49ers HC Kyle Shanahan shared his thoughts about the offensive line
The San Francisco 49ers will face the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the playoffs on Sunday, with kickoff set for 1:30 p.m. PT at Lincoln Financial Field.
San Francisco is coming off a tough 13-3 loss to the Seattle Seahawks that cost them a chance at the No. 1 seed and relegated them to a road game in the wildcard round as the No. 6 seed. In the loss, the 49ers really struggled in all facets offensively. The protection had its ups and downs against a tough Seattle front; the wide receivers couldn’t get much separation, and Brock Purdy couldn’t elevate an offense missing its left tackle and top wideout.
The protection was a big talking point as the 49ers were without Trent Williams in the loss. What did Kyle Shanahan see from his offensive line on Saturday?
“Yeah, it was a tough game, and we knew it would be going into it. There were a couple of times, especially that last third down, there were a few times that they got edges on our tackles,” Shanahan said about the offensive line. “The fourth-and-one was a big one, and the last third down was a big one. But, I also think they had a number of plays where they did give us time, but we didn’t take advantage of those, didn’t score on those drives. Going against a defense like that, you are going to have some bad plays, which they did. But, by no means were they not up for the challenge on other plays, also.”
Overall, the head coach felt the 49ers just made too many mistakes.
“The game tape was very much what we expected to see,” Shanahan continued. “We knew we had a big challenge, and we thought we had to play at our best, and we didn’t play at our best. Give credit to them for that. I thought we made too many mistakes, which,h when you’re in the situations we are, there’s not much room for those mistakes. I thought we got some stuff going a little bit more later.
“You talk about the O-Line and stuff, that one drive that we got into the three before we turned it over, those are seven-step drops, really putting a lot of pressure on them to try to get those plays. We were able to get those all the way down there, but then have the turnover on the three. But it just wasn’t clean enough football to beat a good team like that. And we know we can play cleaner.”
It’s a bit of a different matchup now for the offensive line, as they face a Philadelphia defensive front this weekend that has been well-rounded this season. But, they’ve been more middle-of-the-pack when it comes to sack rate and defending the run.
After the game, Shanahan had said Williams would’ve had a ‘much better chance’ to play if the game was on Sunday, but we’ll see how he rests up this week to suit up in Philadelphia. Regardless, the 49ers will need to open up the run, and the game could very well be decided by this matchup.
Williams didn’t practice on Wednesday, but will have an extra day of rest with the 49ers playing on Sunday. In a recent sit-down with Pro Football Talk, Purdy explained the importance of having Williams against the Eagles:
“It’ll be huge. Just what he brings to the table for our offense. Austen did a great job of stepping in, but Trent is a Hall of Famer. Just his presence in the run game, the pass game, you can feel him out there. And his leadership in the locker room and stuff too. He’s a guy that everyone gets behind, and we follow his lead. To have him back for the playoffs is going to be huge.”
Coming off an up-and-down week, we’ll see if the 49ers’ offensive line can stabilize on Sunday.
Category: General Sports
