49ers 14, Falcons 28: Grades

Humiliating.
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ATLANTA -- The 49ers just lost to the Atlanta Falcons 28-14. Here are the grades for the 49ers, who now are 3-3.

GAROPPOLO: D.

He made a few nice throws, but his job is not to make big mistakes and he threw two interceptions, which means he failed. He also fumbled once but the play didn't count. The past two games, Garoppolo threw no picks, and people began to wonder if he had improved. He didn't. The previous opponents simply dropped potential interceptions and the Falcons did not. Garoppolo is the same quarterback he always has been. When he throws more than the offense runs, his career win-loss record with the 49ers is just 9-14. Today, he threw 41 passes and the offense ran just 16 times. The 49ers can't win that way, because Garoppolo is too mistake prone. Once the 49ers abandoned their run game, you knew the interceptions would follow, and they did.

RUNNING BACKS: D.

Jeff Wilson Jr. had a terrible game, because the 49ers overused him the past four weeks when he carried the ball a whopping 65 times. Today, he had no gas left in the tank as he carried the ball 7 times for just 25 yards and no touchdowns. He also fumbled and the Falcons recovered the ball and returned it for a touchdown. Then late in the fourth quarter on 3rd and 1 from the Falcons 18-yard line, the 49ers called a run for Tevin Coleman and he lost a yard. He's not a short-yardage back -- we learned this last week. Terrible play call. The 49ers should have given that carry to Jordan Mason, who's a short-yardage back. He got zero touches today. The 49ers might have won if they had used him, but they didn't, so they made themselves one-dimensional. That's Kyle Shanahan's fault. More on him in a minute.

WIDE RECEIVERS: B-MINUS.

Brandon Aiyuk had a great game -- 8 catches for 83 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also should have had a third touchdown catch on a deep throw down the middle, but Garoppolo underthrew it. Deebo Samuel also had a good game -- 7 catches for 79 yards. But Ray-Ray McCloud dropped a deep pass that would have given the 49ers' lifeless offense a spark. That was a key mistake.

TIGHT ENDS: B-MINUS.

George Kittle had 8 catches for 83 yards and no touchdowns -- a great game for him at this point in his career. Unfortunately for the 49ers, his backup, Charlie Woerner, dropped a long pass up the seam. The 49ers should have called that play for Ross Dwelley instead, because he doesn't drop balls.

OFFENSIVE LINE: B-MINUS.

They gave Jimmy Garoppolo plenty of time to throw all game, but they couldn't create rushing lanes for Jeff Wilson Jr. or Tevin Coleman. Mike McGlinchey left the game with an injury and did not return.

DEFENSIVE LINE: B-MINUS.

They gave up only 4.2 yards per carry, which is decent considering they were missing three starters. But they recorded just two sacks, mostly because they didn't have Nick Bosa, who commands double teams and makes every other pass rusher's job much easier.

LINEBACKERS: B-MINUS.

Fred Warner had a team-high 10 tackles, but got beat in coverage a few times and missed multiple opportunities to make tackles in the backfield. He did not make a big impact.

DEFENSIVE BACKS: B-MINUS.

They gave up just 129 passing yards, but they also gave up a passer rating of 144.6 to Marcus Mariota, who's nothing special. Charvarius Ward left the game with a groin injury, and without him and Emmanuel Moseley, the pass defense was extremely conservative.

SPECIAL TEAMS: B.

Ray-Ray McCloud had a 35-yard punt return, which was the 49ers' longest gain of the day.

COACHES: F-MINUS.

DeMeco Ryans did an OK job considering he was missing seven starters on defense and he was facing an offense that averages more than 24 points per game. To play mostly backups and still hold the Falcons to just 21 points in Atlanta is impressive (the Falcons scored a touchdown with their defense). Still, the 49ers couldn't stop Marcus Mariota from scrambling or running the zone read. They were unprepared for him. Also, without Bosa, the defense got very little pressure and Ryans didn't blitz much. He should have. Instead, he let Mariota carve him up. But Ryans was by far the 49ers' best coach in this game. Kyle Shanahan got outcoached by Arthur Smith, whose team is rebuilding. Shanahan's offense also stunk, as it scored just 14 points against a bad defense. In addition, the offense scored a whopping zero points after halftime. Bad second-half offense is becoming a pattern for Shanahan. Today, his offense had no imagination. The run game had zero creativity, and he gave up on it immediately. That was checkmate. But the main reason the 49ers lost is their plethora of injuries, and those are Shanahan's fault, too. Every game this year, the 49ers have lost multiple key starters to injury. This happens every season to the 49ers in September and October, because their training camps are so light and their starters don't play in the preseason. So they're not in football shape when the regular season starts. Instead, they attempt to get into football shape during the season, which has led to lots of injuries. This is Shanahan's sixth year as a head coach. He should have fixed the injury issues and the offense by now, but he hasn't. And now his team is 3-3, and it hasn't faced any good yet. Next week, they'll have to face the Kansas City Chiefs while missing roughly half their starters. Good luck with that. At least the 49ers still can win their division, but that doesn't mean they're good. For comparison, the Jets have a better record than the 49ers right now. The freaking Jets, whose coach is Robert Saleh, the former 49ers defensive coordinator. Is he a better head coach than Shanahan? I wonder.


Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.