Week 3: Lack of Offense leads to 49ers scratching their head

This past Sunday the 49ers returned home after a blowout loss on the road in Seattle for what they thought would be a way to get back on track. Instead, the team's struggles followed them to the bay area where they would show side-effects that carried over from the beat down received by the Seahawks. Hosting the Andrew Luck led Indianapolis Colts who 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh mentored at the University of Stanford, the reunion between college coach and former player eventually turned into a player teaching his former coach a lesson as San Francisco lost consecutive games for the first time under their third year head coach.

Penalties which have haunted the 49ers defense through the first few weeks continued to plague the team on Sunday including on the first two plays from scrimmage on the Colts opening drive which set up Indianapolis near mid-field. From there Andrew Luck would carve up the 49ers secondary before handing the ball off to the newest Colt Trent Richardson who was acquired in a trade with the Browns earlier in the week. Richardson took little time to fit right in, plowing into the end zone from 1-yard out on his first carry with his new club to put them ahead, 7-0. After failing to put together a single touchdown drive in Seattle in week 2, San Francisco's offense appeared to have shaken off the cobwebs on their second possession of the game, as the 49ers were able to establish the run game early on, something they've perfected under coach Harbaugh but were unable to accomplish in weeks 1 and 2. QB Colin Kaepernick orchestrated a nine play, 91-yard touchdown drive highlighted by a 13-yard TD run by running back Kendall Hunter, tying the game at 7. However, it would be the only time coach Harbaugh's team would pay the end zone a visit. 

As if the 49ers receiving corps wasn't banged up enough to start the year, the team was without their best target on offense in Pro-Bowl tight-end Vernon Davis. Hampered by a hamstring injury suffered in the loss at Seattle, Davis watched his quarterback struggle all afternoon in what would eventually be Kaepernick's first loss at Candlestick Park since being promoted the starting QB in week 11 last season. Completing 13 of 27 passes for 150 yards with a fumble and an interception, Kaepernick followed up the worst outing of his NFL career with another sub-par performance. As for Andrew Luck, last year's first overall pick in the 2012 Draft didn't have one of his brightest performances either, throwing for only 159 yards on 17 of 26 completions, but he came up big when needed and put the game away for good in the fourth quarter with a 6-yard touchdown run he capitalized with an emphatic spiking of the ball. Indy added salt to the wound with another late touchdown by running back Ahmad Bradshaw as the Colts routed the 49ers by a final of 27-7.

The 34 points San Francisco scored in their week 1 win against Green Bay now looks like an anomaly as Kaepernick and company has scored a whooping 10 total points in their last two games. Is it a coincidence that the 49ers haven't been able to muster much success on offense while coach Harbaugh has elected to drift away from the read-option some? The 49ers have also utilized very little play-action plays, another area in which Kaepernick has excelled in. Regardless, Kaepernick's poor performances over the past two weeks which I believe he'll bounce back from, have already ignited a 'bring back Alex Smith' type of crowd on Twitter. Numerous users of the social media website sent Kaepernick tweets with stuff you'd expect from a 12 year old problem child. Everything from "You suck" to "Kaepernick is garbage" was sent to the 49ers quarterback and guess who favorited each and every tweet -- none other than Colin himself. If anybody wants Colin Kaepernick to bounce back from his recent struggles, it's Colin Kaepernick. And these negative tweets from so called "fans" should only add to his hunger.

Rome wasn't built overnight so for anyone that's been a Niners fan prior to the Harbaugh era knows the hardships this franchise has been through over the last decade or so. So to see panic of this magnitude from the fan base three weeks into the season is laughable. 


Week 4 Preview: With blowout losses in back-to-back games for the 49ers, coach Harbaugh will have little time to prepare his team for their next opponent as San Francisco has a Thursday night meeting in St. Louis to face the division-rival Rams on short rest. Like the 49ers, the Rams are 1-2 and are hoping to rebound from a double-digit loss suffered in week 3. Losing 31-7 on the road in Dallas last week, St. Louis allowed nearly 200 yards on the ground alone and three touchdowns through the air. But by no means will Thursday night's game in St. Louis be an easy task for the 49ers who almost always have a hard time against the Rams, but it might be good for Kaepernick and company to play with their backs against the wall. Having opened the season as one of the few Super Bowl favorites, the 49ers have already taken a hit in many of the NFL's power rankings. So much so that pundits are prematurely declaring the 49ers season over if they lose and fall to 1-3. In their two meetings last season, coach Harbaugh was unable to solve Rams coach Jeff Fisher who handed Harbaugh both a loss and a tie in 2012. Entering Thursday's game, the all-time series between the 49ers and Rams is tied, 62-62-1.


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