Five Things the San Francisco 49ers Must Correct During Bye Week

With a brutal loss to Atlanta now in the rear-view mirror, the high from the previous wins has come to a crashing halt.

Were we too optimistic? Were the successful 49ers of the past weeks merely an illusion?

The answer to that is both yes and no. No, the 49ers who played so well in the opening quarter of the 2009 season were legitimate. They played well and beat the teams they needed to.

But yes, we were perhaps a bit premature in our enthusiasm for the team based on its success. Arizona has played hungover from their Super Bowl loss, Seattle had injury issues and the Rams are...well, let's just say 'a tragedy' and leave well enough alone.

Those are teams you should beat. The loss to Minnesota contained a promising effort as well, but also showed a few things which Atlanta was later able to exploit to advantage. 

As the team heads into its Bye Week, there are definitely things Coach Mike Singletary and his staff will be working on, and they don't only involve getting later-arriving rookie wide receiver Michael Crabtree up to speed. 

The 49ers are a solid team in many areas, but here are five things they need to work on to get better and get into the playoffs. 

IMPROVE OFFENSIVE LINE PLAY

The 49ers want to rely on the run game and that’s all well and good, but the rest of the offense still needs to be vital and effective.

A ranking of 29 out of 32 teams after five weeks in overall offense is neither. The most glaring culprit is the offensive line, which has given up 16 sacks, fifth worst in the league.  

Constant pressure is certainly not helping quarterback Shaun Hill or the 30th-ranked passing offense. Just five touchdowns with 804 yards total and a mere 55.9 completion percentage are a sad tale for this offense.

While Hill is far from Tom Brady/Peyton Manning, he can do better. In order for that percentage to come up, he needs the time to throw the ball.

Singletary has said he will probably make some changes coming out of the bye and he has to. Otherwise, this offense will continue to struggle.

This may not an offense built to come from behind. It still needs to move the ball, though, if just to pull the defense of Frank Gore and Glen Coffee.

If the team is going to survive the season, they have to do more than that though. They have to be able to move the ball through the air.

The offensive line has to do more to help them out.

GET IT DONE ON THIRD DOWN

You cannot win games if your third down percentage in 28% like the 49ers. The Niners are 27th in the league in converting their third downs.

Some of the problem certainly comes because of the aforementioned offensive linemen issues. And as they aren’t killing it on first down, it puts the offense in a position of being third and long, which allows opposing defenses to tee off on Hill.

That may not have mattered against the Rams and a banged up Seahawks team, but it hurt the team against the Vikings and the Falcons.

Against better teams, the 49ers very much need to convert those third downs. They have to keep opposing offenses off the field and allow their defenses to catch their breath.

The idea behind a run-centered offense like the one the 49ers want to run is they milk the clock.

You don’t convert a third down and you fail at that very important aspect of your game-plan.

Addendum to the first part: they also need to be effective on the first two downs. If you want to make life easier for your third down unit, you’d better be effective on your first two downs.

BALANCE THE CARRIES

Yes, Frank Gore’s injury wasn’t from wearing down, but it’s still a concern.

Until he was injured, nearly every carry was Gore’s. Good for his value to fantasy football players, but perhaps not for high productivity at the end of the season.

After assuming rookie Glen Coffee would get a healthy though not overwhelming amount of carries coming off of a solid pre-season, he was pretty much a non-factor the first two games.

Once Gore was hurt, Coffee had a large amount of touches and while not the second coming of Barry Sanders, performed well.

Gore is ready to come back after the Bye Week, but Coffee should not be put back on the shelf. The rookie back should get a good amount of carries throughout the season.

This would keep Gore from wearing down, especially as we reach the end of the year. The veteran back has had his share of injury issues and seemed to tire at the end of 2008.

If the 49ers end up in a dogfight for the NFC West or have the opportunity to make a run in the playoffs, they will need Gore.

Spelling him more frequently will give him a rest from the pounding taken when the team is running a large percentage of their plays.

Keep the rookie going, and Gore will have more spring in his step come December.

DEFENSE MUST STEP UP

The defense has played well for the most part, but as with the success of the offense, it was against struggling offensive units.

As time has gone on, this supposed strength has been less than dominating.

At first glance the 11 sacks which the defensive unit has compiled look solid and in fact ties them for 12th overall in total sacks. However, five of the 11 were against the Rams who - while not giving up a more than average amount of sacks, are far from stout.

The team was able to pressure the Vikings a little (a pair of sacks) in Week Three and the Cardinals (three sacks) in Week One but were completely shut out by a very tough Falcons unit.

