O-Line is the 49ers' problem

By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA — Nobody wants to broach the subject, wants to come forward and explain exactly why the 49ers can’t run or pass the ball. Or win.

Nobody involved is willing to admit that the Niners no longer have capable players, especially where it matters most, in the offensive line, and thus it doesn’t matter who is coaching or playing quarterback.

The late Al Davis, the Raiders' chief for years, would grab a journalist and tell him football starts with the O-Line. That guys who can block and open holes enable a team to move the ball, even if the runners aren’t Jim Brown or Walter Payton. Enable a quarterback to have the time to find an open receiver.

Colin Kaepernick was sacked six more times Sunday. You can’t pass from your back. You can’t run on your back. You can’t win on your back. All you can do is lose, and that’s what the Niners did, 17-3, to the Green Bay Packers at Levi’s Stadium.

Three points this game. Seven points last game.

The Niners can’t move the ball. The defense was effective, when you consider the Packers, still unbeaten in four games, had the ball 13 minutes more than San Francisco, gained 166 more yards than San Francisco. This one could have been 40-3, if not for the defense.

The offense is bad, maybe awful, because the offensive line is bad. It wasn’t too swift last year, either. Colin Kaepernick was sacked 52 times in the 2014 season. And then Mike Iupati left as a free agent and Anthony Davis retired. In four games this season, Kaepernick, taking heat as well as feeling pressure, has been sacked 14 times, or more than three a game.

Is that Kaep’s fault? Is that the fault of new coach Jim Tomsula, as uninspiring as Tomsula seems to be? Is that the fault of GM Trent Baalke, who failed to bring in the linemen?  “The responsibility (for pass protection) goes to me,” said Tomsula. OK, but if you don’t have the players, all the schemes in creation don’t mean a thing.

The Niners, the franchise of Frankie Albert and John Brodie, Joe Montana and Steve Young, the team that could always get points even if it couldn’t get victories, were simply embarrassing Sunday. With some six minutes left in the game, they had only 72 yards rushing and 72 yards passing. Balanced, but sad. At the same time, the Packers had 131 yards rushing and 200 passing.

“The Green Bay Packers played a heck of a football game,” said Tomsula, as if anyone would be surprised about a team favored to make the Super Bowl — which will be played right where the Pack played Sunday, Levi’s, and where the entire southeast section of the stands was filled with green-jerseyed fans chanting, “Let’s go Packers.”

As for the 1-3 Niners, who in the last three weeks have scored 28 points and allowed 107? “We felt,” said Tomsula, “like defensively the guys took a step. Offensively, obviously we’ve got to get some things ironed out.”

What they’ve got to get is an offensive line to give Kaepernick enough time to throw or Carlos Hyde or Reggie Bush the space to run. Hyde gained 20 yards on eight carries, Bush no yards on one carry. Kaepernick, as normal, was the leading rusher, 57 yards on 10 carries, and he completed 13 passes of 25 for 160 yards.

You want a comparison? The Packers’ Aaron Rodgers — yes, sigh, he could have been drafted out of Cal by the Niners, but he also would have needed a line — completed 22 of 32 for 224 yards and a touchdown.

“I’ll study as much as I can, work as much as I can,” said Kaepernick. “That’s only way I know how to fix it.” What he didn’t say was that improved protection would be the best way to fix it.

Three years ago, ironically, Kaep was sprinting through and around the Packers in the playoffs. Now he’s scrambling for his existence, and someone wondered of the QB if the Niner offense ever felt so out of synch.

“We have to find our rhythm,” said Kaepernick. “We have to get back on track and string plays together. When we do that, we have produced successful drives. It’s getting those plays to string together where we’ve struggled so far.

“To me, we have to get the ball out quick. We have to be able to get it into our playmakers’ hands as soon as we can. But I’m not going to throw the ball into traffic and risk this offense and this team and put them in a bad situation.”

Without a strong offensive line, the situation always will be bad.

Is there a future for Harbaugh, Kaepernick with Niners?

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — He had the look of a man who had just swallowed a lemon. Or a huge loss. Colin Kaepernick stood at the podium with his headphones and without any meaningful answers.

The 49ers' season has gone down the drain, and it’s not unfair to suggest that Kaepernick’s career has also.

On the first play from scrimmage, Kaepernick threw an interception. On the last, in a finish that was all too symbolic, he was thrown on his backside, sacked.

