49ers learn a lesson after letting big lead slip in win over Lions

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The 49ers now are 1-1, but to keep you hooked for next week, we can report that nothing of substance was revealed Sunday.
 
At least nothing that would make you have firm beliefs about who and what they are, what they have and what they lack.
 
In escaping the Detroit Lions, 30-27, the 49ers largely showed that they have the capability to dominate an inferior team but are not assured enough to finish them. Or, to quote Richard Sherman, which always is a good place to go, they need to learn “not to take a sigh when you’re up, 30-13.” In other words, to allow 182 yards and two scores once you take said lead, which is more a matter of player attention than scheme flaws.
 
They learned that teams still believe in Sherman enough to avoid throwing his way, and that means they will throw at Ahkello Witherspoon on the other side of the field until he makes them do otherwise.
 
They learned that Jimmy Garoppolo still holds the ball longer than safety would permit, and either he needs to be more decisive or his wide receivers need to be more forceful in separation.
 
(Cue Josh Gordon hysteria in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... )
 
They learned that Pierre Garcon will block all the way to the parking lot, as he did on Matt Breida’s 66-yard touchdown run, and that Garoppolo will make a tackle when the need is acute, as it was on Tracy Walker’s apparent game-winning interception -- “just a flashback to my linebacking days, I guess,” the QB said, minimizing the monumental error he helped commit to make that tackle momentarily necessary.
 
But mostly, they found out that they have miles to go before they can feel confident about their institutional knowledge about putting games away, because they did allow the Lions, who had been routed by the New York Jets a week ago, to scare them within an off-the-ball holding call that negated Walker’s interception and saved the 49ers' defense from having to make a desperate stand.
 
How desperate? A number of 49ers referred to it as a pick-six, which it wasn’t, no matter how it might have felt.
 
“A win’s a win,” coach Kyle Shanahan said with the precision of a Football Outsiders staffer, “but I’m extra frustrated that we couldn’t finish ‘em off. We have to learn to put those games away.”
 
The problem, of course, is that the 49ers are not yet at that stage of their development and are just seven games from being one of the most forlorn teams in the National Football League. Like everyone else, they would seem to be prone to recency bias – in this case, thinking the Lions were ready to Vontae Davis the rest of their season based on seven quarters of uninspiring football.
 
More to the point, it is hard to gauge them off a decisive loss to a superior team and a narrow win over an inferior one. As one of the many teams stuck in the amorphous middle of the league, the 49ers will be prone to the performance swings between weeks and within games.
 
Shanahan, for example, made a point of saying how much better he felt about his team’s red-zone performance in Week 1 at Minnesota than he did Sunday, even though they scored twice. Three sacks of Garoppolo and just 8 yards gained in 20 plays inspired that analysis.
 
Shanahan also answered the Gordon issue by saying how much loves the players he has but always is looking to improve the roster, a noncommittal answer to a question inspired only by the receiver’s reportedly stated interest in coming. The 49ers presumably would be more efficient and effervescent offensively when Marquise Goodwin returns from his thigh bruise, but that, like Gordon’s desirability, remains only speculative.
 
This is about the known, and the known is pretty minimal. The 49ers are exactly what we all expected them to be after two weeks -- a work in progress and in regress. Their next two games against dynamic offenses in Kansas City (oh God) and Los Angeles (the Chargers can score, but they remain goofy), and then they return to face the wholly inert Cardinals before drawing the Packers at Lambeau and the Rams in L.A.
 
In other words, this will get harder before it gets easier. But a win’s a win, and it’s better that they try to keep the short view for now. There are plenty of people available to take the long view for them.

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