Edwards: 49ers offense ‘not near what we can be'

LANDOVER, Md. -- Receiver Braylon Edwards sustained a left shoulder injury and was led off to get X-rays after the 49ers' 19-11 victory over the Washington Redskins.He was bruised, but otherwise fine.But that meant he was late arriving back at his locker. When he began getting dressed, he was the only player in the room. Edwards chatted with Sgt. Dontae Skywalker, third relief commander at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, as he was getting dressed.Then, Edwards began talking football until he was told that coach Jim Harbaugh had already left the locker room, and he might want to hurry up to catch the bus to the airport.

Edwards caught the bus, all right. Before that, he caught two passes for 30 yards.On a third-and-4 in the fourth quarter, he gathered in a slant from quarterback Alex Smith that went for 24 yards. Toward the end of the run, he appeared to seek out DeAngelo Hall to deliver a hit to the pursuing Redskins cornerback.A wide receiver who usually tries to avoid contact appeared to go out of his way to strike Hall."It had nothing to do with it being DeAngelo Hall or anything like that," Edwards said. "I just assessed the situation. I knew that he's fast and he probably would've caught up to me. And I saw the safety coming over the top. So I didn't think I was going to get into the end zone. I knew I had the first down, so I thought, 'Let me try to inflict some punishment on somebody and see what happens after that.'"That wasn't a personal vendetta against him. It was just anybody who was there. I thought, 'Inflict pain as opposed to letting him pull me down.' "Edwards is part of the 49ers' "regular" personnel group. But the 49ers used a lot of different combinations, as Edwards, Michael Crabtree, Ted Ginn and Kyle Williams were kept on their toes throughout the game as they rotated more than ever."I'd like to see us be more consistent in that, but it's something that is new," Edwards said. "I'm finally back. It's my second game back. Kyle Williams is coming along well for us. We got Ted. We got Crab, who's making plays. You can tell his foot really doesn't bother him any more because he's out there making plays."We just got to keep it going, be more consistent. I think it's something that can be special for us. We can hurt some teams with it."Edwards was asked to compare the success he experienced with the New York Jets, as opposed to what's going on with the 49ers now. He said the 49ers have room to get significantly better, as opposed to the Jets."The Jets, we were already at our potential," Edwards said. "We'd already reached our peak. We had everything in place. We had run the offense for a couple of plays, and we were at our peak. If we'd lost a game, it was because we didn't come to play that game, or we got outplayed or out-coached."We're in a situation right now where we're 7-1 and we haven't yet begun to touch the surface of what we can do."Edwards said there are a lot of moving parts with the 49ers that provides the coaching staff with a lot of options and a lot of playmakers to incorporate in the game plan.
"So now we get consistent and we get better week to week," Edwards said. "Now you're talking about being unstoppable because our defense is pretty much our cornerstone right now. We're banking on the defense and we're getting better as an offense."We're not near what we can be."