San Francisco's offense is nowhere to be found

By GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) When Steve Mariucci was asked to explain the San Francisco 49ers' dismal offense, he showed all the elusiveness and imagination his team has lacked this season.

Nobody at the 49ers' training complex seems to know exactly why one of the NFL's most talented offenses has been mostly terrible in its first two games this season. San Francisco (1-1) was dominated in a 24-14 loss to Denver on Sunday.

Mariucci, one of the foremost practitioners of the West Coast offense, said there's no single reason his team failed to run the ball, failed to throw long passes and failed to maintain possession long enough to stay with the Broncos.

``It was a lot of things that we can correct,'' Mariucci said. ``It wasn't any one thing you can put your finger on. It was mistakes on things that we've done very well around here for a long time.''

There was plenty of blame to go around on Monday as the 49ers regrouped from their most disappointing home loss in two years. From the apparently overmatched offensive line to Jeff Garcia's shaky arm to Terrell Owens' butterfingers, almost everything went wrong.

The 49ers have just 540 total yards and three touchdowns this season. Garcia is averaging less than 6 yards per passing attempts, while Pro Bowl player Garrison Hearst has 45 yards rushing. Their leading receiver is tight end Eric Johnson, with 10 catches for 113 yards.

Mariucci spent a long night reviewing tape of the loss to Denver. According to his circular reasoning, the 49ers' rushing game was hurt by problems with the passing game, but a team can't throw unless it runs the ball first.

The coach contends Garcia's decisions seemed sound when he avoided long passes in favor of short routes to his tight end and running backs, but the 49ers' receivers also seemed open for long passes that were not thrown.

In any case, it's up to Mariucci to fix things in time for Sunday's visit from Steve Spurrier and the Washington Redskins. If not, the 49ers might be in for a long season.

``I've seen it in these guys before,'' Mariucci said. ``I have all the faith in the world we're going to get it done. I thought we were very prepared. It just didn't happen the way I thought.''

For once, Mariucci is on the same page with Owens, his All-Pro receiver. Owens, who has just nine catches for 79 yards this season, is in no position to make his usual complaints about his role in the offense, since constant zone double-teams, two big drops and several penalties conspired to keep him down Sunday.

``We had a good game plan, anticipating how (the Broncos) were going to play defense,'' Owens said. ``Every time we got something good, we shot ourselves in the foot. (The penalties) were a lack of concentration on my part. I don't know why.''

San Francisco is the birthplace of the West Coast offense, a scheme that features short, quick passes to receivers in stride. No NFL team has been running its offensive system longer than the 49ers have. Until now, few thought familiarity would lead to stagnation.

As always, much of the responsibility for this offense falls on the quarterback. After consecutive Pro Bowl seasons, Garcia has an 82.1 quarterback rating, and even Mariucci is wondering why Garcia isn't looking downfield more often.

Garcia blamed the problems against Denver on the Niners' 10 penalties for 114 yards coupled with the Broncos' conservative defense. But Garcia's arm strength again proved questionable when he badly underthrew his only significant long pass.

``We knew we had to be patient, but we never had the consistency to get them out of what they were doing defensively,'' Garcia said. ``We've got to execute, and we've got to keep ourselves out of bad situations.''

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)