49ers-Vikings: Richard Sherman calls Justin Jefferson’s touchdown unacceptable

Did you hate the Sam Darnold-Justin Jefferson 97-yard touchdown on Sunday? You aren’t alone. Richard Sherman didn’t like it either.

One of the plays everyone is talking about, and San Francisco 49ers fans will soon forget, was a ridiculous play by Sam Darnold. From his own Vikings endzone, he threw a deep ball across the field to Justin Jefferson, who caught and hauled it in—a 97-yard touchdown pass.

It begs repeating: Sam Darnold was in his own endzone.

Gross.

Sherman discussed his play on his Richard Sherman Podcast and said what many fans were saying on social media. Specifically, it’s unacceptable.

“They allowed him [Sam Darnold] to throw a 97-yard touchdown pass to Justin Jefferson. Unacceptable. No matter what part of the game you’re in, no matter what situation, no matter if it’s backed up—whatever the situation is. You have two safeties guarding Justin Jefferson. He split the defense. You should never put those guys in that situation. He should be doubled at all times. He’s the best player on their [the Minnesota Vikings] football team. He’s not a guy that you should let loose, not have an eye on, or say “ah they’re going to run the ball. Let them run the ball in that situation.”

There’s a whole lot of things that went wrong in that play. Many wondered if the reason Malik Mustapha came in after the touchdown was to reshuffle the position, but Kyle Shanahan denied it.

And really, Sherman’s right, you can’t blame the players on that. The play call/scheme? That’s fair game.

There’s no reason why you put two safeties on a wide receiver like Justin Jefferson. And you especially shouldn’t put two safeties on Justin Jefferson. And yes, maybe they could have angled themselves better to keep the catch at midfield, but as Sherman says, it never should have gotten to that.

Let them run, let them do a short pass, don’t let them get a 97-yard touchdown out of their own endzone. Richard Sherman calls it unacceptable. For a defense that had some respect going into that game, embarrassing is another solid word to use.

Last year, in that same stadium, no less, it was the Cover-0 call that solidified the Steve Wilks defense. Given that this is Week 2, it’s a bit premature to say this questionable call defines the Nick Sorensen defense. There were some things you saw in the New York Jets game that even in Week 1 were a breath of fresh air. The best example is seeing the 4th down stop, where the 49ers became a brick wall and stopped the Jets from getting a yard. The touchdown early the Jets had? The 49ers adjusted after and were nigh-filthy for it.

So there was a lot of good. Then, in Week 2, it was almost the exact opposite. Well, except for Fred Warner, who plays like a god on the field. Schematic-wise, it all seemed very familiar.

Kyle Shanahan also gets a bit of an eyebrow raise. He’s called time-outs when he doesn’t like his defense formation on the field (see: Super Bowl). I get he’s trying to help Sorensen and set him up to succeed, but calling a time-out isn’t the worst of moves if that call hits the headset. In hindsight, there is always 20:20.

Usually, after losses (and a play) like that, I do a post where I bring out the Heat-O-Meter. We’ll give it another week before resorting to those. The bigger question right now as the season goes on is digging deeper to this 49ers defensive issue, should we continue seeing these things. It was widely regarded the defensive line would be taking a step back, but the secondary was thought of as making up for it. That’s what they say, anyway. Would this again be a coaching issue? Or is the scheme Kyle Shanahan wants to run, the scheme that was once thought of as innovative and brought great defenses under Robert Saleh and DeMeco Ryans, becoming stale and outdated?

Again, it’s Week 2. You can get an idea of the team’s identity by now (and for the 49ers, it’s “Work in Progress” with all the injuries), but is the defense “good” or “bad”? That’s just overreacting. That said, that one play raises a lot of questions—and for good reason. It’s one of those things that the 49ers would like to have back, and it’s not something that resulted from something you can just coach up over the week

Like that Cover-0 call, again, it was against the same team in the same stadium.