CFP Viewing Guide
to college we go
Disappointed in this terrible season? Itching to watch meaningful football into January that doesn’t feature degenerate organizations such as the Chiefs and the Eagles? Below is a viewing guide for the College Football Playoff, if all you care about is keeping an eye out for players who the Niners might draft come spring. For each of the eight remaining teams, I’ve highlighted (or tried to highlight) one player who might be a good fit for us, a second-best option, and any other players of potential interest.
It’s very early in the evaluation process, so I’ve only included guys currently ranked in the top 100ish by whatever media outlet. I’ve also (mostly) included dudes at positions that may be of genuine need in the first three rounds. Needs such as offensive line, where we have an aging Hall of Famer, a homerun rookie, and–uh…room for improvement; defensive line, which needs an influx of front- and back-end talent–with our without Javon Hargrave; tight end/fullback–to give us an heir apparent to Kittle, a potential replacement for Juice, and the double tight potential that has seemingly alluded us for years; and secondary, where we’re strong with young talent but still likely losing 2-3 contributors from this season.
OHIO STATE
This Buckeyes team is loaded with talent, and–despite a season-ending knee injury–#71 OT, Josh Simmons (1st round) could be their first player off the board. He’s big, athletic, and skilled both as a pass protector and in the high-movement run-blocking schemes we prioritize, giving him the two-way potential to become an immediate starter and long-term bookend along our OL. Now the injury is a question mark until he gets through medicals, and there’s some concern that–due to the timing of it–his improvement this year wasn’t properly tested against elite competition. But—as we know—the Niners typically don’t like taking offensive linemen high unless they have truly elite tools and Simmons could present the right blend of size, talent, and movement skills for the Niners to draft him in the top half of the first round.
Runner-Up: Ohio State could have three starters along the DL drafted by the end of the second round, and realistically any of them could fit here, but I’m going to highlight #91 DT, Tyleik Williams (1st-2nd). With his size (6’2” 322 lbs.), athleticism, and strength, the potential is quite obvious–even if the consistency leaves something to be desired. This is an intriguing and deep defensive tackle class that features better interior rushers than Williams, but he is—at least—a high-level run defender and he’s shown enough flashes as a pass rusher to think he might be able to put it all together.
Others: #44 DE, JT Tuimoloau (1st-2nd) and #33 DE, Jack Sawyer (2nd) were both former five-star defensive ends who have rounded into high-end starters—even if neither of them are game breakers. They’re both smart, high-motor guys, with JT being the more versatile (with more pass-rush potential) while Sawyer seems like a long-term run-stuffing specialist whose a bit too stiff to rack up major sacks… I’m not as high on #2 WR, Emeka Egbuka (1st-2nd) as a lot of other people. I think he’s got the savvy and route running to be a solid pro, but I typically want more from a first-round receiver. His “always a bridesmaid” college career makes me question the ceiling for a guy going this high… the same goes for their CB duo of the long and rangy #1 CB, Davison Igbonisun (2nd-3rd) and post-first-round-hype #10 CB, Denzel Burke (2nd-3rd), although both could rise quickly if they don’t get torched by Oregon again in the quarterfinals… Finally, the Buckeyes have two running backs who could get drafted by the end of day 2, but since I’d rather not put into existence the idea of drafting a back that early, I won’t even mention them.
OREGON
If we’re looking for a disruptive presence on the inside, we could do much worse than #55 DT, Derrick Harmon (1st round), whose counting stats (5 sacks) aren’t incredible but is one of the nation’s leaders in interior pressures. He doesn’t look as impressive as some of the other guys he’ll be compared against (and testing will be interesting), but his constant presence in opposing backfields is impossible to ignore. He’s a one-gap shooter through and through who would slot seamlessly into our wide 9 front. His best comp is probably Javon Hargrave.
