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As bad as Monday’s 34-24 loss felt, it wasn’t like the 49ers were abysmal. The Buffalo Bills just out-played and out-coached them from the start. They had more talent, and stretched San Francisco in myriad ways.
Rising
Brandon Aiyuk
Aiyuk made his first true mistake of his young career, bobbling a pass and turning it into an interception. The fact that he’s the one riser on this list in spite of that is an indication of his talent and execution.
Five receptions, 95 yards and a touchdown. His 49-yard reception featured exquisite route running, and even better ball tracking and body control to flip his hips and come down with the ball. It gave the 49ers a brief sign of life when they were otherwise deprived of optimism on Monday.
He displayed some savvy, on-the-fly route running, and did so against one of the NFL’s great corners in Tre’Davious White.
Aiyuk is a bona fide No. 1 receiver, and hasn’t lost a step despite a couple weeks on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. He’s up to 40 receptions, 545 receiving yards, 4 TD and a pair of rushing touchdowns. He also returned his first punt of his career, bringing it back for 16 yards, the second-longest return the 49ers have had this year, and the 33rd-longest punt return of the NFL season.
Falling
Tarvarius Moore
His second-straight week here. Good lord was he lost out there. He was burned by Cole Beasley early, missing an open-field tackle and getting lost in coverage twice, and it never really stopped. There were countless times where a receiver found himself wide open, only for Moore to make a late tackle, having blown his assignment.
The most egregious play was a busted coverage. Richard Sherman said the 49ers were in a palms coverage, meaning he reads 2-to-1. In other words, he reads the inside receiver, Number 11, Cole Beasley, and if Beasley runs an underneath pattern, which he did, he covers that, and leaves the vertical stem from Gabriel Davis to the safety, Tarvarius Moore. In the end, there were three players in the area of one receiver in Sherman, Moore and Dontae Johnson, none of whom covered Davis.
Josh Allen found a wide-open Gabriel Davis for a 28-yard TD. Davis had 8.6 yards of separation at pass arrival, the 6th-most on a deep TD this season.
Allen now has a TD pass at every passing depth level (behind LOS, short, intermediate, & deep).#BUFvsSF | Powered by @awscloud pic.twitter.com/kPfd5E0ORI
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) December 8, 2020
Moore is reactive and hasn’t shown signs that he has an instinct for that center fielder-type safety position. At this point, it’s not looking like he is the team’s future at the position.
Arik Armstead
Armstead has been good this year in the run game. But yet again, he could not develop pressure on the quarterback. Yes, sacks aren’t all that matter, but we are 12 games into the season and Armstead has 1.5 sacks on the year, and hasn’t notched even a half sack since Week 4 against Philadelphia.
For a guy who got a five-year, $85 million deal in the offseason, he has to be able to win without help from players like Dee Ford, Nick Bosa and DeForest Buckner. Right now, he’s not showing he can.
There’s a notion that Armstead is getting double-teamed every play and never really has a chance to pressure the quarterback, which is patently untrue.
He wasn’t double-teamed by the Bills on a pass set until there were 40 seconds remaining in the first half, it was when he was lined up as a 3-technique. When he was playing on the edge, Armstead consistently got one-on-ones against Bills right tackle Daryl Williams. Allen often took extended drop backs, so it wasn’t an issue of the ball coming out too quick. Armstead just couldn’t beat him.