Three hours of misery.
That’s all you can call the Niners’ loss to the Packers on Sunday.
Any glimmer of hope was short-lived or quickly sabotaged. Any positive play was rapidly undercut.
The Niners’ opponents, the Green Bay Packers, didn’t even play well. They messed around like they were facing the JV team in a scrimmage.
They weren’t wrong:
STUDS
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George Kittle • TE
» The 49ers’ best player this season didn’t let injury or a backup quarterback stop him from making a big impact on the game. The future Hall of Famer had six catches for 82 yards and a touchdown.
That score was his 15th catch in the red zone this season — tops in the NFL — and eighth red-zone touchdown of the campaign. That also leads the NFL.
Brandon (Not Josh) Allen • QB
» He’s a backup quarterback. I will judge him on a curve.
Allen didn’t lose the 49ers the game on Sunday. Frankly, you’d be hard-pressed to ask him to do more than he did.
His interception wasn’t on him. His lost fumble was, but it’s not as if he booted the ball without anyone around.
I saw him rip passes up the middle and command the offense like someone who actually plays.
Again, I don’t expect him to win any games as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, but at least the backup quarterback wasn’t the reason the Niners lost on Sunday.
Deommodore Lenoir • DB
» Lenoir was outstanding in coverage and strong against the run Sunday. With Fred Warner playing like a pedestrian these days, is Lenoir the new leader of this defense?
Pat O’Donnell • P
» The Niners punter had a marvelous game. A legacy game, perhaps. (I’m looking for anything here, folks.)
Duds
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Deebo Samuel • W(ashed) R
» The Niners had chances to make this game more interesting than it had any right to be.
And who knows what would have happened had Deebo Samuel caught a ball that hit him in both hands on a third-and-8 from the Green Bay 45-yard line. A catch would have moved the chains and put the Niners — down 17-7 at that point — in a position to make the contest a one-possession game.
Instead, Samuel whiffed, the great Xavier McKinney intercepted the pass, and the Packers scored a touchdown four plays later, following a tough pass-interference call on Renardo Green.
The Niners needed so much more from a team captain — a superstar.
It’s clear he’s not that anymore.
Samuel had four targets. He only caught one of them — a double-reverse flea flicker screen.
Yes, it takes layered trickery or a kick return to get Samuel a big gain these days. It’s tough to watch one-time greats fade, and it’s even tougher when they’re fading this fast.
The rookies
» The Niners have been overly reliant on their rookies to play like veterans — such is the desperation brought on by injury and poor play.
Sunday, the Packers showed why that’s typically a bad idea.
Renardo Green — who has been fantastic this season — was worked over again and again by Packers’ receivers. The Niners lifted him from the game in the fourth quarter.
Dom Puni — who had been a revelation this season — had three penalties in the first half alone.
The only way Ricky Pearsall found the ball was to catch it on punt returns.
Issac Guerendo only saw action on kick returns. In the second quarter, he fumbled the ball.
It’s a good thing that safety Malik Muspaha had a good game; otherwise, the Niners’ rookies would be 0-for-5 in Green Bay.
The offensive line
» I understand that circumstances are tough with Williams out, but the 49ers’ offensive line provided the Niners no advantage on Sunday, against a defensive line that isn’t a world-beater.
In fact, I thought Jaylon Moore, replacing Williams, was a bright spot.
The interior of the line was anything but that.
Puni had his worst game as a pro.
Jake Brendel was worked over again and again. (What’s new?)
Aaron Banks was pushed around in this game, too. (We’ve said that before.)
The Niners’ offensive line had four penalties and a forced fumble against them in this game.
Niners special teams
» Was the holding call on tight end Eric Saubert some nonsense? You bet. It negated a massive return from Samuel that could have put some momentum in the Niners’ corner.
But of course the refs were looking to call a hold on the play — it’s the Niners’ special teams.
The Niners committed a holding penalty on three straight returns Sunday.
It was always a ridiculous ask for Niners’ special teams to not lose the game, but this was one of the worst performances of the season, even without a flash play.
Niners’ defensive discipline
» The Niners had 10 missed tackles in the first quarter — the most in a quarter in the NFL this season.
They had five in the second and third quarter, respectively.
Does what happened in the fourth quarter even matter? The Niners had already missed 20 tackles in the game, and the contest was already over.
Bad penalties — including back-to-back 12-men-on-the-field calls in the red zone (totally unacceptable stuff) — added to the blowout loss.
But it was the simple stuff that did the Niners in, too. The Packers kept bringing slot receiver Jayden Reed into the backfield with an orbit-motion look, and the window-dressing disorganized the Niners’ defense to the point where Green Bay running back Josh Jacobs wasn’t being touched in the backfield, much less at the line of scrimmage. The Niners never found an answer for it — the Packers mercifully stopped trying the cool stuff after they were up two, three, four scores.
The Niners were roundly outplayed, but defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen was out-schemed, too.