Philly beatdown drops 49ers to franchise first 0-8 start

For the first time in franchise history, the San Francisco 49ers have started a season 0-8.

And similar to Week 7, when they were embarrassed by the Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco’s latest loss came as a product of being outworked, outplayed and outmuscled, this time by the Philadelphia Eagles (7-1), ending in a 33-10 beating at Lincoln Financial Field.

Per usual for 49ers (0-8), their day featured a lack of production on the offensive side of the ball. In rookie quarterback C.J. Beathard’s second career start, he looked to improve from a lackluster performance in the week before. He did not.

Instead, the 49ers offense was smothered for the majority of the afternoon, amassing an abysmal 238 total yards of offense.

Much of the problems were attributed to poor offensive line play. After losing All-Pro left tackle Joe Staley in the second quarter to an eye injury, the 49ers gave up a total of four sacks.

Attributed to seeing a large amount of pressure, Beathard completed less than 50 percent of his passes (17/36) for a mere 167 yards, the lesser total of his two starts.

As far as the running game was concerned, the 49ers were met with a similar result. Carlos Hyde and Matt Breida took the majority of carries but the pair were only able to rack up 42 yards combined on 17 carries.

The leading rusher for the 49ers would wind up being Beathard, who ran for 40 yards on six carries.

Although San Francisco came off as their typically lethargic selves on the offensive side of things, much of the story came from a hellacious effort from the Eagles defense who can be credited with giving the 49ers fits on Sunday.

On top of keeping the 49ers to under 250 yards in total offense, Philadelphia’s defense also forced San Francisco into turnovers, in the form of two Beathard interceptions resulting in seven Eagle points, returned for a 38-yard touchdown by Jalen Mills.

With their offense not getting the job done, the 49ers only hope was their defense which would wind up taking a few severe blows to their depth chart.

Starting safety Jimmie Ward suffered a broken forearm, according to head coach Kyle Shanahan, and rookie defensive end Solomon Thomas was taken to the locker room after suffering a knee injury since diagnosed as a sprained MCL.

Without an essential pass rusher and a security blanket at safety out, the 49ers gave up a total of 304 Philadelphia yards to go with its 33 points.

Taking advantage of good field position with a turnover and forced punts thanks to his defense, Eagles Quarterback Carson Wentz was able to complete 56 percent of his passes (18/32) for 211 yards through the air. Clearly not a blistering stat line but utterly efficient nonetheless.

The 49ers only touchdown of the day came on the strength of rookie cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon‘s his first career interception, accounting fof the Eagle’s only turnover of the game.

The 49ers would take over possession at the Eagles’ 22-yard line and convert on a shovel pass from Beathard to Breida that would make it all the way to the end zone.

After starting the season in possibly the most promising losing streak in NFL history, losing five games by three points or less, the 49ers have now had their two worst losses consecutively.

Granted, they have played two of the best teams in the NFC in back-to-back weeks but a combined losing margin of 63 points in two games simply won’t cut it.

Clearly this isn’t how Shanahan envisioned his first season as an NFL coach to go, especially sinking to a historical underachievement like 0-8.