OTC's Causal Analysis: Why We Suck & Who's to Blame

We are rightfully in a rage right now after suffering our third 4th quarter collapse against a division foe, and our fourth loss among games we should've won and had every opportunity to. But.. The emotional fan often over-simplifies things without analyzing, so I'll get into the details and review true blame percentages on our losses to explain our current situation, and then also look at the overall.

Game-by-game assessment:
WEEK 3 @ MIN | Biggest negatives:
- Blocked punt leading to points for Vikings
- Purdy interception leading to points for Vikings
- Defense gashed all day, including a ridiculous 98 yard TD allowed
BLAME %: SPECIAL TEAMS 40%, DEFENSE 40%, PURDY 20%

WEEK 3 @ LA | Biggest negatives:
-Fake punt given up, leading to a TD drive
-Jake Moody missed FG to put game out of reach
- Ronnie Bell drop on would-be game sealing throw from Purdy
- Huge punt return allowed before the game winning Rams FG
BLAME %: SPECIAL TEAMS 90%, RONNIE BELL 10%

WEEK 5 vs AZ | Biggest negatives:
- Massive return given up causing Moody to get injured making a tackle, leading to points for AZ, and making us unable to kick rest of the day
- Mason fumbling in the red zone
- Purdy taking a bad sack knocking us out of Wish range & not getting ball out quick enough on the game ending INT
- Defense got destroyed by Conner and gave up a huge catch on a fourth down duck that would've ended the game
BLAME %: SPECIAL TEAMS 35%, PURDY 25%, MASON 15%, DEFENSE 25%

WEEK 7 vs KC | Biggest negatives:
- Purdy throwing three interceptions, all in scoring position
- Big return allowed again leading to points
- Jordan Mason multiple horrific first downs given up by refusing to hit the hole or dancing at the first down marker
- Defense giving up huge sideline run to Mahomes on third and long
BLAME %: PURDY 85%, SPECIAL TEAMS 5%, MASON 5%, DEFENSE 5%

WEEK 11 vs SEA | Biggest negatives:
- Purdy forced ball leading to interception and 3 points for Seattle, missed throw late to ice the game
- OL Penalties and pathetic run blocking and sack allowed knocking us out of FG range
- Defense giving up third and long all day, missed tackles, poor rush lane integrity, and failing to stop Geno in the final minutes
- Kyle Shanahan two extremely poor challenges and a bad decision to punt instead of either going for it or trying a long field goal late
BLAME %: PURDY 25%, OFFENSIVE LINE 25%, DEFENSE/NICK SORENSEN 30%, SHANAHAN 20%

AVG DIRECT BLAME %:
Special Teams: 34%
Brock Purdy: 31%
Defense: 20%
Offensive Line: 5%
Jordan Mason: 4%
Kyle Shanahan: 4%
Ronnie Bell: 2%

Summary: Special teams has directly contributed to all but one loss this year. But possibly more concerning.. Purdy has had JUST as many games with direct contribution to a loss. I knew he was having a down year, but starting to realize now it's worse than I wanted to accept. Overall, I came away surprised that in terms of direct responsibility, the OL and Shanahan showed up SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than expected, and Purdy showed up SIGNIFICANTLY MORE than I expected. Special teams and defense on the other hand.. As much as expected. The data suggest the calls for Kyle to be fired are louder after this last game because of recency bias, as it's really the first time I can point to him being clearly/directly responsible with multiple bad decisions in game. Overall, we see the biggest problems are mistakes from Purdy, Special Teams, and our Defense.

Roster Analysis:
Fans have attacked Kyle and other coaches the most, but there's one person people aren't attacking enough: John Lynch. He is responsible for building our 90 man roster every off-season. Kyle may make the final cut, but Lynch constructs the team. Lynch is responsible for two epic disasters that have put the roster in the state it's in now. First, people forget he personally admitted he was the one responsible for taking Trey Lance and selling him to Kyle. The 2023 draft is the latest blunder though, netting us at best only ONE average to below-average starter in Brown. Between the rest: Latu, Moody, Bell, Beal, Graham, Winters, Willis, and Luter, there's not a single quality depth player or quality special teams contributor. In fact most, if not all have also cost us big in games when they've played. The 2022 draft was nearly as bad with Drake Jackson, Danny Gray, Burford, Womack, Kalia, Zakelj, Castro Fields.. With the only big hit being Purdy.

