49ers grades and analysis following Week 1 win over Buccaneers

49ers Special Teams/Coaching Grades

Special teams didn’t do anything to lose the game for the 49ers, so that’s a positive.

Coaching on the other hand wasn’t as hot.

Special Teams: B

Robbie Gould was 3-of-4 on field goals, his lone miss a 57-yard field goal bouncing off the crossbar.

He did seem to cramp up by the end of the game, something to keep in mind.

San Francisco 49ers

Mitch Wishnowsky was decent in his first regular-season game. There wasn’t a punt that made anyone go crazy. But apart from one punt that had a bad bounce, the field position battle turned out to be dead-even thanks to him.

Coaching: C-

Robert Saleh called a good defensive game. Aside from his insistence to use a deep-prevent zone on long downs, which never work, he put his defense in a position to win.

Kyle Shanahan had a rather vanilla offense game plan, however. It seemed like he kept on pounding the ball when it wasn’t working and didn’t let Jimmy Garoppolo get loose.

Maybe it was the circumstances, but Shanahan has to be better next week.

Then in overall game management, there were some glaring issues. For starters, calling a screen pass to Deebo Samuel, rather than running the ball, was incredibly risky and almost cost the team the game. San Francisco sacrificed three likely points on that particular play, which loomed awfully large until the Niners’ defensive takeaways late in the second half.

Shanahan’s game management was loose, and it all worked out because of the defense behind him. Getting 14 points from your secondary won’t always happen.

It was an ugly game, but as mentioned earlier, it was a win. Now it’s on to Cincinnati for another road matchup against the Bengals.