49ers’ offense has a lot of the same issues as last year, including Garoppolo

Did you catch the look on coach Kyle Shanahan’s face after the 49ers lost to Arizona? It was like he didn’t believe it … 24-20, and they had the 20. He’s thinking, “There’s no way. How did we lose this game?” He’s dialing up good plays. Winners. From the play-caller’s standpoint, it’s like, “How do we not have more points?”

They didn’t have receivers Deebo Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk, a guy who can push the ball down the field, who can separate. But the 49es don’t make a ton of plays by just having guys line up and win one-on-one unless it’s George Kittle or maybe Kyle Juszczyk in favorable matchups.

Watching the film, I see quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo not really seeing what’s happening on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

That’s the next step that he has to get to.

Garoppolo is pretty good at getting through his progressions – there are some NFL quarterbacks who struggle at even that. But the problem is that Garoppolo gets so enamored with what the routes are and what his guys are doing that he doesn’t even see what the defense is doing.

Garoppolo and the missing piece

Garoppolo doesn’t see how they’re deploying, and there are tips a quarterback can utilize to help speed up the progression process just by knowing what they’re looking at and what the defense is trying to do to stop them.

There are too many times he’s just not seeing that, and then he ends up late throwing the football.

That happened on Sunday’s last play to Trent)Taylor on the outside. That play will probably stand out to a lot of people. The ball was late and it was behind because Garoppolo didn’t decipher the coverage early enough. Had he seen the coverage and known what was happening he would have thrown the ball outside and taken a shot at a one-on-one to a receiver who was wide open for a touchdown.

He ended up holding it, and then threw it late to Taylor.

There were three or four of those opportunities where he didn’t see it; either didn’t see the leverage of the corner or didn’t see the matchup correctly.

Rams’ Goff doing it right

The Rams’ Jared Goff is a perfect example of doing it right. I talked to former Rams coach Jeff Fisher about this, and he said when the Rams drafted Goff he had no idea what was going on with the defense. When he was at Cal, he ran a progression-based offense and didn’t worry about protections or what the defense was doing. The only thing he knew was that they were wearing different colored uniforms.

But when you look at where Goff is now, he’s probably among the top 10 quarterbacks in the league at seeing what the defense is doing and then getting his offense into the appropriate play.

Then on top of getting in the right play, Goff knows his progressions – No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. He knows, “No. 1 is not going to be there just based on this coverage. No. 2, that has a really good chance. No. 3, maybe not, but my check down will be good.”

You can see him mentally going through that. He does that all very fast and he has been able to process that information quickly.

49ers’ chances

Garappolo is not there. He’s stuck in the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 …

That’s where the 49ers are right now. There’s a pretty heavy reliance on Shanahan’s play-calling to create offense.

The 49ers still run the football so well and their defense is going to be good again. They’re not far off. For the most part they’re going to play well enough to have a chance to get back to the NFC championship game and the Super Bowl.

I just wish Garappolo would take that next jump, because Shanahan is a great playcaller. He’s my favorite playcaller to watch just because he’s so good. He’s so good at creating matchups. He’s so good at showing a defense something and making it look exactly like a play they saw three or four plays ago, but then it’s completely different. He’s going to create offense and the 49ers are going to move the ball. But there are going to be plays where it’s still going to come down to Garappolo understanding what the defense is trying to do, making a throw, making a big play.

I know the offense is progression-based and he’s not asked to know everything going on over there, but it would help them so much if he knew what the defenses were trying to do to stop them.

Defense might boost fantasy fortunes

With all that about the 49ers’ offense, I think their defense against the Jets this week can be lights out. Arizona’s Kyler Murray was a tough matchup for the 49ers and their pass rush; the 49ers a year ago allowed 25 points or more in just six games in the regular season, but two of those games wer against the Cardinals. But the Jets offense is just not good, and Le’Veon Bell is dealing with a hamstring issue. The 49ers should get some sacks, force some turnovers.

More on the fringe, another defense that can rack up some points this week is Tampa Bay. The Bucs’ defense is extremely fast and really good and I like that matchup against Carolina. I think the Panthers are going to have a hard time against them.