49ers news: 3 winners, 4 losers, and 2 IDKs from the Vikings loss

Early season losses when you have a first-year coordinator are learning experiences. The San Francisco 49ers fell to the Minnesota Vikings 23-17, in a somewhat predictable spot after traveling on a short week after a dominant performance the week prior.

The Niners made too many mistakes to win. You can’t turn the ball over on the road multiple times, allow six sacks, gift your opponent ten points due to a short field, have a blocked punt, or fail to convert twice on fourth down and expect to win. The fact that the game was competitive was a Christmas miracle.

That shows you how talented the 49ers are, but talent can only get you so far in this sport. Let’s talk through some of the winners and losers from Sunday.

Winners

Fred Warner

The game was close because of No. 54. He single-handedly saved ten points thanks to an interception that resembled a pirouette and a classic peanut punch on the 1-yard line. Turnovers will be a theme for the 49ers defense this season, and Warner showed how valuable those are.

But it wasn’t just those plays where Warner made his presence felt. Warner forced two fumbles, had a tackle for loss, broke up a pass on third down, led the defense with nine tackles tied for the team lead in pressures despite only rushing four times, and had six run stops. Oh, and a sack.

Warner masked several ongoing issues the Niners have on this side of the ball. Losing the game shouldn’t dampen what might be one of the best performances you’ll see from a defensive player all season. Warner was superb.

Jordan Mason

Mason is going to earn a lot of money this offseason if he continues the torrid pace that he’s on.

Through two weeks, Mason has tied for the most 10+ yard carries, 15+ miles per hour rushes, first downs, and broken tackles. He’s second in the league in rushing, but he’s doing a lot of the work on his own—at least, that was the case this game. More than 75 percent of Mason’s total yardage has come after contact.

One of the worries coming into Sunday was how Mason would hold up in pass protection. He had back-to-back plays where he put the blitzing linebacker on his back. That should give the coaching staff confidence to leave Mason on the field on every down, so the offense doesn’t have to tip its hand, whether running or throwing the ball.

Deebo Samuel

Sunday was the best I’ve seen Deebo look in the past calendar year. Maybe it’s because he primarily saw zone, but when you look at where Deebo won, it was at the intermediate level:

Samuel averaged three yards per separation on ten targets, with an average of 10.6 air yards per target. Deebo getting open down the field while still creating after the catch is a positive development that makes it easy to come away thinking the 49ers will return to last week and 2023, and Week 2 was nothing more than a bump in a long drive to the playoffs.

Losers

Pass rush

It’s not ideal when a linebacker (Warner) and cornerback (Deommodore Lenoir) are tied for the team lead in pressures for a game.

It would always take time for defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen to play around with his personnel. In Sorensen’s defense, this was the first game for Yetur Gross-Matos, and it looked like it. Sorensen is still figuring out the different types of games he can run and which downs to do those on.

It’s not a fair comparison, but watching DeMeco Ryans create pressure on seemingly every third down on Sunday Night Football while Sorensen blitzed four without any movement was eye-opening.

If the 49ers are going to rush four consistently — they only blitzed Darnold on 9.7 percent of his dropbacks, leading to Darnold only needing to throw it into a tight window 7.7 percent of the time — then the defensive line better get home.

Nick Bosa and Javon Hargrave were the only two defensive linemen with more than two pressures. They each had two. Leonard Floyd and Maliek Collins had one each, and that was it.

Through two weeks, the 49ers are in the bottom 10 in total pressures and pressure rate. It’s a small sample size, but it is affecting the team’s ability to get off the field.

De’Vondre Campbell

It feels like a prisoner-of-the-moment analysis to compare Campbell to what we just saw on Sunday Night Football, but watching him compared to Azeez Al-Shaair was night and day—not just statistically but from an attitude standpoint.

At one point, Azeez took on the entire Chicago Bears sideline and taunted them with trash talk late in the fourth quarter. You don’t see that type of energy from Campbell.

