SANTA CLARA–I’m hesitant to say that the Niners are all the way back after that last win over the Rams on Thursday night. The biggest thing I gather from the Rams game is that the Rams are really a bad team. Not that the Niners shouldn’t have won, they should have they’re clearly the better team and the Rams are not good and compared to the two teams the Niners lost to the Seahawks and the Colts the Rams are in a whole other basket.

The Rams are really bad where the Seahawks are one of the best teams in the league and the Colts could be a playoff team. That’s the measuring stick were talking about here, were talking about a team that might be one of the worse teams in the NFL. So take any victory over the Rams with a grain of salt. A team like the 49ers are suppose to beat the Rams into the ground and that’s exactly what they did.

Let’s talk about the negatives before we talk about the positives, the 49ers have still not solved the problem regarding the penalty they had far too many penalties in the first half of the game and that really held them back. If they’re going to compete for a Super Bowl they have to cut back on the penalties. It’s been a recurring issue all season long. There have been some dumb penalties, silly penalties, and you can’t have that and you have to correct that problem.

Part of it is this team has got a bit younger on defense and with that inexperience comes dumb plays, mistakes, and that’s part of the reason they had these penalties but it’s come at the expense of more experienced players as well. The Niners really need to watch that you can’t give away yards like they’ve been giving that’s a concern. Also the passing game has been a little bit shaky and to honest there is not a whole lot the 49ers can do while their depleted in the receiving core.

They got a little more depleted when 49ers wide receiver Quinton Patton broke his foot in the Rams game, that makes the situation a little bit worse. It will give Jonathan Baldwin a chance to step up and show his abilities and hopefully he will step up. The simple fact is the 49ers receiving has been Anquan Boldin and Vernon Davis and nobody else has stepped into the breach. Bruce Miller their fullback has seen a bit more action and that’s good he’s very solid in the passing game and probably the best receiving full back since Tom Rathman who happens to be Miller’s coach.

Fullbacks are not guys you necessarily want to rely on over the long haul and it’s good that Miller is stepping in right now and doing a good job and the Niners really need some wide receivers to step up and move the ball down field and right now it’s just Boldin and Davis. Davis is suffering from a hamstring injury so the Niners are not at full strength at the receiving position and that’s been a problem.

If teams are able to take Boldin out of the game it really limits the Niners passing game. One of the reasons why they got a beat down by the Colts is was Davis was out of the game and Boldin was the only threat and all the Colts had to do was keep Boldin out of the game and nobody else stepped in. That was one of the big reasons why the Niners lost they just had zero options down the field.

Maybe they can start evolving the running backs of Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter who are pretty good receiving runningbacks it would be interesting to see if they could start utilizing more screen or swing passes or short dump offs to these guys. As long as the Niners are suffering in the receiving core their offense are going to struggle a bit.

On the positive side the Niners did the best thing they could given their receiving problems they’ve moved back to focus on their running game in the game against Seattle and Indianapolis they got away from it, even in the first half against the Colts they were running the ball pretty well although they kind of abandoned it in the second half. Against the Rams a team that’s reeling on defense the 49ers really took it to them in the running game.

Gore had over 150 yards, the Niners as a team had over 200 yards, they just dominated on the ground and part of that is just because the offensive line was so good. Gore looked fantastic better than he has all season, if the 49ers were able to balance their attack and get the running game going they don’t need to pass for 400 yards like quarterback Colin Kaepernick did in the opening game. They can get by with just a normal performance in the 200 yard range and that’s where their going to have to go down the stretch here.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for Sportstalk Radio