{"id":8718341,"date":"2023-01-17T01:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T09:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/?p=8718341&preview=true&preview_id=8718341"},"modified":"2023-01-17T14:16:22","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T22:16:22","slug":"kurtenbach-the-49ers-top-ranked-defense-carried-the-team-in-the-regular-season-now-its-the-offenses-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/2023\/01\/17\/kurtenbach-the-49ers-top-ranked-defense-carried-the-team-in-the-regular-season-now-its-the-offenses-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurtenbach: The 49ers’ top-ranked defense carried the team in the regular season. Now it’s the offense’s turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 49ers’ defense carried the team through the first four months of the season, but the NFL’s top-ranked unit is starting to show some cracks in 2023.<\/p>\n

The Raiders exposed a few vulnerabilities in Week 17. The Seahawks found a few more in the Wild Card Round. Now the Dallas Cowboys seem poised to challenge this Niners’ defense in a whole new way on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Niners’ secondary is scrambling. The pass rush lacks the same punch it had early in the season. The rush defense is getting pushed around a bit.<\/p>\n

This 49ers’ defense is still strong \u2014 you don’t simply go from excellent to awful \u2014 but we haven’t seen greatness from this unit since the calendar flipped.<\/p>\n

But fret not, Niners fans, because the 49ers’ offense has turned into a juggernaut \u2014 a unit capable of carrying this team to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

It was sneaky, like Brock Purdy’s athleticism, but the 49ers have scored 34 points per game since the seventh-round rookie took over the offense in the first quarter of the team’s Week 13 game against the Dolphins.<\/p>\n

A small sample size? Sure. But the points output is no fluke. In the NFL, yards translate into points, and the Niners have averaged 396 yards per game with Purdy at the helm. Only two teams in the NFL had a higher per-game average over the course of the season \u2014 the Chiefs and the Bills.<\/p>\n

There’s an obvious answer as to why the 49ers’ offense has jumped 10 points per game since Jimmy Garoppolo was at the helm.<\/p>\n

And no, it’s not just the quarterback.<\/p>\n

\"San
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass in the second quarter of their NFC wild-card playoff game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. (Jose Carlos Fajardo\/Bay Area News Group) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n