49ers: A bad offense that at least looks good

SAN FRANCISCO - This is where I’m supposed to give the 49ers the benefit of the doubt. Sure, they lost their home opener 23-13 to the not-very-good Arizona Cardinals, but they tried hard, gave good effort, meant well.

And, oh yes, they made five turnovers. The turnovers are a wonderful excuse if you’re looking for excuses. Mike Nolan latched onto the turnovers like a drowning man grabbing onto a floating dock. A team can’t win making all those turnovers, he reminded the media as if the turnovers were a natural disaster, something that happened to the Niners, an inconvenience they encountered along the way.

Well, here’s the deal. It is not my job to make excuses for the Niners and it’s not yours, either. The Niners are brilliant at making their own excuses - and if you want to buy them that’s your business.

The Niners also were brilliant at hyping their new offense. Stick with me on this. For many months, we have been told and we have been lectured and we’ve read about the new high-powered offense brought to us courtesy of Mike Martz, the mad genius of the NFL. We have been asked to worship at the shrine of Martz and we have been led to understand if Nolan has a prayer of keeping his job, he needs to hold onto Martz for dear life. You know all of that is true.

Everything was supposed to be better about the offense compared to last season when it averaged 13.7 points a game, a pitiful number tying a franchise low. It was an offense that couldn’t entertain the fans and was boring to the max and contributed to lots of losses. Here’s what I want to know. If Martz is so brilliant and if J.T. O’Sullivan is such an upgrade over Alex Smith, how come the Niners scored .7 points below last year’s all-time-bad per-game average.

If you say the question isn’t fair, if you say I shouldn’t judge or criticize the offense because the Niners lost the ball five times and barely had the ball in the second half, well if you say all that, shame on you. You don’t make excuses for a professional football team. You expect performance. You demand results. The Niners should have controlled the ball more and they should have scored more and they shouldn’t have lost the ball like a bunch of amateurs.

Do you think I’m being hard? Forget it. I’m not hard. The league is hard. The Niners have a division game next Sunday in Seattle. After that they play Detroit, New Orleans, New England, Philadelphia, the New York Giants and Seattle - brutal teams, tough teams. Do you think those teams feel bad for the Niners?

Like the coaches probably are saying, “The 49ers really are good except for those darn turnovers.”

No way. Opposing coaches are going to give the Niners more of the same, pitilessly, remorselessly until the Niners improve - if they improve. And if Nolan can’t bring his team together he could be out of here at the bye week.

What do we think of Martz after this game - after we’ve pushed the excuses out of the way? He has a reputation for being reckless, for calling plays that take forever to develop, for putting his quarterbacks in harm’s way. Sunday’s loss added to that reputation, JTO throwing a pick into coverage, JTO losing two fumbles, Zak Keasey fumbling. This makes you wonder about Martz. Is he really too out of control for the league?

I’m inclined to say JTO played well. Sure, he threw an interception but it was his first game. And he did some things really well. He would get into trouble, guys all over him, and still he’d make a play. I’ll give you an example of the good JTO. Early in the fourth quarter he passed to Frank Gore for 14 yards and in my notes I wrote, “JTO engulfed, completes pass anyway.” So, good for him.

JTO came to an interview room after the game. He has a reputation for being curt, rude and condescending. Not on Sunday. He was chastened, quiet, apologetic, lost. After months of fantasy, he had experienced reality and reality was hard.

Asked if the team played well except for the turnovers, he said, “It goes hand in hand. You can’t cherry pick your performance.” It was a good answer and later he said, “You want to score touchdowns. Moving the ball is not enough.” He might have added 13 points is not enough and no wins is not enough, and the same old thing is not good enough.

But let’s give him credit and let’s give Martz credit. JTO is exciting to watch when he doesn’t screw up, and Martz’ offense is exciting when it, too, doesn’t screw up. So, the Niners made progress in this important regard. Last year’s offense was a bad offense that looked bad. This year’s offense is a bad offense that looks good. It’s always better to have a good-looking bad offense than a bad-looking bad offense.

You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.