As the 49er offense continues to struggle people keep trying to find a place to point their finger at. Outside of the simple fact that everyone involved in the Niners offense could be doing better it is a good question for the team to answer going forward so that they can hopefully do something about it. There are many fans that want to throw offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye under the bus for his lack of creative play calling, and then there are those that want to dump just about every offensive player they have and start over again on that side of the ball. However, considering that the 49ers have people playing well at almost every position on the offense, that second option seems a little harsh, and getting rid of the offensive coordinator so they can get yet another new one next year doesn’t seem like it would be doing the players any favors. So where do the Niners go from here?

I said before the Niners have guys playing well at almost every offensive position and I could practically hear the scoffs of people reading that from here. Well lets go around the positions. At wide receiver Michael Crabtree is playing very well (even if he hasn’t had a big game numbers wise yet) and could be a starter on many teams, not to mention he is the best route runner of any of the rookie wide outs this year. Behind him Josh Morgan, Isaac Bruce, Arnez Battle, and Brandon Jones make up a solid cast of number 2 and 3 receivers. At tight end Vernon Davis is having a Pro Bowl year and Delanie Walker is continuing to battle it out with Dallas’ Martellus Bennett for the title of best back-up tight end in the league. At running back Frank Gore has still been Frank Gore, averaging 78 yards rushing a game in games where he has more than one carry (projected over 16 games that average would give him 1,248 yards for the year) and is averaging over 5 yards a carry. And lastly at quarterback Shaun Hill and Alex Smith have a combined QB Rating of 80 so far this year (with Smith being right at that average with his rating at 79.5 for the year so far) and while that may not be great its better than the Titans got last year, when they went 13-3, from the combo of Young and Collins.

The offensive line is a bit of a different story however. The Niners O-line has been porous to say the least. They have allowed 28 sacks so far this season, enough to get them in the top ten in that category, and have failed to provide the push off the line in the run game to make Singletary’s power offense work. But it is not all bad for them either. Let us not forget the key injuries to both of their starting tackles, one of which, Joe Staley, is having a good year and is a good young tackle for sure. Outside of Staley, however, the only consistent blocker the Niners have up from is center Eric Heitmann. Besides those two the offensive line is chalk full of under achievers to be sure, namely Chilo Rachal, who is continually failing to build upon a decent rookie year.

Although the old football adage says, “it all starts up front,” there must be some way for the Niner offense to be effective without a great offensive line. After all, the Stealers won two Super Bowls with a below average offensive line. Granted they have Ben Roethlisberger, but can one man really make that much of a difference on an offense? I don’t think so, however, I believe that two people can, the right two people in the right positions that is. The best example of this is the Saints, their offense didn’t just explode because of Drew Brees transforming into one of the top 5 quarterbacks in the league, it happened because a great quarterback got there at the same time a great offensive mind did in Sean Payton.

This brings us to the other “position” on offense, offensive coordinator. Now there isn’t a person who knows the game of football that would honestly call Jimmy Raye a great offensive mind, but he doesn’t have to be. Mike Singletary has never asked that this offense be great, and this team does not need a great offense to win games, but they do need this unit to be able to move the ball and put up points consistently. I don’t believe that order is too tall for this offense either, and I feel that there are plenty of plays in their playbook that work for this offense and its personnel, but the play calling has to be more creative to keep the defenses they face on their toes and off balance. That is the key to moving the ball on offense, keep the defense confused, if the defense doesn’t know where the ball will be coming at them from they will have a low success rate, and the same is true the other way around, if the defense knows the offenses’ success rate becomes dismal and unfortunately every defense the Niners face know where the ball is coming at them from on almost every down.

Does this mean I feel we need a new offensive coordinator, no, not yet anyway, it would be a disservice to this team to make them go through that again. However, I do feel having someone with a little more creativity calling the plays could defiantly help. As I said before it is not the plays themselves that are horrible, and from what I hear the team likes Jimmy Raye, the problem is that this offense does a horrible job of keeping defenses guessing and when you don’t yet have the talent to match up one-on-one and force your game plan on the opposing defense that skill becomes critical and that skill lies with the offensive coordinator.

Like in most situations panicking and hitting the reset button is usually not the best option. Considering this is a defense first team this offense is closer than most people think to being able to do the job it needs to do to win more games, it just needs a few tweaks to fine tune it. Sure an infusion of talent would help, but that will come over time through drafts and so fourth, but the Niners can do a better job with what they have, they just need to figure out how.