Cosell: Kap ‘difficult to watch,' 49ers QB ‘seeing ghosts'

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Against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 3, Colin Kaepernick completed 9 of 19 passes for 67 yards with zero touchdowns and four interceptions.

His first two picks were returned for touchdowns and immediately put the 49ers in a 14-0 hole.

Against Green Bay on Sunday, Kaepernick completed 13 of 25 passes for 160 yards (41 of which came on a "flip pass" to Quinton Patton that traveled a few inches in the air) with zero touchdowns and one interception.

"It's getting hard putting Kaepernick out there right now," Greg Cosell, Senior Producer of NFL Films, told KNBR 680-AM on Monday night. "It's almost going beyond the fact that he's not playing well, which he obviously isn't. He's just struggling to execute the most basic of things.

"Are there plays where the O-line is a problem? Sure there are. But there's also a number of plays which it's not, and he simply can't execute simple things at this point...

[MAIOCCO: Analysis: Kap's future with 49ers beyond '15 in serious doubt?]

"Right now, I don't know why, but he's not showing the ability to execute ... late in the fourth quarter when theoretically it was still a game, his incompletion to Reggie Bush on the angle route, where he threw it right into the ground -- I don't know what to say... it's those kinds of throws, that has nothing to do with pressure, nothing to do with anything. It's a routine, simple throw...

"I just know that right now, he's a player that is really struggling to mentally execute, and then to physically execute. It's difficult to watch. It's hard to put him out there right now."

Following the loss to the Packers, Kaepernick acknowledged the errant throw to Bush and said he wanted to have it back.

 

If he delivered the ball accurately and on time, Bush could have scored, which would have made it 17-9 (pending the extra point) Green Bay with about 4:30 remaining.

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Aside from some innacurate passes, there's no doubt that the offensive line isn't consistently giving Kaepernick a lot of time to throw.

After being sacked a franchise-high 52 times a season ago, Kaepernick has been sacked 14 times through four games -- putting him on pace for 56 on the season.

[REWIND: Warner: No reason Kaepernick should be sacked 52 times]

"Here's Colin Kaepernick, one of the greatest athletes in our business, that got sacked 52 times last year. There’s no reason for that," Kurt Warner, who worked with Kaepernick in the offseason, said back in August. "But one of the reasons I think that happened was because he wasn’t quite as comfortable in the pocket of being able to get through a few of his progressions before he became an athlete."

Warner came to Kaepernick's defense on Monday, saying he thinks Kaepernick needs more time to learn how to play within the pocket. 

He still doesn't look comfortable, and has a tendency to run into sacks.

 

Here's how 49ers radio analyst Tim Ryan described the play above:

"And Colin just ran right into the pressure right there. He did have guys open. Blake Bell out on the edge was not his first read for sure in the progression. But as he sensed he wanted to get out of the pocket, he stepped right into Jay Elliot. That one's on Colin."

Here's another incompletion that would widely be considered "a routine, simple throw."

 

The 49ers are 1-3 and travel to face the 2-2 New York Giants this Sunday in a prime-time matchup on NBC's Sunday Night Football.

The Giants have the worst pass defense in the NFL, surrendering 316 yards per game. And they've only registered five sacks -- tied for the second fewest in the league.

But as Cosell pointed out, there's not much reason for optimism with the 49ers' passing game.

[RELATED: 49ers evaluate whether changes needed on O-line]

"So here's what you have right now with the pass game," Cosell explained. "It's a bad mix: You have a quarterback who at this moment in time -- this is from film study, this is not an interpretation, this is what the film shows -- you have a quarterback right now with no feel and vision in the pocket for many reasons. You've got a poor pass protecting O-line, and you have too many individual route concepts with receivers that struggle to get open versus man coverage. That's what the pass game is right now."

Is there anything the 49ers can do differently to jump start the offense?

"Tactically, you have to try to help your receivers," Cosell said. "There are ways against man coverage to do that -- there's bunch concepts, stack releases, combination crossing routes often called mesh concepts -- there's things that you can do to help to help your receivers win against man coverage, and theoretically then help define the throws for your quarterback.

"Because right now, Kaepernick's in a situation where if it's not immediately defined and he does feel like he has a throw right away, he's seeing ghosts and he's gonna leave the pocket and he's gonna run.

"And as we've said many times, you can't play consistent NFL quarterback that way. So they just have to work through this but I'll be very intrigued to see what they do with Kaepernick at some point here, because it's hard right now. And again, anybody watching the tape and studying it hard is going to come to the same conclusion because it's there in front of you. It's not an interpretation. It's there in front of you."

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