Allgemeines » Even though the 49ers play Arizona twice in 22 days

Womens Alfred Morris Jersey , things may be very different in Sunday’s rematch.The Cardinals fired OC Mike McCoy a week ago, and former QB Byron Leftwich will call his first game as their new offensive coordinator Sunday.So can we expect a radically different offense? No, we can’t. The plays and formations have all been installed for months. You can’t start all over mid-season, especially not with a rookie starting at quarterback.For that matter, Leftwich is pretty green himself (as a coach anyway; he was an NFL QB for 9 years, 2003-2012). Bruce Arians hired him as a coaching intern in May of2016 and made him the QB coach last year; in his entire life, he has only called plays for a couple of preseason games. This is a huge contrast with Arians, who had coached for 25 years before his NFL play-calling debut in 2001.So what might change under Leftwich’s watch?By all accounts — including Leftwich’s — we can expect him to bring back a lot of Arians’ approach, since he coached in that system and most of the team’s players are familiar with it. QB Rosen hilariously told reporters that Arians is “sort of a ghostly legend in this building here.” DUDE! He was the coach last year. You could just call him up and ask him questions, cause he’s old and those people still talk on phones. Arians, ever the hipster,told the Doug and Wolf program (on Phoenix’s 98.7 FM sports station) that he and Leftwich have “texted a bunch” since his protege was promoted last week.Bruce Arians is one of the great characters in the NFL. The guy wears a beret.He was in the Bear Bryant coaching tree. When he left after two years as Alabama’s Running Backs coach, the legendary HC gave him this advice: “Coach ‘em hard and hug ‘em later.”He also convinced Arians that coaches should go home at reasonable hours and spend time with their families.Here are some things that Leftwich will likely pick up from his mentor:1) “No risk it, no biscuit.”Arians loved to play aggressively, often calling deep shots in unusual situations (fourth-and-two, targeting a running back, for example). There are obviously deep passes in Mike McCoy’s playbook, but the problem for Leftwich is that Rosen is not a big arm guy, relying more on footwork and mechanics. Still, newly promoted safety D.J. Reed better spend Saturday studying all the Bruce Arians tape he can find.Robert Mays wrote a very interesting feature on top play-calling coaches last year Authentic Richard Sherman Jersey , strangely omitting Kyle Shanahan. (Maybe he didn’t agree to be interviewed.) He notes that Bill Walsh invented the game-opening script, and that Arians scripted 30 plays each game, 15 runs and 15 passes. He brought about six deep shots to every game, four of them scripted. That’s more than one in four pass plays in his script.2) Free David Johnson! Speaking to Doug and Wolf, Arians himself mentioned RB David Johnson as a likely beneficiary of the change at OC. In 2016, before his injury, Johnson had 1,239 yards rushing and another 879 receiving. This year, in almost half a season, he has just 335 yards rushing — 3.2 yards per carry — and only 166 more through the air. Since he’s one of the team’s two best offensive weapons, that is not nearly enough.A lot of it is the Cardinals’ terrible offensive line, which was a problem for Arians too in his last two years.But McCoy was strikingly uncreative in scheming up ways to use Johnson’s talent.So linebackers, look out for those wheel routes!3) (and Larry Fitzgerald, while you’re at it.)The Cards’ star WR has 15,800 yards in his NFL career, but only 255 of those yards have come this year. That’s just 10 yards more than San Francisco fullback Kyle Juszczyk, who has 245 yards on 7 fewer receptions. Granted, Fitzgerald is 35 and not the player he once was, but he’ still one of Arizona’s top weapons and McCoy did nothing with him, Fitz had over 1 Womens Mike McGlinchey Jersey ,000 yards receiving in each of the last 3 years so it’s unlikely he just fell off a cliff.Leftwich is making no secret of his plan to get Fitzgerald more involved.“Not dead yet”? That ought to motivate the future Hall of Famer. If Richard Sherman plays, it would be very interesting to see him cover Fitzgerald (if the matchups go that way). His height would be a plus, not to mention their long history against each other.While Mike McCoy was strikingly old-fashioned and ineffective in his play-calling, things won’t be easy for Leftwich, either. Johnson is coming off an injury that caused him to miss 15 games last year, and Fitzgerald is 35. There’s nothing he can do this season about those realities, or the terrible offensive line.And to be fair, Arians himself did poorly in 2016 and 2017, struggling to win 8 games after stellar seasons in 2013-2015, which was a big part of why he retired.So if he couldn’t figure out how to win with this personnel group, it’s hard to see how his ideas are going to make his much less experienced protegesuccessful.If nothing else, though, a bit of that Bruce Arians swagger should make Sunday’s game more interesting, whoever ends up winning. Another second half lead and another tick in the loss column for the 