We all felt fortunate when football started back up last week when the San Francisco 49ers went up against the Dallas Cowboys. The defense broke at the worst time, allowing a Cowboys touchdown. Not to worry, the offense can come out and respond right?
Ehhhhhhhh.
While not horrendous, the lack of blocking for Jerick McKinnon and some Jimmy Garoppolo misfires left a bit of disappointment after the offenses single series. Nick Mullens and the third stringers came in and won the day, but there was something off with the offense last week.
Now the 49ers have the Houston Texans for Game 2. It’s a simple question: What do we need to see to not be completely alarmed?
For me, I just want to see a couple nice conversions put together. One where the running back can get two or three yards rather than not even get to the line of scrimmage before the blocking collapses. One where the offense can get things into field goal range. One where those strange passes are placed in receivers’ hands and not on their finger tips.
Jimmy Garoppolo did not look bad last week, but I definitely was hoping for a bit more out of him and the offense as a whole. I don’t really need a touchdown tonight to be happy with where the offense is, considering the vanilla playcalling and lack of gameplanning, those are more of a luxury. Especially since the 49ers starting running backs are out until the regular season begins. I do want to see some yardage and maybe a field goal. It’s hard to decide what you want when it’s obvious some of the players are trying new things. Garoppolo said he was even trying some different throws/looks against the Cowboys.
But there has to be something to inspiring. In 2014, Jim Harbaugh’s final year, the offense was unable to do anything in the preseason and it displayed something was definitely wrong with the machine. This isn’t indicative of all teams, but the fan in me would like to get a little wound up with some nice offensive performances.
What do you need out of the offense to be satisfied?