SANTA CLARA — The Niners have been working to improve their 31st –ranked red zone offense the past two practices, and their top two quarterbacks have had a tough time.
Alex Smith was sacked four times and he only completed six passes to wide receivers in team drills. His best throw was a 15-yard strike to Mario Manningham, who was knocked out of bounds right in front of the goal line by Carlos Rogers. Smith did not complete any passes in the end zone, but he did complete a short pass to Kendall Hunter who ran a few yards for a TD. On Smith’s last throw of practice, he got intercepted by Dashon Goldson after Tarell Brown tipped a short pass intended for Mario Manningham. Brown read the play all the way.
Colin Kaepernick scrambled more than he passed for most of practice. After roughly an hour and a half of team drills, he’d scrambled four times and completed just one throw. After he scrambled for the fourth time, some of the defensive backs heckled Kaepernick, imploring him to pass. Kaepernick rose to the challenge, completing four of his next six throws.
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if the drills the 49ers are running do’nt include called running plays it is a huge advantage for the defense. 7 on 7 is a huge advatage for the d even though there is no pass rush the fact that play action wo’nt cause defenses to react makes it much easier to cover. unless they are running full contact scrimmages the d will always have the advantage and running alot of full scrimmage situations in practice would be more mike singletary’s style than jim harbaugh. thats not to say that our d is not going to be the best in football this year.
I just read barrows blog and he said the 49ers “never” use their 1st team players in full contact live scrimmage situations in camp. they only use 2nd and 3rd team in those situations. i think that explains alot of why the offense is struggling.
old coach
JH in his presser said he will talk to the offense about it. But it will come from him only. His players will not read it in a newspaper.
That is a HC!
but that also means the O is playing against backup D players as well, right? Should even out.
i think what barrows meant is neither the 1st team o or d play in full contact scrimmages in camp
The offense is always — 100 percent always — behind the defense until the third game of pre-season. Keep watching Junior and you will figure it out…
@Volvo
Good point…the D doesn’t have the playmaking and timing that the O does, so the D is always ahead of the O at the beginning of the season…They’ll catch up about half way through exhibition season.
Nice job Grant. I’m not worried about the offense. Facing the best defense in the NFL will make the offense all the better. After all, iron sharpeneth iron.
Sharpeneth? Soundeth Shakespearean ;)
Yeth
In my opinion, this is not too much cause for concern. The defense should be ahead of the offense right now since they are returning all 11 starters and 18 players on D overall. Meanwhile, four different QB’s are throwing passes, Crabtree is sidelined and Moss and Manningham are still learning the offense.
It’s not like the D hasn’t seen these plays run before. It shows more so that the D is smart enough to read the plays and react accordingly.
I’m super stoked on the defense.
The whole point is for our defense to shut anyone down right? I for one hope our offense, with the new additions, can score points at will but if they are scoring at will against the best defense in the league, then they have problems. You know we open the season in Lambeau right?
Ignore the trolling here. Don’t panic until the offense cannot move the ball and score in the third preseason game. What happens this early is difficult to interpret and often means nothing at all. And that goes for any Bad Alex Smith days as well…. until after mid-August, it doesn’t mean shit.
Ignore the trolling here. Don’t panic until the offense cannot move the ball and score in the third preseason game. What happens this early is difficult to interpret and often means nothing at all. And that goes for any Bad Alex Smith days as well…. until mid-August, it doesn’t mean shiet. Keep those panties nice and unbunched until we really see what we have here.
The last time I remember reading that the defense was “dominating” (Harbaugh’s word) the offense in TC was 1994. I’m not too worried at this point.
A terrible day for the offense against the best D in the NFL. Actually, that is worth reporting. It tells us two things, the offense is still a major work in progress and the D is ready to pick-up where it left off last season. As much as I hate to admit it, we may actually struggle the first 2 or 3 games this season (and Niner Nation will freak out). However, we will be very difficult to beat come November/December and playoff time. 10-6, 9-7 and winning the SB is a very real possibility.
