Five weeks into the season, the San Francisco 49ers look to have the formula that will see them contend for a place in Super Bowl LVII. Unfortunately, they are also in the familiar situation of having a significant number of injuries.
The 49ers backed up their Monday Night Football win over the Los Angeles Rams with a crushing road win over the Carolina Panthers, displaying the consistency they will need if they are to represent the NFC in the end-of-season showpiece in Arizona by easing to an emphatic 37-15 victory to move to 3-2 and top of the NFC West.
It was very much a pyrrhic triumph for San Francisco, however, as several key contributors ended the game with injuries, with the 49ers’ championship calibre defense bearing the brunt.
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Safety Jimmie Ward, playing his first game of the season having missed the opening four because of a hamstring injury, broke his hand on the opening kick-off in a ludicrous piece of bad luck. Star edge rusher Nick Bosa, meanwhile, missed much of the game because of a groin problem. The 49ers also had to contend without kicker Robbie Gould due to a knee concern that came about following a tackle on a kick return while pass rusher Samson Ebukam (Achilles) and left guard Aaron Banks (knee) suffered injuries not serious enough to keep them out of this week’s practices.
The most significant blow, however, came late in the fourth quarter when starting cornerback Emmanuel Moseley went down holding his knee and was later confirmed to have torn his anterior cruciate ligament. Moseley had formed a formidable partnership with his fellow starter at the position, Charvarius Ward, and head coach Kyle Shanahan conceded afterwards that the injury to Moseley had taken the shine off an outstanding display from his team.
"Lots of guys got hurt in the game, but it just didn't look good," Shanahan said. "That definitely took away from a little bit of the excitement at the end, but we know the deal. It's part of this league, and everybody goes through it, but that was a tough one today."
While the injuries may have made for a more subdued post-game locker room, they should not take away from the quality of the performance, which — save for the level of the opposition — was as impressive as their primetime beatdown of the Rams.
Prior to his injury, Moseley had provided the defining moment of the game, at least from a defensive perspective, when he took advantage of a dreadful decision and throw from Baker Mayfield to pick off the Panthers quarterback and return the interception 41 yards for a touchdown that gave the 49ers a 17-3 lead at half-time.
Carolina responded early in the third quarter with the Panthers’ sole touchdown, which came on a 19-yard rush from Christian McCaffrey, but there was never any danger of the 49ers letting their superiority slip.
Indeed, from there the 49ers utterly controlled the clock and the game, a 10-play, 72-yard drive capped off by a laser from Jimmy Garoppolo to do–it–all wide receiver Deebo Samuel before Jeff Wilson Jr. plunged into the endzone at the end of a 12-play, 75-yard drive, San Francisco’s domination of possession and on the scoreboard removing any hope of a Panthers fightback, not that the Niners’ defense was in any mood to facilitate such a turnaround.
Even with Bosa missing the second half, the 49ers’ racked up 21 pressures of Mayfield and sacked him six times, according to Pro Football Focus, with the Panthers’ task of moving the ball down the field proving an extremely arduous one as San Francisco limited them to 4.7 yards per play.
Coleman had the final say with a four-yard touchdown run as the 49ers’ recipe of dominating the time of possession battle and playing suffocating defense proved extremely effective against an opponent lacking the talent to mount any kind of serious riposte.
“I think we’ve still got room for improvement, but today was a good day. We were rolling pretty good,” Garoppolo said.
Talk of room for improvement will be extremely exciting to the hordes of 49er fans who packed into Bank of America Stadium, and for those UK fans set to attend the rearranged watch party in Leeds for San Francisco’s road game with the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. The watch party is being held at BOX Sports Bar, starting at 6pm.
“Our fans are awesome,” Shanahan said. “Anywhere we go. It’s so cool there at the end hearing them chant our guys' names. Our fans travel as good as any team I’ve been on.”
The improvement Garoppolo talked about may be required against the Falcons if the fans that travel to Atlanta and those watching on from Leeds are to be left celebrating a third successive win. Only a controversial roughing the passer call prevented the Falcons from having a chance to pull off a remarkable comeback against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week and, through five weeks, Atlanta’s offense has been one of the most diverse and interesting in the league under the guidance of head coach Arthur Smith.
Atlanta will also get back tight end Kyle Pitts this week, giving the Falcons’ passing game two massive weapons in last year’s fourth overall pick and this year’s first-round pick Drake London.
With Bosa absent from practice on Wednesday and Thursday, defensive tackles Arik Armstead and Javon Kinlaw still on the sideline and Moseley done for the year, a meeting with the Falcons represents a sterner test for the 49er defense as perhaps first thought.
To avoid having to combat dealing with a change in timezone, the 49ers stayed on the East Coast following the win over Carolina, conducting their practices at the Greenbrier in West Virginia rather than returning to the Bay Area. It is the fourth season in a row that the 49ers have taken such an approach to back-to-back games in the Eastern time zone and they are now 7-0 in those contests.
Yet if Bosa is not risked and a defense beset by injuries endures a slight drop-off, moving to 8-0 may be contingent on Garoppolo and the plethora of talent he has around him on offense carrying the team.
Defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, however, believes the loss of Moseley will make his unit even more motivated to maintain their current standard.
“Any time you lose a starter, a guy that plays at a high level like Moseley, it's going to be different," Ryans said. "It's not the same. So it's going to be a challenge for sure, but the thing about our team and the guys that we have, is nobody flinches. Everybody has E-Man's back, and we're going to strap it up and be ready to go for him, and everybody's going to go out and compete at their best to get this one for E-Man."
More of the same then. After the last two weeks, 49er fans on both sides of the pond would sign up for that right now.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Kyle Shanahan, on if oft-injured cornerback Jason Verrett — set to return from a torn ACL — can fill the void left by Moseley
“Oh yeah. If Verrett’s good to go, he’s a big-time corner, so if Verrett can get these practice reps and get out there and get fully-healed and get back into game-shape and ready to go, he’ll end up being our guy.”
MVP OF THE WEEK: Jimmy Garoppolo
It would be easy to give the nod to an area of the defense again after the 49ers throttled a hapless Panthers offense, while Wilson and Coleman each had solid claims following their efforts in the 49er backfield.
But if ever there was a week to give Garoppolo his due, it’s this one. This was his best performance of the season so far, one in which he delivered the ball decisively and accurately and showed more of a willingness to push the ball downfield, even though he was reliant on spectacular catches from Coleman and George Kittle on his deep completions.
Composed throughout in the face of an impressive pass rush from an underrated Carolina defense, Garoppolo’s final figures — 18 of 30 for 252 yards and two touchdowns — arguably didn’t do him justice. If the 49ers get this Garoppolo all season, they will go deep into the playoffs.
STAT OF THE WEEK: 12
The 49ers have conceded just 12 points in the first half, by far the fewest in the NFL. No other team in the league has allowed fewer than 35. Simply put, their defense is giving the Niners a phenomenal platform to work from in the opening two quarters, consistently providing the offense with the opportunity to build leads akin to the one they constructed in the rout in Carolina.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
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