49ers position grades after self-destructive loss to Titans
49ers Defensive Grades
Defensive Line
Say what you want about the Titans and their injuries to the left side of their offensive line, but the 49ers defensive line did what it needed to do to give their team a chance to win.
The team had four sacks (the defensive line had a hand in all four and officially got credited with 3.5 sacks) and could have had more if situations like Tennessee committing a few blatant holding penalties (which was called for once), to stop Ryan Tannehill being killed by Nick Bosa, hadn’t occurred.
On the Titans running game, the 49ers shut down that front except for a long scramble by Tannehill at the end of the game. Unfortunate, but hard to blame them given it was a scramble and not a designed run.
At the end of the day, the defensive line did its job.
Grade: A
Linebackers
They tried, and for the first quarter succeeded, but the 49ers linebackers were not able to finish the job against the Titans in the second half.
Fred Warner had a very hot and cold performance, and missed a tackle on Tannehill’s scramble that could have saved the game.
Azeez Al-Shaair fought hard with an injury and even notched half a sack, but you could tell he wasn’t 100 percent and had to leave due to a knee injury.
Dre Greenlaw can’t get back quickly enough.
Grade: C-
Secondary:
If A.J. Brown were wiped from existence, this would be a bona fide A-plus.
Brown had 11 of the 22 receptions by Tennessee, a whopping 145 of the 209 receiving yards and its lone receiving touchdown.
The overwhelming weakness of the Niners is the cornerback situation, this is not a secret.
Ambry Thomas had a few good plays, but he and Josh Norman were totally overwhelmed by the talent of Brown. He was the literal difference in this game.
Everybody else was actually held successfully to low outputs, Julio Jones only receiving one short reception for the game for example.
But the secondary was the defensive reason San Francisco lost, getting fully exploited.
Grade: D