Given the 3 and outs for Wash but I hardly see how we had trouble moving the ball. We had trouble scoring.

We put up 358 yards against Washington, and 486 against Carolina. That's an ave of 422 YPG. Only Two teams avr more than 400 YPG last year... Saints/Pats/Packers

No one ever said the 49ers had trouble moving the ball last year and they averaged 310 yards per game.

Take Colstons touch back fumble out of the game and we win. By the slimmest of margins.. but win.

I have always felt that the Colton fumble was negated by the blocked punt. I can almost bet that most of those yards were gained when the games were getting away from us. We had some trouble moving against the panties. I was there. We started out good, but after that we had trouble. Then toward the end we started moving it again, it was an improvement over Washington, but we still didn't look as fluid as we should. Plus I will say we had some drops too. I hope you're right man. Really do. I said that about the 49ers. Matter of fact I said outright that the game came down to protecting the ball because the only reason they were winning was short fields. Not that I am some genius because everyone knew we had to protect the ball in that game. It was how they had built their wins that season

The way I look at it is that Colstons fumble was a gift to the Skins... The blocked punt, was earned...

Gifts do negate gifts, but not earned plays... just the way I look at it.

I agree with you on that if the fumble had happened with more time on the clock. Being that the fumble and the block punt both happen with less than 2 minutes in the half makes it a wash. Saints were not going to score twice before the half anyway. Colston doesn't fumble and we score on the next play and kickoff, skins take a knee and it's halftime. Don't believe we onside kick in that situation. It's over so it doesn't matter anyway but my point is you can't blame Colston's fumble on that lost because points were scored. Now if we didn't block the punt and it was 20-7 at halftime then it would have been a different story.