In between, on this Sunday of tectonic shift, the Oakland Raiders climbed from their embarrassment of a week previous, a 52-0 loss, and stunned the Niners 24-13 at O.co Coliseum.

What a crushing, painful time it’s been for the Niners, battered on Thanksgiving night at their own venue, Levi’s Stadium, 19-3 by the Seattle Seahawks; caught in the constant tumult involving the future of head coach Jim Harbaugh; then getting embarrassed by a team that had won only once in 12 previous games.

And somewhere in the maelstrom was that tweet from team president Jed York, immediately after the defeat by Seattle, apologizing for the performance, or lack of same, against the Seahawks.

These are the conclusions one jumps to after the rapid flow of recent events: Harbaugh will not return for a fifth season as the man in charge of Niner fortunes. Kaepernick has been exposed as a quarterback who sees only his primary receiver.

Kaepernick was and is Harbaugh’s guy, chosen in the second round of the 2011 draft, a brilliant athlete who can throw a baseball more than 90 mph and in football can elude tacklers. Until, admittedly, they surround him in a well-planned pass rush.

When Alex Smith incurred a concussion midway in the ’11 season, Kaepernick took over, and with his speed and arm gained Harbaugh’s endorsement.

The following year, the two of them had the Niners in the Super Bowl, although San Francisco’s defense was the real reason, and in the game itself, the final play, Kaep demonstrated an inability to feather a pass, firing away an incompletion.

Over the last few games this season, Kaepernick and the Niner offense — one and the same — were ineffective.

Defensive coordinators in the NFL are well paid to develop designs that take advantage of every offensive weakness. It certainly appears they’ve figured out how to shut down Kaepernick.

The Raiders are in no way among the better defensive squads — on the contrary, they’re among the worst — but they sacked Kaepernick five times (including that ultimate play), picked him off once and limited him to 18 of 33 passing for 174 yards, a quarterback rating of only 54. Derek Carr, the Raiders' rookie QB, was 22 of 28 for 254 yards and a 140.2 rating.

Unsuprisingly. Kaepernick’s post-game comments offered little explanation of what was wrong and why. He has become notably reticent, almost as if being interrogated by an enemy solider rather than a few harmless journalists.

“We haven’t played well,” said Kaepernick, as if anyone holding a note pad or a microphone was under the impression they had.

Kaepernick did concede on that opening scrimmage play he was trying to find receiver Michael Crabtree, and the safety, Brandian Ross, “came over the top.” But he wouldn’t allow that the interception, so quick and jarring, had effect on the rest of the game.

“You leave that play behind,” said Kaepernick, an ironic choice of words because when Oakland’s Sebastian Janikowski kicked a field goal eight plays later the Niners were left behind, 3-0.

Although San Francisco would carve out a brief 7-3 lead, there was a sense the Raiders were in control and the Niners, about to fall to a record of 7-6, were in trouble. Once Donald Penn caught a touchdown pass from Carr on a tackle eligible play, the 49ers were out of the lead.

Harbaugh was hardly more illuminating than Kaepernick as the coach fielded questions equally divided between the game result and his own future.

When asked about Kaepernick, Harbaugh — a former quarterback himself — understandably was not going to toss his man under the bus, particularly on a day when Kaep had been tossed under the defensive line so many times.

“I look at it as a team effort,” a subdued Harbaugh said about Kaepernick’s failing, “and we didn’t get it done.”

Not at all.

Asked if York and general manager Trent Baalke want Harbaugh, under contract, to be coach of the Niners in 2015, Harbaugh responded, “My priorities are: No. 1 winning football games; No. 2, the welfare of our players, coaches and our staff; and lastly what my personal future is.”

When a journalist wanted to know if he had coached well the last month, Harbaugh said, “You have to take responsibility so it falls on me if we don’t win these games. That’s my No. 1 priority, winning football games.”

The Niners, who next face Seattle — all hope will be gone with what seems a certain defeat at the Seahawks’ place — are in a very tenuous spot. Maybe so is Harbaugh.

Asked if he wanted to be with the Niners next year, Harbaugh repeated a previous remark, “My priorities are winning games.”

Something that has become very, very difficult of late.

