San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bears at 49ers, 1:05 p.m.: S.F. head coach creative with backups.
Minus key men, San Francisco’s offense closes in on yards record
Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan has created a solid offense from spare parts.
The team enters Sunday’s game against the Bears at Levi’s Stadium on pace to pass for 4,256 yards, which would match the 1998 team for the fourth-most in franchise history.
The quarterback on the 1998 49ers: Hall of Famer Steve Young, who made 15 starts.
The quarterbacks on the 2018 49ers: Jimmy Garoppolo (three starts), C.J. Beathard (five) and Nick Mullens (six).
Bears head coach Matt Nagy, a fellow ex-offensive coordinator, said he has “a lot of respect” for what Shanahan has orchestrated this season.
“He’s doing a really good job schematically with the guys,” Nagy said.
About those guys: Few outside the Bay Area have heard of them.
Injuries to Garoppolo, starting running back Jerick McKinnon and the 49ers’ top two wide receivers, Marquise Goodwin and Pierre Garcon, are why their top passer (Mullens), top rusher (Matt Breida) and second-leading receiver (Kendrick Bourne) are 2017 undrafted free agents.
Still, the 49ers (4-10) rank 10th in the NFL in rushing and seventh in yards per pass attempt. They are 13th in total offense (yards per game) after ranking 12th last year, which is notable: They haven’t finished in the top half of the NFL in total offense in backto-back years since 2002-2003, when they had a Pro Bowl quarterback (Jeff Garcia) and a Hall of Fame wideout (Terrell Owens).
Shanahan has done it the past two seasons with Beathard, Mullens and Brian Hoyer starting 22 of 30 games. How does he do it?
“His play actions, his (bootlegs), his (deep passes) and then, of course, his running game,” Nagy said. “He does a really good job of making all those fit with one another. It makes it hard on defenses to know what’s coming.”
About the play-action passes. Mullens leads the NFL with 11.5 yards per attempt on such throws, according to Pro Football Focus. But he doesn’t take credit for that stat.
“Shoot, you look at all of us: All three quarterbacks that have played this year have been very successful in playaction,” Mullens said. “That’s (about) coach Shanahan’s success scheming a lot of great play-action passes up.”
Shanahan’s scheme will meet its most formidable challenge of 2018 on Sunday when facing a defense overseen by former 49ers coordinator Vic Fangio: The Bears (10-4) have allowed the third-fewest points (18.9) and third-fewest yards (310.9) in the NFL, while ranking first in takeaways (35) and fourth in sacks (45).
The game evokes echoes from 2017.
Last year, the 49ers faced Jacksonville’s top-ranked defense in Week 16. The result: The 49ers’ won 44-33 and Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey later said their offensive explosion was more about Shanahan’s playbook than Garoppolo’s passing.
“It was a lot of scheme stuff,” Ramsey said. “It wasn’t like he was just dicing us up.” This week, Shanahan has sounded eager to pit his scheme against Fangio’s for the second straight season. Last year, the 49ers didn’t score a touchdown in a 15-14 win over the Bears.
“Vic’s just unique in that everything is tied together. Whatever (play) you think you have on him, it could be good, but they have a counter off of it,” Shanahan said. “It’s very, very similar to our offense.”
Shanahan’s offense isn’t without flaws. Most notably, the 49ers rank last in the NFL in scoring touchdowns inside the red zone, converting on just 41.9 percent of their trips inside the 20-yard line.
The red-zone problems explain why the 49ers rank just 22nd in the NFL in points scored. And it’s been an ongoing issue for Shanahan. His units will have ranked in the bottom of the league in the red zone in eight of his 11 seasons as a play-caller.
On the whole, however, Shanahan’s play-calling has inspired optimism for 2019.
Just think: What could he do if he wasn’t assembling spare parts?