2009 Fantasy Recap – San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers- For anyone who doesn’t believe a tough coach can get the best out of his players, Mike Singletary has proved you wrong.  In 2008 he took over a terrible SF team, whipped out his johnson, and in just one short year, turned around the careers of two draft day busts.  Vernon Davis led the league at his position and Alex Smith’s flat-lining career was resuscitated.   

Vernon Davis tied the NFL record for touchdowns by a tight end in a season with 13 and led the team with nearly 1,000 yards receiving.  To put into perspective how good Davis was, he finished ahead of names like Dallas Clark and Antonio Gates, with Alex Smith under center.  Gates and Clark have all-pro QBs under center. 

Frank Gore re-established himself as an every-down RB going for 1,526 total yards and 13 total TDs.  The only problem with Frank last year was his consistency.  He had 5 games where he didn’t even break 40 yards and then four monster games where the bulk of the above numbers were accomplished – weeks 2, 14, 16, and 17 he combined for 6 of his 13 TDs and 707 of 1,526 total yards – that’s nearly half of his production – and week 17 was meaningless and not typically when fantasy stats are being accumulated.     He also continued the trend of the last two seasons of getting injured and missing a game.

Michael Crabtree waltzed into the Bay area after a lengthy hold out that cut 5 games into his rookie season and rattled off 625 yards and a couple of TDs – seemingly, in his sleep. 

Alex Smith closed the season with a 16.2 fantasy PPG average over 12 games, which was good for a top 24 billing among QBs – he remains a decent backup.

Passing Offense  

Rushing Offense  

2010 Offensive Line Analysis

 San Francisco 49ers 2010 Oline analysis – provided by UltimateFFstrategy.com

2010 Offensive Philosophy

Its year number 2 in the Mike Singletary era, and he is sitting on a team that many think could take the weakfish NFC West.  That’s like saying that you are going bowling and going to knock down some pins.  Stick a fork in Arizona, they’re done.  Seattle is in a re-building mode, yet you wouldn’t guess it with Hasselbeck still under center, and St. Louis is going to win another 1 games in 2010 – if they’re lucky.    

Returning to command the offense for the second year is 19-year NFL average veteran Jimmy Raye.  Here’s a brief history of Raye:  He has done nothing impressive in his last 20 years of running offenses and coaching running backs.  Oh wait, I found something, are you sitting?  Elvis Grbac was a top ten fantasy QB in 99-00 under Raye II’s tutelage. 

Air: The 49ers want to be a running team, but do not have a RB beyond Gore that they can count on, so the aerial attack will continue to be an area of focus.  Michael Crabtree will benefit from an entire off-season with the team and his numbers should grow because of it.  How the targets will get distributed remains an excellent question.   Here’s an interesting stat… Smith targeted Crabtree 86 times in 2009 – in 11 games.  Amortized over 16 games that comes to 125 targets, which would have made him the 17^th most targeted WR in 2009.  The only area to be concerned with Crabtree is the red zone.  VD and Gore get a ton of looks in the red zone.  Crabtree only saw 4 RZ targets in 2009 – whereas Josh Morgan saw 15.    

VD is in a contract year, and I don’t expect that the ‘Niners will extend him before he can prove that 2009 was no fluke.  He should continue to put forth the type of effort that led to his breakout last year.   Alex Smith is an ex-factor, and the ‘Niners went out and signed another “Biggie-sized” bust (I just ate at Wendy’s) in David Carr just in case.  David Carr is to bad, what Bill Simmons is to 2000 word paragraphs about his childhood as a Celtics fan.   

Ground:  Frank Gore has been up and down over the last four years – through no fault of his own, though.    After a breakout 2006 campaign, the Niners’ offense plunged into a toilet in 2007 and 2008.  Gore still managed RB2 numbers, but he could have done a lot better with some help.  He is a safe pick from an overall numbers perspective, but the risk for injury is always there – he hasn’t played in 16 games in 3 seasons. Glen Coffee has been brutal averaging 2.7 yards per attempt in 2009 and it doesn’t look like the Niners are investing more snaps in him so don’t even look in his direction.

QB

Alex Smith - Will he continue his on-field affair with Vernon Davis?  Or will Michael Crabtree make it a love-triangle?  Smith owners are hoping for the latter.  But does it matter?  Singletary and Raye II are pounders, and frankly, Smith hasn't proven that he can be much more than a plug and play fantasy QB when your QB1 is on bye and your QB2 is injured. He averaged 16.2 fantasy PPG, which ranked him 23rd overall in PPG among Qs.  We are probably being generous with this ranking.

RB

Frank Gore - A year ago, no one could shut me up about Frank Gore. This season? I'm taking the money and running. Sure, I was technically validated by Gore's '09 performance - including some nice fantasy playoff production, but a closer look at the numbers reveals a lot of poor outings for the guy - he really blew up in 3 contests, missed two games (as should be expected every year you draft him), and actually was a bag-o-donuts in at least 6 contests. What I'm trying to spit out here is that go ahead and grab him, I don't think he can actually totally bust, but I just don't think he's gonna lead the league anytime soon, and without hesitation, I like the 5+ guys I have ranked ahead of him. He's one of about 6-7 full-time RBs left in the NFL, so it's tough to rank him any lower.

Glenn Coffee - Glen Coffee will probably be removed from this spot by the middle of August.  He disappointed in his first season as a pro, showing no burst thru the line, while managing a paltry 2.7 YPC on 83 attempts. The Niners drafted Anthony Dixon in the later rounds, and early reports indicate that he's a threat to assume backup RB duties for Gore.  Stay tuned.

