John Lynch does not think his team is nearly as bad as its record. Sure, the San Francisco 49ers only won two games and were outscored by 171 points (10.7 per game) last season, but Lynch sees some talent when he flips on the game film and looks at his roster.
“We’ve got some strides to make on this roster, but I can also tell you I don’t look up at the film we’ve been watching and see a 2-14 team,” Lynch said in a radio interview this week, per the Sacramento Bee. “I see some pieces that are hard to build, you know? A great example of that, I think, you look at our offensive line and our defensive line. I’m actually excited about those groups. And those groups are where, I believe, football games are won and lost. It starts there.”
There are a few issues with Lynch’s take. First, the 49ers were an outright disaster on both sides of the ball last season. They really were that bad.
| Pass Yards | Rush Yards | Total Yards | Points | DVOA | |
| Offense | 32nd | 4th | 31st | 27th | 23rd |
| Defense | 14th | 32nd | 32nd | 32nd | 28th |
Second, the 49ers’ point differential of -171 (309 points scored, 480 allowed) suggested a team that, per Pythagorean Expectation, “should” have won just over two games. It’s not like they severely underperformed based on how they scored.
Third, the offensive and defensive lines that Lynch mentioned he liked may have some talent, but they didn’t perform all that well. The 49ers ranked 30th in Adjusted Sack Rate, per Football Outsiders, meaning they gave up sacks and intentional grounding penalties more often than almost any other team, when you control for down and distance. They also finished 32nd in Adjusted Line Yards, a measure of how much responsibility the offensive line bears for yards gained on the ground. That figure suggests the strength of the 49ers running game was more due to Carlos Hyde and his backups than the guys up front. Defensively, they were 20th in Adjusted Sack Rate and 29th in Adjusted Line Yards. In other words: still bad there, too.
You can overcome these issues if you have a good quarterback, but Lynch readily admits his roster is lacking there, too. “Do we have some places — probably the ultimate position, quarterback — where we need to improve? Absolutely,” he said. “And we’re committed to doing that. But there’s some pieces there that have me excited, have Kyle (Shanahan) excited. So there’s a long list of things, but we’re working hard at all of them.”
There’s certainly a long list of things, and this is probably not a situation that is going to get turned around in one offseason. It’s going to be a long, arduous process to bring the Niners back into contention.
