Some good thoughts here and I appreciate Jonnydel putting this together again for us this season. I pride myself on being an objective and reasonable fan, but I have to admit that the Bears game loss really bothered me Sunday night and into Monday - possibly more than the average loss would. Perhaps it was because it was the home opener in our new stadium, or because it was a team that we should have beaten, or because of the general promise in development that Colin Kaepernick showed in week 1, or that we were dominating them as expected throughout the first 2.5 to 3 quarters, or that we wasted a prime chance to be up on Seattle in the standings when we never did that at all last season.
That said, I listened to Greg Cosell's interview with Mr. T and Ray Ratto that aired on Monday night. I went into it very nervous because I was expecting Cosell to rip Colin apart because of Cosell's preference for developed, patient, pocket-manipulating progression reader QBs. (Cosell has heavily criticized Colin in the past, particularly last season.) Surprisingly, Cosell wasn't overly harsh on Colin and alluded to the young QB learning factor. He said a number of things that made sense and I'll throw it up to the community to think about.
1. Colin's first INT, to Conte, was the right read and throw, but was a play where you simply have to credit Conte for making an outstanding individual defensive anticipation play. Cosell said Colin made the right read within the context of the play design and he could not put the blame on Colin for that.
2. Colin's third INT, to Fuller (on the throw to Carrier), was a product of Colin not reading where Fuller was in relation to Carrier looking wide open. Cosell said this is just part of the package when you ask Colin to move in the pocket and extend plays. Sometimes you get outstanding spectacular plays, and sometimes you get the Fuller pick. Very hard to disagree with this. Also given the rate of spectacular plays to crushing picks, it seems that this greatly favors Colin's game.
3. Cosell again said a lot of the Kaepernick discussion revolves around what philosophy the 49er coaches employ with Colin. Specifically, are they coaching him to move around in the pocket instead of encouraging him to stay patient, bounce on his feet, and scan his reads? (While I agree with this as a philosophical discussion, this is probably the point on which I do have some disagreement with Cosell because I think the OL giving up pressure quickly plays into Colin feeling like he needs to move. Also, I see Colin trying to reset his feet and find guys after the initial read is covered. It's just inconsistent. I think the coaches sometimes ask him to hang in the pocket and read progressions, and sometimes they want him to move. If you think about it, that keeps defenses guessing on where he'll be at any given time which can slow the pass rush.)
4. The pass rush is a concern. Cosell likes Brooks as an all-around player who fits in great on a really good team but is not the dynamo that Aldon Smith is.
5. Cosell seemed to agree with Mr. T that this isn't an "EVERYONE PANIC!!!" game. It's a reaffirmation of the lesson that if you turn the ball over 4 times, you're going to lose. Unsaid, but very real is that the 49ers were just plain sloppy. Sloppy is correctable. Talent limitations and bad coaching are not (and we don't have problems with either those).
[ Edited by Adusoron on Sep 16, 2014 at 2:22 PM ]
). But they have two of the best man-coverage corners in the game.
