On of the biggest stories coming from the 49ers since losing Jimmy Garoppolo to a season ending ACL tear is the toughness of his replacement, C.J. Beathard. He has taken hit after hit which has sometimes been at the hands of his injured offensive line and at times on himself, being the competitor that he is. After the loss to the Cardinals, Kyle Juszczyk spoke to the media and explained that the offense as a whole has to make it easier on their quarterback:
“We keep talking about how tough C.J. is and he’s one of the toughest guys I know, one of the toughest guys I’ve played with but your quarterback, that shouldn’t be his number one attribute, being tough. He shouldn’t have to do that. we should make things easier for him.”
Juszczyk added that it’s on the entire offense to protect the ball better, get open quicker and block better for Beathard. Juszczyk is also more than happy to get the ball in his hands as quick as possible.
One thing that didn’t help was losing Matt Breida at the end of the first quarter. Juszczyk said, “it definitely hurts.” His playmaking skills and explosiveness are what Juszczyk says he brings to the game. Unfortunately, against the Cardinals they just weren’t able to do enough.
Juszczyk did compliment the defense who he said “kept us in the game” while the offense didn’t make it easy on them. He added that they have to put together a complete game in all three phases.
One interesting note is that Juszczyk was a little surprised that the offense played over 90 snaps, which he hasn’t done since college where he one played over 100 snaps as a tight end.