© Sergio Estrada | 2018 Sep 16
The 49ers nearly blew their season-opening win over Detroit by allowing 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.
Richard Sherman won’t let his team forget about it.
After San Francisco’s 30-27 victory, Sherman said postgame that it “feels like a loss.” The 49ers led, 30-13, in the fourth quarter, only to allow consecutive touchdown drives of 80 and 79 yards, then throw an interception that was fortunate to be wiped away due to a defensive holding penalty away from the play.
Sherman was incensed at the defensive performance to close the game. The Lions marched downfield by heavily targeting the left side, opposite from Sherman, exposing Ahkello Witherspoon and Jimmie Ward. Sherman did not allow a catch on the afternoon and was targeted just once in San Francisco’s first win of the season.
That wasn’t enough to satisfy the three-time first-team All-Pro.
“Late in that game, we didn’t execute on defense,” Sherman told reporters Thursday. “There’s a difference between getting beat one on one, and a guy making a heck of a play, and us getting beat on things that we could have picked somebody out of the stands to put out there and they would’ve been able to execute it… It’s lapses like that that you can’t have and play championship football.”
The mental mistakes began early. The Lions’ first touchdown was gifted to them when Witherspoon bit on a simple play-action and disregarded his assignment.
One of the plays Sherman highlighted was Detroit’s 15-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. With the 49ers leading, 30-20, they forced the Lions into a 3rd and 15 at the goal line. Detroit scored on a touchdown pass in the left corner.
“They can’t beat you with anything but a throw to the end zone, and we give up a throw to the end zone,” Sherman said. “That’s the stuff that’s frustrating.”
The 49ers are still in the middle of an accelerated rebuild, but the expectation in Santa Clara has changed in 2018. They’re expected to win now. Sherman has been as integral a part of changing that standard as anyone this season. The 30-year-old chose to sign with San Francisco within the first 28 hours of his free agency because he views it as a win-now team.
These 49ers are light-years ahead of last year’s team through two weeks. But they still show signs of inexperience. Coaches and players have cited miscommunication on several mishaps, whether wrong routes or defensive breakdowns, throughout the opening two weeks. Championship teams rarely have those incidents of miscommunication consistently.
“They’ve got to get to a point where they know what each other’s thinking without ever having to communicate it, because eventually our crowd is going to be rocking and they’re not going to be able to hear each other from five yards away,” Robert Saleh said last week. “Just that non-verbal communication, just being able to play with each other and communicate so they all see what each other is seeing. When we get to that point where they’ve been playing together for a while and they continue with that non-stop communication it should get pretty good.”
Sherman has been the lock-down corner and communicative leader the 49ers hoped he would be.
There are countless examples of his leadership and ongoing efforts to unite his young counterparts in short time. Throughout the offseason, he took the defensive backs room on Go-Karting trips and dinners. He sat next to rookies in team meetings throughout OTAs and training camp, imparting life advice, from budgeting to staying motivated. He regularly goes through individual drills with his fellow defensive backs after practice. Last Friday, Sherman bought the entire team Beats By Dr. Dre headphones. When the 49ers players saw the boxed gifts sitting on the chairs at their lockers, many of them celebrated like it was Christmas morning.
These team-building exercises strengthen relationships, which naturally builds greater trust and better communication on the field. For a young team, Sherman is trying to accelerate that process, so the early-season mistakes don’t continue to resurface.
Things only get tougher throughout a daunting five-game stretch that fills the 49ers’ upcoming schedule. They play away games at Kansas City in Week 3, Los Angeles (Chargers) in Week 4, and Green Bay in Week 6. The 49ers host the Los Angeles Rams, which have outscored opponents by 54 points through two weeks, in Week 7.
In order to steal a win, the 49ers will have to be mentally sharper down the stretch, a point Sherman has made loud and clear.
“Those snafus that we got away with this week,” Sherman said, “you get to January, you don’t get away with them.”