Santa Clara – Players on offense and defense appear to be behind 49ers starting quarterback Brian Hoyer despite his horrendous performance in Arizona.
How bad was it? Fourteen of his 25 incompletions were straight misses, with Hoyer having a clean pocket and a mostly open receiver, sometimes wide open. At least three of those incompletions were miscommunications, which is too many.
The pass protection held up, with Hoyer only getting sacked three times in 52 drop backs, and two of those were on him. Hoyer was hit four other times.
Hoyer’s receivers didn’t help; four players dropped five passes, including a potential 57-yarder that slipped right through Aldrick Robinson. If everyone catches those dropped throws, Hoyer is suddenly 29 for 49 for 341 yards and the 49ers, almost assuredly, win the game.
Nevertheless, 14 missed passes is an absurdly high number. Even though Hoyer struggled mightily, players are sticking with him. Two of them, fullback Kyle Juszczyk and defensive end Arik Armstead, even had suggestions for how to emerge from NFL struggles.
“I think we have all been through that in our football careers,” said Juszczyk. “I think what you really go back to is your fundamentals. Your day one stuff. They are certain rules we follow on each play. If you just go back to keeping it simple, day one stuff and build from there, that’s the way out.”
For Juszczyk, confidence is the key, and sometimes a player has to play tricks to maintain their confidence.
“As a professional athlete, you have to have confidence in yourself. You have to believe that you are the player that you want to be even if you are not playing that way at the time,” Juszczyk said. “You got to believe that’s in you and you have to approach it like you are that kind of player.”
Hoyer has been that type of player, particularly in a four-game stretch last year in Chicago before he shattered his forearm. Hoyer tossed eight touchdowns with no interceptions during that time, and threw for over 300 yards in each game.
Armstead said, when things are rough, you have to go back to the people who support you.
“Everybody struggles as a professional athlete,” Armstead said. “It’s always not as bad as you think it is, and it’s always not as good as you think it is when things are going good.”