The San Francisco 49ers face a quarterback controversy of the coach’s own making
San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan has a difficult decision on his hands.
Will he give quarterback Trey Lance another start following his debut Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, or go back to Jimmy Garoppolo, who Shanahan says is still the team’s starting quarterback, when healthy?
“Nothing’s changed,” Shanahan told reporters in Glendale, Ariz., after his team dropped to 2-3 on the season with a 17-10 defeat to the first-place Cardinals.
“That was just one game. It was a tough loss right there,” he continued. “We’re going to talk to our whole team tomorrow and think of how we can get our whole team better coming back from the bye.”
The 49ers have now lost three straight games to NFC opponents who will likely be in the playoff race. Shanahan’s offense has scored just 21 points in their last three first halves combined, and failed to put up points before halftime Sunday.
But Lance performed admirably against the undefeated Cardinals in his starting debut. His passing numbers weren’t great — he completed just 15 of 29 for 192 yards, 6.6 per attempt, with an interception and no touchdown throws — but he kept the offense afloat with his running (a team-high 89 yards on 16 attempts) and play-making. The 49ers averaged 5.7 yards per play Sunday after 4.5 and 4.6 against the Eagles and Packers, which were the last two games the team had a healthy Garoppolo throughout.
Shanahan had enough confidence in Lance to go for it on fourth down five times. He entered the weekend having gone for it on fourth down five times through the season’s first four games. He also had enough confidence in Lance to make him the centerpiece of his running game even with Elijah Mitchell back from a shoulder injury and Trey Sermon coming off an 89-yard performance against the Seattle Seahawks.
Mitchell had nine carries and Sermon had just one — though a handful of Lance’s 16 runs were scrambles on passing plays.
The trust in Trey Lance
To be sure, Shanahan trusts Lance to an extent, but wasn’t willing to use Sunday’s game to pivot at the game’s most important position.
He sounded bullish on the rookie’s performance afterwards.
“Overall,” Shanahan said, “I think if we could have done a little better around him, I think he did good enough to win.”
Holding penalties, dropped passes, bad blocks on running plays — and Shanahan’s play-calling — all left things to be desired. The 49ers were within three points when Deebo Samuel scored a 13-yard rushing touchdown to make it 10-7 late in the third quarter. They had a chance to take the lead, but then they failed on fourth down twice more. They finished 1-of-5 on fourth down on the afternoon.
Inexplicably, with over a yard to go, fullback Kyle Juszczyk went under center and tried a quarterback sneak, like he did successfully two weeks ago against the Green Bay Packers.
That play might have worked if the 49ers needed to go a foot or two for the first down. But they needed over a yard and were well short.
“There was a couple options on that play and we didn’t end up doing the one we prefer,” Shanahan said.
Shanahan and his offense were bailed out by defensive back Dontae Johnson forcing a fumble on the following possession, but then failed on another fourth down when Lance had a pass batted at the line of scrimmage by the forearm of defensive lineman J.J. Watt.
Lance had four passes swatted by defensive lineman on the afternoon, continuing a theme from the second half against the Seahawks. It would seem his elongated delivery, an area that needs addressing as Lance develops, allows defensive linemen to time their attempts to block his throwing windows.
49ers coach struggles
Shanahan on Sunday simply wasn’t good on fourth down.
On the play Watt broke up, Shanahan had a chance to pin the Cardinals deep with a punt while Kyler Murray and Arizona’s offense was struggling against the 49ers’ defense that limited Arizona to a season-low 304 yards of offense (they averaged a league-high 440 coming in). Sunday marked the second straight game San Francisco out gained their opponent in a loss.
The Cardinals punted on their first three drives of the second half and lost a fumble. They had 37 total yards in the third quarter. Murray was getting beat up by San Francisco’s defensive line and the training staff was examining his throwing shoulder. Getting the ball back near midfield with 7:49 remaining led to Murray orchestrating the first touchdown drive since the first quarter. All it took was a five-play, 52-yard possession ending with DeAndre Hopkins’ impressive touchdown grab over cornerback Josh Norman.
Why not punt instead of going for it on fourth-and-4?
“I thought it was our chance to take that game right there,” Shanahan said. “And we got into a situation where we felt pretty strong about what they were going to do. Felt really good about the play call, felt good about the guys, just ended up not getting (it).”
All this came after two failed fourth-down conversions in the first half. The first came at Arizona’s 34-yard line, when Lance was stopped short on a power run over right guard. The play came in an empty set, with no running backs accompanying Lance behind the offense line. Anyone watching the way Shanahan was calling plays at that point could assume Lance was going to run himself, which he did, and was stopped.
There was no other option on the play. There was no running back Lance could have faked to, or a receiver running a jet sweep motion to account for. The defense could key on Lance without having to worry about any other options to run the ball. It was a surprising play call given how highly Shanahan is thought of for his versatile rushing attack. We’ve seen Lance successfully run plays with multiple fakes before.
On the next possession, the 49ers were stuffed at the goal line when Lance was thumped by three defenders, including linebacker Isaiah Simmons, at the front right pylon. Shanahan said initially it was a passing play, but pressure and good coverage forced Lance to scramble.
Still Garoppolo’s job
FOX’s broadcast team eluded to a theme throughout the game — which Shanahan had not conveyed to reporters previously. Play-by-play announcer Kevin Kugler said Shanahan told the crew he would have preferred Lance get a “redshirt” season after playing just one full season in college — and one game in 2020 as the pandemic wiped out the campaign.
That came amid what NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Sunday morning, saying: “This is Jimmy Garoppolo’s job. Trey Lance is not expected, from what I understand, to hold on to the job no matter what happens (Sunday). If Jimmy Garoppolo is healthy next (game), it is going to be his job.”
After saying “nothing’s changed” regarding Garoppolo’s hold on the starting job, Shanahan refuted Rapoport’s report.
“No,” he said. “I feel like they’d have to talk to me or John, and I don’t talk to many people, especially the night before a game. Just my family. ... Especially to someone who made something up.”
That and the idea Garoppolo has a firm grip on the starting job are conflicting ideas. The quarterback situation is murky, just like the team’s playoff chances amid their three-game losing streak.
Now the 49ers are hitting their bye week ahead of another home game against the Indianapolis Colts on Oct. 24. Garoppolo is expected to be recovered from his injury by then, though that’s not a guarantee. George Kittle is also dealing with a calf injury that worsened this week, leading to injured reserve on Saturday, meaning he’ll be out the next two games after the bye.
As much as Shanahan wanted to avoid a quarterback controversy, it appears he’s right in the middle of one. It won’t go away until Lance is eventually named the starter, because that’s where this has been headed since he traded up for Lance in the first place.
This story was reported remotely. The Bee was not on site for Sunday’s game.
