Those comeback wins were fun, but they were lipstick on a pig. Injuries, of course, were a major factor. But we can’t look away from regression among players, as well as the failing to develops others. Don’t even get me started on not being able to make adjustments for “players over plays.” Every year, the 49ers limp their mangled corpses into the playoffs. The Lions, for some reason, always have half their defense on IR, yet they're still an NFC powerhouse. Is it too much to ask for competent coaching?
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So basically, Baker is responsible for 3 wins.
This doesn’t matter that much to me as the overall play in all three phases. When one component has done well, the others have fallen flat.
Special teams besides Chase has been flat out bad. But it feels like there was never a time when the offense scored a TD after a great defensive stand or even consecutive ones, and it never felt like the defense could get a stop after the offense scored. Add in 4th quarter interceptions 3 weeks in a row and it’s no bueno.
How a team handles a close game in the last 2 minutes is the difference between a good team and a bad team. At the beginning of the season we had fight, confidence and the team trusted each other. Now they all assume we are going to blow it, and we do. Remember when we let the other team score because we knew If the offense got the ball back we would win? A tab that can do that is dangerous, that is next level confidence and teamwork. But it’s all gone now.
Yea and at the same time the 3 divisional game in a row that we lost were also all 1 score games if this team had better coaching we could be 10-6 right now or maybe better as the Pats and Dolphins games were also close at the end.
For a quick reminder:
Week One against Atlanta, defense let’s Penix pull hero shit multiple times on a single drive. Baker and Egbuka march down the field to score a TD just to watch the defense let the Falcons walk down with sub-50 seconds (and without a Winfield beauty of a play, would have been basically walk off TD’d) for Atlanta to barely miss a FG to force OT
Week Two against Houston, special teams fucks up a punt leading to an easy TD for Houston, Baker and Bucky out the team on their back for a long drive to take the lead with like 2 seconds left
Week Three against Jets, special teams fuck the pooch real hard and the defense lets Tyrod Taylor march them down to force Baker to lead a drive to kick a GW FG with time expiring
Week Five against Seattle, Baker puts the entire team on his shoulders with Egbuka as his #1 option and we win off of Darnold throwing a pick instead of loading a GW drive
This team was being masked by hero Baker for the first 6 weeks, and the moment the injuries made him suffer in play, it was over. Damn shame too, but also, better to see the glaring issues then have one player cover them up for any amount of time
I think anything short of a Conference game results in Bowles firing. I don’t even think a division title would save his job. We have underperformed by every metric on all sides of the ball all season long, and it’s still trending downward. I will still be cheering this weekend for a win and a Falcons loss. We have good pieces, but our coaching can’t assemble the puzzle. Go Bucs