Runner-Up: #76, OT Josh Conerly (1st-2nd) may not declare for the draft this year, and–given how raw he still is–that could be the right call. He’s likely going to polarize a lot of scouts and picking him in the low teens feels like a sizable stretch, but he’s a former five-star whose got the right size and high-end athleticism to become a long-term starter outside in our scheme, even if he needs to add refinement and play strength. I don’t think he’s a plug-and-play type, so–if we were to draft him–I’d want to trade down until much later in the first to do so.
Others: #3 TE, Terrance Ferguson (3rd round+) has been a legitimate contributor for four years in Eugene, registering 17+ grabs each year in college (with 38 so far as a senior). He looks pretty athletic on tape—which is more important for our TEs/FBs than most due to our complicated edge blocking and reliance on YAC yards—and scouts expect him to test well… Over the years we’ve enjoyed many a jumbo Oregon defensive lineman and #1 DE, Jordan Burch (3rd round) could be next in line. Especially if he can play inside and out. He’s a 6-6 295-pound end who paces Oregon with 8.5 sacks… Out wide #7 WR, Evan Stewart (2nd-3rd) and #18 WR, Tez Johnson (3rd) are both somewhat undersized big-play threats. Stewart is a bit bigger and has more outside receiver potential while Tez is a more polished route runner but his size (5’10” 165 lbs.) probably limits him to the slot.
GEORGIA
If we don’t count Carson Beck, every Bulldog who may get drafted in the first three rounds is probably a good schematic fit for us, so I’ll zag and go with #24 S, Malaki Starks (1st). Safety is far from a pressing need for our team, but I have a soft spot for instinctual playmakers on the back end and Starks has the football intelligence and versatility to line up all over the field. We’ve seen how a smart and versatile safety/nickel can quickly unlock a new identity for an NFL defense (Brian Branch - 2023, Detroit; Kyle Hamilton - 2022, Baltimore). Taking Starks would very much be a “best player available” sort of pick, but it could also signal a schematic evolution for our defense.
Runner-Up: While we’re on the topic of position-agnostic defenders whose selection could unlock some newfound schematic flexibility, #11 OLB/DE, Jalon Walker (1st) is as intriguing as any prospect on our radar. He backed up future pros his first two years in Athens–playing mostly as a third-down edge rusher–before becoming a starting stand-up linebacker as a junior. Due to the lack of snaps and how Georgia has bounced him around, his instincts are a bit of a question mark. That would be a massive red flag for me if I thought he was going to stick at linebacker, but–in our scheme–I see him more as a guy who would speed rush opposite Bosa and moonlight as a drop man for the occasional trap coverage. He is an S-tier athlete who needs a developmental plan, but the ceiling is enticing.
Others: #13 DE, Mykell Williams (1st) is your more traditional hand-on-ground edge, and while he lacks Walker’s high-end explosiveness, he’s strong, long, and a great mover. He needs to show more consistency and put it all together, but he’s flashed enough with big moments in big games (4 sacks in two games against Texas this year) to think he’s on the right path… If we’re looking for interior offensive line (and god, we should be) Georgia has three dudes who could be drafted by the end of day 2. #55 C, Jared Wilson (3rd) lacks ideal experience and length but is a high-end athlete and a nice scheme fit because of that. Like Wilson, #53 OG, Dylan Fairchild (2nd-3rd) is also one of the top players in the country at his position and a quality athlete—even if he needs to add some strength. And #69 OG, Tate Ratledge (2nd-3rd) is basically everything you’d expect from a dude whose name is Ratledge, plays guard, and wears #69. He’s strong and tough and could likely start at guard for us as a rookie… Finally, #4 TE, Oscar Delp (3rd) was buried for years behind all-world tight end Brock Bowers but–despite middling production–has nice athleticism and YAC potential. Like Ferguson from Oregon, he may be a riser as the draft process continues.