There's something wrong with Niners, stadium

By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There’s something wrong. With the football team, which is evident. With the new stadium, which is apparent. The 49ers are showing up as a mystery, one that has coach Jim Harbaugh so perplexed he can’t even get angry with media questions.

The fans after halftime aren’t even showing up at all.

A new home, a $1.3 billion beauty of steel and class constructed in honor of champions of the past. The tickets are sold, but the people who hold them must not be sold on the Niners.

This is what happened Sunday. The nation returned to standard time. The 49ers, however, didn’t turn their game clocks ahead or back. They just stood figuratively still before all those empty seats at Levi’s Stadium, and they were upset by the St. Louis Rams, 13-10.

The Rams, 3-5, were not very impressive. The Niners, 4-4, were very unimpressive.

Niner quarterback Colin Kaepernick was sacked eight times — by a team that had six sacks total in its previous seven games.

“We have all the talent in the world,” said Niners left tackle Joe Staley. “We’ve been doing some dumb stuff, and they took advantage of it.”

Like not keeping the Ram defense out of the Niner backfield. Again. Two weeks ago, Kaepernick was sacked six times at Denver. Then, after a bye week to make fixes, he was sacked eight times.

“We prepared for this during the week,” said Kaepernick. Maybe the situation is unfixable.

Maybe Harbaugh is as distressed as he is bewildered. Usually, when he’s asked what went wrong, the competitive, combative man he is takes issue, as if the media doesn’t have a clue so just sit down and be quiet.

Not this game. Harbaugh was restrained, responding with generalities, not specifics, the old, “Not enough good football, we got beat.”

Old, except for Harbaugh, who normally is loathe to concede that his squad was outplayed. This was a new frontier for the Niners’ fourth-year leader. This took some swallowing.

Yes, as poorly as they played, the Niners could have won. They had the ball, third and goal on the Rams one, with nine seconds remaining. A field goal would have sent the game into overtime. Instead, Kaepernick bulled up the middle and fumbled. The Rams recovered.

“I was juggling the ball,” Kaepernick conceded. He also believed he had crossed the goal. A replay review verified he did not.

Could have won. But did not win, because now, at the midpoint of the season, when the Niners usually are becoming their best, priming for the playoffs, San Francisco is a mess. And the next game is against the Saints at the Superdome, where the Niners invariably have problems.

The Niner offensive line seemed confused, not only because rookie Marcus Martin was starting at center for the first time. The pressure on Kaepernick came from everywhere, from William Hayes at left defensive end, from James Laurinaitis at middle linebacker, from Robert Quinn at right defensive end.

“We’ve been talking up those things,” said Rams coach Jeff Fisher about harassing the quarterback, “and I said we’d been getting close. You’ve got to credit the guys up front. These were individual efforts.”

So in a way, as Staley confessed, were the Niner failures. “Penalties,” said Staley in review, “dumb blocks, dumb techniques and dumb schemes.”

By supposedly some very smart football linemen, certainly for the most part by veteran football linemen, who two years ago helped the Niners to the Super Bowl.

Could they have grown too old? Could they have grown complacent? Change is a constant in sports at any level. No team remains at the top all the time. No players remain the best forever.

They tell us O-lines have great staying power. Maybe this one has stayed too long.

“We’ve got to suck it up,” said Harbaugh, avoiding mention of individuals. “Got to play better.”

Of course they do, but how? Does the blocking have to improve? Does Kaepernick have to get rid of the ball quicker — and more accurately? And how much is attributable to the fact that the Niners, who like to set up the pass with the run, could rush for only 80 net yards?

“We had opportunities in both halves,” said Kaepernick, “and we didn’t take advantage.” Not when they score a paltry 10 points. Not when the quarterback is tackled eight times behind the line of scrimmage.

“That’s why I’m here,” said Kaepernick. “I’m here to make plays. I can make people miss. So that’s part of my job.”

They aren’t going to miss when they sweep in from every direction, and they didn’t miss. The Rams knew something about the Niner offensive line. And now everyone knows.

“We’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror,” said running back Frank Gore, the spiritual leader of the Niners, “and we’re going to try to get to this postseason. We’ve got to do it and stop playing around.”

Or, when the postseason arrives, they’ll be forced to stop playing. Period.

49ers Were ‘Terrible’

By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA — This one is summed up perfectly by Colin Kaepernick, who as most everyone on the 49ers was perfectly imperfect. “Terrible,” said Kaepernick.

