by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–The first seven games for the San Francisco 49ers can be characterized by when they opened the season 1-2. They had those awful games against Arizona and Chicago with loses after winning the opener against Dallas. They came into the season trying to throw the ball a lot more than they had anyway. In the last few years under head coach Jim Harbaugh they’ve been a run first team.

The 49ers set everything up with the run and then they threw the ball when they needed to, part of that was because former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith was just not a great down field passer. With 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick that’s changed. He was dinged up a bit last year which kind of limited him in the throwing game and a lot people thought he regressed.

Kaepernick has built and worked on his skill set and this year we’ve seen him really grow into the job. He’s not just hitting his first read. He’s looking for the second and third guys and improvising when he needs to. The Niners really wanted to unleash him, because he has such a fantastic arm and he’s such a talented player.

The Niners came into this season wanting to throw a lot and part of that is because that’s the trend in the NFL right now is to throw. It wasn’t really working it’s not that their bad that’s not their bread and butter. Their bread and butter is kind of smash mouth run football give running back Frank Gore the ball. Get him going early on and get him three or four yard runs in the first half.

Later in the game let Gore get bigger chunks of yardage and let him run bigger digits in the second half as the line gets to protect a little bit more. Once the 49ers shifted over to that philosophy then they started to have a lot more success on offense. On defense it’s been a game of a war of attrition. Their just trying to survive it.

There are so many injuries up and down that defense that it’s tough to even recognize, most of the secondary turned over last year the only holdovers from last year left cornerback Perrish Cox who was surprisingly good for a guy who got cut in the middle of last season and you don’t know how long it’s going to last. The other left corner Tramaine Brock the Niners anticipated he would be their starter got turf toe and missed most of the season and should be coming back soon.

Navarro Bowman we saw him get hurt in that last game of the playoffs last year he could be coming back in a few weeks we don’t know what he’s going to be like. The injury was so bad he might not be 100 percent and you can assume he won’t be. Then there’s Aldon Smith with his suspension he’s such a fantastic pass rusher you just can’t replace him no matter how much you try.

The 49ers have the bye this week and face the St.Louis Rams on November 2.

David Zizmor covers the NFL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images

2014