by David Zizmor

SANTA CLARA–This wasn’t a new development that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick couldn’t get the offense moving. The 49ers offense has been struggling for about a month and a half now and they really haven’t had a good game all season and there hasn’t been a single game during that time where they had a dominant offense.

The game on the road against St.Louis Mon Oct 13th was a pretty good victory 31-17 and that was probably Kaepernick’s best game of the season in that one. That was the only one where the offense look competent other than that this team has struggled on offense all season. It’s tough to put your finger on why the offense has such a tough time this year.

Last season it was clearly the lack of wide receivers Anquan Boldin had one good game this year and in 2013. Michael Crabtree was out most of the year and everybody after Boldin on the depth chart really contributed nothing. There’s Boldin and Vernon Davis and then the running game, this season all the receivers are more or less healthy Boldin is having a very good year.

Davis hasn’t contributed much and maybe that might be a bit of a factor he’s been hurt since the third or fourth game of the season. Crabtree has had a lousy year for the first season he’s played pretty much every game he hasn’t had a good season at all. Nobody in the third slot of the wide receiving core stepped up but Stevie Johnson has been pretty good.

For intents and purposes Johnson is not on the field most of the time he’s kind of splitting time with Brandon Lloyd and except for that one game Lloyd hasn’t done very much either. Part of it is the wide receivers are not all that good beyond that fumble. Davis hasn’t contributed and the other big factor the offensive line is lousy.

Left offensive guard Mike Iupati has had some problems with injuries this season and Davis hasn’t played in a couple of weeks and he’s missed several games and the Niners have a new center Marcus Martin. Daniel Kilgore went down and he was playing really well then he got hurt Martin came in he really struggled in that first game at home against St.Louis.

Martin has been a struggled to come back but he’s still learning as a rookie and everybody on that offensive line got injured to a certain extent. Joe Staley got knocked out in proportions of games he hasn’t missed a start but he’s banged up. Don’t forget right offensive guard Alex Boone he missed the all of camp and didn’t come in until about a month into the season.

The Niners play next on Sunday December 7th at Levis Stadium hosting the Oakland Raiders

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