we gotta make those plays, with those balls, and defensively too, we've gotta make the play on the ball there. You can't swat at it you've got to glove it. You know making the plays on the ball in the passing game on both sides.
On the bigger role of Trent Brown in the game:
I don't want to say a whole lot right now I know that we were trying to call the game, help him out, you know, but there were some plays there that I know were really good and I noticed there's a few there that we've got to get better at. But, first day out, he represented himself.
There was the play on fourth down where he was just short of the sticks:
I mean Jarryd's just got to get to the sticks, man. You know he's got to run that route to the sticks. That's just what has to happen.
Was the Lions' defense different in the second half?
Well we put them into some situations too where they were bringing it. You know what I mean, when these guys get their butts up in the air and bringing it. You know, we had one there on a power where the back went the wrong way, we've got to make sure that we run that, get the alert, and run it back to the front side. Hats off to Detroit. They did a nice job in the second half and obviously won the football game.
What did you see from Gabbert?
I saw some consistency in things, I saw a guy going out and competing. None of us did well enough today, we didn't win. But uh, Blaine continues to compete and continues to gain stride and, you know, there's always a couple of plays in a game that you wish you had back, but I think he consistently gets better.
Were the Lions a step ahead of you in the second half with their adjustments?
I don't know that they were a step ahead, I mean, obviously they were a step head, I mean we weren't getting things done the way we needed to. But we need to do, uh, there were a couple of plays there, a couple of key plays in the run game that we didn't get done. And then the passing game, I mean we gotta be able to, the protection, we gotta get the protection sured up and make the play on the ball.
About DuJuan Harris' low amount of carries in the second half after being successful in the first:
Well, I mean, DuJuan's been here a week, so teaching him the pass protections, to a running back in a week is a, is a big deal.
How did you feel about Jarryd Hayne's performance?
I thought he represented himself well.