Not worried at all. We are where we should be. I look at this schedule as think 13-3 at best, 11-5 at worst, I really 12-4, though.
And what 4 -5 games do you have them losing on this schedule? They play the top 5 passing offenses of 2011, the top 3 qbs of 2011, and all of those top qbs will be playing at home.
Realistically, a 10-6 record at best against this schedule is a huge win for this team. The travel and away games are going to be rough.
No completions in the end zone? Telegraphing the play to the DBs?
Sounds like a typical day in the office for Alex.
49ers.com is reporting that Tolzien once again shined brighter than Kaepernick and Johnson, throwing for 3 tds while Johnson was only able to complete 1 td throw, Kaepernick had 0 tds mentioned.
I’d hate to see Tolzien cut because I am sure he’d be picked up off of waivers. He torched us in the SD preason game last year. I just wish he’d make the next step to backing up Smith.
Still looks like our O-line is swiss cheese and I am waiting to hear of a big sign for a veteran CB.
@medic one
I definitely pull for ST. Of all our QB’s, he reminds me most of JM. But I’ve heard ST looking horrible from Grant, and others saying he looked ok, and still others saying good. So, how do you average it all out?
ST is an amazing study. Much better than CK/JJ. But those 2 are more athletic, and make D’s pay all by themselves and ST can’t.
I think on a team with few weapons, CK/JJ are better. But on a team with a lot of weapons, ST is. Because ST is so bright, he can manage the distribution of the ball better. But on a team with few weapons, ST doesn’t have the players to distribute the ball to, and is not athletic enough to make something out of nothing like CK/JJ are.
That’s a really good analogy. Thank you. I hadn’t thought of it in that light and makes a lot of sense.
Thanks for the kind words medic. We can use more of that. lol
The headlines here should be, “the not-so-good- reporting by Grant Cohn.”
In an early blog you wrote,”As you may remember, Brock was the Niners’ No. 3 cornerback coming out of training camp last season; he intercepted two passes in the first two games but he had hand surgery and we didn’t see him much until the NFC Championship Game when he had to play for the concussed Tarell Brown, and he gave up a touchdown to Manningham. Brock got his redemption today.”
In what world are you living in where you think redemption is earned for costing your team a superbowl birth by interceptions in training camp? We have found consistancy here though, the reporting opinion is consistantly ludicrous. I am surprised they continue to give you access to the field.
LOL +1 for the headline.
And yet, here you are, still reading, still commenting. Grant is paid to get eyeballs on the site. You’re giving him what he wants.
He’s laughing at you. I am, too.
I read every 49er blog. This one is just one of many.
Alrighty… back to football. Is the gang all back together yet? Looks like a lot of new names here. Hello new people, welcome to the meat grinder! Just kidding – sort of. ;)
From what I’m reading around the interwebs it sounds like our O-line is struggling against the mighty Justin Smith. He’s tossing Staley and everyone else around like rag dolls and the QBs are running for their lives.
Two things I see with this:
1) The O-line has been an issue for years. This is not new.
2) It looks like the offense is mostly focused on 3rd down and red zone passing situations which will give the defense some automatic advantages by default. These drills are smart, of course, considering this is an acknowledged weakness and there is a huge opportunity for growth here. There will be some kinks to work out. Sounds like all four QBs are struggling to squeeze out enough time to find open receivers. No new revelations here either. The O-line really needs firm up like they did in the last half of the season.
Anyway, both areas will eventually be as well-prepared as possible because they’re practicing against arguably the best defense in the league. If the offense is, by the end of camp, stronger and more on-par with the defense in these critical situations, then we’ve got something. If you’re going to practice, practice against the best.
I like what I’m hearing about Moss. I also like what I’m hearing about Tarrell Brown. Moss was schooling him there for a bit but Brown isn’t backing down.