TEXAS
Is he a tackle? Is he a guard? Luckily, we’re not picky cause we desperately need both 🙃. NFL teams are torn on the true position of Outland Winner #78 OT/G, Kelvin Banks (1st), but it’s not hard to imagine him starting at either right tackle or guard for us next season (after Banks leaves and we move Puni to LG). Our need for linemen in the short- and long-term also means that we could feasibly let him start at guard as a rookie before developing into a tackle down the road. He’ll need to improve his balance and figure out how to sustain better on our long stretch blocks, but he’s got the athleticism to get there.
Runner-Up: Like Starks from Georgia, I’m throwing another hyper versatile, heady DB into the mix with #7 DB, Jahdae Barron (1st-2nd round). More of a day 3 prospect before he proved he could play outside corner this year, Barron can truly play any position in the secondary and is at his best in a zone-heavy scheme where he can read and make plays on the ball. You know, like ours. I doubt the Niners are looking to spend a first-rounder on a defensive back, but Barron’s draft stock is a bit TBD at the moment, and it’s not hard to see Lynch and Co. falling in love with his football intelligence and versatility.
Others: If we don’t go for Banks, perhaps we go for fellow bookend #56 OT, Cameron Williams (1st), who is getting Amarius Mims comps due to his incredible size, athletic ability, and untapped potential. Like Mims, Williams is only a one-year starter, and while I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say he’s on the former Georgia standout’s level of raw talent, the upside is real. To this point, the Niners have largely avoided these types of low-experience, high-upside prospects along the offensive line, but hey, might as well throw his name out there… Speaking of high potential with question marks, #7 WR, Isaiah Bond (2nd) is far from consistent and you know he’d be an early candidate for the Kyle Shanahan “in this receiver’s ass” award, but the athleticism, easy movement skills, and deep speed are highly intriguing. If he’s wired right, he could easily be a better pro than a college player.
PENN STATE
In the semifinal blowout over SMU, Penn State ran #44 TE, Tyler Warren (1st) on a fly sweep handoff to operate a speed option pass. So yeah. Kyle Shanahan’s gonna love this guy. Under new OC Andy Kotelnicki, Warren had truly rare usage for a college tight end, tallying a 92-1095-6 line as Penn State’s best receiving option by a mile. I’m interested to see how he tests, but he’s a smooth mover who’s got A-level versatility and hands, and he’d be a great fit in our offense. The sticking point? He’s probably a first-round talent, and that’s too high for us to take a tight end. But if he were to fall into the second… I gotta imagine we’d be interested.
Runner-Up: I don’t know where Penn State continually finds these guys, but they’ve got another edge rusher with elite athletic traits coming down the pipe in #11 DE, Abdul Carter (1st). He moved from standup OLB to full-time edge this season, and–unlike Chop Robinson a year ago–has found immediate production; he currently leads the Big Ten in TFLs (22) and sacks (11). One year isn’t enough time to figure out all the nuances of pass rushing, so he’ll need some time to develop and may start out as a subpackage rusher in our turbo sets while honing his technique and strength against the run. But the potential for a full-time speed rusher opposite Bosa is sky-high.
Others: The Nittany Lions have another defensive lineman who might go in the first few rounds in #33 DE, Dani Dennis-Sutton (3rd+), but I don’t know if he has the athletic profile to intrigue us unless he falls into day 3 and/or we feel like he can play inside… It’s not hard to see #10 RB, Nick Singleton (Day 3) having some success in our running game, but–as noted before–we shouldn’t be taking a running back in the first two days unless they’re an elite talent who has fallen tremendously. But maybe we can get Singleton for good value if he falls on day 3.
NOTRE DAME
Like Simmons at Ohio State, you won’t be seeing #20 CB, Benjamin Morrison (1st-2nd) in the playoffs after he suffered a torn hip labrum back in October, but–also like Simmons–he may be a first-rounder this year nonetheless. He’s got good size, ball skills, and production, but testing will be critical as there were always questions about his deep speed and transitions. Those concerns are no doubt greater after his injury.
