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The 49ers treated Saturday’s third preseason game like a dress rehearsal — starters played a full half, we saw some wrinkles in the playbook, and the speed of the game seemed close to the level of the regular season.
And while the Niners lost Saturday’s contest 23-17 to the Colts, there were real lessons to be found in the first half.
The result was a mixed bag.
Though, to be fair, that’s likely going to be the story of the 2018 Niners.
Here’s what we learned in Saturday’s third, and effectively final, preseason game:
Alfred Morris is going to make Kyle Shanahan’s life just a bit more complicated
When the Niners signed former Washington and Dallas running back Alfred Morris last week, I thought for sure that the Florida Atlantic product (go Owls!) was merely being brought in as a camp body and that he would be a free agent again by the end of the month.
The logic: Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan knows Morris well — he coached him in Washington. If Shanahan really thought Morris would be a member of the 53-man roster, why would he wait until Training Camp was almost over to bring Morris to Santa Clara?
Don’t think about that too long, because Morris looked like a godsend on Saturday, rushing 17 times for 84 yards — the latter number unfairly suppressed because of holding penalties on two big runs.
Morris proved Saturday that he knows exactly what to do in Shanahan’s zone-blocking run game — his patience and vision is tremendous — and given the injuries to the team’s top two backs, Jerick McKinnon and Matt Breida, and less-than-stellar preseasons from the coterie of backs looking to win the No. 3 job, the Niners will be hard-pressed to move on from Alf.
https://twitter.com/fourth_nine/status/1033478395110150144
That’s not to say that it can’t happen. Morris isn’t a guy who is going to be a good option on special teams — he’s not going to be a liability, but he’s not going to do much of value either — and Raheem Mostert, one of the backs vying for the No. 3 job, is one of the Niners’ special teams aces.
Beyond him, Shanahan really likes Joe Williams — so much so that it’s becoming a bit of a trope around Santa Clara (did you hear that he demanded the team draft the Utah product?) — who has also shown improvement on special teams.
If Morris did indeed win himself a roster spot on Saturday, it could have a ripple effect across the entire roster. (For instance, wide receiver Richie James looked great in the second half — the Niners likely won’t be able to get the seventh-round pick to the practice squad — but that might put fellow wideout Aaron Burridge, another special teams ace, on the wrong side of the bubble.)
Good luck sorting all that stuff out, Kyle.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Morris for being the best kind of difficult.
The Niners might just have a good offensive line in 2018
While Morris was unequivocally tremendous on Saturday, with Shanahan going as far to say that “it looked like he got more than what they blocked for him” but from my perspective, the offensive line did an outstanding job Saturday. Morris had a stable diet of big ol’ holes that he maximized when the defense finally converged.
All of this, of course, needs to carry the caveat that it happened against the Colts, who might have the worst front-seven in all of football.
That said, the Niners’ offensive line was manhandling the guys in blue in the run game on Saturday. You can see the makings of a rock-solid group there.
https://twitter.com/dkurtenbach/status/1033456623295971328
Everyone knows what Joe Staley provides on the left side — the dude is still one of the best in the game. At right tackle, Mike McGlinchey looked rock-solid on Saturday. That won’t always be the case — he’s a rookie — but there’s no doubt he’s going to be a starter in this league for a long time.
At center, I’m in on Weston Richburg. That might make me an outlier, but that’s where I stand.
Richburg was flagged for a blind-side block on Saturday, but that’s an error of exuberance. You can live with those. (And to be honest, I didn’t like the call.) Richburg is a tone-setter on the inside and Saturday’s game was a solid example of that.
Then come the guards.
The rap on Shanahan is that he doesn’t pay guards, and he certainly didn’t go out and offer big money to any of the solid guard options on the open market this past offseason.
Though by the looks of things Saturday — hell, this entire preseason — that was a prudent decision.
Before the 2017 season started, the Niners traded a fifth-round pick to the Lions for 2015 first-round selection Laken Tomlinson. A year later, Tomlinson is starting at left guard, has a new three-year contract extension, and is an absolute road grader.
He’s not going to be an All-Pro or anything, but he looked really good on Saturday, despite two holding penalties. (That’s saying something.)
On the other side, the right guard position — the possible weak link along the line — is shaping up well, and I think Mike Person’s performance against the Colts will make him the starter against the Vikings on Sept. 9.
Josh Garnett was given some run with the first-team offense at RG as well, but a bad holding penalty will probably keep him relegated to second on the depth chart.
Person was signed in May as a depth option (remember when Jonathan Cooper was supposed to be the starter at right guard?) and Tomlinson was considered a bust by the Lions this time last year. Now the Niners’ two starting guards are likely scrap-heap finds and that is not a problem in the least bit.
That might be why Shanahan doesn’t go out and pay big bucks for guards.
