The Indianapolis Colts’ defenestration of the San Francisco 49ers got here from two main sources on Sunday: penalties and turnovers. As a matter of reality, these two points have been so prevalent for Kyle Shanahan’s group that they ended up serving to the Niners cross two wonderful statistical marks.
On the subject of penalties, San Francisco turned the league chief in committing defensive cross interference, surpassing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had dedicated 10 of these penalties coming into Sunday night time’s sport.
This gave the impression to be the inevitable results of Indianapolis’ offensive sport plan, with the passing sport continuously coming right down to Carson Wentz throwing a 50-50 ball at his receivers and hoping that the defending Niners participant would commit a foul. That gamble labored 3 times, with the Colts even getting more yards from DPI calls (97 yards) than Wentz himself (73 yards) by means of three quarters.
Sure, Wentz finally obtained going late and was in a position to put collectively a couple of drives that prolonged the Colts’ lead — and padded his stats a bit — however with the ability to capitalize on these opposing penalties helped put him in that place to start with.
So far as turnovers have been involved, the Niners dedicated 4 of these, bringing the overall variety of giveaways within the Kyle Shanahan period to 120. This may be a simple subject to dismiss as a consequence of the terrible climate in Santa Clara, however the 119th turnover — which put the Niners in sole possession of second place for many giveaways since 2017, trailing solely the Buccaneers at 127 — was not associated to how moist the ball was. That sort of interception occurs in dry climate too.
The a hundred and twentieth turnover, nonetheless, was completely a results of the climate as a result of the ball clearly slipped out of Jimmy Garoppolo’s arms manner earlier than he meant to launch it.
That second stat is probably extra of a priority on condition that it serves as an indictment of how Shanahan, a purported offensive genius, has led the group all through his tenure with the Niners. Actually, it’s a stat that ought to look worse than it does, as the one factor conserving San Francisco from rating first on that checklist is the truth that the Bucs employed and began Jameis Winston, who threw 55 interceptions from 2017 to 2019 in Tampa Bay, together with 30 in 2019 alone.
You can argue that these are simply the rising pains of a group that’s speculated to be rebuilding, however a rebuild requires a sure stage of confidence that issues will get higher. Have a look at how Shanahan ended his press convention after Sunday’s sport.
That doesn’t fairly sound like an individual who believes issues are trending in the fitting path, one thing that you just maybe may have seen coming even after this 12 months’s NFL Draft. At the least he’s solely placing the onus on himself this time.
