49ers coach Tomsula takes blame for faulty defense

SANTA CLARA, Calif. The 49ers were burned deep by Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger far too many times, and they’ll get another big thrower this weekend in Arizona’s Carson Palmer.

Hence, 49ers coach Jim Tomsula had a clear message Monday about one correction that has to be made over the next six days after a 43-18 thrashing by the Steelers on Sunday.

“We have to make sure they’re not behind us,” Tomsula said. “We don’t want to give up the big play. I’ve been here for nine years, and that’s always what we’ve talked about and where we pride ourselves stop the run and don’t give up the big play.”

A number of things contributed to that breakdown against Pittsburgh. The 49ers pass rush didn’t give much protection to the secondary, defensive backs took some poor angles to deep throws, and the defensive schemes may have played into Roethlisberger’s strengths.

“It’s a team game,” Tomsula said. “(Pittsburgh) had a nice plan. We have to cover deeper and longer.”

Many of the Steelers’ big plays came on third down when the 49ers came up to the line of scrimmage before the snap but didn’t drop into pass coverage soon enough.

“It was third and medium where our biggest struggle was,” Tomsula said. “You’re protecting the sticks. You want to show something in the box and then get out of there.

“Coaching-wise, maybe we shouldn’t have guys flying out of there from such a low level, but we’re evaluating all that today. I knew all that stuff was (in the game plan), and any fingers to be pointed, they go right here.”

Summed up defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, “We put ourselves in a lot of bad situations that was very uncharacteristic of our defense.”

The 49ers are evaluating a lot of things after a stark reversal from their 20-3 season-opening win against Minnesota, but Tomsula didn’t duck the obvious.

“We were outplayed, we were out-coached, we lost,” he said. “In this thing, every week’s an evaluation win, lose or draw. We were talking about that a week ago. We won a football game and a lot of people were crowning us. I said it then and I’ll say it again, it’s a 16-week season and we don’t need to get on a roller coaster. You need to keep your head focused and lock your jaw and get to work.”

Wide receiver Torrey Smith echoed Tomsula’s assessment.

“They definitely whupped on us, there’s really no way around it,” Smith said. “We didn’t do enough and we weren’t ready. But we have 14 more games left. If this was late in the year, it’d be reason to panic, but it was just one loss, and we just have to get ready for Arizona.

“In the league in general, there have been some crazy things happening,” Smith added. “That’s just what happens early in the year. Things start to take form in the middle of the year, and we want to continue to grow and try to get wins now, but really be established after this first quarter.”

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