Runner-Up: A two-time All-American with 13(!) interceptions over the past two years, #0 S, Xavier Watts (?) won the Bronko Nagurski Award for the nation’s top defender last year, but his draft evals seem all over the place. He’s a physical presence and with great ball skills, but his change of direction, lack of top-end speed, and overall awareness in coverage have some scouts questioning how he transitions to the NFL level. Perhaps he’s limited to a box role in the NFL or perhaps he’s a Huf-type who can be had at a discount.
BOISE STATE
The Broncos have one player likely to get picked in the top 100 of the draft, and it’s #2 RB, Ashton Jeanty (1st). We’re not taking a running back in the first round, and Jeanty’s certainly not falling out of it, so there's not a lot to talk about here. But he is quite awesome.
ARIZONA STATE
Uh… that white running back? But honestly, not really. #4 RB, Cam Skattebo (Day 3) is probably the Sun Devils’ best prospect but he’s not a great fit with our scheme. He’s not fast or particularly explosive through the hole. He’s more of a banger subpackage type. Maybe he can gain like twenty pounds and play full back…? And also learn to block? But at that point, we should probably just pick a guy who plays TE/H-back already. But if we want the whitest running back room since the 1950’s, we know who to call.
BONUS: NORTH DAKOTA STATE (FCS Champ Game)
If you’re really itching for some college football, #74 OL, Grey Zabel (2nd-3rd) is a small school prospect who has ascended from preseason Day 3 status to (likely) somewhere on Day 2. A starter at left tackle for the Bison with great feet and intelligence, he could legitimately play any of five positions along the offensive line, even if his lack of ideal bulk and length probably pushes him inside. The movement skills are a great fit for our scheme and many think Zabel projects best at center—a position where we desperately need an upgrade.
Go Niners 🏈👍
Sustainability in the Era of the Bajillion Dollar Quarterback
guesstimating Brock’s big payday
With the playoffs no longer a thing, we’ve entered the information gathering stage of the season. The team is still trying to compete and win, but mostly to infer which players it needs to gain or lose to compete for something much bigger a year from now. That makes this stretch run vitally important for soon-to-be free agents such as Huf and Greenlaw, as well as our quarterback, whose upcoming price tag has yet to be determined.
When people talk about the Niners’ closing contention window, the giant (mostly) unspoken assumption is that Brock Purdy is actually… not that good. Therefore, if we pay him a market QB rate, we will become–like him… not that good. Never mind the fact that in 2017 we gave Jimmy Garoppolo what was then the largest contract in NFL history, and–under his “guidance”–we had a winning percentage of 69% (lol, Jimmy would). The going belief–regardless of how accurate it may be–is that a big deal for a QB will result in a massive dropoff in our ability to surround said QB with the talent needed to compete.
Can We Procrastinate? This would be the ideal scenario. Have Purdy play next season on his rookie deal, get more info on the player he could become, and then happily pay the salary cap inflation surcharge that comes with waiting a year for an extension. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll have a choice. Purdy has one more year on his rookie contract, but now that he’s extension-eligible there’s no way his agent lets him play a snap on that deal.
At his current pay rate, Purdy is making just over $1M this season, with an average annual salary of $934K that ranks 84th among NFL quarterbacks and 1,756th among all NFL contracts, regardless of position. That’s right, despite active rosters being capped at 53 players, there are–on average–54.8 players being paid more handsomely on every team across the league than Brock Purdy. All this while Spotrac puts his calculated market value at $59.7M/year. Even if you hate Brock, you cannot deny that he’s currently one of the greatest bargains in the history of professional sports. He’s about to get paid, and—based on public comments from Lynch and Shanahan—I think the Niners are happy to do it.
How Many Brinks Trucks We Lookin At? If you have an elite quarterback looking for a contract extension, you typically just reset the market with a new deal and hope you can structure it well. But while Brock has looked elite at times in the early goings of the season, his overall play has been closer to above average to good.
If I’m breaking QBs into tiers, I have four dudes indisputably clumped together in Tier 1: Allen, Lamar, Mahomes, and Burrow. These are the guys who are so good that they’re effectively your offensive engine, even if you cut corners around them.