Indeed. And maybe worse than that.

Another opening, another show. Another stunning letdown.

The first NFL game at billion-dollar-plus Levi’s Stadium, the jewel of Silicon Valley. A 17-0 lead over the Chicago Bears. And then?  

Well, 16 penalties by the Niners. Four turnovers by Kaepernick. Ineptitude at the highest level, and finally, painfully, Sunday night a 28-20 loss.

“It stings,” said Niner coach Jim Harbaugh. Yes, and it stinks, in a figurative way. The new place, 70,799 fans paying some very high prices. A beautiful beginning, and then clunk.

This one belonged at Kezar Stadium, where in 1946, their inaugural season, the Niners lost their first game ever played. Or at Candlestick Park, where in 1971 the Niners lost their first game after the shift from Kezar.

Who even thought the script would be the same? Start like a klutz.

This is a Niner team headed for the Super Bowl? Please! Sixteen penalties for 118 yards. Absurd. Disgraceful. Impossible to overcome.

Harbaugh stood in the post-game interview room like a deer in headlights, giving the briefest answers in the softest voice. Either he was bewildered by what took place or appalled. Probably both.

Earlier in the day, at San Diego, the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, the team the Niners must overtake, lost to the Chargers. The score went up on those huge video boards. The fans cheered. The Niners would be ahead of the Seahawks.

Not on your life. They would be wallowing in their own despair. They would be flagellating themselves. They would be ruing what could have been, what should have been — but was not to be.

“When you’re up, and like you said, new stadium, with the fans, great fans,” agreed Frank Gore, the Niners running back and spiritual leader, “when you’re up like that, you’ve got to go for the kill. We let them back in the game. We didn’t finish, and they beat us.”

More accurately, the Niners beat themselves. They got called for defensive holding. They got called for illegal procedure. They got called for illegal use of hands. They got called for false starts. And most of all, at the end of the first half, still in front, 17-0, they got called for roughing the passer, with only a bit more than a minute to go in the half.

That moved the ball to the San Francisco 25, and in three plays quarterback Jay Cutler moved it into the end zone on the first of three touchdown passes to Brandon Marshall.

“He’s a tough guy,” Niners linebacker Patrick Willis said of Marshall. “He’s tough to cover by anyone on the field. It’s just him getting in the red zone. He’s a big body (6-foot-4, 230 pounds).

“The youngster (Jimmie Ward) was fighting his tail off and doing all we ask him to do. The plays just went their way on those.”

They didn’t go Kaepernick’s way. Three interceptions and a fumble. Arguably Kaepernick’s worst game since he became a starter two years ago in a game against, yes, the Bears.

“I think he was seeing things good,” Harbaugh said in support of his quarterback. “He threw some pretty darn good balls. The defense made some great plays.”

Kaepernick made plays that, to be kind, were very much less than great. He seemed flummoxed by a Bears defense that literally had him on the run.

“I saw the coverages,” said Kaepernick. “I didn’t make the plays.”

What we he made were mistakes, joining teammates in a universal effort.

The funny thing is the Levi’s Stadium field was for the third time in six weeks replanted. The grass had been coming apart. It didn’t on Sunday night. It was the Niners who disintegrated.

“Turnovers and penalties,” said  fullback Bruce Miller, in what was becoming litany, “especially at the point in the game when they were made, that’s losing football.”

It was for the Dallas Cowboys a week ago against the Niners.

It was for the Niners on Sunday night against the Bears.

“Wins are tough to come by,” said Anquan Boldin, the Niners wide receiver. “When you have a team down, you definitely have to put your foot on their throat because nobody’s going to quit in this league.”

The Bears lost three key defensive players through injuries, including cornerback Charles Tillman. Yet it was the Niners who lost the game.

“It stings to lose,” Harbaugh said once again. “And we all have fingerprints on it.”

Do they ever. Someone get the furniture polish.

Newsday (N.Y.): Seahawks' 'D' crunches Colin Kaepernick in second half

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SEATTLE — It was going so well for the San Francisco 49ers, for quarterback Colin Kaepernick. They were in control. He was flying around, eluding tacklers, finding receivers, arguably playing the best game of his brief career.

Then it was as if both team and individual remembered where they were -- in their football purgatory, CenturyLink Field.

Read the full story here.

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