Morris looked ready for his close up in dress rehearsal; Jimmy G stats lie
The 49ers treated their third preseason game like a dress rehearsal — starters played an entire half, we saw some wrinkles in the playbook, and the speed of the game seemed close to the level of the regular season.
And while the Niners lost 23-17 to the Indianapolis Colts, there were real lessons to be found in the first half Saturday.
The result was a mixed bag.
Though, to be fair, that’s likely going to be the story of the 2018 Niners.
Here’s what we learned in Saturday’s third, and effectively final, preseason game: MORRIS LOOKS LIKE THE ANSWER AT RUNNING BACK >> When the 49ers signed former Washington and Dallas running back Alfred Morris last week, I thought Morris was merely being brought in as a camp body and that he would be a free agent again by the end of the month.
The logic: 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan knows Morris well — he coached him in Washington. If Shanahan really thought Morris would be a member of the 53-man roster, why would he wait until training camp was almost over to bring Morris to Santa Clara?
Don’t think about that too long, because Morris looked like a godsend Saturday, rushing 17 times for 84 yards — the latter number unfairly suppressed because of holding penalties on two big runs.
Morris proved that he knows exactly what to do in Shanahan’s zone-blocking
run game — his patience and vision is tremendous — and given the injuries to the team’s top two backs, Jerick McKinnon and Matt Breida, the 49ers will be hard-pressed to move on from Alf.
THE NINERS MIGHT JUST HAVE A GOOD OFFENSIVE LINE IN 2018 >> Any evaluation of the offensive line must carry the caveat that it happened against the Colts, who might have the worst front-seven in football.
Still, the 49ers line was dominant in the run game Saturday. You can see the makings of a rock-solid group there.
Everyone knows what Joe Staley provides on the left side — the dude is still one of the best in the game. At right tackle, Mike McGlinchey looked rock-solid. That won’t always be the case — he’s a rookie — but there’s no doubt he’s going to be a starter in this league for a long time.
At center, I’m in on Weston Richburg. That might make me an outlier, but that’s where I stand. Then come the guards. The rap on Shanahan is that he doesn’t pay guards, and he certainly didn’t go out and offer big money to any of the solid guard options on the open market this past offseason.
Though by the looks of things Saturday — hell, this entire preseason — that was a prudent decision.
Before the 2017 season started, the 49ers traded a fifth-round pick to the Lions for 2015 first-round selection Laken Tomlinson. A year later, Tomlinson is starting at left guard, has a new three-year contract extension, and is an absolute road grader.
He’s not going to be an All-Pro or anything, but he looked really good, despite two holding penalties. (That’s saying something.)
On the other side, the right guard position — the possible weak link along the line — is shaping up well, and I think Mike Person’s performance against the Colts will make him the starter against the Vikings on Sept. 9. GAROPPOLO’S STATS LIE — AND THAT CUTS BOTH WAYS >> Here are the numbers: 9 of 19 for 135 yards.
At first glance, that’s not good.
But the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Garoppolo’s box score stats are full of lies. The quarterback was done in by five (count ’em) receiver drops but also bailed out by at least two dropped interceptions.
The five drops were bad — tight end Cole Hikutini’s failure to convert a touchdown was particularly egregious — and while Garoppolo isn’t entirely devoid blame on a few of them, ultimately they shouldn’t be held against him.
What can be held against him are the interceptable passes he threw Saturday. I counted three — it seems as if the consensus was that he had two balls that could have been picked off — and that’s simply too many.
Garoppolo had an interceptable pass rate of nearly 6 percent last year, which, extrapolated out over 600 pass attempts would have likely put him over 15 interceptions, one of the worst marks in the league.
Garoppolo simply cannot have a rate of pickable passes that high in 2018, and frankly, there’s been no evidence the preseason that he will be more careful with the ball this season.
Passes are still sailing and spying defenders are still being missed. Garoppolo can be an elite quarterback, but he’s not there yet and interceptable passes are the biggest impediment to him leveling up.
The interceptables are particularly difficult to overlook when they’re in the red zone. Yes, INTs are part of the game — even the most accurate quarterbacks throw them — but Garoppolo showed Saturday he can be easy to read when the field is short.
Garoppolo threw two interceptable passes near the end zone because he locked into Trent Taylor in the slot and the Colts merely read the quarterback’s eyes.
While the Niners’ lack of a bonafide red-zone threat could prove to be a big issue this year, Garoppolo’s struggles in that area can’t be entirely isolated to that. Last year, Garoppolo completed only 37 percent of his passes inside the 10-yard line. (Blake Bortles completed 61 percent.)
That has to improve in 2018 — scheme and elite play-calling can only do so much that close to pay dirt.