Tier 2 would involve more of the Herbert and Stafford types, guys who aren’t perfect but can play at a high level with heavy responsibility and control in the pure dropback passing game. They’re not a one-man offense, but they can carry you for long stretches.
Tier 3 features above-average-to-good starting quarterbacks who can pop off statistically but need a scheme and a supporting cast. That’s where I’d put Purdy. In tier 3 and somewhere in the 10-15 of overall quarterbacks, clustered around the Baker Mayfields and Geno Smiths of the world but with more youth and growth potential.
It’s not unreasonable to think that if we’re handing out a big deal to Purdy, we expect him to become (at least) a perennial bottom-of-the-top-10 type guy and solidly in that second tier. But he’s not there yet. And what’s the price tag for a guy like that? Honestly, who the hell knows, but it’s probably more than you’d like.
Here’s the AAV for each of the long-term QB deals that got handed out last off-season: Kirk Cousins ($45M), Trevor Lawrence ($55M), Jordan Love ($55M), Tua ($53M), Goff ($53M), and Dak ($60M). How many of those guys would you consider firmly in the Tier 2 range of quarterbacks? How many would you consider better than Purdy? It doesn’t really matter. This is the market for veteran starting quarterbacks. So if we eliminate the comparison point of the 36-year-old coming off an Achilles injury, we’re probably looking at something in the mid-50M range, adjusted for salary cap inflation.
Are There Alternatives? Not really.
A rookie? Dear God, no. This looks to be one of the worst quarterback classes of the past decade, and while I wouldn’t be surprised if some starters emerge from it, I have no idea who those starters might be. While rolling the dice on a rookie and hoping they can learn under Purdy for a year is a fun theoretical exercise, it also assumes two things—that this rookie (unlike Trey Lance) will turn out at least as good as Purdy within a year and that Purdy will be down to play as a lame duck starter for a year at a $1M rate. Neither seems plausible.
What about a free agent? Like Kirk Cousins, the 36-year-old QB coming off an Achilles injury who threw one touchdown to nine picks over his last five starts? Or Mac Jones with his chill 3-13 record and 15-to-17 TD-to-INT ratio over the past two seasons? Justin Fields, whose weaknesses as a passer–anticipation and throwing quickly on underneath routes–overlap entirely with the core of our offense?
Ultimately, there is only one veteran option on the quarterback market who is even remotely plausible/intriguing as a long-term starter. And he was on the roster last year. Let’s entertain this hypothetical.
Say the Vikings move on from Sam Darnold and–rather than play bridge quarterback to another rookie or start for some woefully shitty franchise–he wants to come back to the bay. As a guy who has gotten paid nothing and is a year removed from MVP consideration, Purdy asks for something like five years at $55M/yr. While Darnold–who has suffered through various terrible organizations and is just now getting a taste of what it’s like to play on a good team–is less desperate for big money and swoops in with something like four years at $35M/yr (kinda like Baker’s deal).
We sign Darnold then ping the Titans—and friend and GM Ran Carthon—and convince him to opt for Purdy—the proven commodity—over the likes of the second or third-best rookie QB in a bad class. We trade Purdy for something like a 1st rounder and two second day picks over the next two years.
With an additional $20M in cap space spread out over the next four years, two picks in the top 12, and more coming down the pipeline, we’ve effectively jumpstarted our retooling. We’ve swapped out a 25-year-old QB for a 27-year-old one with superior physical tools who we’re already familiar with. We draft an elite defensive line prospect in the top ten and a mauler guard/tackle at 12 and we reload in a hurry with the intent of competing right now and for years to come.
This is one of the only scenarios outside of “just pay Purdy” that even remotely intrigues me. It’s also not going to happen. But it is fun to think about. And it shows us how few viable options exist outside of just paying our quarterback, hoping he develops, and continuing to build a strong roster around him.
