The 49ers offense has gone awfully flat, emphasized in the Week 5 loss to the Cardinals, meaning Kyle Shanahan has some much-needed work to do.
San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has a lot of explaining to do after his team dropped a third consecutive game, this time a 17-10 road loss to the still-undefeated Arizona Cardinals in Week 5.
The Niners, who entered the week with the NFL’s seventh-best scoring offense, nevertheless have scored just 14 points over the last three first halves of games, including being shut out over the first two quarters at Arizona. And in all three cases of San Francisco’s losing streak, Shanahan and Co. have been forced to play come-from-behind football.
What’s been even more frustrating is, for the most part, the offensive lapses and inconsistency have squandered at least two decent defensive performances, particularly with the 49ers holding the Cardinals, who entered Week 5 with the league’s No. 1 offense, to just 10 points and 304 all-purpose yards.
Shanahan’s play-calling hasn’t been good, and he’s also failing to utilize his best weapons when the moments call for them.
Needless to say, especially for someone who hasn’t received a ton of criticism over his four-plus years of head coaching, Shanahan is going to deserve a lot of that criticism heading into the Week 6 bye.
But that should also prompt some fixes for Shanahan, too, especially if he’s hoping to dig the Niners out of this early hole that’s led to a 2-3 start to the season.
If Shanahan wants to salvage the year and get back into the playoff picture, he’ll need to implement these three changes now.
No. 3: Kyle Shanahan, 49ers need to get back to basics
It sounds cliché. But there’s some logical rationale to Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco offense simplifying things in the upcoming weeks.
Particularly if rookie quarterback Trey Lance is going to have an expanded role under center.
Shanahan’s offense is notoriously complex, yes. Even experienced quarterbacks can take a year or two to fully grasp it. But it’s also intended to be a run-heavy offense, and the 49ers seemed to abandon that approach, outside of Lance’s rushes, to a great extent in Week 5.
Case in point, Lance attempted 29 passes against the Cardinals. He also rushed 16 times, many of those coming off broken-down plays where he couldn’t find his intended receiving target.
Yet Arizona entered the game with the 31st-ranked run defense, allowing 5.4 yards per carry, and the 49ers found themselves trailing by only one score for the overwhelming majority of the game.
Despite this, Shanahan called for only 12 rush plays that didn’t involve Lance.
Rookie running back Elijah Mitchell, who returned from a shoulder injury, averaged 4.8 yards per carry. For whatever the reasons, though, straight rushes from Mitchell and fellow running back Trey Sermon, who had 89 rush yards in Week 4, weren’t as big a part of the offensive game plan as they should have been.
Both Lance and fellow quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo have excelled with play-action passing, yet play action only works if the run game is established.
Why Shanahan has moved away from this approach is anyone’s guess, but getting back to it would sure help matters a lot.
No. 2: 49ers need to involve Brandon Aiyuk much, much more
Is second-year wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk in Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse? Is he out of it, or is there a possibility Aiyuk is somewhere in between?
Whatever the case, Aiyuk must be a bigger factor in the offense. Much bigger.
Entering Week 5, Aiyuk had seen 65 percent of the team’s offensive snaps, which is close to what he saw in 2020 after being selected in Round 1 of that year’s NFL Draft. Yet the targets weren’t going Aiyuk’s way, none in Week 1 and only two in Week 2. Last week against the Seattle Seahawks, Aiyuk was targeted just three times, hauling in one of those passes for 15 yards.
Against the Cardinals, Aiyuk had two catches on four targets for 32 yards, the last one being a key 26-yard pickup that helped bail out the Niners from a 2nd-and-25 play.
Shanahan and the offense have frequently looked towards depth receivers like Mohamed Sanu and, at least in this game, Travis Benjamin instead of finding ways to get Aiyuk into playmaking positions.
True, there might be instances where Aiyuk is failing to uncover and get open. But his playmaking skills, speed and prowess are elements that need to be exploited.
Doing so will not only give San Francisco’s quarterbacks, whoever winds up starting from this point onward, a better option to pair with fellow wideout Deebo Samuel, but it will also make the 49ers offense much more potent than it has been.
Shanahan needs to figure out a way to get Aiyuk going no matter what. Otherwise, it’ll be another wasted first-round investment.
No. 1: Kyle Shanahan, 49ers need to continue starting Trey Lance
Yes, this’ll anger the Jimmy Garoppolo fans out there. That’s fine. For all he’s done for the franchise, including helping them get to a Super Bowl in 2019, Garoppolo is a lame-duck quarterback.
Trey Lance is the future. No getting around that.
Lance’s floor, if that was the apparent observation from Week 5, still generated plenty of opportunities for amazing play once he figures out the rigors of NFL action and the game slows down for him. Case in point, on Lance’s interception in the first quarter against Arizona, the quarterback’s scrambling-ability threat forced Cardinals defenders to be out of position:
https://twitter.com/AZCardinals/status/1447298762603335683
This allowed for Lance to hit Benjamin on what could have been a better-thrown pass, and there were still plenty of yards to gain for rushing.
More importantly, though, Lance needs field time. A lot of it. And that field time must be in situations where the No. 3 overall draft pick can hone his raw skill set and make good work on the areas of improvement that are apparent.
Related Story: Trey Lance has high odds for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year
What Lance showed, and despite the 49ers offensive line doing him few favors, was the ability to force opposing defenses into a bit of a conundrum. Should those units guard against Lance’s scrambling abilities and elusiveness? Or should they try to force Lance’s inexperience in the passing game at the potential expense of letting him pick up chunk yards on the ground?
Whatever those cases might be, Kyle Shanahan’s offense needs a spark. Garoppolo hasn’t been able to deliver that over four games this season, and his long-term future with the team is already sealed.
It might not be pretty right away. But Shanahan needs to ramp up Lance’s development. Now.