San Francisco 49ers: 5 Players on the Hot Seat in 2015
With the San Francisco 49ers coming off of an 8-8 season, there are plenty of questions that need to be answered. The job security of key contributors isn’t the same as it is when you’re reeling off back-to-back-to-back NFC Championship Game appearances; it’s a results-driven league and last year’s results were clearly not acceptable to the team’s management.
The lack of results sent former head coach Jim Harbaugh packing, despite a 44-19-1 record and a Super Bowl appearance as head coach, with owner Jed York stating that the Super Bowl is the franchise’s “only goal”. That attitude conflicts with the general opinion of the team, with most betting sites giving the 49ers odds of somewhere between 30-1 and 40-1, according to Odds Shark. However, it gives you a good idea of what the franchise considers acceptable.
That means the performances some players put up last season won’t be considered acceptable going forward. While the franchise resisted the urge to do a full cleaning of the roster, there are some players who are going to have to step up their games in 2015 or else find themselves looking for jobs in 2016.
Here, then, are the five players I think have to prove themselves in 2015.
A couple caveats before we start:
I’m defining “most to prove” as “most in danger of being cut before next season starts.” This eliminates someone like Vernon Davis or Alex Boone, both of whom are not under contract for 2016. They’re trying to prove that they deserve a large deal in free agency, not that they deserve to be on the roster in 2016. Consider them honorable mentions.
Instead, we’re looking at players who have a big cap charge in 2016 without much guaranteed money, and who did not play up to those numbers in 2014. They are players who will have to significantly improve their play in order to justify their 2016 contract numbers.
All contract numbers courtesy of Over The Cap.
QB Colin Kaepernick
1 of 5
No one will be under the microscope more than San Francisco’s franchise quarterback.
This wasn’t supposed to be the case. When Colin Kaepernick signed his contract extension last season, he was coming off of a solid 2013 and a brilliant 2012. He was supposed to be the foundation of the team for years to come.
Then 2014 happened. Kaepernick set a career high in interceptions and a career low in yards per attempt. His quarterback rating dropped under 90 for the first time, and his QBR dropped below 60 for the first time. He absorbed 52 sacks, not all of which were the fault of his offensive line.
He had the fourth-highest percentage of bad throws in the NFL, according to Football Outsiders, just beating out Blake Bortles, Kirk Cousins and Brian Hoyer. These were almost all overthrows—his underthrow rank had him ninth in the league—but only Cam Newton threw the ball over the head of his receivers more frequently than Kaepernick did in 2014. Kaepernick's 80 overthrows led the league.
Kaepernick wasn’t all bad in 2014; he still provided significant value with his legs. You can also blame the injuries to his offensive line for a large portion of Kaepernick’s struggles; Aaron Rodgers would have issues with Jonathan Martin and a rookie center playing for most of the season. The addition of Torrey Smith as a deep threat could help reduce Kaepernick’s overthrows as well; he’s faster than anyone Kaepernick has had to work with in his NFL career.
There are plenty of reasons, actually, to believe that Kaepernick can rebound. Back in January, I looked at players with career arcs similar to Kaepernick’s last two seasons and came up with names like Ben Roethlisberger, Steve McNair, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees and Matt Hasselbeck—a fine collection of players. In addition, the odds that the offensive line will suffer as many injuries in 2015 as they did in 2014 are low.
Kaepernick’s contract makes him expendable at any point after this season, thanks to a lack of initially guaranteed money. His salary for each season only guarantees on April 1 of each year, so the 49ers could part ways with him in any March from now until his contract expires in 2020; it’s essentially a year-to-year deal.
My gut is that Kaepernick rebounds and remains the starting quarterback for 2016, at the very least. If he has another poor season, however, and the 49ers end up with a top-10 draft pick, you could see someone like Cardale Jones, Christian Hackenberg or Connor Cook under center for the 49ers and Kaepernick moving on.
OLB Ahmad Brooks
2 of 5
There was some talk about Ahmad Brooks being a potential salary-cap casualty prior to the 2015 season, but general manager Trent Baalke confirmed that Brooks wasn’t going anywhere back in March.
That may not be the case for too much longer. On the field in 2014, Brooks’ production dipped. His six sacks were his lowest total as a starter, as were his 25 tackles. Pro Football Focus rated him as the fifth-worst 3-4 outside linebacker in football last year and in fact hasn’t given him a positive overall grade since 2012, despite his Pro Bowl appearance in 2013.
Off the field, Brooks is rapidly become a major headache. He got in a shouting match with new head coach Jim Tomsula in Week 11 and benched himself, and he was benched in Week 14 for missing a team meeting. These were already bad signs, but things have gotten worse since then.
According to Riya Bhattacharjee of NBC Bay Area, "Brooks has been accused of sexual assault by the same woman who claimed former 49ers player Ray McDonald raped her." TMZ Sports adds she is suing Brooks and McDonald for "assault and battery, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress."
Perhaps as insurance, the team drafted Virginia outside linebacker Eli Harold in the third round. When coupled with last year’s fifth-round pick, Aaron Lynch, the 49ers have a couple of possible replacements if Brooks is released and/or Aldon Smith gets in trouble once more. There’s an outside chance that Brooks is released before the 2015 season even begins.
Assuming the 49ers keep him around, Brooks has a lot to prove if he wants to play out the last two years of his contract. When you cost $6 million more than your potential replacement, you have to be unquestionably the right pick.
