49ers at Bills: Game preview, odds, and prediction
By Matt Kerns
The San Francisco 49ers (1-4) desperately need a spark on offense as they take on the Buffalo Bills (3-2) in Week 6 at New Era Stadium in Buffalo.
Announced this week by Niners head coach, Chip Kelly was that quarterback Colin Kaepernick would get the start over Blaine Gabbert. “We’re gonna make a move at quarterback and start Colin this week,” Kelly said via Yahoo Sports.
It’ll be Kaepernick’s first start since Week 9 of last year, in a game which the Niners fell 27-6 to the Rams. Last year, Kaepernick was 3-6 as the team’s starter. In his career, he’s still 27-20 overall. It was time for the Niners to make a change at quarterback, with Gabbert’s play not only regressing with each snap he would take, but unfathomable.
Does Kaepernick give this team the best chance to win? I’ll leave it up to you to decide. What I’ll tell you is that this Bills team is playing on an entirely new level than the one that started the season 0-2. They’ve won three straight, including a 30-19 victory in Los Angeles against the Rams last week.
On paper, this matchup does not bode well for San Francisco. Starting with the Bills offense, not only are they running the ball frequently (48 percent of the time) they’re doing so effectively. The Bills, as a collective unit, are averaging 5.1 yards per carry, the best mark in pro football. The Niners are giving up nearly 4.5 yards per carry which ranks 25th. Last week against the Rams, Buffalo ran the ball 27 times, gaining 193 yards and a touchdown. That was against a Rams front four that featured Aaron Donald, albeit they were without Robert Quinn.
Though the Rams defensive line hasn’t been 100 percent this year due to injuries, it’s still a formidable group and is better than this Niners defensive line. Buffalo will have opportunities to exploit the Niners up front. The Bills interior line play has been stellar thus far in run blocking. Since they fired Greg Roman (a former Niners offensive coordinator too), the Bills are 3-0 and seem to have found a groove here early fall.
Odds
Line: Buff (-7.5)
Over/Under: 44
Without All-Pro middle linebacker, NaVorro Bowman the Niners don’t have a run stopping interior linebacker to fill in the A gap and meet the running back at or behind the line of scrimmage. Mikchael Wilhoite and Nick Bellore played majority of the snaps at the weak side and middle linebacker positions in the Niners 3-4 alignment last week. Neither one of them stood out in a positive way against the run as they both overpursued on runs and were unable to shed blocks.
San Francisco’s defensive line wasn’t much better either, as they were constantly overpowered and outleveraged by Arizona’s offensive line. It won’t be an easy fix for the Niners as they take on perhaps the most efficient running team in all of football this week.
In the passing game, Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor does a lot of positive things for the offense. He’s not the polished of passers, but you’ll be pressed to find him make an ill-advised throw into traffic. When he’s able to leave the pocket, he can make plays with his feet like this one on 3rd and 19 against the Rams.
Don’t turn your back to him, otherwise, he’ll shred you up. He can also roll out of a collapsing pocket and do this to you.
So the Niners will have to gameplan for both the running game of the Bills, and Taylor’s ability to make plays on his own. It won’t be an easy task but they have had a few extra days to prepare having played last Thursday Night.
As 7.5-point favorites at home, the Bills will take care of business against San Fransisco. This is a pretty big line, but I still would expect a cover by the Bills. They’re hitting on all cylinders right now, whereas it seems the Niners are missing on all of cylinders at this point.
Prediction: Buffalo 31, San Francisco: 21