SANTA CLARA — The 49ers’s season of misery resumed on Sunday when the New Orleans Saints hammered San Francisco 41-23 at Levi’s Stadium. The team has now lost seven straight games.
The script was the same for the 49ers defense, a unit who is entering unchartered territory for their disastrous play.
Drew Brees threw three touchdowns, sensational rookie receiver Michael Thomas caught two of them and the Saints rushed for 250 yards. Mark Ingram’s 75-yard mad-dash to the end zone in the second quarter was the epitome of this 2016 season. Ingram became the seventh straight 100-yard rusher against Jim O’Neil’s defense — that’s a new NFL record. No other NFL team has allowed more than three 100-yard rushers this season.
Offensively, the 49ers looked explosive and moved the football up and down the field all game. Chip Kelly was dialing up the right plays against a bad Saints defense.
Colin Kaepernick threw for 398 yards and two touchdowns. DuJuan Harris had a breakout game, scoring on a 47-yard screen pass in the second quarter. Harris finished with 142 total yards and may have done enough to craft a role in the offense even when Carlos Hyde returns. Vance McDonald took a short pass 65 yards to the house in the second quarter. Quinton Patton had a career-high 106 yards receiving.
It wasn’t all roses on offense for the 49ers, though. The team turned the ball over four times.
Kaepernick telegraphed an interception right into the arms of Saints linebacker Craig Robertson in the first quarter, who rumbled 29 yards the other way. There was also a point where Kaepernick threw seven straight incompletions between the third and fourth quarters. Just when the 49ers were within striking distance early in the third quarter, Mike Davis fumbled the ball on the goal line. Kaepernick himself coughed up the football late in the fourth quarter in the red zone. For good measure, Harris laid the ball on the turf with 2:27 remaining. It was a clown show in the turnover department.
Impact players continued to be muted, too.
Torrey Smith caught just two passes for 18 yards and was targeted just three times. Big plays on defense continue to be nonexistent — the 49ers did not force a turnover, something that had been their hallmark earlier in the season. Antoine Bethea in particular had a rough outing and took the wrong angle on Ingram’s long touchdown run.
And guess what? The 49ers schedule is not getting any easier. A trip to Arizona is on deck for next Sunday, followed by Tom Brady and the Patriots back in Santa Clara.