San Francisco lost Deebo Samuel at times Sunday with an injury and had George Kittle leave but both came back. The 49ers just kept putting productive players on the field and these weren’t all Day 1 or Day 2 draft picks.
Jauan Jennings was their leading wide receiver in the game with four catches and was a seventh-round pick. Brandon Aiyuk helped pick up the slack for Samuel, who still caught three passes for 33 yards. When Ray-Ray McCloud wasn’t bumbling away the football on punt returns from in the red zone, even he caught a 19-yard pass.
The Bears lack depth of targets at receiver. They need to find more, possibly two or even three who can produce. It became apparent this season they can’t count on anyone beyond DJ Moore and Cole Kmet last season. No playoff team wins with one wide receiver who can contribute.
Even the Chiefs were an example of this. No one liked Kansas City’s attempt to replace Tyreek Hill when he left but the Chiefs have now won two Super Bowls without him, as they have found a decent receiver can be good with the right passer. It doesn’t take the best receiver. Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Rashee Rice, Justin Watson and even recycled Mecole Hardman made three catches or more for Mahomes to complement Travis Kelce, who came on strong late with nine catches for 93 yards.
The two starting Chiefs tackles were Jawaan Taylor and Donovan Smith. The two Bears starting tackles this year were better according to Pro Football Focus grades than both of those tackles, and better than one of the 49ers tackles as well.
The place to focus on the offensive line is center for now and also for depth at other spots.
As Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus insisted, you can never have too many pass rushers or cornerbacks. The Bears appear to have cornerbacks in sufficient numbers but to face teams like the Super Bowl combatants, the Lions or even the Packers, they need more than one pass rusher. They need to come at a team in waves with pass rushers from their line and not blitzes. The 49ers did this and it still wasn’t enough.
Jordan Love, Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff won’t look nearly as comfortable trying to throw against the Bears secondary with constant, real heat applied.
The Super Bowl showed you need as many as possible who can do this because overtime games and even non-overtime games wear down pass rushers. At any time on the final Chiefs drive or the final 49ers drive a big play from the pass rush could have made the difference in determining the winner. Get more pass rushers and keep rotating.
There was this belief among those who think the Bears should trade Justin Fields and draft Williams that if Mahomes won another Super Bowl it would support the idea the Bears should draft the USC QB.
Williams was said to be like Mahomes and is the gifted QB who can deliver a Super Bowl win as an off-script playmaker.
The Chiefs win did not support this theory. In fact, it did as much to support the opposite idea, that they should keep Fields and trade the right to take Williams for extra picks to build the roster up as strong as possible.
