With Garoppolo playing hurt, the boring 49ers should let Mullens take on Packers
A wise man once said, “you are what your record says you are.”
Bill Parcells was that wise man. He never professed to be a Rhodes Scholar, but Parcels was a fine football evaluator and championship leader. He coached his way into the Hall of Fame.
And he was right. That quote rings true.
Let’s size up the 49ers, an easy chore. At the midway point of the 16-game regular season, the 49ers sit at an uninspiring and entirely blah 4-4. On Sunday in Seattle, the Seahawks reduced the 49ers to every bit of average, prevailing 37-27 in a contest that was not nearly that close.
The 49ers produced no pass rush. They could not slow down the Seahawks and Russell Wilson. He had four touchdown passes as he continued his historically great season with 26 scoring strikes through seven games.
San Francisco could not keep pace. It failed to muster up enough meaningful drives through three quarters against what statistically coming in was the NFL’s most porous defense. The 49ers picked up steam when their franchise quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was pulled late in the second half, the game no longer in doubt, and his ankle ailing him again.
Garoppolo departed after engineering four drives that yielded not a single first down. And there you have it. The 49ers are mediocre overall, punctuated with glimpses of stirring effort and too many examples of look-away hazards. They are, on a whole, fair to average, and they will not return to the playoffs if this continues.
The 49ers’ hopes of winning the NFC West was left on the tarmac in Washington. They reside in last place in the division, trailing Seattle (6-1), Arizona (5-2) and the Rams (5-3). The 49ers frighten no one. OK, maybe their fans in terms of how many more players will hobble into the locker room with aches, pains and worse.
Or why coach Kyle Shanahan gets too cute on play calls when simplicity works, too. On Sunday, the 49ers lost another running back — Tevin Coleman — and also winced when George Kittle departed with a foot injury. The wince turned to despair on Monday: Kittle is out for up to eight weeks with a broken bone.
Injuries have rocked the franchise, starting with rush-end specialist Nick Bosa, who went down for the campaign in Week 2 with a blown knee, but no one slows down in this league for the wounded. The 49ers lead the NFL in injuries, which should be an official statistic, but they do not lead in complaints or excuses offered. Only bad teams do that. The 49ers aren’t there.
“I was disappointed with the whole group. No one played great, and that starts with me,” Shanahan said after the game in a Zoom news conference. “This wasn’t a very good day for us.”
A better option than Gimpy Garoppolo
Nick Mullens took over for Garoppolo and led three fourth-quarter touchdown drives, hitting Ross Dwelley for a 20-yard touchdown pass and Brandon Aiyuk for a 3-yarder. He passed for 238 yards. Mullens has shown enough to make you wonder if he will start the next game, if he should, or even if he’s a better option than Garoppolo.
He’s a better option than a gimpy Garoppolo, a point solidified on Monday when it was announced that Mullens will start this week against Green Bay. Garoppolo still needs to heal his bad wheel.
Last season, Garoppolo was given every benefit of the doubt when he stalled out drives because the 49ers were as good as their 13-3 record. Garoppolo expertly managed that group to the Super Bowl.
Garoppolo has taken rightful heat in his play this season, and he has owned up to his inconsistent play. Garoppolo has been gutsy in trying to make it work with a high ankle sprain, but if you’re not good to go, then don’t go. He was trying to make it go with a flat tire in Seattle, leading to another effort of poor mechanics, leading to poor throws.
The 49ers have not sunk to bleary depths because they have the best depth in the NFL. It has saved them.
“I was really proud of our fight,” Mullens said of the fourth-quarter surge. “The receivers and O-linemen had been battling all game. They could choose to lay down right there but they didn’t.”
The 49ers didn’t lay down in the first three quarters. They got mowed under, trailing 27-7. San Francisco went from impressing in victories over the Rams (24-16) and at New England (33-6) to lethargy in an empty stadium that had no Legion of Boom (go away, COVID-19).
Aaron Rodgers looms
They are who their record says they are. Digging a bit deeper, one 49ers win came against the Giants, in Week 3. The Giants reek something fierce at 1-6. That triumph came a week after downing the Jets, who are 0-8. The Patriots are 2-5.
Mullens again, “The NFL is tough, but it’s all about what you do next”
Next is Green Bay, a Thursday night prime time special. It’s a rematch of last season’s NFC Championship game, when the 49ers dominated the trenches, when tackles and tight ends set an angry tone for the run game and when the defense pounded on people. And when Garoppolo left Joe Montana and Steve Young at Levi’s Stadium smiling in approval, as if to suggest, “He’s doing just enough.”
Neither of those elements ring true now. The 49ers are ordinary, with trouble coming to Santa Clara next in the form of Aaron Rodgers, one of this generation’s great players. Greatness trumps average. Russell Wilson proved that on a sun-splashed day in Seattle.
This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 7:25 AM.