The data overall suggests that Lynch was just lucky we stayed as healthy as we did last year, or we might've looked a lot closer to this season. This year, our lack of depth -- due to two terrible previous drafts -- has been mightily exposed. The Leonard Floyd signing also hasn't worked out. Gross Matos and Sam O look like big hits though. Lynch definitely rebounded great this year, but that must continue going forward, or we're not going to improve after Purdy gets paid.

OVERALL: Based on the data, you DO NOT fire Shanahan, but you DO fire Sorensen & Brian Schneider. Lynch has saved himself for now, but can't have any more epic mistakes. As for players, you put heavy focus on refining Purdy's mechanics while continuing to develop his mental game, and you try to keep him at the cheapest possible rate while cutting any high priced, replaceable players you can, and doing whatever possible to replicate the success of this year's draft class.

I know that's a lot to read, but there was a lot to analyze and digest. While Kyle has some things he can improve on, everything suggests Lynch is the one who should actually take more blame. I wanted to blame Kyle more for his DC picks, but looking back, I don't know if he had many great options. Ultimately, while Schneider and Sorensen both deserve to be fired, Lynch ultimately has given them a heap of garbage personnel to work with. It's a both/and situation. They should get more from guys if they're good coaches, but that doesn't absolve Lynch from not getting us better players.

Cliff Notes version for the ADHD or reading impaired individual:

1) Lynch is not getting held accountable enough as it's his fault for our incredibly poor personnel due to his awful decision to trade up for Lance and absolutely horrific 2022 & 2023 drafts, which netted next to zero quality depth, no quality special teams players, and only 2 starters (Purdy, Jayir Brown).

2) Kyle is fielding a competitive team in spite of this, with an average margin of loss of just 4.6 pts/game this year. Shanahan is not blameless, but he's near the bottom of the list of problems. There's evidence he's trying to adjust the offense, but indeed still has more work to do. His DC choices the past two years haven't worked, but we cannot ignore the lack of options being available as we played late in the postseason both times, so leeway is certainly deserved there.

3) Purdy needs to step up. Poor decisions/mental mistakes have cost us in 4/5 close losses this year. He's still not fully developed mechanically either, but the issues are fixable. Data suggests most QBs see huge drops in turnovers between year 4-6. Mentally, he needs to realize that if the team is struggling, he can help it more by protecting the ball than by taking chances. TBD if he can fix this going forward.

4) Schneider and Sorensen both deserve to be fired. Unlike Kyle, who is the only coach producing something in spite of poor and/or depleted personnel, Schneider's group is the worst in the NFL, and Sorensen's group folds in nearly every critical situation and often can't even get off the field in spots where they should have a huge edge. Saleh had no talent for awhile and tons of injuries and still got more out of his guys. If Schneider and Sorensen were quality, they would be able to do the same.

Nice write up OTC! I can't say that I disagree with anything

What is the Lynch percentage? If he has more blame or should be blamed more than Kyle, overall?

Originally posted by Montana:
What is the Lynch percentage? If he has more blame or should be blamed more than Kyle, overall?

That's a good question Montana.

My opinion is that it would be hard to give Lynch a stand alone percentage because he's essentially tied to the hip with Shanny. All decisions are through Shanny and with his ultimate approval/disapproval; he's said as much multiple times. I don't think people realize how much power Shanny has; I think he's pretty much the GM too, much like Belichek was, and Lynch is pretty much the mouthpiece/face/in front of media guy.

Originally posted by Montana:

What is the Lynch percentage? If he has more blame or should be blamed more than Kyle, overall?

In terms of overall state of the team/personnel, I would put it at 80/20 split. Lynch being more at fault.

The few things Shanahan could do different with personnel is: with the receivers, ease them in more without forcing them to learn every position simultaneously. Also, I'd like him to not be too conservative, but in fairness.. Purdy has not been careful this year -- after an early pick Sunday, he forced another one into triple coverage right before the half that could've been disastrous.

I don't think Kyle makes the best challenges at time and I don't always love the clock management but I'd say he's mid there.

Overall though, he's still shown to be one of the better game planners and finding weaknesses in opposing defenses. Might not be top five in play calls this year but still top ten.

Kyle may have a lot of power and input as the HC, but he ultimately puts a lot of trust in Lynch, the scouting team, and the rest of his coaching staff to do their jobs. He fired Wilks and Hightower when they weren't performing. He has no problem replacing coaches.

