The San Francisco 49ers first team offense struggled to get much of anything going on Saturday. The offensive line struggled, and Colin Kaepernick finished the game 2 of 5 for 13 yards and little time to do much of anything.
While it was not pretty, we did learn a little something about the 49ers offensive scheming and planning (or lack thereof). According to Matt Maiocco, after Saturday's game, Kap was discussing the sack that resulted in a safety, and said the Broncos had the right coverage on the play. A day later, the media followed up with Jim Tomsula about audibles. And it would appear, the team held off on audibles in situations like that in hopes of saving things for the regular season. Here is what he had to say in his conference call:
On Colin Kaepernick and audible opportunities in the regular season:
I'm not going to get too deep into answering that question, but I will tell you he will have latitude. He hasn't up to now. We haven't game-planned, so we haven't, there's been very few; we may have opposited a call or something like that, but we've not gotten into a lot of that in these preseason games.
On if he would have had audible option on the safety sack coverage:
Right. If we start doing that in the preseason and everybody starts watching the tape, they see what happens with the safety.
This does not explain the right side of the 49ers offensive line leaking like a sieve at times, and it does not explain some of Kap's struggles. But it does provide just a little bit more context as the 49ers attempt to get their offense on track for the regular season. Although it remains to be seen if any adjustments will help the offensive line figuring things out, Colin Kaepernick will at least have a tool in his back pocket we're really not seeing right now.