Grades, analysis from SF 49ers turnover-prone Week 10 loss to Saints

SF 49ers special teams and coaching grades

Oh boy, when special teams gets talked about extensively, it’s not a good sign.

Special Teams: F

The good: Niners recovered a muffed punt, and Robbie Gould was good on his two field goals.

The bad: literally everything else.

San Francisco 49ers

From a big return given up to two botched fair catches, it was bad. Game-changingly bad. Basically ended the game bad. It was abysmal.

Coaching: C+

Robert Saleh deserves a ton of credit for his play-calling through three quarters against the Saints. The fourth quarter was essentially working against a four-minute offense with a gassed defense, so there isn’t much to discern from there, but the first three quarters, Saleh essentially kept the Niners in the game. He hit all the right buttons to stop the Saints on traditional drives. However, even he couldn’t take care of the short fields, and the stats paint a far worse picture than what transpired.

On the flip side, Kyle Shanahan had a good beginning script, but it seemed as his team let chance slip away, he too began to slip. He had two bad decisions on 4th-and-1, first choosing not to go for it and then choosing a shotgun run with a running back that had no burst and an offensive line that had no push. He fed a run game that was non-existent and didn’t begin to deviate from it.

Overall, it was not a great situation for Shanahan. Though the offense did click at times, he wasn’t exactly lights out.

The SF 49eres weren’t expected to win, and they didn’t win, though they played closer than expected and probably should have pulled this game out. Now they get a bye to relax and recuperate before a stretch run to either an unlikely playoff spot or an offseason of many questions.