Week 9 is over and done with. Now it's time for us to look back at the first half of the San Francisco 49ers’ season. All this week we're going to be doing a series of midseason articles. We'll be talking about both the good and the bad of this year so far. Here's what we've done so far: 

• 49ers rookie report card

We’ve taken a look at the rookies, now it’s time to analyze the overall team by going in-depth on the offense, defense and special teams.

The 49ers’ report card for the first eight games of the season can be summed up in three words. 

Must do better. 

That might a strange sentence to read about a team that is 5-3 and atop the NFC West, but the 49ers have much higher goals than that, and it’s clear they need to make strides in several areas to achieve them.

Offense

Grade: A-

It can be easy, and forgivable, to have impressions of the 49ers' offense colored by recency bias, with San Francisco scoring 17 points in each of its last three games.

Yet the only game in which an opposing defense really had the San Francisco attack off-kilter was in the Week 6 defeat to the Cleveland Browns, and that was only in the second half when the Niners did not have Christian McCaffrey or Deebo Samuel.

Since then, the 49ers have continued to move the ball extremely well even without Samuel and All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams. The primary difference has been turnovers, with Brock Purdy throwing six interceptions over the last three games.

Even with those miscues, the 49ers rank first in DVOA and second in Expected Points Added per play on offense and are still fourth in points per game with 27.3.

Purdy, for all his recent struggles in committing crucial giveaways, is still playing at an extremely high level and, for the most part, displaying impressive poise, accuracy and playmaking ability. He leads the NFL in the composite metric combining EPA and Completion Percentage Over Expectation (EPA + CPOE), reflecting both the efficiency of the offense and the ball placement he has demonstrated.

The last three weeks have been frustrating but, with Williams and Samuel expected back, there's little reason the 49ers' attack can't return to producing game-winning performances as the Niners come back from their bye.

Defense

Grade: C

A look at the efficiency numbers does not suggest too precipitous of a drop-off by the 49er defense under new coordinator Steve Wilks.

San Francisco is 10th in both EPA per play and Success Rate on defense, yet Wilks' unit has attracted significant scrutiny for its performance in the last two games having been picked apart by Kirk Cousins and Joe Burrow in successive weeks.

Discourse around the defense has predominantly concerned the defensive front's inability to get home on pressures, though the 49ers did have three sacks of Burrow in Week 8.

Yet the defensive line, mainly thanks to Nick Bosa, is generating consistent disruption, and its ability to do so will likely only increase following the trade for Chase Young.

A greater issue is the performance of slot corner Isaiah Oliver, who was picked on consistently by Burrow and has been at fault for several breakdowns in the defensive backfield. 

Oliver alone isn't responsible for the failings of a back seven that has seemed disconnected from the front, and he deserves credit for being one of the better run defenders in a group that has found opposing ground games surprisingly difficult to slow down at times. Still, he ranks highly among the problems Wilks must address for the 49ers to contend for the Super Bowl.

Special Teams

Grade: C

So far, it's been a mixed bag for the 49ers' special teams, which ranks 22nd in the NFL by DVOA.

On the one hand, rookie kicker Jake Moody has endured a tough start to his NFL career, missing a game-winner in the Week 6 loss to the Cleveland Browns and also failing from 40 yards in the subsequent defeat to the Minnesota Vikings, with those failures overshadowing successful attempts from 57 and 55 yards.

But there is also a huge positive, the form of punter Mitch Wishnowsky, who is enjoying the best season of his career.

The 2019 fourth-round pick is second in the NFL in net punting average (44.7 yards) and has pinned 14 punts inside the 20. On top of that, Wishnowsky's punts have been returned for a total of just 82 yards.

In that sense, the special teams can be interpreted as a microcosm of the 2023 49ers. One side is playing extremely well, but the other has great room for improvement.

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San Francisco will need a more complete effort in the second half if it is to realize its lofty ambitions.

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