This time the 49ers couldn’t overcome another barrage of injuries to their defense.
A week after the 49ers earned a 20-10 prime-time home win over the Atlanta Falcons, the Niners’ shorthanded defense was on the field for more than 40 minutes, in part because of the struggles of the offense, in a 26-15 road loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday.
The 49ers (5-3) were already playing without injured captains Fred Warner (ankle) and Nick Bosa (knee) on defense, and lost another handful during the game, including linebacker Dee Winters and several defensive linemen.
While the 49ers defense had its hands full with the Texans’ offense, which churned out 475 yards, the Niners offense wasn’t able to stay on the field. The 49ers had four three-and-out series, and had three four-play drives. At least one of those resulted in a score, a 17-yard pass from Mac Jones to George Kittle that cut the 49ers’ deficit to 16-7.
Jones had a third straight pedestrian game in place of the injured Brock Purdy, completing 19-of-32 passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns, but he also threw an interception at the goal line in the fourth quarter. Christian McCaffrey had just eight carries for 25 yards, and three catches for 43 yards.
Here is what head coach Kyle Shanahan, Kittle and Jones said following the game..
Kyle Shanahan
On the defense’s struggles to get off the field:
“It was a little bit of everything. It wasn’t good enough at all in all all three phases. Special teams played the best, but I thought we struggled to tackle, struggled to get a rush, I thought we made too many mistakes in the secondary inside our zone dogs and, felt like we didn’t challenge him enough of man either. So, a little bit of everything.”
On the challenges of losing more players to injury:
“It makes it harder, but I mean we played a lot better last week, so we can do a lot better than we did today.”
If any of the players injured during the game hurt seriously:
“We see. Hopefully not, you know, two ankles didn’t look like highs (sprains). Dee Winters with his knee, just inflammation, things like that. So hopefully we’ll be all right.
On QB Mac Jones’ play:
“He made some plays. And he missed some too. You know, I don’t think anyone on offense did that good. They held on the ball as good as any team that I’ve been around. We had to really take advantage when we did get the ball, and made too many mistakes. When the defense is out there for that long, we can’t go three and out. We had too many of those today. I thought Mack made some big plays. That touchdown at the end of the second quarter. The touchdown to JJ (Juaun Jennings) down the field. Just collectively as an offense, too many mistakes.”
On the loss potentially damaging team morale:
“I would hope not. I mean, we got beat today. Credit to them. They kicked our ass and we got to take it like men and come back hopefully a little pissed off and go to work and play better next week than we did this week.”
On the message to the team:
“There’s not much to sugarcoat there and I was real disappointed in how we looked for all four quarters. The first half was unacceptable and second half didn’t get much better. So, not much to say about about it. Accept that. We’ll look at (video) on the plane and figure out all the things that we know we can correct and that we did mess up. But (I) expect the guys to come in tomorrow with a chip on their shoulder, ready to get back to work.”
On if the Kittle touchdown and Lenoir interception late in the first half felt like momentum shifters:
“I knew we had a chance to, especially when we were starting with the ball out there (to start the second half). I still thought we had a chance at the end in the fourth quarter. I thought there were a couple opportunities where we could have came back, and we didn’t stop them there. They made it a two-score lead there at the end, which was tough. They outplayed us a lot today, but I still thought we had our opportunities to find a way at the end get done.”
If Lenoir should have gone out of bounds after his interception in the final seconds of the first half:
“It’ll be good stuff for us to review with him. I think it’s tough. You know, there’s 11 seconds before the play, so we need awareness of that when it happens. I do think when you catch it by the sidelines and I I think he has time to look to score. But I think once we can’t, we got to get down immediately. So I think it is a little greedy just getting on him for that. I thought it was a hell of a play by Demo. It was nice to break that. stretch that we’ve had of not getting a pick. But it’ll be a good learning situation to kind of cover with all our guys tomorrow.”
On if the loss changes their thoughts on the upcoming trade deadline:
“Nothing changes anything. It has to do with what what’s available out there, and does it help us this year, does it help us next year? Usually as things get closer, you get a little more idea who’s real and who’s not, and we’ll evaluate that for the short term and the long term.”
Was defensive plan to force the Texans into long drives?
“No. No, it wasn’t.”
On the frustration of injuries:
“I mean, injuries are part of the game. I kind of used to get a lot more frustrated with it, and I’m a lot more used to it just over my career. The frustrating part is trying to find answers and it not working throughout that game.”