My takeaway from all of the reports thus far is that every offense in the league WILL struggle against this defense – we’re just THAT good. The trick for our offense will be to shake the rust off and give our D a challenge in the next couple of weeks. Just make some small steps, get better every day. If the offense can make any significant headway on this defense then we’re in really good shape by the time of the opener.
No worries! Yay!! Football season is back in a week :D
Hmmm… my post didn’t seem to uhh… post.
Let’s try it again: testing one, two, three. Mosh pit, this is Houston.
Welcome back to football.
Adam, great to see that familiar helmet. Looking forward to some good reads from you. My hiatus is over as well. 9er football is back!!!
Neither of you really know me, but I know you both from the last couple of years of following this site. I too am excited to see football back as I eventually got tired of reading all the recycled stuff and anti-whatever gets people’s feathers riled from the posters on this site. As well as the nonsensical, “let’s see if I can get under some people’s skin” and links to other peoples stories who are ripping us up during the off season. The time is here for football and I have noticed that is always what you guys talk.
Go Niners baby!
Hey Hofer old Pal, how are ya? I’ve been so busy lately that the preseason start just completely snuck up on me! I’m ready though, let’s roll!
Looks like some of the gang is back, good to see. Lot’s of new names too. Hello to all, and to Grant. Hope your summers are all going well and not too hot out there!
We’ve got to get you a Hofer icon! BTW: we missed his birthday in May – so… happy belated birthday to Paul Hofer!
Hey CrazyE, how are you doing? I agree with you, the conversation went down hill a bit there last season. Too many bandwagon fans. All part of the experience these days I guess. No worries, we’re going all the way this year!
Go Niners.
Good to see Hof and Adam back!!
Adam
Man, you’ve missed a lot of new conversations/ideas.
Well, there was this one where we….um…..let’ s see…Yeah. A lot of stuff. :P
Welcome back.
Last year was a fluke for Alex, and he will regress this year. Most likely, we will lose more games than we did last year as well. Smith has been in the league a long time now and still plays like he is scared and unsure. Not like a seasoned and established QB. While we have a great defense, they won’t carry us like last year when the schemes and formations were new to the league.
As a 49er fan that likes to also look at the positives, it’s good to hear how well our red-zone defense is playing. Not sure if anybody has checked, but the 49ers will be playing 9 of the top 12 red-zone offenses this season from 2011. I was first just going to mention that they are playing 7 of the top 10, then noticed Buffalo and Chicago sitting there at #11 and #12 and deserved to be mentioned. Especially Chicago who made it to #12 with Cutler missing time due to injury. Here is the link for those interested, and yes, you will see the 49ers were #30 and that’s going to have to improve.
http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/red-zone-scoring-pct
Forgot to mention that this is a TD stat! My apologies. But since this article was about passing for TD’s, I thought it more revelant than just scoring.
Great info. Clearly, there’s a lot of room for growth and a huge test for the D to get ranked as last year.
That said, I don’t think anyone really cares if the defense gets ranked lower if the offense scores to make up for it so that it translates to wins! But if we’re losing and the D-takes a hit, it will be panic time!
Anytime you train for a race do you pick a partner that is the same shape as you or do you find someone that is in better shape that can push you and spur you on as you get tired?
Having our offense go up and struggle against what is widely considered the best defense in the league is truly a best case scenario. Let’s all say that out loud again, our offense has to practice against the best defense in the league? The same defense that makes Drew Brees and Eli Manning struggle is the same defense that our beloved crew must face on a daily basis?
How sad would it be for our defense if it was the other way around? How good would you be feeling about our defense this year if they were constantly getting scored on by the offense? It’s clear that when you go up and play against the best not only will you struggle but you will be better for it and the rest of you would be better off realizing that sooner then later.
Sure the D is ahead of the O, but can we put the third string in or put the Defenses’ helmets on backwards to give the offense some help and confidence?
They need to see a few successful plays so that they can know what it looks like to succeed! After they get some movement, then turn it back up and make them earn it!
i think if the 49ers score more points than their opponents they will win!