Great win by the 49ers yesterday in tough conditions. Both teams played pretty well everything considered and the game came down to just a handful of plays. I was especially impressed by the effort the Packers put forward with the early injuries.
Going to be a broken record again and reiterate that the national narrative that the 49ers are a great running team is all wrong unless they are running the read option which they haven't all year. Heavy set formations probably only average like 1yd and any situation where the other team knows they are going to run is a lost cause before the ball is even snapped. They simply can't impose their will on other teams and run at will. Their offensive line simply isn't that good no matter how many times the national-broadcaster-of-the-week keeps saying they are awesome. They do run OK if they don't play a heavy set (more holes to run through) and they certainly pass it better without 3 tight ends where only one of them can catch the ball at all.
The stats on the 49ers running game this year indicates that it was only average at best and even that is misleading because Kaep accounts for a number of those. Gore averaged 4.0yds/carry but I think that is also misleading as he tends to go nowhere for like 6 runs and then run one for 12 yards (basically can't sustain getting first downs). So I went looking to see if anyone tracked a median yards per rush to see if that would explain it and came up empty. However, I stumbled upon Advanced NFL stats (http://wp.advancednflstats.com/playerstats.php?year=2013&pos=RB&season=all) which uses a Win Probability stat for each player and there you go....Gore is ranked 60th out of all qualifying backs in terms of his contribution when he is involved in the play. I don't the exact stats they use to generate that number but needless to say that is not good and might explain what I am seeing on the field. Now, obviously, I think Gore is worth way more than that and part of that stat is trying to run him through non-existent holes with the heavy set formations the 49ers like to run all the time. None of our backs ran well behind the current o-line so either the play calling isn't good or they just aren't good or a combination of the two. Hell, even pass protection has not been good at all...Kaep frequently only has maybe 1 second before he has to step up or step wide so I'm more likely to blame the line play for the run as well.
Next article: Debunking the bullshit narrative that Kaep slumped this year.
Niners suck.
Oregon CB Ifo Ekpre-Olomu and Oregon State QB Sean Mannion returning to college next season.
