Coach...?

[-AC-]

I'm curious to what others think about WR coach John Morton? I'm a USC fan and was never impressed with him while he was with the Trojans. Robert Woods developed nicely while under Morton, however he was the exception. During Morton's time at SC, they landed several highly regarded WR recruits. None of them really panned out. Ronald Johnson had a decent career at SC, but even he fell short of his 5 star rating coming out of high school...

I don't see very much development out of the 49ers WR's either. The Niners have done just about everything to bolster the WR spot the last 2 seasons (outside of trading for Josh Gordon). They drafted a WR in the first round last season, they traded for an under achieving WR with hopes of turning his career around, they have brought in veteran journeymen, they have brought in young players with off the charts measurables (Lockette). And yet, we still have seen very little from our WR's. I know Baalke gets a ton of scrutiny for not getting the right WR's in, and rightfully so. But how much of a role does John Morton play in that? Really, there are no signs of positive results under his tutilage...

Am I barking up the wrong tree, or is Morton really the guy for the job?

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Obviously this team has done a very poor job of developing WRs. I think a fair bit of that blame has to fall on Morton's shoulders. We haven't thrown a whole lot of picks at WR, but he has had two first round picks to work with in Crabtree and Jenkins. It's tough to fault him too much for Jenkins, but it's also hard to credit him with Crabtree. It seems like almost every other team has had some success developing later round WRs. We simply have not been able to do that. I'm interested to see what happens with Patton, but we've had more failures than I care to think about, including a guy that Morton presumably vouched for in Ronald Johnson. It's a serious concern, and I think we've got to be thinking about addressing that spot in the near ******.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Why is "f u t u r e" a banned word?

 

[-AC-]

Obviously this team has done a very poor job of developing WRs. I think a fair bit of that blame has to fall on Morton's shoulders. We haven't thrown a whole lot of picks at WR, but he has had two first round picks to work with in Crabtree and Jenkins. It's tough to fault him too much for Jenkins, but it's also hard to credit him with Crabtree. It seems like almost every other team has had some success developing later round WRs. We simply have not been able to do that. I'm interested to see what happens with Patton, but we've had more failures than I care to think about, including a guy that Morton presumably vouched for in Ronald Johnson. It's a serious concern, and I think we've got to be thinking about addressing that spot in the near ******.

I honestly think he is the weak link on the coaching staff...

I wonder if other USC/SF fans see the samething, like MHSL82?

 

[luckyluke22]

Not sure how much falls on Morton.

Jerry Sullivan didn't do much in terms of developing prospects successfully and he had the reputation of being one of the leagues best.

Maybe it's just a culmination of bad drafting, bad luck, and bad decisions regarding cuts. But we also haven't been a passing team the past decade, so developing players don't receive many opportunities. Not that this is an excuse for an elite talent type player, but we haven't drafted one of those (save Crabtree).

 

[Ray_Dogg]

Future

 

[supreme_clientele81]

since when are they banned words? fuck shit bitch dick **** cock

 

[Jikkle]

It's hard to say considering it's not like guys are going to other teams and blowing it up.

Part of it is we're just not investing a lot of high round picks into the position so we're not getting much in return from it.

The past couple of years it's been Crabtree and Jenkins as 1st round picks and Morgan, Williams, and Johnson as 6th round picks.

I mean when you draft guys in the 6th round most of the time they'll develop like they were taken in the 6th round. Especially at WR where talent rarely slips that far down.

So we definitely need to evaluate WR talent better and invest higher picks into the position. With that said I suspect we might take 2 WR within the first 3 rounds of the draft.

 

[shouldakepowens]

since when are they banned words? fuck shit bitch dick **** cock

You forgot future?

 

[RedneckNiner]

You also can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit and I like Kaep but he's still a largely one read qb although he shows flashes at times of going through progressions and I'm sure he will get better with expierence. So I don't think Morton is anything special but he's not the sole reason our wr corps is slightly unimpressive.

 

[threelittleturds]

Well, during the Smith years it was mostly agreed that it was his fault the WRs weren't developing. I don't think we can blame coaching or QBs. I think it starts with the talent of the WRs and ends with this not being a very WR friendly offensive scheme. Of all the recent 49ers drafted, Crabtree was the only one with real talent. Plus, the scheme often puts these guys in a situation where they have a CB in front and a safety on top. A run first scheme is not something that will produce a bunch of WRs. The Packers seem to churn out WRs like a factory because their pass first scheme is probably the most WR friendly in the NFL with the Broncos scheme not far behind.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

Future

Weird. I've never had that ****** thing appear before. I even tried to edit it, and it did it again. I do curse on here pretty regularly, and have never had a problem. Maybe it just didn't agree with my statement.

 

[Crimsoncrew]

You also can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit and I like Kaep but he's still a largely one read qb although he shows flashes at times of going through progressions and I'm sure he will get better with expierence. So I don't think Morton is anything special but he's not the sole reason our wr corps is slightly unimpressive.

Our WR corps is REALLY unimpressive. I mean, you've got one guy who is quite solid, but he wasn't a Morton product. After that, you've got nothing.

I agree with your assessment of Kap, and came back to this thread with the intention of posting something similar. Kap has been improving lately, but he's still effective primarily due to his physical ability. He has an elite arm, and it allows him to make throws that a lot of other guys couldn't. This ties into an argument I made a couple year ago about Smith and the fact that "open receiver" varies by QB. More guys are "open" to Kap than many other QBs because he can fire balls into very tight windows. He can force balls to his first read, or he can do serious damage running.

Kap clearly needs to improve in terms of going through his progressions. I'm optimistic he can do so, and there are times when you can see him doing it, but it's not the norm at this point. As such, it's hard to say to what extent the secondary receivers are god-awful, and to what extent they just aren't seeing the ball. It's pretty clear that Williams has gotten open from time to time, only for Kap not to see him. I can't recall seeing that from many/any of the other guys, but I don't watch the All-22 film. It shocks me that we haven't seen more out of Baldwin, Williams, or Moore (obviously he's now gone), though, and at some point you have to question the coaching and playcalling. Baldwin in particular is a real head-scratcher to me. He's never been successful, but we are getting almost nothing from our second WR, and literally nothing from our third WR. How is this guy not getting more looks, if for no other reason than his size?