Lynch and Shanahan have to shoulder more blame. 4 years of disaster drafts and the fleecing of the team with terrible contracts to players who are not preforming. IE. Deboo, Williams, Juice, Hargrave, Floyd, Warner and to some extent Bosa. Shanahan should shoulder the most. He is responsible for all of the other coaches and seems unable or unwilling to fire coaches during the season. His refusal to use certain players or over use others hen not even rotating players more is also a huge problem. The fact he cannot see that Deboo is not going to break any runs or jet sweeps anymore just shows stubbornness or ignorance on his part. I put 75% 0n the supposed genius.

When you say incredibly poor personnel, are you referring to those 2 drafts and what they netted, or the roster as a whole?

one thing i don't understand and i've seen this all over the board, is moody misses a field goal and it's on 'special teams'. no it's on moody. unless you have some other problem with the operation.

Good write up and i agree a little but not with all.

They swung and missed with Trey Lance. You blame Lynch for the trade up but did Kyle tell him to do whatever it takes to get him another QB? Who knows... Its going to go down and the worse trade in franchise history however i'm not mad at them for swinging for the fences. It takes balls to move on from an avg QB (Jimmy was successful here) and mortgage the future on a kid. Plus they recovered with Brock. I think the lesson i have learned is not to trade your future for a QB. Looking around the NFL and watching the majority of these young QBS fail is telling. Nobody has figured out how to draft a QB.

The 22 and 23 drafts are poor but again, we mortgaged the future for Trey Lance so that was kind of expected. I hated some picks but overall they have been ok with drafting and have found their fair share of gems. This year's class seems to be decent. Every team has some really bad drafts and if you dont believe me go look for yourselves.

I think one thing that is overlooked is the turnaround of coaches. We want the ST and DEF coordinator fired but look how many coaches we lose every year. Its astonishing. I'm not sure who we loss this past year on the offensive side of the ball but its starting to bite us in the butt. I'd fire the ST coach for sure but not sure what the point would be to fire him midway through the year. They maybe want to but they probably dont have anyone to replace him.

I still have hope for this team buts admittedly its dwindling.
__PRESENT

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

When you say incredibly poor personnel, are you referring to those 2 drafts and what they netted, or the roster as a whole?

Both really. Collectively, the roster is not the same in terms of depth, and particularly our special teams. Usually those are your depth guys.

We have aging, declining, and or injury prone players with no one waiting in the wings because we missed on so many players or ignored those areas. Specifically at LB, OL, TE, DT and DE.

TE Latu, Willis
DE Jackson, Beal
OL Moore, Zakelj, Burford, McKivitz
WR Bell, Gray
LB Graham, Winters

At least we got guys who can replace Deebo, Hufanga, and Ch Ward, but we need upgrades at DT, DE, LB, C, LG, and RT still. Wars are won in the trenches and we've been horrible at picking those guys outside Puni, Fred, Dre and Bosa.

Sorry OTC I didn't read your post just responding to the title. BUT, IMO the reason why the 49ers suck, Shanahan/Foerster won't make changes to the O-line, mainly at Center. No misdirection plays anymore. Sorensen sucks, this defense got their balls snipped. Instead of an attacking defense Sorensen mentioned when he was first hired, we get a "hope we don't f**k up" defense. They refused to spend money on a veteran Safety, Mustapha, Odum and Brown's inexperience has showed this season.

Wide-9 is wack, teams expose the s**t out of it by just running the ball down the defenses throat, not to mention DeVondre Campbell isn't helping the cause either. Shanahan's over use of one RB, mix s**t up like Detroit does and how you use to back in 2019 with Raheem Mostert and Tevin Coleman. In the end, Brock Purdy needs better protection, all the top QB's in the league have a solid Center.

Some of those Purdy percentage blames need to be on Kyle and Lynch. Purdy executes the plays called to him. The TDS last week were because of his extra effort, just like he did during summer of our wins this year and last years playoffs.
He has open blitzers, failed blocks and he's running for his life. That's the scheme and the personnel.

Originally posted by mitpdub:
Some of those Purdy percentage blames need to be on Kyle and Lynch. Purdy executes the plays called to him. The TDS last week were because of his extra effort, just like he did during summer of our wins this year and last years playoffs.
He has open blitzers, failed blocks and he's running for his life. That's the scheme and the personnel.

Purdy does tend to hold onto the ball too f**kin long.

The head coach is responsible for all of that. So it's Shany.