Put all five positions together, add in some solid depth pieces (though depth tackle deserves some concern), and Garoppolo’s ability to stand strong in the pocket, even when he does feel pressure, and the Niners might have something tasty cooking up front.
And my oh my, what a change that would be from last year.
There are reasons for optimism along the defensive line
There were a couple of broken coverages and a few third-down conversions, but I liked what I saw from the Niners’ first-string defense on Saturday.
And such a performance against the Colts doesn’t require as much salt as the offense’s similar success.
That’s because Andrew Luck looked good — really good (and that’s a good thing, because you can never have too much competent quarterback play in the NFL) — but the 49ers held the Colts to 4.3 yards per play when he was on the field.
That’s a number the Niners will take every single game if they could get it.
DeForest Bucker looks poised to be an All-Pro this year — he was a monster on Saturday (though that’s not necessarily a new development). His interior pressure on the right side was critical to the Niners’ pass rush actually making things happen on Saturday. The Colts simply couldn’t block him. Poor Quenton Nelson — the No. 6 overall pick in April’s draft — was downright baptized a few times by the Oregon product.
https://twitter.com/dkurtenbach/status/1033460793671475200
On the other side, I liked what I saw from Solomon Thomas Saturday. It was similar to his performance in the first preseason game against the Cowboys, where he looked like an improved player in year two, only this time, he didn’t leave the game with an injury.
I’m not going to predict double-digit sack numbers for the Stanford product, but he is showing more burst off the line this season and his secondary pass-rushing moves — as coaches have claimed — appear to have improved. He might not be the sack master weapon the Niners need, but as a five-technique, he looks like a player who will put in strong effort and technique on every snap, with an extra bit of push into the backfield this year. He won’t wow you, but his coaches are going to love him.
https://twitter.com/fourth_nine/status/1033456610016804864
Pair that competence with Buckner, who can do just about anything he wants on the football field, and San Francisco has two pieces of a four-man line in place.
Who those other two guys are is anyone’s guess at the moment, but a few pieces of the rotation impressed on Saturday. I liked Sheldon Day and DJ Jones’ shifts in the middle and for the first time this preseason, I noticed Jeremiah Attaochu, who had a sack in the game.
The Niners were awesome in stopping the run on Saturday, allowing only 80 yards on 25 attempts. If you can do that in the regular season — even against the Colts — it’s elite.
And while, yes, there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned about the Niners’ pass rush — it’s really difficult to win in the modern NFL if you cannot dictate the pace of the game with a defensive line push — but there’s also reason for some optimism. Health dictates everything in the NFL, I don’t think San Francisco’s worst timeline on the d-line will become reality in 2018.
Jimmy Garoppolo’s stats lie — and that cuts both ways
Here are the numbers: 9-of-19 for 135 yards.
At first glance, that’s not good.
But the truth lies somewhere in the middle. (Which, unironically, is where the 49ers will attack all year.)
https://twitter.com/dkurtenbach/status/1033468598923059200
Garoppolo’s box score stats are full of lies — the Niners’ quarterback was done in by five (count ‘em) receiver drops but also bailed out by at least two dropped interceptions.
Where does that leave the quarterback heading into the regular season (presuming he doesn’t play in the final preseason game, as per custom)?
In pretty much the same spot he was once he saw the field for the Niners last year.
The five drops were bad — tight end Cole Hikutini’s failure to convert a touchdown was particularly egregious — and while Garopppolo isn’t entirely devoid blame on a few of them, ultimately they shouldn’t be held against him.
What can be held against him are the interceptable passes he threw Saturday. I counted three — it seems as if the consensus was that he had two balls that could have been picked off — and that’s simply too many.
Garoppolo had an interceptable pass rate of nearly 6 percent last year, which, extrapolated out over 600 pass attempts would have likely put him over 15 interceptions, one of the worst marks in the league.
Garoppolo simply cannot have a rate of pickable passes that high in 2018, and frankly, there’s been no evidence the preseason that he will be more careful with the ball this season. Passes are still sailing and spying defenders are still being missed. Garoppolo can be an elite quarterback, but he’s not there yet and interceptable passes are the biggest impediment to him leveling up.
https://twitter.com/friscojosh/status/1033478308439056384
The interceptables are particularly difficult to overlook when they’re in the red zone. Yes, INTs are part of the game — even the most accurate quarterbacks throw them — but Garoppolo showed Saturday that he can be easy to read when the field is short.
Garoppolo threw two interceptable passes near the end zone Saturday because he locked into Trent Taylor in the slot and the Colts merely read the quarterback’s eyes.
While the Niners’ lack of a bonafide red zone threat could prove to be a big issue this year, Garoppolo’s struggles in that area can’t be entirely isolated to that. Last year, Garoppolo only completed 37 percent of his passes inside the 10-yard line. Blake Bortles completed 61 percent…
That has to improve in 2018 — scheme and elite play-calling can only do so much that close to pay dirt.
