San Francisco 49ers: Week 14 Studs and Duds
With the loss to the Washington Football Team, the 49ers’ season is over. However, from a mathematical standpoint, they aren’t completely eliminated from postseason play. According to Football Outsiders, the team still has a 3.4% chance of making the playoffs. Down nearly 10% from last week. Simply put, an overwhelming amount of good fortune needs to break their way to sneak into the dance. It’s not happening.
Beating Washington would have significantly improved the 49ers’ chances to make the playoffs, and the defense did everything in their power to put them in a position to win. Unfortunately, the offense couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain. Largely because of the abysmal quarterback play.
Throughout the 15-23 loss, there were a handful of highs and lows. Certain individuals and units played exceptionally well, while others not so much.
Here are the 49ers’ studs and duds from Week 14:
Studs:
1) Robert Saleh and the 49ers’ defense
The 49ers’ defense allowed Washington to score only six of their 23 points. 17 points were gifted to Washington, between Mullens’ two turnovers that were returned for touchdowns and Jeff Wilson’s fumble. Washington only scored six points off their drives that started in their own territory.
Saleh’s defense accomplished the following:
- Held Washington to 12 total first downs
- Held Washington to 205 yards (excluding the negative 12 rushing yards by Haskins)
- Held Washington to 95 total passing yards (including the 13 yards lost on sacks)
- Held Washington's quarterbacks to under a 50% completion percentage.
Again, the defense did all they could to put the team in a position to win.
2) The secondary
Out of all defensive units, the secondary stood out the most. Alex Smith and Dwayne Haskins were consistently inaccurate throughout the contest, but for the most part there was nothing to be found in the passing game anyway.
Smith played the first half, and completed eight of 19 passes for 59 yards.
Haskins played the second half, and completed seven of 12 passes for 51 yards.
Star receiver Terry McLaurin was also held in check. He finished the game with just two receptions for 24 yards.
Jason Verrett intercepted his second pass of the season, which marked only the second interception by a 49ers’ defensive back since October 25.
It was a solid bounce-back performance from the unit, after getting annihilated by Josh Allen and the Bills’ receivers in Week 13.
3) Brandon Aiyuk
Aiyuk has been the best part of this lost season, and it looks like he is going to be an absolute star. Aiyuk was targeted 16 times, and caught ten passes for 119 yards. Early in the second quarter, Aiyuk showed tremendous hand-eye coordination by catching a pass over the middle of the field, after being interfered with by a defender. Seemingly each week, Aiyuk has at least one jaw-dropping play.
Over the course of his past five games, Aiyuk has 36 receptions for 495 yards and three touchdowns. That’s an average of over seven catches and 99 yards receiving a game. Over a 16-game season, that would amount to 115 catches and 1,584 yards.
With favorable matchups against Dallas, Arizona, and Seattle, Aiyuk could be the first rookie in 49ers history to achieve 1,000 yards receiving. Jerry Rice currently holds the rookie receiving yards record with 927.
4) Mitch Wishnowsky
Wishnowsky had one of his best games, if not his best game is a professional punter. He punted nine times for 411 yards, and pinned Washington inside their own 20-yard line four times. Three of those punts were downed at or inside the 15.
Wishnowsky’s best punt came in the fourth quarter, where he pinned Washington at their own one. It was a collective acrobatic special teams play, led by newly signed Breian Boddy-Calhoun and long snapper Taybor Pepper.
Duds:
1) Nick Mullens
Mullens is largely at fault for this loss. I gave him a D- grade, as he barely escaped an F.
During an attempt to make a play outside the pocket, he was stripped, fumbled, and that fumble was returned for a touchdown. To close out the third quarter, he was leading a solid drive, only to end up throwing a pick-six which sealed the deal.
On that interception, it looked like Kyle Juszczyk may be partially at blame. But the bigger issue is that Mullens came off his first read (a wide open Wilson), to throw the errant pass to Juszczyk. My colleague, Jack Hammer, breaks it down below:
Mullens was wildly inaccurate all game, even with a clean pocket. What saves Mullens from receiving an F, is that he led a scoring drive the very next possession after the interception. He could’ve called it quits, but instead he remained mentally tough. I respect him for that. He’s just not a good quarterback.
2) Deebo Samuel’s Hamstrings
On the first play of the game, Samuel re-aggravated his hamstring injury. I don’t mean for this to sound insensitive, but Samuel’s injury history needs to be acknowledged.
Going back to his freshman year at South Carolina, Samuel has missed games due to hamstring issues in three out of six seasons.
- Freshman year (2015): Missed seven games (hamstring)
- Sophomore year (2016): Missed three games (hamstring)
- Junior year (2017): Missed ten games (broken bone in leg)
- NFL year 2 (2020): Missed nine games (broken foot and hamstring)
Between his time in both college and pros, Samuel has played in only 55 of 86 possible games (64%).
By no means am I insinuating that Samuel will frequently be hurt during his 49ers tenure, but the statistics are not reassuring.
Samuel is a tremendous player and vital part of the offense, and the training staff needs to do everything they can - if they can do anything at all- to prevent these hamstring flare-ups.
3) Not the offensive line
The offensive line was not as bad as advertised in this game. Considering Washington’s lethal defensive front, they did not play that bad. In the first half, Mullens was kept relatively clean. In the second half the pressure picked up a bit, and I thought the offensive line answered nicely.
Mullens was holding on to the ball for a very long time, and that resulted in the majority of sacks and quarterback hits.
The bad look comes from the final drive, where Mike McGlinchey crumbled when it mattered most -- again. On that final drive McGlinchey missed a block on an Aiyuk screen. Was flagged for holding on a huge third down play from Kendrick Bourne. And was bulldozed into Mullens on the final 4th and 12 attempt.
It was another rough sequence for McGlinchey, but outside of that stretch it was a decent performance.