WR

Michael Crabtree - For a guy in his 2nd year, playing for a team with a weak QB, playing for a coach who does not like to pass the ball at all, it's a bit shocking to see where he's going in mocks and ADPs.  I've seen him as high as 12th and as low as 18th.  He was targeted 86 times in 11 games during his rookie year and turned that in to 2 TDs and 625 yards. If Alex Smith is going to decide that he has an easier time completing passes to WRs over TEs finally in his career, and Vernon Davis is willing to take a back seat in the passing game, I guess you could justify taking Crabtree 12th or 15th overall.  But Vernon Davis is in a contract year, so expect him NOT to take a back seat.  In fact, there wasn't a change in the # of times he was targeted once Crabtree finally showed up.

Ted Ginn Jr - Ginn signed w/ SF this past off-season, but as the likely 3rd target (behind Crabtree and VD), he won't make a fantasy impact.  The 3rd pass catcher on SF hasn't been fantasy relevant in well over a decade.

TE

Vernon Davis - ***Contract Year player alert*** Will VD be the pimp that he was in '09? It's hard to believe that he can catch another 13 TDs with only 13 Red zone targets. VD led all TEs with 20+ yard TDs and that is just too difficult to forecast - and repeat - from year to year, vs. a guy like Gates, or Clark who always show up with the yards, or a guy like Celek who was targeted 24 times in the red zone. Plus, Crabtree will continue to blossom in his 2nd year and first full season of mini/training camps. If the Niners passed with as much efficiency as the Niners, or frequency (and efficiency) as the Colts, we'd have VD higher. TEs have some depth this season. You'd be psyched to land VD here.

2010 San Francisco NFL Draft by Round

Click Here for ESPN’s coverage of 2010 San Francisco Off-season Movement

Coach Quamo is a featured guest on FFArmory.com. 

San Francisco 49ers

Defensive Stats 2009 

Vs Run            6^th in league     97 ypg

Vs Pass            21^st in league   229 ypg

Offensive Stats 2009

Run                 25^th in league   100 ypg

Pass                 22^nd in league  191 ypg

What they did well last year?

Defend the Run - Singletary’s defense can shut down a team’s running game as they ranked 6^th in the league with their rushing defense.  Patrick Willis and Takeo Spikes form a formidable duo as inside linebackers and are tackling machines.

What they need to do to improve?

Defensive Secondary – They were often torn apart last year in the secondary.  When opposing quarterbacks are throwing for over 300 yards consistently, you are going to lose some games… however, read below to find some of the reasons why.

Offensive Line – I know that Frank Gore put up over 1100 yards and scored 10 tds last year, but do you realize how inflated those stats are when you take into consideration that 585 yards and 6 tds came in 4 games (wk 2 vs SEA 207 yards & 2 tds, wk 10 vs CHI 104 yards & 1 td, wk 14 vs AZ 167 yards & 1 td, wk 17 vs STL 107 yards & 2 tds).  That means that during the remaining 12 games that he averaged only 45 yards per game and roughly 1 td every 3 games.  Those are not the type of stats you expect from somebody who is being drafted in the middle of the first round in every mock draft right now.  Gore is a standout talent and such inconsistencies can be attributed to the offensive line’s inability to consistently provide holes for Gore to get through.  Also, San Francisco as a team took 40 quarter back sacks which ranks them 22^nd in the league in sacks allowed.

Can they improve & WHY ?

Defensive Secondary – Here is an interesting stat… in the first 7 weeks, only 2 QBs threw for more than 300 yards against them (wk 3 Favre 301, wk 5 Ryan 329)… after week 7, 5 different QBs tore up the SF secondary for over 300 yards (wk 8 Peyton 347, wk 10 Cutler 307, wk 11 Rogers 344, wk 12 Garrard 307, wk 15 McNabb 306).  This may lead you to think what happened to the SF secondary?  Nate Clements got hurt in week 8 and they were already missing Walt Harris.  This left them shuffling personnel in the secondary for a good part of the 2^nd half of the season.  However, they did find a hidden gem in corner back Shawntae Spencer.  Spencer held Larry Fitzgerald in check during week 14 (only 5 targets, 2 receptions for 22 yards with 0 TDs) and he even held Andre Johnson down in week 7 (4 targets, 2 receptions for 62 yards with 0 TDs).  In addition to Spencer, Dashon Goldson proved to develop into quite an asset at Free Safety.  To help add depth to this group, the team picked up Karl Paymah from Minnesota and drafted Taylor Mays out of USC in the 3^rd round of this year’s draft.  This year’s secondary looks to be vastly improved over last year’s corner back carousel.

Offensive Line – Management knew that this was a weak spot for the team and spent the 1^st 2 picks of their draft helping the line by drafting Anthony Davis and Mike Lupati.  I think you might have to go back to the 1970’s to find another team that drafted 2 offensive linemen with their 1^st 2 picks of the draft.  Another thing to consider is that Joe Staley was often playing injured last year and this held back his production.  Staley appears to be back to health and will team up with Davis and Lupati to form a line that has the potential to be much more productive than last year’s group.

So What Does All This Mean For My Fantasy Football Draft? 

1.)    Frank Gore should be more consistent with improvement of the offensive line.  Furthermore, if the defensive secondary can do their part in keeping games to a lower score, then Gore may find himself getting more carries as he and Dixon will grind out the clock in the 2^nd half.

2.)    Michael Crabtree was not as much of a factor last year because he missed so much time from his hold out and Alex Smith spent most of his time either making quick reads to Vernon Davis or getting sacked by opposing defenses.  If the Offensive line can give Smith more time this year to allow his deep threats to get open it could be an improved opportunity for Crabtree (and possibly even Ted Ginn Jr.). 

Email Coach Quamo

Click here for our 2009 Analysis on the San Francisco 49ers - Published July 2009