A Structure to Ease the Pain (For Now). The good news is that–wherever his total dollar amount lands–there’s a way to structure Purdy’s contract so we can continue to spend. And we’ve already seen the blueprint. Coming off a Super Bowl appearance in 2022, the Eagles gave Jalen Hurts a then-record 5-year/$255M deal. But you wouldn’t know it from his annual cap hits:
2023 = $6.1M
2024 = $13.5M
2025 = $21.8M
2026 = $31.8M
2027 = $41.8M
2028 = $47.1M
So how does a five-year extension with an AAV of $51M/yr never once reach that mark throughout its lifetime and average out to $27M/yr cap hits? The key is in the triple bonus structure. NFL teams are allowed to add up to five void years to the end of any contract to spread out the cap hits of guaranteed money. The Eagles added four of those to the end of Hurts’ contract and used them to stash $97.6M(!) worth of guaranteed money until later. In effect, they’re kicking the can down the road, so when Hurts’ contract is up in 2029–the Eagles will owe that bill in the form of a nearly $100M dead cap hit. While pushing off a nine-figure sum sounds financially irresponsible, two things are worth contextualizing.
First off, future costs are somewhat offset by the explosive growth of the NFL salary cap. With the last restructured year of his rookie deal included, Hurts’ extension was for six years. Over the past six years, the salary cap has risen 35%. This despite the temporary downturn of a season played without fans during the global pandemic. It’s safe to expect the cap to continue to rise from now through the next six years, meaning that $100 million will equate to considerably less cap space and spending power once it finally hits the books.
Secondly, these void years can act as placeholders for another extension down the road. Hurts has four void years tacked onto the end of his deal, each with its own cap figure and structure. If they let him walk once those void years hit, none of that structure will matter—just the total dead cap hit. But if they extend him before the contract voids, those cap hits effectively become the starting point for his restructure—once again pushing a big chunk of the next bill toward the end of that next extension.
Is there risk involved? Absolutely. But by structuring big QB deals like this, teams can continue to spend money on the rest of their roster. And for quarterbacks like Hurts or Purdy–players who you may like but who can’t carry an entire offense ala Josh Allen–committing to extensions under this framework allows you to keep adding the pieces needed for them to perform at a high level. After extending Hurts, the Eagles have handed out a record-setting deal to AJ Brown ($32M/yr), extensions to both DeVonta Smith ($25M/yr) and Jordan Mailata ($22M/yr), and multi-year free agent deals to Chauncey Gardner-Johnson ($9M/yr) and Saquon Barkley ($12.6M/yr). They’ve even had enough cap space to whiff on some big extensions (James Bradberry - $12.6M/yr) and additions (Bryce Huff - $17M/yr).
On the player side, this contract structure provides tons of guaranteed cash and unprecedented job security. Hurts’ new deal has a no-trade clause, but the structure effectively makes it redundant. Because if the Eagles wanted to move on from Hurts right now–or at any point before the contract expires–they’d have to foot a gargantuan dead cap bill. This season it would have tallied $242M, or 95% of their total cap space for the year.
So what’s the drawback? Well, there’s always a downside to pushing that much money off into future seasons, but the real risk lies in the evaluation. If you structure a deal like this and you pick wrong (see: Watson, Deshaun) you are unequivocally fucked. You basically have to either bite all that dead cash and blow up your roster in a way the league has never seen or just ride it out with a lame-duck quarterback for multiple years. For instance, cutting Jalen Hurts in the second year of his $55M/yr deal would cost the Eagles $242M. But doing the same with Dak—whose $60M/yr contract is NOT backloaded with massive void year hits—would cost the Cowboys a “measly” $152M. The void year structure takes away escape hatches.
But if we’re deadset on Purdy and are gonna pay him that kind of guaranteed cash anyway, structuring the deal this way is not much riskier than any other long-term extension. In fact, by offering him the kind of job security that comes with this type of extension, we may even get a slight discount.
