NFC West Notebook with a Seattle Seahawks bias

San Francisco 49ers

There’s no kind way of saying it. There aren’t much by way of expectations for the San Francisco 49ers in the 2017 season. Many don’t even believe they have their franchise quarterback yet. The expectation is that the team will aggressively pursue Kirk Cousins once his tenure with the District’s wayward team comes to an end (which is all but certain after team executive Bruce Allen’s series of gaffes, calling Kirk “Kurt” and laying the blame for stalled negotiations firmly on the quarterback), relegating projected starter Brian Hoyer to either QB2 or a journeyman once again in 2018.

In the regular season, the 49ers don’t pose much of a threat to the Seattle Seahawks’ quest to win the NFC West. Unless rookie head coach Kyle Shanahan finds a way to inspire his players to play lights out every single down and/or spends a fair amount of the team’s overhead and resources on researching the Dark Arts, I think we can chalk the two contests against the one-time rivals as Seahawks Ws.

That said, there is talent on the team

I just don’t see it being used to its full potential this season. As our colleagues over at Niners Noise pointed out earlier this week, there’s a decent wide receiver corps out in the Bay Area. With Hoyer the likely starting quarterback, there’s not much chance that Pierre Garcon, Marquise Goodwin, Jeremy Kerley and rookie standout Trent Taylor rack up gaudy yardage numbers, especially not when Hoyer went 1 of 4 for three yards over two series against the Kansas City Chiefs. Note exactly inspiring play from the veteran.

C.J. Beathard impressed, however, going 7 of 11 for 101 yards and 2 touchdowns. ESPN felt the rookie “outplayed both quarterbacks ahead of him on the depth chart.” Matt Barkley didn’t look terrible either. But he settled for 10 of 17 for 168 yards, leading the team to two field goals. Still, I don’t see Kyle Shanahan moving away from Hoyer—a known quantity after their shared stint in Cleveland—unless something dramatic happens over the next few preseason games.

That leaves the team likely adopting a similar strategy to that of Jim Harbaugh’s when he took over the 49ers and had Alex Smith as quarterback: develop a strong run game (which Carlos Hyde is capable of delivering), keep the passes short to intermediate and lean on the defense to keep things close. Sadly for Shanahan, he isn’t inheriting the untapped talent that Harbaugh did when he and his khakis collection made the short jump from Stanford to Candlestick.