Defensive Collapse, Loss to Chargers Proves 49ers Need Offseason Change

When a team rushes for 355 yards in a game, as the San Francisco 49ers did Saturday night, it means their offense was overpowering. It means they owned the line of scrimmage and were able to muscle forward for chunks upon chunks of yards.

It means that, for much of the game, they did whatever they damn well pleased with the ball.

Most of all, it means the team in question shouldn’t lose. They really shouldn’t lose when 182 of those yards came in the first half. Losing should also be impossible when an offense has two 150-plus yard rushers, which the 49ers had between running back Frank Gore and quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

But there is no impossible with the 2014 version of the San Francisco 49ers. There’s only misery. The 38-35 overtime loss to the San Diego Chargers came despite a first half when the 49ers did something exceedingly rare offensively: They looked competent.

To truly process the new depths reached in the 49ers’ endless pit of despair, we first need to go through a few remarkable statistical accomplishments that preceded the second-half collapse against the Chargers. We have to acknowledge how impossible this loss seemed at one point.

Starting with Gore and his general trucking. As Scott Kacsmar from Football Outsiders observed, Gore’s first half was simply absurd.

Highlighted by a 52-yard touchdown run, when he blasted through two Chargers defenders and then juked safety Eric Weddle out of his undergarments, Gore was what he should have been all season: the focus for a 49ers offense that thrives with a power-running approach.

In that first half alone, Gore ran for 129 yards at a pace of 9.2 per carry. His per-carry average over the 49ers’ first 14 games this season? Only 3.9. By halftime he had also obliterated his average per-game rushing total (57.4).

After that long touchdown, Gore had run for 78 yards on his first five carries. Nothing was fair about how much he was physically overpowering the Chargers.

Suddenly, the 49ers seemed to have rhythm and identity while embracing the offensive roots they had too often abandoned this season. They gained 192 yards in a single quarter (the first one). During the previous three games—all losses, a streak that ended their season—the 49ers averaged 219 yards of offense.

On the ground, the resulting rushing yardage scoreboard wasn’t safe for work. The 49ers outrushed San Diego 182-69 over the first two quarters.

That meant the offensive yardage scoreboard was also pretty gross for the Chargers. Here’s what it looked like after the 49ers’ second touchdown, an eight-yard pass to wide receiver Bruce Ellington. Reminder: That touchdown took place at only the 13:41 mark of the second quarter.

There are two more numbers to absorb before we move on, which are both equally mind-numbing when you look at the final score again. The first is 7.7—the 49ers’ average point total during that three-game losing streak (now four as the sadness grows).

Their 28 first-half points smashed that, and the problem was getting outscored 31-7 during the second half and overtime.

But the second number shakes your very core: 314.1—the 49ers’ average offensive yardage per game prior to Saturday. They sailed far beyond that with their rushing total alone.

The 49ers’ only touchdown in that second half came from Kaepernick on a spectacular 90-yard run, the second-longest scoring run by a quarterback in league history. In hindsight, that momentarily masked an offense that had reverted back to the sputtering inconsistent unit we’ve seen for much of this season, with Kaepernick lacking comfort in the pocket.

The Chargers quite understandably keyed on Gore after some halftime adjustments. As a result, he rushed for 129 yards in the first half and only 29 in the second.

Quarter	Yards
First	98
Second	31
Third	10
Fourth	19

So the game was forced into Kaepernick’s hands. That's been a horrible place for any game lately.

After a 65-yard touchdown pass to tight end Vernon Davis was nullified by a chop-block penalty on Gore, Kaepernick faced immediate pressure in the pocket on 3rd-and-20. He defaulted into hero mode instead of taking a more conservative approach with what was at the time still a two-touchdown lead.

Kaepernick should have devoured the ball, taking a sack and bringing the punt team onto the field to protect that lead. But no, he chose to wave it around while trying to escape the pocket and invited doom in doing so. It came when Chargers defensive end Ricardo Mathews forced the fumble, and fellow lineman Corey Liuget recovered it in the 49ers’ end zone for a touchdown.

From there, that magical first half became only a distant memory. Eventually, the night ended with a different kind of history. The worst kind.

The defensive collapse that led to Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers throwing three second-half touchdown passes was jarring—though also expected. Eventually, the 49ers’ injury resilience had to reach its breaking point.

Entering the game without three top linebackers (Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman and Chris Borland) was already painful enough. But then Rivers' carving began when safety Eric Reid went down too and cornerback Perrish Cox left the game briefly in the fourth quarter.

The true failing was a familiar one: lack of offensive support. It started with Kaepernick and his inability to make key throws from the pocket when needed. He finished with only 28 passing yards in the second half.

But the greater shortcoming was from two men who are likely (definitely) in their final days as 49ers employees. Both head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman failed to make the necessary counter moves to keep the rushing offense chugging in the second half. More screens should have been utilized, and Davis needed to be targeted more at intermediate depths.

The 49ers have now scored a league-low 79 points after halftime because of that inability to strategize and adjust to the flow of a game. They’ve lost four in a row too, and before 2014, the worst loss total after an entire season during the Harbaugh era was four.

That era will end in a few weeks. But maybe not before this year’s 49ers reach an all new rocky bottom.