San Francisco 49ers at a Crossroads After Ugly Start to 2015

What has happened to the San Francisco 49ers?

Well, we know what happened: Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And it continues to do so three weeks into the 2015 NFL season.

Now the question is where the team goes from here.

Forget the storybook 20-3 Monday Night Football victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 1. The true 49ers have been revealed in back-to-back blowout losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals in Weeks 2 and 3, respectively.

San Francisco allowed a combined 90 points during these two games. Ninety points allowed! Those are college numbers. One may have understood the drubbing the 49ers suffered in Pittsburgh. The short week combined with easterly travel worked against San Francisco's favor.

But to show up as flat as the team did in Arizona is flat out atrocious.

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

"Yeah, that 49ers performance set the franchise back a good 10 years," the San Jose Mercury News' Marcus Thompson wrote, describing the 49ers' 47-7 defeat in Week 3. Ten years ago, the 49ers were coming off a 2-14 season, had a new head coach (Mike Nolan) and a rookie quarterback by the name of Alex Smith.

San Francisco finished with a 4-12 record in 2005. And the same record may repeat 10 years later.

Or maybe it won't. The 49ers are still a talented team in terms of their personnel. But, right now, the weaknesses are far surpassing the strengths.

Let's look at San Francisco's secondary for a perfect example. 

The 49ers secondary, like so many other positions, experienced significant turnover during the offseason after losing defensive backs Chris Culliver and Perrish Cox. Young cornerbacks Kenneth Acker, Dontae Johnson and Keith Reaser are all promising. And developing defensive backs tend to struggle early in their respective pro careers.

But these guys are clearly struggling in pass coverage under new defensive coordinator Eric Mangini. As a unit, the 49ers defense has a minus-15.7 pass coverage grade according to Pro Football Focus.

Part of this is due to the lack of an effective pass rush. But the scheme, especially according to Al Sacco of 49erswebzone.com, also bears a large portion of the blame.

This combination of inexperienced players, poor scheme and even poorer execution provided the opportunities for quarterbacks Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Palmer to easily dissect San Francisco's secondary in back-to-back weeks.

And we should probably expect Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to do much of the same in Week 4.

On the flip side in San Francisco's pending matchup, quarterback Colin Kaepernick will look to rebound from a four-pick effort as he takes on a Packers team against which the 49ers signal-caller has had excellent success.

Kaepernick owns a 4-0 career record versus Green Bay (including two postseason games) and also has a 129.4 regular-season passer rating against the Packers.

But the context during those matchups was far different than the one San Francisco will endure this upcoming week.

The 27-year-old quarterback had one of the worst games, statistically, of his career in Week 3. There isn't any way to put a positive spin on that. And, despite head coach Jim Tomsula's postgame statements about Kaepernick being the team's quarterback, one will have to wonder where Kaepernick's future goes from this point forward.

B/R's Grant Cohn feels as if the time has come for the 49ers to move on from their incumbent quarterback. He writes:

"

It’s just that Kaepernick never improved. At times it seemed he had improved, but he couldn’t sustain that growth. After three years as the Niners’ starting quarterback, his best performance is still his first start—a 32-7 annihilation of the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football. ... Since then, he seems to have steadily regressed. Sunday’s game against the Cardinals was probably his worst performance in the NFL. He pretty much lost the game all by himself.

"

Like the rest of the team, Kaepernick has reached a crossroads. And, perhaps, the 49ers are at a crossroads with him. How long will he be in that proverbial "developmental" state?

But the blame cannot entirely fall on Kaepernick.

Thompson elaborated further:

"

But Kaepernick isn't alone in the mess. The 49ers have several donkeys on which to pin the tail, and the place to start is at the top.

Yes, this is all fruit from a poisonous tree. This is the produce from two years of mismanagement. Trickle down NFL economics.

The 49ers ousted a good coach in a seedy manner, then went on a campaign of spin -- "mutual parting of ways" -- instead of being upfront and transparent.

A lack of accountability trickles down.

"

When the system is faltering, one has to point the finger towards the top of the organization. This means in the direction of 49ers CEO Jed York and general manager Trent Baalke. 

York's handling of former head coach Jim Harbaugh wasn't pretty no matter how one views the latter's tenure in San Francisco.

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

And asking Tomsula to shoulder the burden of fixing all that happened during the offseason has left a lot to be desired. Tomsula shouldn't be expected to bear the brunt of the blame here—he could still wind up being a phenomenal head coach—but signs aren't pointing in the right direction for him in 2015.

Such is the reality for San Francisco three weeks into the 2015 season. While articles like these present opportunities for us to vent frustrations, the real question is what happens to this franchise moving forward. 

We have no clue.

But we do know this: Whatever is happening with the 49ers right now isn't working. Some of the pieces may be in place, but the whole machinery from top to bottom is broken and will require a lot of work to simply get San Francisco back on track.

And, sadly, this may not happen any time soon.

All statistics, records and accolades courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com and ESPN.com unless otherwise indicated.

Peter Panacy is a featured columnist covering the San Francisco 49ers for Bleacher Report. Follow him @PeterPanacy on Twitter.