49ers film room: Breaking down quarterback C.J. Beathard’s first NFL game

C.J. Beathard’s Mistakes

C.J. Beathard’s lone interception does get a bit of a pass, as the situation dictated he go deep on a 4th-and-20 play with nine seconds remaining in regulation and no timeouts remaining.

Trailing by two, the play below is the right call — an attempt to get the ball towards the sideline and out of bounds, therefore setting up a potential game-winning field-goal attempt.

Tight end George Kittle (yellow arrow) is the intended target:

This is an example of how Kyle Shanahan’s play-calling schemes receivers to get open.

As shown below — the moment Beathard is about to throw — the Redskins have two defensive backs covering three receivers. The underneath route presents, perhaps, the best opportunity for the 49ers to get out of bounds, setting up what would be an approximate 52-yard field-goal attempt from the 35-yard line:

The problem, though, is Beathard isn’t known for having zip on his passes. Had he gone to his slot option (wide receiver Trent Taylor at No. 1) quickly, it’s likely the other two targets could have adequately blocked for him to get out of bounds.

Or, as shown below, a deeper pass might have connected towards the outside for an even better attempt.

Instead, Beathard throws an in-between pass intended for Kittle, which the trailing Redskins defensive back reads and jumps perfectly for the pick:

This is a combination of poor decision-making, inadequate arm strength and an inaccurate toss — not uncommon for a rookie his first game performing under pressure.

In addition to Beathard’s mechanics and decisions, one could also easily call out his pocket awareness, which was an issue prior to his drafting, according to NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein.

On one of Beathard’s two sacks — this particular one on 1st-and-10 in the third quarter — Beathard fakes a handoff to running back Carlos Hyde, who scoots out to the right. Center Daniel Kilgore (yellow arrow) pulls to block the Washington edge defender:

Granted, Kilgore doesn’t do his job in pass protection, easily allowing Ryan Kerrigan to converge on Beathard for the eventual sack.

But at this point below, before Kilgore is beat, Beathard has three options from which to choose. Granted, throwing across his body against the blitz and deep is probably something a little too difficult for the rookie to do at this point.

Yet Hyde was open for what would have been a solid gain had Beathard felt the pressure:

He didn’t, and the result was an easy sack.