Kyle Shanahan explains why he needs more from 49ers receivers
It’s unclear if reinforcements are coming to help out the 49ers’ passing game after a frustrating performance in the Monday night loss to the Seahawks.
What’s abundantly clear is San Francisco needs more from the players tasked with significant roles while Jimmy Garoppolo’s top two targets, tight end George Kittle and receiver Emmanuel Sanders, deal with injuries that could bleed into Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals.
Both Kittle and Sanders are entering Week 11 as questionable with leg and rib injuries, respectively. Which means wideouts Kendrick Bourne and Dante Pettis need to pick up the slack after both had two costly drops in key moments during the loss to Seattle.
Pettis, the second-round pick the 49ers traded up for in 2018, is back under the microscope after an uninspiring training camp and start to his second season. He’s eighth on the team with 11 catches in nine games. He’s been targeted 24 times, and is San Francisco’s only regular pass catcher with a completion rate lower than 58 percent when targeted.
Pettis’ inconsistencies are a reason the team traded third- and fourth-round draft picks for Sanders last month (while getting back a fifth-round pick from the Broncos). Pettis came up small in the biggest game of the year Monday after Sanders left the game in the second quarter. He failed to record a reception on three targets while dropping two passes, including one during San Francisco’s final possession in overtime.
Kyle Shanahan sounds like his patience is wearing thin.
“The more he doesn’t take advantage of his opportunities, the less opportunities he gets,” Shanahan said in a conference call Tuesday. “He did get a couple last night because of injury and I didn’t think he made them. We’ll see how this week goes. Dante has the ability, but we’re waiting for him to pick it up and have the consistency and take advantage of some of these opportunities he’s gotten.”
That’s about as harsh a criticism as you’ll find from a head coach in the NFL. Shanahan did begin his answer to the question about Pettis’ inconsistencies by pointing out: “I’m one of the guys that believe in him the most. That’s why he’s here.”
For Bourne, one of Garoppolo passes in the third quarter banged off his hands and right to safety Quandre Diggs, setting up one of the Seahawks’ three touchdowns that came after 49ers turnovers. Bourne also had a drop midway through the fourth that would have converted a third down and set up a first-and-goal situation. Instead, Shanahan had to settle for a field goal.
Shanahan said Tuesday he believes Bourne has good hands, perhaps the best on the team. Concentration might have been his issue Monday. His first drop led to seven Seahawks points while his second may have taken four off the board for San Francisco.
“When a guy with really good hands drops it, it’s not because he has bad hands. So then you look into why it was,” Shanahan said. “It usually comes back to their eyes and their vision and concentration, or someone ripped it out, and that’s not what happened.
“(But) it’s not OK. Those are two very big drops that Bourne had. That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to keep going to him. He’s a guy who can catch the ball. He’s made a lot of big catches for us. He made two big catches in that game leading up to that point, but that was a huge change.”
Aside from getting Kittle and Sanders healthy, the 49ers don’t appear likely to make any chances to their group of pass catchers. Rookie Jalen Hurd is unlikely to practice this week, Shanahan said, and remains on injured reserve following the fracture in his back from August. Slot receiver Trent Taylor isn’t expected to play this season after having a second surgery on his broken foot which led to an infection.
Regarding Shanahan’s play calling late in overtime, he made it clear he would have preferred to take far more than 14 seconds off the clock over three plays. But three-straight incompletions stopped the clock and gave Seattle 1:25 to drive for the game-winning field goal.
“Obviously when you only take a few seconds off the clock and give it back, I wish I would’ve taken three knees instead of doing that,” Shanahan said.
The first play was an incompletion to Ross Dwelley that was batted at the line of scrimmage. The second was a drop from Pettis that might have gone for a first down in the middle of the field and taken far more time off the clock. Shanahan said he thought those two pass plays were conservative calls – and Pettis’ drop was particularly egregious.
“I think there’s no doubt we need to be able to make that catch, running through that ball, and if we do, then we’ll let the clock run down until a minute left before we try our third-and-three, which could have been a big help,” he said. “... (I) definitely wasn’t expecting to have two incompletions on those first two downs.”
Shanahan then did the unexpected and dialed up a deep pass to rookie Deebo Samuel on third down, but it took a brilliant play from cornerback Shaquill Griffin to break it up – and perhaps save the game for Seattle.
If there’s good news, Sanders is dealing with a cartilage issue in his ribs and not a more painful fracture, Shanahan said. That leaves a chance Sanders could return this week to play against the Cardinals.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 6:09 PM.
