newsno: In the Super Bowl, the 49ers’ defense won’t allow errors to continue.
In the Super Bowl, the 49ers’ defense won’t allow errors to continue.
HENDERSON, Nev. — More than a week after their NFC Championship Game comeback victory against the Detroit Lions, the San Francisco 49ers’ defense has moved on from a brutal postgame film session.
After the Niners escaped with a 34-31 win against the Lions, the defensive film review offered a few examples of how they fell behind by 17 points in the first place. The stunning reality was that, on multiple occasions, the 49ers’ defense didn’t have all 11 players giving maximum effort.
Last week, defensive coordinator Steve Wilks called it “unacceptable” and “embarrassing.” On Tuesday, at their team hotel, a handful of Niners defenders expressed disappointment in themselves and vowed to not let it happen again in Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“That’s something that never needs to be coached,” San Francisco safety Tashaun Gipson Sr. said. “That’s something that never needs to be addressed. … Obviously, everybody on that film can at some point on one of those plays point themselves out and said, ‘Man, I could have played with better effort on that.’ … That film was hard. You had to see that and you had to hear some choice words, because that’s not our brand of football. We are a lot better football team than that. It’s nothing I’m worried about moving forward.”
Because of those effort issues, the days after the NFC Championship Game were predictably intense. Niners defensive tackle Javon Hargrave said the entire unit “put our heads down” because it was so disappointed by what it watched and the accompanying angry words from Wilks. Coach Kyle Shanahan also called out his defense for what he considered poor backside pursuit on Detroit run plays.
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