49ers face struggles in Houston, unable to overcome Texans in rough Week 8 loss | NBC Sports BA

49ers face struggles in Houston, unable to overcome Texans in rough Week 8 loss | NBC Sports BA

We knew it was going to be a tough day for the 49er offense. It was that and much more. They dropped this one 26-5 to go down five and three. The Texans improved to three and four on a day where every team in the NFC West has a buy. The 49ers cannot take advantage of that. We’ll break it down here. This is 49ers postgame live brought to you by Toyota, Ron Brooks, Matt Mayoko, Carlos Ramirez, Matt, this Houston defense is no joke. No, they’re a good team defensively. They’re not a good team offensively, but the 49ers defense made them look like a good team offensively. I thought that this was probably the first time this season that when you looked at the bleaguered, short-handed 49ers, they looked belleaguered. They looked short-handed. Today was the cumulative effect of no Bosa, no Warner, and no huff. You got no Bosa, no huff means you have no uh no pass rush. Once again, Robert Salah tried to scheme it. He tried to throw blitzes at the Texans. It seemed like every blitz was either picked up by the Texans offensive line. That was 30th in pass block win rate or it was either beaten with checkdowns and short passes by CJ Strad. No, Warner meant the middle of the field for the Texans. Absolutely wide open in pass coverage and in the run game and CJ Stout who is not a running quarterback had himself a couple of rushes. So, it’s exactly what you’re talking about, Matt. And we could all see it. Stevie Wonder could see it. You can only go so long without having those good players and it showed up today. Let’s go out to Houston NRT Stadium where 49ers reporter Jennifer Lee Chan joins us live. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Uh the difference from last week’s defensive performance to this week. Is it just as simple as not enough bodies out there? I mean, that’s a huge part of it. You’re already without your three top defensive players. Bryce Huff, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, and then now going through the game and Jordan Elliot out and then D Winters out. I mean, it just it just keeps going. The list keeps going. I saw Sam Ouanu down here in the tunnel being, you know, driven on the cart. So, this is a this is a really uh depleted defense and you could definitely sense it on the field. Also, tons of mistakes throughout. Yes. Live and die by the blitz and they died by it today. How about the missed opportunity, Jennifer, on offense? We saw a big drop by Joan Jennings, another one by Jordan Watkins. What did you see? Uh, yes, absolutely. I mean, this they had to play mistakefree and they did not do that. Huge drop by Joan Jennings. Landed right in his hands. I know he wants that one back. did have a little retribution getting a pass uh re reception a little bit later down at the oneyd line, but still this was a game that they had to play clean, especially against this Houston Texans defense which is run by Tamika Ryans. I mean, it’s a solid defense. They said it all week long. They had to play sound and they did not do that. Jennifer, what about M. Jones? What did you see from him? Is perhaps the league catching up to him? Is Is the story coming to an end? You know, I don’t know. He he he ran off out the tunnel. He was one of the first guys off the field that we just saw. He seemed very emotional. I mean, I think he gave the the team an opportunity to win. There were a lot of passes that were pretty accurate dropped, especially the one to Jan in the end zone. I mean, it was pretty close. Really nice play by the Houston Texans defender. But, I mean, you can only do so much when your players around you aren’t playing as well as they have in the past. They still could use a guy like Ricky Pearson on the field. You know, I think more targets for M. Jones connections. I think that would definitely help. And he’s missing some pieces. And again on the offensive line, we talked about that this week as well. Jake Rendle out, Connor Kohley being kind of new on that left side. It was tough against this Houston Texans defensive line. Live from Houston, that is Jennifer Leech Chan. Jennifer, thank you. Will we see you soon next week from New York? Overreactions here brought to you by Toyota. Um, listen, we can go defense, we can go offense for this team, Matt, but um, is this thin too thin for the 49ers defensive line? Is this rock bottom in terms of depth? Absolutely. I mean, I hope so. I hope it doesn’t get any any worse than this. And what what Jennifer talked about Sam Okawanu now in in addition to Bosa and Huff and Warner Gross, I’m talking about the you know, the the pass rush and and Jordan Elliot. Um, you know, the the overreaction is, and maybe it’s not an overreaction, that the forers need to do something at the trading deadline, which is coming up November 4th. The problem is, and and maybe this even makes them less aggressive because if you add somebody only for this season, what’s that going to do? This team, I as well as they’ve played to get to five and two, this team has a lot of holes and and I don’t know how far exactly this team can go, but this team simply cannot spend any future resources on a player who’s only going to help them the final stretch of this season. If they are going to be a team that goes out there and is a buyer, they need to acquire somebody that they have for the long term. long term, meaning the rest of this season and at least 2026. Yeah, they they have to do something. But being smart about the future is the prudent thing to do, but to punt on the season and say, “No, if that’s your thought on that, to put on the season, say no, we don’t need to get any help.” I think that’s absolutely the the wrong thing to do. you you owe it to the players that are playing hard and this Niner team, while they still it it has holes, Matt, I still think with them having the lead they have in the division and the NFC being wide open, you can still make a move and make some things happen. So, it’s it’s a tricky balancing act. And for and for the the Niners, if we know that they don’t want to mortgage the future, everybody else knows that they don’t want a mortgage to future. So, they’re going to make it difficult for them. Right. But I I just don’t think I mean, yes, I do expect them to make some sort of move, but it’s got to be a calculated move that doesn’t take away valuable draft picks. I mean, they have like 18 or 19 first and second year players on the team. So, the the new nucleus, you know, we know all the stars that there’s there’s a lot of good players to work with here. And I think that they they have to feel better. And I’m I’m not saying punt on the 2025 season, not at all. But I’m saying if you do anything now that only helps you now, I think that’s the wrong move. But we saw those young players today and they were out of position. They were under siege, you know, with no pass rush. The young defenders on the back end were absolutely under siege. They just look completely and totally out of sort. So you got to do something, but it’s got to be smart. Uh let’s compare quarterbacks here on the show. That is M. Jones on one end, CJ Strad on the other. M. Jones 32 passing attempts to TJ Strad’s 39. Rod, we said on pregame. Uh, this kid has gone backwards. Talking about TJ Strad today. He went forwards. I mean, they never bothered him. The Niners had more missed tackles than they did actual hits or anything threatening on CJ Stout. He had all time. He had all the time in the world. He had all of the answers. And he had a running game behind him as well. And anybody who was writing off CJ Straoud about him not being a good quarterback or regressing, man, you just weren’t paying attention. He’s a very talented guy. He still has some issues. We saw how many high passes did we see? Yeah, but having said that, I mean, and he did it today, Matt, without Nico Collins, without Christian Kirk, his number one and number two receivers. What did he show you today? I mean, he made the plays that that they had to make. I think, you know, the people have been kind of ripping, not kind of, people have been ripping on the Houston Texans offensive line. Well, the Houston Texans offensive line was a lot better than the 49ers defensive line on this particular day. This is a Houston Texans offense that only had 254 yards and averaged 3.7 yards per play against Seattle. On this day, they averaged 6.3 yards per play. So, um, and on the other side, I didn’t think M. Jones played that poorly. I think of all the things that went wrong for the 49ers on this day, M. Jones is far far far down the list. But I I I think the question of M. Jones now as we talk about Mack is is six games too many. Has the league found something out about him? Because even though he is not playing poorly, the production is not the same as it was game one against and I know teams are different. The Saint the Saints defense is not the same as the Texas defense. The question is can is it sustainable? Are they figuring him out, Rob? Well, I mean, I I don’t think they’re figuring him out. I’m just looking at today. And yes, while the returns have diminished somewhat, he never had the ball. And when he did have the ball, he was under siege. You know, I mean, to me, the bigger the bigger talking point is, okay, what the Niners didn’t have with their defenders and how bad they looked because of it on the defensive side of the ball, but also that that offensive line today was under siege and M. Jones was under siege and they they couldn’t get anything going in the run game. So, I don’t know how you would how you would accurately look at M. Jones and say that he was was a reason they lost the game today when he just didn’t have the ball. I I thought he was fine. I They’re They’re playing with that with two backup offensive linemen. They they haven’t had Ricky Pieraw in a while. He makes a big difference because of his ability to beat man coverage. Again, I I thought M. Jones was I mean, he wasn’t great. He’s not going to make NFC offensive player of the week, but I I didn’t think he was that bad. No, I agree. I I think just you look at some stats like six touchdowns to one interception first three games. Back end of those six starts is two touchdowns, four interceptions. So that’s where maybe people go like, “Hey, we need Brock now.” He he made a lot of big time throws, too. I We talked about the the passes that slip through the the fingertips of some of the guys. But um and even that, you know, the touchdown or the interception at the end, you know, it’s in kind of desperation mode there. put it up for for Joan Jennings and uh they came down with the interception. But um the I think he does enough and he will continue to do enough to win. But when your defense allows the opposition on consecutive drives to go field goal, field goal, touchdown, field goal, interception in the half, touchdown, field goal. When your defense can’t prevent points from being scored, it puts your offense in a bad bad way against a defense that had come in averaging only se 14.7 points points per game. It’s hard to do anything when you only have the ball for 18 minutes and 38 seconds. And when you do have it, you’re under siege. Yeah. The Texans had 74 plays. The 49ers had 44 plays. That’s not going to cut it. All right, quick break here on the show. When we come back, Kyle Shanahan stops by for his media conference after the game. They drop this one 26 to 15. [Music]

