San Francisco has struggled on one side of the ball for quite some time. Can they improve?
The San Francisco 49ers have seemingly had an issue with their special teams unit for years, which led them to fire former special teams coordinator Richard Hightower and replace him with Brian Schneider.
Still, the issues have persisted, and it seems that the 49ers have a problem arising in nearly every game, be it in the return game or with one of their kickoff units.
With the issues ongoing, how have the 49ers looked to improve that unit during their preparation on a week-to-week basis?
“We devote a lot of meeting time and a lot of practice time [to special teams],” head coach Kyle Shanahan said on Thursday. “We don’t double down on that, the time spent on it, because I feel like we do as much as we can. We have mixed a lot of guys in there. We do feel like guys have gotten better. But it only takes one mistake to cost somebody and it only takes one person.”
“You look at the Seattle game that we had last time, if you go back and you watch all the film, I thought that was one of our chances to have our best special teams game of the year. We caused two turnovers, got both of them, only one counted with the replay stuff. But we had one missed tackle on a big kick return and then they had that second one and you just have those two plays and it can cost you a game. I do think guys are getting better and stuff, but we’ve got to make sure that we don’t make those dumb plays where we can cause a penalty, where we can cause a turnover and those are the things that we’ve really got to clean up.”
The special teams aspect is always difficult on a team, as one minor mistake can be a significant swing, especially if it comes to the turnover department. But, the 49ers have also struggled in coverage at times, putting their defense in a sub-optimal situation to start drives.
With an offense as successful as San Francisco’s, specifically between the 20s, it’s a detriment when the 49ers gift their opponent a chance to climb back in with a turnover, such as Jacob Cowing’s muffed punt last weekend against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
One of the underrated issues has been injuries, propping players into more important roles and leaving others deeper on the depth chart into higher-leverage situations on special teams.
“It’s real difficult. You’ve got the choices you’ve got and as guys get, right when you get comfortable with somebody and, you start out the year playing a lot of young guys and you think they’ll get better as the year goes and then some of your vets get hurt and now those young guys are starters,” Shanahan said. “And so, that bumps other guys up and it hurts their development...