The San Francisco 49ers haven’t been great at protecting the quarterback, but we’ve seen them play a little bit better in that vein down the stretch. That has allowed Colin Kaepernick to actually play decent football by and large. Run blocking hasn’t been consistent, though.
Against the Miami Dolphins in Week 12, the 49ers allowed two sacks.
As has been the case for awhile now, the 49ers fielded a line consisting of left tackle Joe Staley, left guard Zane Beadles, center Daniel Kilgore, right guard Joshua Garnett and right tackle Trent Brown.
But they also had two sacks of their own on Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill, and they were good ones. Below we’re going to take a look at the sacks allowed and the two sacks earned by the 49ers. We’ll start with Tannehill getting dropped twice.
0:40 in 2nd Quarter: 2nd and 3 from MIA 37: Tannehill sakced at MIA 24 for -13 yards (Bellore, Brooks)
This sack is split by Nick Bellore and Ahmad Brooks. It’s Bellore who gets the initial pressure and it’s kind of an awesome move. He slips right past the center and for some reason the Dolphins have a guy trying to chip him and the guy just uh ... well he doesn’t. Neither the center nor the right guard look at Bellore, who gets past whatever chip attempt that was, and Brooks is there to finish off the sack for a healthy loss.
6:38 in 3rd Quarter: 3rd and 12 from SF 26: Tannehill sacked at SF 35 for -9 yards (Blair, Harold)
Eli Harold gets some credit on this sack and it was good that he was able to beat the left tackle, but honestly, this play is all Ronald Blair. He shoves the right guard away and barrels at Tannehill with the guard hanging from him. He collides with Tannehill and has him down as Harold also gets a hand on him. It may have been a successful block for the left tackle if Blair wasn’t creating havoc on the other side.
0:35 in 3rd Quarter: 3rd and 4 from SF 32: Kaepernick sacked at SF 23 for -9 yards (Cameron Wake)
There really isn’t a whole lot to look at with this play. The 49ers receivers are running deep routes, Kaepernick has something of a clean pocket until Trent Brown simply gets beaten on the outside by Cameron Wake. Brown lets Wake get past him and Kaepernick isn’t able to step away from the pressure. Actually, Kaepernick goes down pretty easily, but it’s not really his fault. Just a bad play from Brown.
4:25 in 4th Quarter: 2nd and 10 from MIA 45: Kaepernick sacked at 50 for -5 yards (Andre Branch, holding on Beadles, declined)
This play is entirely on the guard. For one, Zane Beadles gets called for holding but allows the sack anyway. Brown and Joe Staley do passable jobs and Daniel Kilgore is a beast in the middle, but Beadles allows the initial pressure and Joshua Garnett is comically bad. Garnett just falls over and lets the guy get to Kaepernick for the sack.
It was ugly. The whole game was ugly.
Then again ... we can always just look at this. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. It’s hypnotizing.
I like it.