National Football League

Facing a must-win, 49ers have no shortage of issues to correct

Published Sep. 23, 2014 9:00 a.m. ET

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Erik Malinowski

The best thing you can say about the shockingly woeful 1-2 San Francisco 49ers, perhaps, is that they have no great distance to go in addressing the myriad issues that have placed them in such an early-season hole.

But with the Philadelphia Eagles (3-0) coming to Santa Clara on Sunday — and the very real possibility that his team could be facing a 2 1/2-game NFC West deficit after just four weeks of play — head coach Jim Harbaugh stepped to the podium Monday and tried, at least in some regard, to address how he plans to correct this mess that has so quickly piled up.

"Yeah, there's definitely frustration and not feeling good after a loss," he said. "But the mindset has got to be, going forward, is to fix. You push against something until it's upright. That's the process that our team uses and we have total belief in our program. Coaches, players, everybody involved."

But regarding locker room frustration, including wideout Anquan Boldin's public excoriation of the officiating crew from Sunday's lifeless 23-14 loss to the Cardinals, Harbaugh could only invoke the deities upon which you call when all else is lost: "Sometimes the football gods can be unforgiving."

If only it were that easy: Offer a little token to the higher gridiron powers and hope to slow down the Eagles' offense, which ranks second in the NFL in points per game. But in reality, that's merely one area of concern among many:

The Niners can't score in the second half: Colin Kaepernick's offense has scored three points in the second half all season, (obviously) dead last in the league. But it's not because the Niners don't have the ball. Weirdly enough, they rank fifth in the league in second-half time of possession. What this ultimately points to is self-sabotage: Turnovers, penalties, lack of execution. The Niners have had their chances, which is the encouraging part. Now they just need to formulate a plan to turn late plays into late points.

Opponents are scoring at will late in the game: With the Niners among the league leaders in second-half time of possession, you'd think a rested defense would be stout and stingy when the game was on the line. The problem is that this is a defense beset by injuries, controversy and glaring inconsistencies (safety Eric Reid's poor positioning effectively allowed Arizona to score its two second-half touchdowns) has underperformed thus far. It’s allowing 17.3 points per game in the second half. That's more than its entire per-game average in 2013.

Jim Harbaugh's 49ers have been awash in on- and off-field troubles during a 1-2 start.

The overall defense can't keep up: If the secondary can keep the refs from flagging it on (seemingly) every other play and the pass rush can muster some consistent pressure — something that was basically non-existent against Drew Stanton (Drew Stanton!) — without having to blitz, then maybe the defense can create enough problems for the Eagles' offense, which ranks sixth overall through Week 3. But the losses of NaVorro Bowman (who may be back in a few weeks from ACL surgery) and Aldon Smith (serving a nine-game suspension for violating both the personal-conduct and substance-abuse policies) have stressed an already shallow defensive core to its breaking point. Ultimately, the Niners have little recourse at the ready. They can only soldier on and hope both players can return by Week 10. 

Colin Kaepernick can't do it alone: Against the Cardinals, San Francisco's $126 million man was a respectable 29 of 37 for 245 yards, one TD pass and no turnovers. But overall, he's only getting 10 yards per completion (21st in the league), and any time he's also the Niners' leading rusher, as he was Sunday (13 carries for 54 yards), you know something is seriously lacking in offensive coordinator Greg Roman's game plan. The team intimated that Kaepernick would be counted on to pass more this season, but he simply hasn't looked comfortable in his decision-making. The Niners are tied for 20th thus far in yards per game, a trend that is clearly untenable for a team that's made three straight NFC championship games. Oh, and Frank Gore's numbers against the Cardinals? Six rushes for 10 yards. He could barely talk to the media after the game.

The non-football issues affect everything: This is a team that has had to deal with a lot of off-field problems — defensive end Ray McDonald's arrest (but still no suspension) for allegedly abusing his pregnant girlfriend and Smith's suspension for a host of infractions chief among them — and now they are spilling over to the on-field play. The kind of outburst put forth by Boldin Sunday night was not purely the sign of someone who thought he'd been wronged by a referee.

Harbaugh likes to talk, as he did Monday, of the "great confidence" the team has that it will get its issues corrected. He's won 37 of 51 regular-season games as the Niners' head coach, so he has earned the right to think he can turn this around fast, at least based on past performance — and the team did start 1-2 last season, before winning 12 of its next 13 — but the biggest reasons to be truly confident of the Niners' chances Sunday are that the Eagles are allowing 386 yards per game ("good" for 26th in the league), Kaepernick is healthy and the team will be playing at home again in the new $1.2 billion Santa Clara Sports Cathedral known as Levi's Stadium.

Harbaugh can complain that the stadium isn't yet loud enough for his liking, but maybe this next weekend the fans will have something they actually want to cheer.

You can follow Erik Malinowski, always in first place in his own mind, on Twitter at @erikmal and email him at erik.malinowski@fox.com.

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