San Francisco 49ers

49ers QB Blaine Gabbert: What you see is what you get

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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This week we look at the situation going forward for the 49ers and what must it take for them to get a win and get back on track.

The Arizona Cardinals are in town tonight to take on the 49ers to kick off week five of the NFL season on Thursday Night Football. Kick off is set for 5:26pm PST/8:26pm EST. All eyes will be on quarterback Blaine Gabbert as and the inevitable, impending decision Chip Kelly will have to make going forward on the quarterback situation.

At this point in the season, we’ve seen pretty much everything we’re going to see from Gabbert. Through five games, he is 69-119, 58% completion percentage, four touchdowns and four interceptions. On the surface this does not look terrible, but it is certainly not ideal. Through the first quarter of the season, Gabbert has been pretty much what we all expected.

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In the game against Dallas, everything Gabbert is good and bad at was on display. The quick release and the ability to stand in the pocket and deliver the pass on time and accurately was quickly negated by his displays of panic and his poor deep ball accuracy and the regular groundball pass. The trait that was unanimously extolled by fans on Gabbert over Kaepernick was the ability for Gabbert to make quick decisions and throw the ball quickly.

But that’s not always a good thing. So where did Gabbert fail and succeed?

What Gabbert did well

On the first drive of the game against the Cowboys, the 49ers offense seemed to run through Gabbert. He converted three third downs for first downs by throwing and running and seemed to command the pace of the game. His touchdown pass was a text book example of a quarterback going through his progressions to deliver a pass to Jeremy Kerley on his third read (dropback plus two hitch steps).

Gabbert looks off the deep safety and comes back across the formation to hit Kerley in stride. Kerley makes a defender miss and scores easily.

Also, Gabbert can be pretty accurate, which is frustrating about 75% of the time, but here demonstrates just how good he can be.

On the opening drive of the third quarter, Gabbert again displays his ability to go through his progressions and deliver the pass. This particular pass was thrown on a rope right to the hands of tight end Garret Celek and over the defender who had zero time to react.

These plays were quickly negated by the poor display of passing throughout the rest of the game.

Where Gabbert fails

On the same drive as the Celek catch above, the 49ers were in the redzone on 3rd and 15 after a penalty set the offense back. The 49ers run a Chip Kelly passing game staple, “all curls.”

Gabbert goes through his progressions again, but this time instead of hitting Torrey Smith on the right for a first down at the sticks, Gabbert comes back left to wide receiver Aaron Burbridge but throws the pass in the dirt about two yards in front of Burbridge.

On an ensuing drive in the third quarter facing 3rd and 8, Gabbert again appeared to go through his progressions, but missed a wide open Smith beyond the sticks. Instead, Gabbert decided to checkdown to running back Carlos Hyde. For image purposes, Torrey is the receiver at the bottom of the screenshots.

Football Outsiders’ Scott Kacsmar has Gabbert as the 5th worst quarterback in ALEX (Air Less Expected) for throwing short of the sticks this season through weeks 1-4.

The stat for ALEX was named after checkdown king and former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith. Kacsmar describes “ALEX” as this:

ALEX measures the average difference between how far a quarterback threw a pass (air yards) and how many yards he needed for a first down. If a quarterback throws a pass five yards behind the line of scrimmage on third-and-15, that would be minus-20 ALEX. The best application of ALEX is to look at third and fourth down, when it’s really crucial to get 100 percent of the need yards to extend the drive.

Gabbert was at the bottom in the league last year for throwing short of the sticks, and he’s once again near the bottom this year.

Lastly, down 21-17 and with a chance to give the 49ers the lead in the 4th quarter, Chip Kelly looked to take advantage of Torrey Smith’s speed downfield. He had been getting open in several key situations throughout the game, noted above, and Gabbert continued to consistently see him.

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To take advantage of this, the 49ers ran Kelly’s famous “saints concept” or what’s commonly referred to as “Y-cross.” “Saints” looks to take advantage of the coverage by drawing the linebackers and safeties up with the run fake. This should create a void the quarterback can then use to survey the deep cross or the deep post on the backside depending on the safeties.

Gabbert surveys the coverage after the fake, and right on cue, the backside post (Smith) is open for what would be a touchdown if thrown accurately. Instead Gabbert launches it too wide to the outside and it’s and easy interception for the Dallas defensive back.

The only questions that must be resolved is 1) should the 49ers make the quarterback switch and 2) when will that happen. I’m not sure when that would happen but I would guess it would happen for the Buffalo game after 10 days to prepare or after the bye week. Either way, it’s obvious Gabbert isn’t the long term solution.

But should the 49ers even make the switch? One advantage Kaepernick has over Gabbert is arm strength and the ability to fit the ball into tight spaces. Though this is usually the result of Kaepernick being late with his delivery. Both quarterbacks suffer from an inability to see where their receivers will be and instead throw the ball to where they see those receivers at that moment. In other words, they don’t throw guys open or throw with anticipation on a consistent basis. So the 49ers are likely to be stuck in the same situation over the rest of the season.

The quarterback switch will happen. It’s just a matter of time.

All images courtesy of NFL.com.

All statistics, records and accolades courtesy of Pro Football Reference unless otherwise indicated.

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