San Francisco 49ers: Self-Inflicted Penalties Ruin Levi's Stadium Opener

The San Francisco 49ers shot themselves in the foot repeatedly on Sunday night, resulting in a 28-20 loss to the Chicago Bears.

Colin Kaepernick’s four turnovers are, of course, important, but they’ll be broken down and dissected a thousand times before the next game is played.  I instead want to talk penalties.

The 49ers committed 16 penalties for 118 yards against Chicago—and that’s only counting the accepted penalties.  It was a flag-filled night from referee Carl Cheffers’ crew, but even that only goes partway to explaining just how often San Francisco hurt itself—even if you take away a borderline penalty or two here and there, it’s still a horrible night for San Francisco.

Rick Osentoski/Associated Press

It was the sloppiest game the 49ers have had in years.  The last time they even came close to this number of flags was the Week 6 game against the Detroit Lions in 2011, which ended with the coaches scuffling.

This is the second-straight game the 49ers have struggled with penalties, too—lost in the Week 1 demolition of the Dallas Cowboys were 11 penalties for 78 yards.

This sort of thing simply cannot continue if the 49ers consider themselves Super Bowl contenders.  With Seattle’s loss in San Diego in the afternoon, the 49ers had a wide-open door to claim an early lead in the NFC West race.  Instead, they find themselves looking up at next week’s opponent, the Arizona Cardinals.

Here’s a breakdown of all the penalties the 49ers have had this season, accepted or not:

Penalty	Cases	Yards	Player
Offensive Holding	7	68	Joe Staley (2), Stevie Johnson, Nick Moody, Joe Looney, Chris Borland, Anquan Boldin
Illegal Use of Hands	4	20	Ahmad Brooks (2), Jimmie Ward, Corey Lemonier
Illegal Contact	4	20	Craig Dahl, Jimmie Ward, Perrish Cox, Dontae Johnson
Unnecessary Roughness	2	25	L.J. McCray, Dan Skuta
Offensive Pass Interference	2	10	Brandon Lloyd, Stevie Johnson
False Start	2	10	Jonathan Martin, Joe Staley
Delay of Game	2	10	Andy Lee, Colin Kaepernick
Defensive Holding	2	5	Justin Smith, Dan Skuta
Roughing the Passer	1	15	Quinton Dial
Neutral Zone Infraction	1	5	Ahmad Brooks
Offside	1	5	Chris Borland
Unsportsmanlike Conduct	1	3	Colin Kaepernick

It’s all over the place—it’s not one player or unit that keeps getting called; it’s fairly evenly spread out among offense and defense, linemen and cornerbacks and rookies and veterans.

It led directly to a score in the Dallas game, but that wasn’t a big deal because the game was already signed, sealed and delivered by that point.  In this game, however, penalties extended scoring drives on two separate occasions:

• Perrish Cox’s illegal contact extended Chicago’s drive right before the half, which allowed them to score the touchdown to make it 17-7, 49ers.
• Corey Lemonier’s illegal use of hands and Dontae Johnson’s illegal contact twice extended the drive at the end of the third quarter, where the Bears moved the score to 20-14, 49ers.

Yes, it was ultimately Kaepernick’s interceptions that put Chicago in a position to make the go-ahead score, but they would never have been in that situation had the penalties not kept Chicago hanging in until the end of the game. 

Remove even one of those three back-breaking penalties, and the 49ers are at least in a position to win the game with a field goal in the fourth quarter, rather than needing to drive and find the end zone.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press/Associated Press

That’s not even including some of the more harmful offensive fouls.  Anquan Boldin committed offensive holding which called back a 54-yard Frank Gore touchdown; that drive ended up in a turnover itself.

Yes, some of these penalties have been borderline, at best.  I thought, for example, the aforementioned Boldin holding call was very, very questionable.  However, when you commit so many of them, you’re removing any of the benefit of the doubt you might be getting—that’s just human nature.  If you continue to commit offensive holding, the refs are going to be looking for you to do it again.

Increased levels of flags for illegal use of hands and illegal contact are areas of emphasis this season, and so far, the 49ers have not adjusted their style of play to match.  This is probably something that can be cleaned up in practice, but the 49ers need to do so quickly.

The loss to the Bears moves the 49ers a game back in the race for a bye week—and makes this week’s game against Arizona as close to a must-win as you can have in Week 3.  The 49ers need to clean up their penalties immediately, or they’re going to find themselves on the wrong side of a few more scores this season.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.