And that the Niners totally figured him out after he passed and ran wild over Philadelphia the previous week when he looked healthy again... or just played a horrific D.
Not following, he hurt his shoulder against Seattle in the 10th game. The first 10 games he had 2 games with under 200 yards passing, Carolina(he was terrible) and Dallas a blowout win where we ran wild on them so Kyler didn't have to throw the ball all that much, he wasn't good, it was also the game where twice Isabella lost a ball in the lights that might have been a TD or Kyler's 2 TD 188 yards might have been 4 TD's and 250 yards. But 2 bad passing games in the first 10. First 9 games he had 7 games with at least 60 yards rushing. In the 10th game he hurt the shoulder and topped 60 yards ONCE the rest of the season.
Games 10-12 he had 5 runs in each game after 46 in the prior 4 games. It was just obvious he was protecting the shoulder by not running as much.
What teams figured out IMO is Kyler is protecting his shoulder and doesn't want to run as much so they changed how they defended us which made it harder for him to throw the ball and harder for the RB's to run the ball because they were far less worried Kyler was going to run.
The Philly game was the only game after the injury he even topped 250 yards passing. You seem to think that's because people figured him out, i think it was because his throwing shoulder was hurt and he just wasn't the same guy, and wasn't running so he was much easier to "figure out." The Philly game was an outlier due to their defense.
NE was the first game after the Seattle injury and after that game we kept hearing oh they figured him out. in that game Kirk dropped a TD pass right in his hands, pretty sure it was on the same drive where Kenyan Drake was ruled short on the last play of the half when in order for him to NOT be in the endzone his lower body would have had to be 90% of his body length. He clearly scored but they couldn't see it on replay so they couldn't overturn it. We would have won the game with either of those plays. Even with all that we got into FG range late, Kliff turtled and ran it, we came up short and then Zane missed a 45 yarder NE went down and won the game after that crazy roughing call on Simmons where Newton slowed up on 3rd and 13 and replay clearly showed both feet inbounds when Simmons hit him. They got the first went down and won it and the teams have figured out Kyler headline was born.
If Zane makes it and or they don't blow that call we win that game and we make the playoffs in spite of the injury. It's why I'm so happy Zane was replaced.
