Why the 49ers Were So Pass Happy Against the Ravens

SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers could have run the ball down the Ravens' throats, but shockingly chose not to.

Christian McCaffrey averaged 7.4 yards per carry in that game, and yet the 49ers gave him just 14 carries and lost. In retrospect, had they given him 24 carries, they probably would have won.

On Thursday, 49ers run game coordinator Chris Foerster was asked why the offense was so pass happy against the Ravens. Here's what Foerster said:

"That's Kyle Shanahan. You’d have to talk to him about why the play calls come out as they do and what he decides to do on that. I felt really good during the week about our ability to run the football against them. I think we felt good about some of the things we had in the passing game as well. Obviously, Kyle decides to do what he's going to do with the calls and when he dials them up, we do the best we can. Felt really good and comfortable with how we were going and until the injuries, I felt we had a good chance. Obviously, the turnovers, short field, there's so many things that went into that game to make it not a good game for us, you have to really look for the silver lining. I can stand up here and say we got beat. I'm not going to look and say, ‘ah, it was really not that bad a game.’ It was a bad game, but there were some spots in the game early where I felt like we had a chance to have a good game running the ball and protecting the quarterback and obviously that got away from us as the game went on."

Sounds like lots of people inside the organization don't know why Shanahan chose to pass so much against the best pass defense in the NFL.

I guess we'll never know.