The San Francisco 49ers had a disappointing 26-21 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars over the weekend, falling to 3-1 in a mistake-ridden game at Levi’s Stadium.
San Francisco struggled with every issue they couldn’t afford: turnovers, special teams miscues, red zone woes, and more.
Defensively, as I mentioned in my takeaways after the game, I thought the 49ers did enough against a good team. They held the Jaguars in check through the air for the most part, and mitigated some of the threat from the best rushing offense in the league, aside from a 48-yard Travis Ettienne Jr. touchdown run early.
But, there was one glaring issue in the team’s first game without Nick Bosa: pressure. The 49ers could not generate much pressure on quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who was pressured at the lowest rate of any quarterback in Week 4.
San Francisco has just five sacks through the first four weeks, and their 11.1 percent pressure rate ranks as 31st in the NFL behind only the Carolina Panthers.
Trevor Lawrence didn’t have an amazing day from a statistical standpoint, and he was able to get the ball out relatively quickly (2.63-second average time to throw). But, San Francisco also struggled with pressure without Bosa in the second half of last weekend’s game, and faced a similar issue in Week 4.
What led to the struggles against the Jaguars?
“I know we didn’t get any sacks and stuff, but I thought their main thing was they ran the ball,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said about the lack of pressure after the game. “They got some explosives in the run game, especially, I think they got a 50-yarder, something like that. So I think that is tough to generate pass rush when they’re dependent on the run like that. It looked like they had way too many quick throws that I thought we needed to be more competitive on. The quarterback got the ball out of his hands fast. When you do that, there’s not many opportunities for sacks.”
“We didn’t blitz a ton in the game,” Shanahan continued on Monday. “When we did, there was pressure, and he got rid of it. I would love to have gotten more on him, but I thought they did a good job of getting rid of it quick and when they didn’t, I thought we had four-man rushes where they were chipping and had double teams, so depend a little bit more on coverage that way. Always want to get more pass rush, but wasn’t a huge concern of that game.”
The 49ers simply don’t have the personnel to rush effectively with four currently, so the blitz rate will likely have to increase to get more pressure in the coming weeks. It already made sense for the 49ers to look for pass-rush help via a trade, which general manager John Lynch acknowledged was a possibility. But, that timeline may need to accelerate if the team is serious about contending in 2025.
Coming up, the 49ers face another challenge with the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday, as quarterback Matthew Stafford has historically been one of the best when it comes to getting the ball out quickly. Stafford has the third-best average time to throw this season.
So, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh has a challenge on his hands, while also understanding that his defense is playing above expectations to date.
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