On the team’s effort
“There’s no place in particular where I was questioning anybody’s effort. I’ll be able to see that in more detail when I get on the plane (to review the game tape). I feel collectively just as a whole, I wish I felt our team a little bit more today. But I you know there was nothing where I saw guys loafing or anything like that, but it’s a little easier for me to see when I study the tape.”
What did he mean by wishing he felt the team more?
“Just coming out. I felt them in the locker room and stuff, and everything, but that first half was tough. I think it was 14 first downs to two. Just the time of possession and everything like that. It was just a tough first half. An unusual first half.”
Was this a reality check for the team?
“Our reality is pretty realistic on what we deal with every week. We knew we had a tough game versus Atlanta (last week), we felt we had a tough game today. All those things, you guys can write about that stuff, but yeah, it’s definitely harder when you lose really good players, but we’ve had that situation throughout this year. I want us to do is play as good as we can play, and then you can deal with whatever. And today, we don’t play as good as we could play.”
George Kittle
On his TD catch
“I was really fun. Basically I just read the safeties. If it’s a single high, I’m across the field, split safeties, I’m right down the middle. Mac could not have put a better ball out out there literally hit me. I didn’t even have to really adjust. Just hit me right in the backside number. It’s a perfect ball. And when you can score right before a half and you know that you’re going to get the ball again, you know, it was opportunity for us to lap them and then we came out second half and went three and out. So, didn’t really get that lap out there that we wanted to get.
On the TD pass to Jake Tonges
“Mac told me he was throwing me. Jake just (has) sticky fingers. I’m glad he caught it. I would have been very mad at him if he would have tipped it up and it went would have gone out of bounds. So, you know, that’s it’s good the tight ends to score on National tight ends day.”
On the offense being off the field so much:
“That first half is tough because I mean, what we had 12 plays in the first half until like the last drive. We didn’t do anything to help our defense in the entire first half. I thought our defense was playing at a really high level, honestly. They’re doing bend but don’t break. I mean, their kicker had what, four field goals? If your defense is holding four field goals they didn’t punt once either, right? I thought our defense played really well for the pieces that were lost during the game, guys who had to come out for the game, guys who had to go in for the game, guys were already missing. I thought our defense played really well.
“They were flying around hitting people. And if you’re holding the team to four field goals and just two touchdowns, our offense has to score points. When you’re three and out, three and out, three and out, three and out, three and out, we’re not really doing anything to help our young defense who’s adjusting and trying to figure out, you know, the way that they want to play football. I think this is really on the offense and I was really proud with how our defense played today.”
On the struggles of the running game vs. the Texans:
“When you have 12 plays in the first half, you can’t get a rhythm, you can’t run the ball. That’s what it is. How many attempts did Christian really have? We just didn’t have any attempts. The run game is because you can stay on the field, you convert third downs; you’re on the field, you’re having 10-play drives. That’s when the run game (works). Credit to them. Yes, they they completely took us out of it. We couldn’t get Christian going. We couldn’t get our run game going. I still think like we’re still getting decent chunks, but then we’re not converting on third down. So then we’re not running the ball, and then in the second half we have to throw the ball every single time.”
On missing the injured members of the offense:
“I love playing football with Ricky (Pearsall) because he’s like (Kendrick Bourne) and he’s just so full of energy and so full of love of the game. So, that’s a guy like I love playing with. I think I’ve said a thousand nice things about Brock (Purdy). You guys know exactly how I feel about him. He’s the best operator of our offense that I’ve ever seen. And then (Brandon) Aiyuk, we paid him $30 million for a reason, because that’s how good he is. You could daydream and think about that stuff and ‘I can’t wait to start playing with those guys again’, but currently, we’re playing with what we got, and I think what we got is enough to win football games, especially today. But when you operate the way that we did in those first three, four drives, which is just honestly really, really bad, is what I would say, from (missed assignments) to procedure penalties to holdings, whatever they were. We just played bad football on offense today.”
