Injuries, Lack of Serviceable Depth Hamstringing 49ers in Heated Division Race

It took two drives to see the ugliness that was to come. Two drives, two touchdowns and later a record.

The Denver Broncos marched merrily along against the San Francisco 49ers during those two first-quarter drives, with quarterback Peyton Manning throwing touchdown passes to wide receivers Wes Welker and Emmanuel Sanders. It was easy.

But too easy, even for Manning. On just those first two scoring drives Manning needed only seven pass attempts to throw for 111 yards. He broke Brett Favre’s all-time career passing touchdown record later in the half with his 509th touchdown toss. Although the score may not have reflected it at the time (21-10), a crumbling was well underway.

Later, 49ers safety Eric Reid told ESPN.com's Paul Gutierrez that Manning is part quarterback, part coordinator.

"You’re playing against a coordinator out there,” he said. 

The final pummeling brought on thoughts of many burning dumpsters. A dumpster fire inferno, if you will, with the 49ers losing 42-17. It was the second most lopsided loss during the Jim Harbaugh era and only a last-minute, garbage-time touchdown pass by backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert allowed the 49ers to avoid their worst loss since 2009.

There are two instincts after a team like the 49ers—NFC Championship Game participants in three straight seasons—is punched so thoroughly in both the groin and gut.

The first is to blame injuries. The second is to wonder where all the glistening gold at the bottom of the depth chart is, and why the 392 Niners draft picks (slight exaggeration) over the past few years aren’t keeping the team afloat.

Usually there are no wrong answers. Here, there are two right answers and still the stench of an excuse.

The 49ers are decimated by injuries. That is not an opinion or debatable. It is a fact, and one that grew far worse during Sunday’s game.

Offensively, right tackle Anthony Davis returned, which was a warmly-welcomed sight with his replacement Jonathan Martin doing regular door impressions. But guard Mike Iupati sat out with a concussion.

In the third quarter he was joined on the sideline by center Daniel Kilgore, who suffered what looked to be a serious leg injury that required a cart and an aircast. You can need one of those and survive in football, but not both. Even his replacement Dillon Ferrell hobbled off.

Continuity is crucial along any offensive line but especially for the 49ers. This is a team that leans on the read-option often and uses exotic shifts in the run game. The effectiveness of both is limited when bodies are constantly breaking and rotating.

That’s the reality of injuries among the men paid to build their human wall and plow ahead, and part of the reason why quarterback Colin Kaepernick was sacked six times Sunday night. In total this season he’s now been sacked 19 times, the second most in the league.

But the problem of health loses its traction when half of those sacks Sunday came after Kaepernick was wrapped up by Broncos defensive end DeMarcus Ware. He spent most of his evening lined up across from left tackle Joe Staley, a perfectly healthy individual and a Pro Bowler ready to battle with a Pro Bowler.

Fire was being fought with fire, or so we thought. Instead, when Staley spit hot fire it fizzled fast…

Injuries played their part in the 49ers’ clown show. But so did crippling underperformance. Mix the two together and stir them around a little bit in a seasonally-appropriate witch cauldron, and you get a 42-17 loss to a top tier team. A tier the 49ers are supposed to be on, too.

We see a similar tale in the secondary, a unit that began the game without starting cornerback Chris Culliver and safety Jimmie Ward. Then later cornerback Chris Cook went down, too, leaving the 49ers with only Tramaine Brock, Perrish Cox and Dontae Johnson available to play the corners, and they all surrendered touchdowns.

The void up the middle wasn’t a void at all. With both inside linebackers Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman sitting out, it was the same sort of crater you can find in the Arizona desert.

A quick reminder of exactly what those two mean to this defense.

	Tackles	Stops	Sacks	INTs	Passes Defensed
Patrick Willis	104	54	3	1	3
NaVorro Bowman	145	78	5	2	8

But at some point, the 23 draft picks stockpiled and used by 49ers general manager Trent Baalke over the past two years (the most during that span) need to fulfill a basic but essential function: depth.

When core players ahead of them go down the young 49ers blood needs to be either ready to take snaps immediately, or developed to be ready. Middle linebacker Chris Borland is one of those prized picks after being selected in the third round of 2014, when Baalke and Harbaugh knew they would have to replace Bowman for at least half the season.

Here he is arriving late to a cut-back hole on Ronnie Hillman’s 37-yard touchdown run (the longest run of his career).

Credit: NFL.com

And here he is again getting trucked by Hillman a short time later on a one-yard plunge. Hillman is 5’10” and weighs 195 pounds, while Borland is just a little bit heavier at 248 pounds.

Credit: NFL.com

Injuries are horrible and awful, but go ahead and look around the NFC West. The Arizona Cardinals are leading the division, and somehow still winning games without pass-rushers John Abraham, Calais Campbell, Darnell Dockett and Matt Shaughnessy. Core middle linebacker Daryl Washington is also suspended indefinitely.

In Seattle the Seahawks played without their own crucial middle linebacker Bobby Wagner Sunday, and he’ll likely miss more time. Wagner finished 2013 with 140 tackles and without him Seattle’s run defense has declined swiftly.

The 49ers now have a bye week to heal and lick their wounds, both literal and figurative. Willis should be ready for Week 9, Iupati will surely return, the defensive backfield will mend, and outside linebacker Aldon Smith’s suspension is now down to two games

They’ll get healthier, which will eliminate an easy excuse and ideally lower the rising temperature under Harbaugh’s coaching seat. Ideally.