The San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos set offenses back decades with their performances on Sunday Night Football in Week 3. The rushing offenses for both teams were at least respectable as Jeff Wilson Jr. gained 75 yards on 12 carries for the 49ers and Javante Williams and Melvin Gordon combined for 84 yards on 27 carries for the Broncos.
What the passing offenses accomplished, or didn’t in this matter, was abysmal. Deebo Samuel and Courtland Sutton both had nice games pacing their respective teams. Samuel caught five passes for 73 yards for San Francisco while Sutton went for 97 yards on eight receptions. That accounted for nearly half of the passing yardage in the game as Jimmy Garoppolo and Russell Wilson struggled to get anything going.
The Broncos were able to win the defensive game 11-10 thanks to a late, 80-yard touchdown drive manufactured by Wilson. The comeback was made possible in large part because of a safety that Garoppolo took in the third quarter.
Dan Orlovsky must be happy about what he saw as Garoppolo dropped back to pass in his own endzone but dropped back too much. He ended up stepping out of bounds, something Orlovsky has lived in infamy over but now has some company.
Garoppolo took some time to speak out about the rough incident.
“I was just trying to buy some time for the play,” Garoppolo said, via TheAthletic.com. “Yeah, that was a tough situation.”
Head coach Kyle Shanahan actually took the blame for the play. He says that he made a bad call given where the ball was, as he put Garoppolo in a tough position with an unblocked guy coming at him.
Very rarely, if ever, is a safety seen as a positive play. But, in this case, it was actually a huge break for the 49ers. Garoppolo tried throwing a pass to the flat, targeting Wilson out of the backfield. It was intercepted by Bradley Chubb and returned for a touchdown. But, since he was out of bounds, the play was blown dead and ruled a safety instead of a backbreaking pick-six.
Ultimately, it didn’t end up mattering as the 49ers lost the game, but they still had a chance to win despite the miscue in the endzone.