The “49ers Postgame Live” crew breaks down San Francisco’s 26-15 loss against the Houston Texans on Sunday at NRG Stadium.

#49ersPostgameLive #Highlights #Analysis #SanFrancisco #49ers #SanFrancisco49ers #Houston #Texans #HoustonTexans #Week8 #Like #Comment #Subscribe #NBCSportsBayArea #MattMaiocco #CarlosRamirez #RodBrooks #JenniferLeeChan

CONNECT:
✔️ Subscribe to NBC Sports Bay Area & California: bit.ly/3AQknYc
✔️ Subscribe to our podcasts: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/pod…
✔️ Stream the games at:
➡️ https://nbcsports.app.link/san_franci…
➡️ https://nbcsports.app.link/oakland_at…
➡️ https://nbcsports.app.link/golden_sta…
➡️ https://nbcsports.app.link/sacramento…
➡️ https://nbcsports.app.link/san_jose_s…
➡️ https://nbcsports.app.link/san_franci…

NBC Sports Bay Area & California on social media:
► Our website: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/
► Instagram: / nbcsauthentic
► Like us on Facebook: / nbcsauthentic
► Follow us on Twitter: / nbcsauthentic
► Follow us on Tik Tok: / nbcsportsauth. .

The official YouTube page of NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California. Home of the Warriors, Kings, Giants, A’s, 49ers, Sharks, Valkyries and Bay FC. We connect fans with the teams they love.

49ers face struggles in Houston, unable to overcome Texans in rough Week 8 loss | NBC Sports BA