The San Francisco 49ers experienced struggling results from their offensive line during their loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football. The belief from head coach Kyle Shanahan is that the 49ers' two offensive tackles were rusty.
For reference, left tackle Joe Staley and right tackle Mike McGlinchey both returned from extended layoffs from injury, and Shanahan knows it's hard to get a feel for the game until a player is on the field during a game.
Shanahan explained that practice is important, but it doesn't fully acclimate players to game action after returning from injury. Despite that fact, he thought they had some ‘good plays' despite having some ‘noticeable bad plays.'
“I think anytime you haven’t played football in a while it’s always a challenge to get back out there no matter what you do in practice,” Shanahan told reporters via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. “It’s tough to get going. I think they had a big challenge ahead of them. I thought Clowney played very well. He’s done it before, but I thought it was definitely his best game of the year, so we’ve got to take that into account.”
“They weren’t at their best. That happens when you have some time off like that. I thought they had their good plays, but definitely had some noticeable bad plays that ended up hurting us a little bit.”
The hope for the 49ers now is that both of their starting offensive tackles will be acclimated to game action and won't be rusty going forward. If that ends up being the case, they could close the season quite strong.
Follow Us
Subscribe