Your daily San Francisco 49ers links for Tuesday, January 12, 2020
The Dallas Cowboys hired Dann Quinn as their defensive coordinator Monday afternoon. Now that the college football season is officially over, we’ll do mock drafts on the site. The only thing to draw from these is how different the players listed in January and where they’re ranked compared to where they’re rank come April.
49ers’ Raheem Mostert, Deebo Samuel led the league in these Next Gen Stats metrics
According to Next Gen Stats, Mostert did finish the season recording the two fastest ball-carrier speeds. He hit 23.09 MPH during Week 2 against the New York Jets, a game he left with an MCL sprain, and forcing the running back to miss the next two matchups.
Mostert was tracked reaching 22.73 MPH during a Week 1 touchdown reception against the Arizona Cardinals.
Wide receiver Deebo Samuel led the league in average separation. That’s the distance measured between an offensive player and the nearest defender at the time of a catch or incompletion. Samuel averaged 4.6 yards of separation.
The next-closest player was Green Bay Packers tight end Robert Tonyan, who averaged 4.2 yards of separation.
Adding Watson through a trade would result in a major upgrade to the most important position on the team while also reducing the cap expense by more than sixteen million dollars for 2021 because the Texans will be stuck with the signing bonus as dead salary cap. This savings would go a long way towards helping the organization bring back their two most important pending free agents, Trent Williams and Jason Verrett. If the 49ers could find another pass rushing gem like Kerry Hyder on a cheap prove it deal their defense could be pretty much the same group that kept them in games throughout 2020, only better with Nick Bosa returning to the lineup.
Raiders, Cowboys get jump on 49ers with D-coordinator openings
Saleh, whose departure for a head-coaching job would provide the 49ers with compensation, is a known candidate for the current head-coaching vacancies with the Falcons, Lions, Jets, Jaguars and Chargers.
Ryans, whose 10-year NFL playing career ended in 2015, has helped mold 49ers All-Pro linebacker Fred Warner and second-year standout Dre Greenlaw during his time with the 49ers. Ryans has received support from former 49ers and current NBC Sports Bay Area analysts Donte Whitner, Takeo Spikes and Ian Williams.
It seems reasonable that if Shanahan truly believes Ryans will be a defensive coordinator, then he should not take the chance of letting him get away to fill that position with some other team.
No offseason news for players will be good news for the 49ers. They dealt with COVID-19 issues and injuries to multiple receivers in the 2020 offseason. They also saw injuries derail their season beginning in Week 1 and continuing through the end of the season. There’s no good answer for their rash of ankle sprains, a couple torn ACLs and other ailments that sidelined players throughout the year. We may not see a change in personnel for San Francisco, but staying healthy throughout the offseason, and managing the draft and free agency with injury history in mind will play key roles for the 49ers’ health next season.
State of the 49ers, QB edition: How Jimmy Garoppolo and others truly stacked up
Garoppolo was less accurate and efficient in 2020, dropping below league average in both ANY/A and CPAE. The latter decline is at least partly a product of Shanahan’s heavy reliance on pitch sweeps to receivers, many of which technically counted as passes and didn’t boost his CPAE. This, of course, was a reflection of a 49ers’ offensive line that was again much more effective run blocking than it was in pass protection — a factor that must be considered in any QB evaluation.
Garoppolo finished only 1-for-10 on passes that traveled over 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. He’d actually led the NFL in completion percentage on such throws in 2019 (57 percent), but attempted only 35 of them that season. This is a reflection of both the 49ers’ offensive style and Garoppolo’s comparative strengths and weaknesses. The aforementioned pass protection issues, Garoppolo’s quick release and the 49ers’ receiving personnel combined to dictate a shorter passing game predicated on facilitating yards after the catch.
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