The 49ers, however, came in ranked 25th against the run and 28th against the pass.
Advertisement
NO OFFENSE, BUT…: With a grand total of 52 points the past three games, the Bears aren’t exactly lighting it up on offense. Throughout his career, Gould has been the staple of consistency.
Gould is the ninth most-accurate kicker in National Football League history with a 85.397 percentage. “When I walk out onto the field with that group of guys, group of men, there’s nothing I’d rather do and there’s no other people I’d rather go out on the field with”. He missed both of his field-goal attempts, including a 36-yard effort as regulation expired.
-Tomsula keeps his job, Baalke keeps his job, everybody is comfortable heading into 2016. He certainly blamed himself after the game.
“I was thinking about this long and hard last night and we put a big emphasis on being road warriors”, Long said.
“He’s taking what the defence gives him and not trying to force anything”, running back Shaun Draughn said Monday. High points like back-to-back final drive wins or a triumph at Green Bay were not. But Pinion’s first punt almost was returned for a touchdown when a deceptive Bears return completely fooled the 49ers’ special-teams unit. Receiver Torrey Smith was not one of them.
Marcus Mariota scored the go-ahead touchdown on an 87-yard run midway through a wild fourth quarter, and Tennessee edged Jacksonville to snap its 11-game home losing streak.
Next Week: Another 10 a.m. game as the 49ers travel to Cleveland to play the (2-10) Browns. Today was the wrong day for the Bears offense to stall out.
COACHING: C-minus. Offensive coordinator Adam Gase seemed unwilling to have Jay Cutler throw downfield. Jenkins said that the Bears were focused before this game, but “focus” is fluid and the Bears are 5-7 in very large part because of how they played at the end of the game – if there was focus in all three areas, it wasn’t apparent – as well as how they played at the beginning, not looking like they were fully ready to play.
“There were a lot of good things that we did, just not enough good things to get the ‘W.’ Like any loss this year, we’ll evaluate it and mistakes, got to admit them and then you fix them and not let them happen again, so hopefully we take that into the fourth quarter of our season”.
Smith’s heroics wouldn’t come until 2:10 into the extra period, to scintillatingly open (and close) the 49ers’ second possession.
And it was a game in which the 49ers looked like the sure loser even after they rallied to tie the game at 20 with 1:42 remaining, Gabbert doing most of the damage with his legs and scoring the tying touchdown on a 44-yard scramble up the middle. Coming into this season I had no clue how he would fit into this new Bears 3-4 defense.
The bigger issue is if the Bears weren’t one of the five worst red zone teams in the NFL, Gould’s kicks against San Francisco would have been unnecessary and therefore irrelevant. Young has really accepted the rush end/linebacker position.
It was a far cry from the kicker who, after booting a game-winner against the Raiders, invoked Jordan when describing his penchant for playing the hero’s role. It is a long way from the reports he wanted to be traded out of town. Truthfully, barring unforeseen catastrophic circumstances and despite the fact that it doesn’t appear Jed York is going anywhere anytime soon, I can’t imagine missing a game any time during the next 20 years either.
It doesn’t surprise Tomsula that Gabbert is making the most of his second opportunity as a starter. “You are going to lose, and you are going to win, but you have to continue to play all 16 games”, he told the franchise’s official website.
Advertisement
FLICKERING HOPES: The Bears’ playoff hopes took a huge hit with this loss.