This unit is not doing enough to stop the best quarterbacks they are facing.

Sure, they were able to stomp on a banged-up Hasselbeck and his sidekick Seneca Wallace (a shaky career backup) as well as perennially underwhelming Kyle Boller.

Kurt Warner (288 yards), Brett Favre (301 yards) and Matt Ryan (329 yards) were all able to move the ball at will.  

While Warner had issues getting yards to translate to points, Ryan and Favre had no such issues, with Favre stunning the team on a last-minute touchdown pass and Ryan picking the team apart.

All of these quarterbacks function at a much lower level when they are under pressure but when they aren't...well, the results often aren't  pretty.

Totaling 11 sacks is all well and good, but ranking 24th against the pass is flat-out dangerous.

You can argue that the defensive philosophy is 'bend but don't break' but against elite offenses, that's just not good enough.

If the 49ers want to win the NFC West and be a player in the post-season, they have to pressure the quarterback more and have to do it against more than just backups and shoddy defensive lines.

It makes little difference having an eighth-ranked rush defense when teams can merely tear your secondary apart.

Speaking of which, a top-ranked run defense looks good on paper, but it doesn't mean a thing when opposing offenses can pick the secondary apart.

As much as the defensive front must increase the pressure on opposing quarterbacks, the secondary must do a better job of containing opposing wide receivers.

Yes, the unit has six interceptions (tied for fifth in the league) but they've given up 61 first downs (tied for seventh in the NFL). It has also allowed 14 plays of 20 yards or more.

Much of this is the 'bend but don't break' philosophy evident in the offense. You give up a ton of yards and lock down in the red zone. For the most part, this has worked.

In both losses though, the secondary has fallen apart. Against Minnesota, they were knocked back on their heels by Favre as he manufactured a drive beginning at his own 20 and going 77 yards in 1:17 and resulting in a game-winning touchdown.

In the loss to Atlanta, they were just over-matched. Bad tackling, poor coverage and no pressure altogether combined to put them behind early and let Atlanta move the ball not only down the field at will, but seemingly into the end zone whenever they wanted.

Both parts of the defensive unit needs to tighten up and play more focused and more disciplined football.

And since we're talking about focus and discipline...

CUT DOWN ON METAL ERRORS

Singletary put it best after Sunday's blowout: "We did not play very smart today."

That would be an understatement.

It's easy to pick on Dre' Bly, but he's not the only culprit.

Glen Coffee headed off the field, incorrectly thinking Josh Morgan had scored a touchdown. He ran off the field, was late returning to the line of scrimmage and the team had to call a time out.

That lost time out was one they may have used in the second quarter to challenge a ruling of Delanie Walker's fumble on a kickoff return. Walker appeared to be down by contact but that didn't matter since the 49ers were out of timeouts.

Bly's spectacular brain-freeze moment where he showboated just a bit early (if you can call 75 yards 'a bit') and ended up stripped by Atlanta receiver Roddy White appeared larger, but Coffee's was no less damaging.

Mistakes like these are just the ones we see due to the sheer obviousness of them but they show a tremendous lack of focus. If you wanted to, you could excuse Coffee for his inexperience but Bly is an 11-year veteran and should know better.

What's worse was his 'I'm just gonna be me' excuse. Sure, he apologized the next day, but that's because he was told to, as far as I am concerned.

The fact is, instead of a momentum- and game-changing interception, Bly was responsible for more points on the board for the Falcons.

Both events are symptoms of a larger problem which has plagued the team for years and that is lack of discipline. It shows itself as much in the missed blocks, blown routes and holding penalties.

In a game where you are winning, they are easy to overlook. In a game where you lose, they are glaring chinks in the armor. 

After the game, Singletary said it was up to everyone on the staff to better prepare the players.

Singletary and his staff were able to turn around Vernon Davis' attitude and work ethic, but it never was just Davis. Losses like the one Sunday were far from uncommon in previous seasons.

A team expecting to make the playoffs has to avoid mental lapses. Against Atlanta, it cost the 49ers big. They have to make sure that to regain their focus if they are to become a contender in the NFC.

To be sure, there are more problems to consider. The receiver corps isn't playing as well as we had expected. Hill is clearly not a long term answer for the quarterback position. There is next to no depth at running back.

Still the above five problems are the biggest and most glaring.

If the 49ers want to be considered more than this year's potential flash in the pan team, they have to take the next two weeks and focus on improving these area. They can all be fixed in short order and without tremendous pain.

If ignored though, these problems will continue to emerge at the worst times possible and quite likely prevent the team from making any noise in the post-season assuming they don't scuttle that altogether.