After a rough start to the season, Brian Hoyer has nowhere to go but up after his first two games in with the San Francisco 49ers.
After dropping their season-opener to the Panthers 23-3, and following up with a 12-9 loss to the Seahawks in Week 2, the 49ers are the only NFL team besides the Bengals that have not scored a touchdown in the season. That doesn’t bode well for Hoyer, who has at times looked like a liability instead of the temporary solution he was believed to be.
The 49ers couldn’t convert on an opportunity to pick up their first win on the year in Seattle last Sunday, as Hoyer failed to throw for a touchdown for the second straight game, bringing his scoring drought to 21 straight possessions. In fact, Hoyer completed just 15 out of his 27 pass attempts, throwing for just 99 yardsin the team’s loss.
“I was extremely disappointed because I believe we should have (won) and we didn’t get that done,” Shanahan said on KNBR’s The Murph & Mac Show Wednesday. “Hopefully we can get in a bunch of games like that and learn how to win those close ones because I thought we had every opportunity to do it and just in the moment of truth, we didn’t get it done. I know we’re all very disappointed about that, but I was very pleased and proud of the way the guys competed and fought.”
But besides Hoyer’s lack of performance, Shanahan still believes the quarterback possesses the skill set needed to drive the Niners into the win column on Thursday, when San Francisco takes on another division foe in the Los Angeles Rams.
“I just want him (Hoyer) to get his edge back,” he said. “I just want him to get his confidence. We haven’t helped him do that here in these first two games. He’s had a challenge going against two good defenses and we haven’t played it around him and he hasn’t played it either. I thought our team got a little bit better especially running the ball against Seattle and we need him to do it too. He’s done it before. He’s done it in practice and we haven’t gotten it done in these first two games. After Sunday night I think we all had a bad feeling and I think we were pretty happy that this game was coming in four days instead of seven days, because there’s only one way to fix this and you’ve got to get out and go do it.
“Brian’s got to step it up and we’ve got to step it up around him to go help him and I’m looking forward to getting to this game so we have an opportunity to go do that.”
Listen to the full podcast below. To hear Shanahan’s remarks on Hoyer, skip to 5:20.