San Francisco 49ers Pre-Season Week 1

By Kalen Patrick

Final Score:
San Francisco 49ers - 3
New Orleans Saints - 24

As the score suggests, the game was pretty brutal for the 49ers. Jim Harbaugh had an extremely tough task ahead of him this year. The lock-out prevented many offseason activities for the young 49er team and throw in MAJOR question marks at QB and you had to expect a very shaky first viewing. Throw in the fact Gregg Williams (Saints DC) decided to blitz the vast majority of the plays, which is typically a rarity in pre-season games.

While Alex Smith looked well like Alex Smith, the blame cannot be put completely on him. Alexcuses? Perhaps, but the o-line was awful, maybe Brady/Manning can work behind a garbage line, but 90% of the NFL QB's can't. Simple fact. The O-Line must get it together, for the 49ers to stand any chance this year. I do expect them to improve and look a whole lot better by September 11th (week 1) when they are much more comfortable in the offense. The positives on the offense were definitely at RB. Gore looked like his old self and Hunter looks like a great pick so far. Of course we can't look too much in to this. We all remember Thomas Clayton.

Colin Kaepernick got the majority of snaps at QB. And was pretty much what I expected, flashes here and there, bad decisions, and athletic. All things considered with the lockout and everything, he performed just as I thought he would.

The defense almost has the feel of the defense the 49ers have had the last few years. Bend not break, will keep the team in most games, and will need the offense to provide much more production if the 49ers aim to go anywhere this year. Aldon Smith looked very solid in his 49er debut, getting the only sack and providing a great rush all night. Newly signed Donte Whitner had a good game at safety too. Again, I feel this defense will be good enough to keep the team in games, just a matter of what the offense can do.

Harbaugh has essentially 1 month until the season opener. The offense will look better than it did tonight, the real question, is how much better will it look?