The San Francisco 49ers Home to the Worst Defensive Coordinator in Football

The 49ers coming into the season this year had some solid pieces in place defensive wise. The 49ers brought in Justin Smith and Takeo Spikes. While Spikes has seemed to resurrect his team Justin Smith seems to have taken a step backward, but I don't place the blame on him though for his lack of sacks or pressure on the quarterback this year.

The 49ers have one of the best linebackers in the league in Patrick Willis. There has been comparisons of Willis with another great linebacker in Ray Lewis. Willis is just not there yet and he won't be under 49ers defensive coordinator Greg Manusky.

Yes, Mike Singletary did an excellent job with him as linebacker coach, but in order for Willis to actually be like Lewis there's something that the 49ers need to do with Willis and it's not going to happen under Manusky.

What is Lewis known for? He's known for causing chaos behind the line of scrimmage. For it's rather rare to even see Patrick Willis in the backfield. Willis is usually making his plays from sideline to sideline, but not in the backfield.

The corners have been constantly burned this year. It seems that Walt Harris has just lost it and Nate Clements hasn't been what the 49ers wanted when he was signed to the big contract. My biggest pet peeve with Clements though is after allowing a catch instead of tackling the receiver he tries to strip the ball way too much. Just go for the tackle and give the defense a chance to hold.

Now now all the blame can go around on Clements and Harris. It's no wonder why teams are able to throw the ball against the 49ers. The reason being is they don't get much pressure on the quarterback because Manusky hardly ever blitzes.

Even when there is a blitz on teams are able to pick it up rather easily, so there's still no pressure on the quarterback. When there is pressure the quarterback finds a way to escape and usually the 49ers coverage breaks down.

Perfect example is in today's game with the Cowboys. The 49ers got some pressure on Tony Romo who just moved out of the way of the pressure threw the ball downfield to Terrell Owens who scored on a 75 yard pass play and even on the play Nate Clements was flagged for illegal contact.

On that play Clements got beat and his help defender Mark Roman couldn't run with Owens either. Even with the illegal contact Owens was able to catch the ball on the run in this case Clements should have just knocked Owens to the turf get the pass interference call because that was the first score by the Cowboys and all the momentum the 49ers had was gone after that touchdown pass to Owens.

To further Clements mistake instead of just tackling Owens around the 10 yard line he decied to go with trying to the strip the ball from Owens hands instead of just tackling him.

In the third quarter with the Cowboys facing a third and nine almost the exact same play for Owens was made. This time it wasn't with double coverage and it didn't go for a touchdown.

It was just Mark Roman one on one with Terrell Owens instead of playing physical with Owens he tried matching Owens speed and was easily beaten deep for a 52 yard gain. The only reason why it didn't go for another touchdown is because it was thrown near the sideline.

Expect more of the same from the 49ers for the rest of the season with games coming up against Buffalo, at home versus the Jets, then against Miami, at St. Louis where any team's defense looks great because of the Rams being in disarray, and their last home game taking on the Redskins.

It's not like the 49ers are don't have some talented defensive players. They do it's just a head scratcher on why the 49ers aren't more aggressive with their defense and why they do not use their best athlete on defense to apply pressure in the backfield or on the quarterback.

Prediction for the 49ers it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. It will only happen when Greg Manusky is gone and the 49ers can get a defensive coordinator that wants to put pressure on the quarterback.

If Marvin Lewis is fired from the Bengals he would be a perfect choice for the 49ers as a defensive coordinator. Lewis brought the Bengals back to respectability and if he can take over the 49ers defense he can make it a lot better with the players the 49ers do have on defense.