Eagles exposed Shanahan's Achilles' heel
Philadelphia's defense manhandled 49ers QBs.
(Original Feb. 1, 2023. Published on DeFranco Post on Aug. 15, 2023.)
Because 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy went down early, lots of fans outside of Philadelphia felt cheated by the NFC Championship game. After all, San Francisco had been riding a 12-game winning streak, including seven victories with Purdy, and the Eagles had soared all season.
People wanted to see these two top teams square off at full strength. Fair enough. But I have a question.
Do you know how many of the 49ers quarterbacks who have started under Kyle Shanahan, since he took over as head coach in 2017, have gotten injured and missed extensive time?
Out of curiosity, I looked it up.
The answer: ALL of them.
Brian Hoyer, C.J. Beathard, Jimmy Garappolo, Nick Mullens, Trey Lance, and Purdy.
Every. Single. One.
All of them have missed, or will miss, multiple weeks or months. That doesn't include backups who were injured in relief, such as Josh Johnson, who had his head bounced off the ground in Sunday’s 31-7 loss to the Eagles, just two quarters after replacing an injured Purdy.
The Eagles' pass rush — led by Haason Reddick, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Ndamukong Suh (among an ensemble cast, because, let’s face it, everybody got in on the extravaganza) — racked up seven quarterback hits and three sacks.
“San Francisco has to do something about its protection schemes,” Fox analyst Greg Olsen even said during the broadcast. “The Eagles are just coming in basically unblocked. There are a lot of mismatches.”
Purdy exited the game after the 49ers’ first series, when he severely injured his throwing elbow on a Reddick sack-fumble. (He later returned with no bullets in his gun, after Johnson was diagnosed with a concussion.)
Purdy suffered the same elbow injury as Mullens. It requires UCL surgery, otherwise known as Tommy John, like Bryce Harper underwent after the Philadelphia Phillies’ World Series run. That injury is what kept Harper in the designated-hitter slot for most of 2022 instead of in right field.
Garappolo, whom the Niners once saw as their franchise QB and played the most games of San Francisco’s bunch, obviously has suffered a plethora of injuries under Shanahan.
Since Shanahan (the de-facto offensive coordinator) arrived in San Francisco six years ago, one quarterback after another has been significantly hurt. Maybe Garappolo is injury-prone, or maybe no QB is safe in Shanahan's “protection” schemes.
“We were really excited for today, and we really wanted an opportunity to play that team,” Shanahan said after Sunday’s defeat. “They (the Eagles) did some good things, but we wish we’d had a little bit better of an opportunity than we did today.”
OK, Coach, but what did you do about it? You did nothing to protect your quarterbacks from the Eagles’ defense, whose 70 sacks in the regular season are tied for third all-time.
You don’t protect any of your quarterbacks.
San Francisco under Shanahan has become the place where quarterbacks go to get hurt.
Hell, maybe that’s why Tom Brady retired this morning. He always wanted to finish his career with his hometown 49ers — who seem as ready-made for him right now as gluten-free Easy Mac — but he might have figured, “Nah, I'd rather hang it up than go out with a broken shoulder playing for Shanahan.”
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