Bye weeks are supposed to be quiet weeks in the NFL. But when your bye week begins with the most lopsided loss ever in Candlestick Park, it's anything but quiet. Here are the headlines as the 49ers head into a Week 7 game in Houston hoping to regain control of the suddenly tenuous NFC West.
Michael Crabtree to the rescue?
Jimmy Raye makes Jim Hostler look like Don Coryell. I wrote that sentence in the preseason as a joke. Now I'm wondering if it might be true. The 49ers' offense was supposed to be smash-mouth. Today it just seems predictable. And boring. And yet, there's reason for hope. Two players who, way back in April, were going to be the core of the 49ers' offense - Frank Gore and Michael Crabtree - figure to be in the lineup on Sunday. Gore, of course, will be a much bigger factor than Crabtree. But there is reason to believe that Crabtree will be a bigger factor than you think. Yes, he came from a gimmicky college offense and had zero offseason snaps with the 49ers. But he's been quick and explosive in tight spaces in practice, skills that match up nicely with the slot position he will play. Meanwhile, quarterback Shaun Hill's strengths are his accuracy on short passes and his ability to get rid of the ball quickly. That bodes well for some early production for Crabtree.
Wragge to replace Rachal?
It seems that every offensive coordinator who arrives in San Francisco overestimates his new offensive line. Mike Martz thought it would be good enough to protect his quarterback on those seven-step drops. It wasn't. Raye and Mike Singletary thought it would be good enough to plow through defenses stacked to stop the run. It hasn't been. Now the 49ers are seriously contemplating replacing right guard Chilo Rachal with Tony Wragge. Rachal has been bad in the last two games while Wragge was part of a line that seemed very powerful early in the preseason. But a switch only will be a cosmetic improvement. The other guard, David Baas, is in his fifth season but still struggles too much while the right tackle spot is still unsettled. That's far too many questions for a team that has been trying to build a powerful offensive line since 2005.
Niners wave goodbye to Kory Sheets
Kory Sheets is a nifty runner, Singletary says. But that doesn't necessarily make him a good running back. That's code for: Sheets has had trouble picking up blocking assignments and is a liability in the passing game. Ok, but is that reason enough to part ways with a rookie runner? I'm not saying Sheets is as good as Chris Johnson or DeAngelo Williams, but he has the speed and break-away ability that no other 49ers runner seems to have. For an offense that has been as stale as three-week-old rye in the first half of the season, those skills would seem to be a good reason to keep Sheets around. Something else that gives me pause: The 49ers aren't exactly the authority on running the ball. They ranked 16th in that category entering this weekend. The team that snagged Sheets off the practice squad, the Miami Dolphins, are No. 1. Who would you trust?
Ulbrich struggling with concussion
Safety Michael Lewis had three concussions in a short amount of time but it's Jeff Ulbrich's concussion that seems the most serious, or rather, seems the most likely to be a career ender. That would be a real shame. If I had to pick the 49ers who most love the game of football - from practices to games and everything in between - the two names that would spring to mind would be Frank Gore and Jeff Ulbrich.
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It doesn't look like the 49ers will make any trades before the deadline. The Jaguars are dangling lb/de Quentin Groves, a guy I once thought the 49ers would snag in the first round of the 2008 draft. There was little interest then and there's even less now.
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Lastly, thanks to all the well wishers who wrote this past week when I was in Maine. My Gramma, whose name is Mary Rose Barrows and is age 94, isn't doing very well. But she is putting up a heck of a fight, reaffirming my belief that people who lived through the Great Depression - and Gramma in particular - are the toughest people ever. If you put Gramma's spirit in Ahmad Brooks' body, he'd have 25 sacks by midseason.
-- Matt Barrows