49ers. After the game, head coach Kyle Shanahan didn’t mince his words at all when asked about the late-game collapse, adding “There was a number of plays, extremely disappointed. Thought we put ourselves in a position to win the game...I thought we had a chance to step on their throats and didn’t.”The 49ers’ youth and lack of a pass rush continues to show up late in games when they try to protect a lead. There are a few defensive breakdowns or penalties, combined with too much time in the pocket for opposing quarterbacks. On New York’s final drive, Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning was 7-of-10, aided by two huge defensive penalties from corner Ahkello Witherspoon and linebacker Malcolm Smith that kept the drive going. Nine plays Authentic K'Waun Williams Jersey , 75 yards later, the Giants have taken the lead and now the 49ers are in a near-impossible situation given who their quarterback is.Flipping that around, I thought San Francisco’s offense played decently, given that they were down wideout Pierre Gar莽on before the game. Breakout quarterback Nick Mullens finished 27-of-39 for 250 yards, with one touchdown and two interceptions.How did the 49ers measure up to the pre-game keys that were laid out?1. Slow down the Giants’ superstars, RB Saquon Barkley and WR Odell Beckham JrI expected the 49ers to cover one of these guys particularly well, while the other would run wild all over Robert Saleh’s defense. Except, the exact opposite happened. The 49ers’ defense did a particularly effective job defending running back Saquon Barkley, but dropped the ball against superstar wideout Odell Beckham Jr — on the two most important plays of the game.First up — Barkley. The former Penn State running back carried the ball 20 times, yet it was for only 67 yards (3.3 YPA). On numerous occasions, Barkley would be stuck dancing in the backfield with nowhere to go. If you take out his longest run of 18 yards, the average drops to 2.6 YPA. He tacked on four catches for 33 yards, but considering his multiple double-digit reception games in the past, the 49ers did well against the rookie.On the other hand, San Francisco’s defense seemed to let Beckham Jr. run “buck naked” — as corner Richard Sherman likes to say — against the defense. On both of his touchdown receptions, there were busts in coverage that allowed for an easy 12 points for the Giants.On the first touchdown catch, three 49ers’ defenders were in the area, but the ex-LSU star snuck behind them for a wide-open — I mean, the next defender wasn’t in the same zip code wide-open — touchdown. In the ensuing touchdown, Witherspoon expected help from the free safety Authentic Jimmy Garoppolo Jersey , but Beckham Jr. was too busy celebrating his touchdown by that time already. Outside of those two plays, the 49ers’ defensive backs and linebacker Fred Warner did a decent job of keeping Beckham Jr. in check.2. QB Nick Mullens continues his “Mullens’ Magic” from last weekThis was going to be the real question heading into Monday night — can Mullens keep up his play from last Thursday. The answer was a resounding confirmation. Mullens certainly continued his magical play against the Giants — who played much better defense than the Raiders did last week. I’m sure there were a few plays that Mullens would like to have back, but for the most part, it seemed like he did what he could. His first interception raises questions about arm strength, but the second interception was due to a dropped pass.On the final drive of the game, Mullens was able to move the ball 54 yards in 53 seconds, before throwing it out of the end zone in the final play to win the game and I’m sure he had a lot of Giants’ fans on the edge of their seats.For the rest of the season, opposing defenses are going to force Mullens to throw the ball outside of the numbers and really test his arm strength and timing with his wide receivers. Aside from that, Mullens has continually showed poise in the pocket and the ability to make the correct pre-snap reads. It’ll be tougher against better defenses, but I expect more from Mullens than I did from backup C.J. Beathard the last few weeks.3. DC Robert Saleh should turn the pass rushers loose against the Giants’ OLComing into the game, Manning was sacked 31 times by opposing defenses and it’s been a poor theme for the Giants’ offensive line all year long. Looking at a lot of his sacks before the Monday night matchup, it seemed to be partially due to Manning’s immobility, as well as an offensive lineman’s mistake. I fully expected Saleh to turn the pass rushers loose and make Manning feel the pressure in the pocket. This was a case of: “Are the 49ers’ rushers that bad or the Giants’ OL that good?” — because San Francisco finished the game with only one sack for an eight-yard loss. Coming into the game, the Giants were giving up nearly four sacks per game, so I expected at least that for a young 49ers’ defense. Yet, a combination of poor coverage in the backend and no top-flight pass rusher continues to hurt the defense — especially in late-game situations. It was a particularly bad sign that the 49ers’ could not generate more sacks against a team that gifts them away on a weekly basis.