Campbell often gets caught in no man’s land in coverage, which led to Sam Darnold picking up a first down after gaining 16 yards. He’s slow to trigger downhill — the most pertinent distinction between him and Dre Greenlaw — and that routinely cost the defense on Sunday.

Campbell was responsible for the 25-yard run that led to points in the second quarter and a long third-down conversion just before the half. Obviously, the front office had no intentions of dishing out a lucrative contract to a third linebacker as Greenlaw recovers. However, two games in, the starting linebackers are playing two different sports.

George Odum

I wouldn’t fault anybody for not being able to cover Justin Jefferson. When that somebody is a safety, it’s a coaching issue. Still, there are facets of the game you take for granted when Talanoa Hufanga is on the field, much like with Greenlaw.

In Odum’s case, it’s being where you’re supposed to. He tends to freelance in coverage, which led to a couple of first downs. He’s been a bit out of control through two weeks. You’re not going to come down too harshly on Odum, as he’s filling in and is a lifetime special teamer, but the drop-off has been too noticeable to ignore.

Everybody to the right of Trent Williams

One week after rave reviews from the offensive line, they came back down to earth in Minnesota. The Vikings present several challenges with the blitzes and different areas from which they come. Brock Purdy was blitzed over 49 percent of the time, sacked six times, and pressured on 34 percent of his dropbacks, which is well above league average.

The only issues Dominick Puni had during training camp were handling stunts. That was on display on Sunday. PFF credited right tackle Colton McKivitz for a team-high six pressures. He has struggled to hold up 1-on-1 in pass protection.

Jake Brendel has two to three plays a game where he’s looking back at Purdy or on his back. I’d argue that Banks was worse than them all. He consistently overran linebackers in the running game and had more blown blocks, by my count, than anybody else.

What Trent Williams is doing is nothing short of spectacular, but it’s difficult to notice when everybody to his right is struggling to some degree.

IDKs

Brock Purdy

It was a strange game for the Niners’ quarterback. The Vikings broke up four of Purdy’s passes as a direct result of him staring down his targets. I thought a couple of the sacks Brock took were on him. He also missed open receivers and made some throws more complex than they needed to be.

But I wouldn’t consider Week 2 a “bad” game for Purdy. He finished 17th in EPA per dropback but completed 77.8 percent of his throws with the fifth-highest yards per attempt of the week. His fourth-down throw to Jauan Jennings was a thing of beauty, and Purdy continued to push the ball down the field despite facing pressure every other dropback.

Only Bryce Young threw into more tight windows in Week 2 than Purdy. I think some of that is on him, but you can also attribute the lack of separation to the wideouts and play calls.

The fumble-interception-whatever-that-was turnover was flukey, but the interception could have been multiple the way he locked in on his receivers.

The coordinators

The way Mason was running, you should be comfortable knowing you couldn’t convert on 4th & 1 and 4th & 2 if he didn’t convert those plays. I thought Brian Flores and Kevin O’Connell outcoached Kyle Shanahan and Nick Sorensen.

Shanahan’s line didn’t hold up, and I think he went away from what worked because of it too early. Mason did whatever he wanted to, but there were ample examples of Purdy having time to throw the ball down the field and move the chains. Penalties don’t help. The Niners were behind the chains a bunch of times to start the game, but it was a weird game for Shanahan, who was actually aggressive when he needed to be!

As for Sorensen, he has to find a way to feature his best players. If you watch Lenoir guard Justin Jefferson without knowing who he is, you will come away thinking he was a top-10 cornerback. Lenoir is far too talented of a player to sit underneath in zone coverage on the opposite side of the field, away from the action. He jammed Jefferson twice, disrupting him enough to force incompletions or Darnold to look elsewhere. Lenoir had two run stops and two pressures while only allowing six yards on two targets.

Similarly, Charvarius Ward was only targeted three times. If you’re going to lose, lose with your best players. Don’t have them playing off coverage and running with the WR4 of the other team. It’s early, and Sorensen is sharp enough to adjust, but it was a peculiar game plan. Darnold was too comfortable and never had to worry about Mooney or Lenoir. When he did, those two won; when he didn’t….well.