The San Francisco 49ers played a very weird, very sad game against the New York Jets in Week 14. They showed some life, and then players who weren’t supposed to struggle ... struggled. After looking like they might have figured something out, they completely fell flat and allowed the Jets to come from behind and take a win.
But there were some bright spots. Carlos Hyde was very good, and Colin Kaepernick wasn’t the worst we’ve ever seen him, which is always a good sign. We’ll take what we can get here.
There’s also the fact that the defense notched several sacks of Jets quarterback Bryce Petty. We’ll be taking a look at those sacks tomorrow because today, we’re first going to look at the breakdowns on the 49ers’ offensive line and what went wrong.
Kaepernick was only brought down twice, but they were pretty bad sacks and we’re going to break them down below. The destruction of Petty will be on display, once again, tomorrow. Onto the breakdowns.
3rd and 9 from NYJ 21 at 14:12 in 2nd: Kaepernick sacked at NYJ for -9 yards (Marcus Williams)
Well ... this was a disaster. There was no communication prior to the snap despite the fact that the Jets were clearly sending more people than the 49ers had. Marcus Williams runs right through the gap between the center and the right guard and nobody is even remotely considering touching him. Running back Carlos Hyde is there to chip an edge rusher who isn’t actually rushing.
This is the ball you snap only when you know you have a receiver you can drill it to on a short slant or something similar. Kaepernick didn’t make that call, and he was immediately under pressure. It was a complete breakdown from him and from the guys up front who should have made note of what was about to happen.
There was literally only one way this play could end.
1st and 10 from NYJ 46 at 3:45 in 2nd: Kaepernick sacked at SF 46 for -8 yards (Jordan Jenkins and Leonard Williams)
A lot of things go wrong on this play. First, the left tackle, in this case Zane Beadles, completely ignores the guy to his left and the 49ers have a total of four linemen trying to block two Jets rushers. Trent Brown has his own guy, but Beadles tries to join both guards and the center in blocking two guys, and instead his man runs right by him.
If that was by design, it was bad design. The Jets again made it glaringly obvious what they were doing prior to the snap and the 49ers failed to adjust. Tight end Garrett Celek is in the chip and he comes in from the right side to block the guy that Beadles was potentially letting by on purpose (by design, but again, by bad design) and Celek has no chance at even slowing his guy down. Brown loses containment on his man and Kaepernick has nowhere to go.