I don’t think Brooks will be on the team by opening day of 2016.
CB Tramaine Brock
3 of 5
There’s a significant gap in the cap savings between the likes of Kaepernick and Brooks and that of Tramaine Brock. There’s also a significantly different reason for Brock’s on-field struggles in 2014 compared to those of Kaepernick or Brooks. That doesn’t get Brock off the hook, but it does mean that he’s in a much better situation than the other two players.
Brock received a contract extension in the middle of the 2013 season thanks to an incredible rise up the depth chart. Before the 2013 season began, Brock was fighting for a roster spot. By the end of the season, he had replaced first Nnamdi Asomugha and then Carlos Rogers as a starting cornerback. The former undrafted free agent had a very good season in 2013 and was arguably the team’s best cover corner. Expectations were high coming into 2014.
However, a series of injuries greatly limited Brock’s availability last season. He sprained his toe in the opener against Dallas and then sprained his hamstring almost immediately once he returned to the lineup. Pro Football Focus only charted him on 84 snaps in 2014, ninth-most in the 49ers’ secondary. It was, essentially, a lost season.
Healthy once more, Brock has the opportunity to return to the form that earned him his new contract in 2013. He hadn’t shown a history of being injury-prone prior to the 2014 season, so it’s entirely possible that that was essentially an aberration; bad luck for a team that was absolutely slammed with bad luck in 2014.
Since Brock’s extension, however, the 49ers have added quite a few cornerbacks to the roster. In 2014, they drafted Jimmie Ward, Dontae Johnson, Keith Reaser and Kenneth Acker. They also signed free agent Shareece Wright from San Diego in March. If Brock continues to have trouble finding the field, there are other, cheaper players the 49ers could keep ahead of him.
I think Brock returns to something approaching his 2013 form, but that’s always a question mark when it comes to players without significant appearances. Unlike NaVorro Bowman, who’s a roster lock for years to come, Brock doesn’t have a track record of success in the NFL to fall back on. He’s going to need to re-prove that he’s a starting cornerback in the NFL.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
OT Erik Pears
4 of 5
Honestly, Erik Pears has to start proving things in training camp before the 2015 season even begins; he’d save the 49ers $2.4 million if he were cut then and there. His roster spot is far from safe.
Still, the 49ers saw something in him to bring him in as a free agent from Buffalo. Their last attempt at bringing in a swing tackle, Jonathan Martin, failed rather spectacularly last season, so presumably they consider Pears better than that.
Pro Football Focus would tend to disagree. In 2014, playing right guard, he was hit with a horrendous -25.0 grade, making him the third-worst guard in football. As a right tackle in 2013, he earned a bit of a better mark at -8.4, which pairs nicely with his -8.2 mark at the same position in limited action in 2012. He has never earned a positive grade from the site.
Nor is it just one advanced statistical site saying Pears is poor. Buffalo Rumblings’ Brian Galliford had this to say about Pears:
"First and foremost: under no circumstances should he be looked at as a guard. The guy is 6'8" and he isn't a great athlete. The only reason he played guard last season is because Doug Marrone has a god complex when it comes to coaching offensive linemen, and thought he could slide Pears inside and start seventh-round rookie Seantrel Henderson in his place at right tackle last season. The right side of Buffalo's line was an unmitigated disaster in 2014.
Availability and consistency are Pears' strong suits, even if he is consistently bad. If I were in charge of putting together a quality offensive line depth chart, Pears would not be on my radar.
"
That’s not exactly the endorsement you’d like to see.
Now, both the stats and the bloggers agree that Pears is better at tackle than at guard, so a move back to that position could pay dividends. He’s going to have to demonstrate that his awful 2014 season was due to playing out of position and that he can be a valuable reserve offensive lineman, one who can step in for Anthony Davis in a pinch.
There aren’t many other options on the roster this year to compete as a backup tackle, with sixth-round surprise Ian Silberman perhaps being the most likely name. But Pears is going to have to impress this season. If not, the 49ers could be looking at their third swing tackle in three years in 2016.
DE Darnell Dockett
5 of 5
Of all the players on this list, Darnell Dockett has had the best career. While not precisely a Hall of Famer, Dockett is a multiple-time Pro Bowler with a long track record of success in Arizona.
He also is turning 34 years old in May and is coming off of a torn ACL that cost him the entire 2014 season. The age and injury concerns meant that Arizona opted to cut him, and he ended up in San Francisco instead on a two-year deal.
It’s not really a two-year deal, though, as none of Dockett’s $3.5 million salary in 2016 is guaranteed. What this is, essentially, is a one-year tryout with a team option to keep him on board in 2016.
It’s a tough deal for a 34-year-old to come back from an ACL injury like Dockett’s, but San Francisco loves its ACL injuries. Marcus Lattimore, Tank Carradine, Brandon Thomas, Keith Reaser, Trey Millard and DeAndre Smelter were all drafted by the team with ACL injuries, so it’s fair to say that the team knows a thing or two about dealing with them.
With the possible exceptions of Kaepernick’s arm and Bowman’s knee, no single body part will be more scrutinized for the 49ers this year than Dockett’s knee. It’s likely too much to ask for him to return to his 2009-2010 Pro Bowl form, but if he can bounce all the way back to where he was just before the knee injury, he should be a solid contributor in 2015. He just needs to prove that his aging body can stand up to another NFL season.
Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Follow him @BryKno on twitter.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
.png?w=480)
