Cosell calls the 49ers’ offense “one-dimensional with almost no passing dimension.”

Wednesday morning on KNBR, Greg Cosell discussed the 49ers’ upcoming game against the Saints. Here is a transcript.

COSELL: “When you start to play better teams, you’re going to have to have the passing dimension, and right now (the 49ers) are a one-dimensional offense with almost no passing dimension. It came back and it caught them this week against a better team.

“You’re dealing with an extremely talented kid (Kaepernick). Now it’s up to the coaching staff in a large degree to figure out a way to define things for him so that they can have some kind of pass game.

“They went into New Orleans last year and they returned two interceptions for touchdowns and they were able to win and Kaepernick was playing much better at that point. You would not expect that they’re going to get two interceptions returned for touchdowns again. So if you look at this game, they’re likely going to have to score in the 20s to win if their defense plays very well, and right now they’ve got a few concerns. I assume Eric Reid probably would be out this week. So now you have Craig Dahl who can be exploited in pass coverage.

“The bottom-line point is they’re going to have to score, and it’s not likely they’re going to score enough just running the football.”

“(The Saints) aren’t a shutdown defense the way you’re thinking of shutdown D’s, but you’re going to have to have a two-dimensional offense (to beat them), it’s as simple as that.

“And I believe they’re going to be missing their rookie safety, Kenny Vaccaro, who has been arguably their most versatile player as a rookie. They use him in a variety of ways and if they’re missing him I think that’s a very meaningful loss. You need to find a way to exploit that. You need to create those kinds of opportunities based on formations and utilization of personnel.

“You don’t need three Jerry Rices to have an NFL passing game. You can create opportunities based on personnel, formations, route combinations – you can do that. You don’t need unbelievably great wide outs to have a passing game.”

Comments are closed.