On coming into this week with a chip on their shoulder:
“I’m a big 24-hour rule guy. Whoever started that was a genius. You can be sad and depressed about it for 24 hours, and let it go because you can’t do anything to change it. All you can do is learn from it. And so that’s all we’re going to do, I hope. There’s opportunies all over the football field. There’s so many places to learn from it. It’s a humbling sport. Look yourself in the mirror. What did I do wrong? What can I get better at? But if it’s something that you’re just going to like let anchor you down, then that’s going to be tough football for us moving forward. Hopefully we have guys that can, you know, let it go after our meeting tomorrow. and we can move into Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with a fresh start. Yeah, hopefully there’s a chip on our shoulder, hopefully we go run around and practice hard and I think we will. We have right guys in the building. We have aggressive guys in the building, guys that want to win.”
On if the team should be aggressive at the trade deadline:
“Would you have asked me that last week when we held the the Atlanta Falcons to 10 points? I don’t think so. I think we have the right guys. Now let’s think about, you know, who else got hurt today on our defensive line. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. But I think we have a lot of the right guys in the building. A lot of guys who like to play football the right way. I think Saleh gets our young guys playing the right way, and the more reps that the young guys get, the better that they’re going to get.
“I don’t ever worry about a trade deadline thing. There’s nothing I can do.I’m not going to go to Kyle’s office and say, ‘Hey, we need to trade for somebody.’ I just want to get back out there and play more football because that was a horrible first half. It was a really bad performance by our offense, and I think we completely left our young defense, out to dry today because I thought they played really well. The whole day they played bended, don’t break. They gave up two touchdowns and four field goals. Our offense has to score points.We have a veteran offense that needs a score. Yes, we’re missing some key guys obviously, but like we have to score points. And we did not score points today. We didn’t help our defense out at all the entire day.”
Mac Jones
On the offense not taking the field until the game was nearly 10 minutes old:
“I feel like we prepare a certain way for the opening drives, and really like the way we do it here. I’ve been in that situation far too many times where it just hasn’t gotten going. Today just wasn’t our day. So at the end of the day, you got 30 more minutes to play and did okay, but definitely a lot to clean up and just got to be more on our Ps and Q’s.”
On TD pass to Kittle
“I scored actually on very similar play last year (with Jacksonville) against the same defense, and like we had put that in and kind of had that thought on the same play. George made a good good play and the line gave me enough time to rip it in there. So definitely want more of those.”
On coming back this week with a chip on their shoulder:
” I think it’s good. I think my process isn’t going to change. I’m going to come in to work and follow my schedule, and I do that whether we win or lose, so I don’t think that changes for me. But it is good to get the wake up call. I know I want to get back in the ring, and to do that you’ve got to practice well and and have a good process leading up to it. I know we have the right guys and it wasn’t our day today. It is what it is.”
On the Texans defense being what he expected:
“They do what they do. They’ve done the same thing the past five years. They’re really good though. They’ve all played together for a long time and I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys. I’ve gone against them three times in the last year, and every time I’ve left the field thought they were the best defense in the NFL. We’ve had a couple of those these past couple weeks, and really it’s about us, to be honest. When we do what we do, I think it can be pretty good. When we don’t, that’s what you get.”
On Purdy possibly returning soon:
“We’ll see. I’ve played a lot of different roles in this league, and my process stays the same. You prepare as a starter, and definitely want to just be better. Every game we’ve played when I’m back there, we’ve had a chance, and today I just didn’t feel like we had a chance. I know I can can get us to that fourth quarter, and when I do, usually it ends up good. The guys around me have done a great job when we’ve been in those situations. That’s my goal every week is to get to the fourth. We couldn’t do that this week.”
How to stay focused the offense was on the sideline for long stretches:
“Just stick to my process, prepare, do my stretching. and stay warm whether it’s long drives or not. But I feel bad for the defense because when you’re out there for that many plays, it’s hard to just play. You get tired. Even if we just get a couple first downs, it gives some pressure off them. So, got to be better there. Obviously want to score points, but even just moving the ball and flipping the field can be good. It thought we did that better in the second half, but you’ve obviously got to put points up to beat people. You just try to get to the fourth quarter, and really our defense has come up clutch in those situations and so has our offense. Most every game we’ve been in the fourth quarter, we’ve won.”
On the mistakes on offense:
“I didn’t think the operation was as clean as what I would like it to be, and it starts with the quarterback and pushing the tempo in practice and cranking up the noise and just really treating every day like a game. Getting in and out of the huddle. really just everything before the ball’s even snapped.I can live with post-snap mistakes like if we have a drop or like I don’t throw a good pass, but if I’m not looking at the right spot or people are running the wrong routes, then you have no chance. We have a veteran group and, we have to have the want to get back in the ring and keep fighting. “