Slight. Maybe. But that’s probably the best we can ask for.
Go Niners 🏈👍
Sim To End
on to the next (season)
Well, that was fun. Except for all the parts that were absolutely miserable.
The loss to the Rams was perhaps a fitting end to this season, and–in many ways–this era. I don’t believe the “Last Dance” narrative, as that was always a lazy metaphor spoken by people who didn’t watch the doc and don’t watch the Niners. But there was always going to be some player movement after this season, and–based on how poorly things have gone–there might be more of it now than we would have expected a year ago. But don’t expect the Niners to be down for long.
Football is a sport of attrition, where injury luck and depth are paramount to success. The NFL is a sport of variance, where a single elimination tournament decides its champion every year. Because of all this, team-building in the NFL is much different than the feast or famine (sell or buy) dichotomy of the NBA. Contention is not binary. Super Bowl windows aren’t just wide open or shut and sealed. The teams that find themselves perennially in contention understand that. Because every one of the winningest teams of the past ten years has seen its schemes adapt and evolve, its assistants and coordinators move on, its All-Pro/HOF players retire, and–as shocking as it may sound–its starting quarterbacks change at least once. Because the beauty of the NFL is that if you play your cards right, any team can contend quickly. And if you build a winning culture and a sustainable roster, that contention window can be extended indefinitely.
So while the Niners may have an expensive roster, they also have the most cap space in the NFL. And while we may be one of the oldest teams in the league, the difference between the average age of our roster and the second-youngest is about a year and a half. This is not a rebuild. Nor are we tearing down everything but one wall for tax purposes. This can–and should–be a genuine re-tooling. Because even if we let every single one of our free agents walk in the off-season, we’d still have six players returning who were named to an All-Pro team in the past two years–with four of them 28 or younger–and a 24-year-old quarterback who was an MVP finalist a year ago. That is a foundation that is built to last. And while we’ll need to make the right moves to stay there, there’s no reason to believe we can’t get back to contention as soon as next year.
The most obvious comp to a successful (and reasonable) rebound year in 2025 would be this year’s Eagles, who–despite some very legitimate passing game issues (issues which could be season-ending if they get the wrong draw in the playoffs)–followed up a miserable 2023 with a genuine shot at the NFC’s top seed a year later. Now, there’s an argument that the Eagles’ superior depth–and their desperate need to switch out both coordinators–put them at a better chance for a quick turnaround, but–once again–note our All-Pros. The Niners have superior top-end talent, and–with an excellent rookie class and ten expected picks in the upcoming draft–an adrenaline shot of viable youth is very much in play.
All this to say, I don’t believe this off-season will (or should) result in the kind of massive roster turnover that many seem to be expecting. Deebo and Hargrave (and potentially Juice) could be veteran cuts. Aaron Banks and Ward will likely leave for healthy markets in free agency. We’d be smart to keep Huf if we can. Greenlaw’s the only dude I’d consider a mandatory re-sign. Hopefully, all our guys get paid well, regardless of where they wind up. And, of course, there’s Purdy’s incoming extension, which will mean we must cut spending elsewhere but not as severely as many people think. That will be the topic of my next write-up as I officially shift from this blog from this season to the next.
Come September, this roster will likely feature many of the same leading actors as before but its general make-up will look different. Frankly, there’s a sense of freedom to that. An excitement for what’s next. “Run it back” made sense for a while, and it’s a fun mantra when you’re holding championship parades. But it tires on you when you’re not. The silver lining of this bottom-out of a season is that it gives us a chance to finally reset things that aren’t working and push us to evolve our roster and scheme into our next contention era. So yes, the present is bleak, but the future remains quite bright.
Go Niners 🏈👍
49ers 17, Seahawks 20
at least we have Jauan Jennings
Is the season over? Not quite. Do we wish it was? Check back later. If we fail in our push for the playoffs, we may look back at this late-game collapse against a divisional foe as the moment that doomed us. That or the other one. Or the other one. Dealer’s choice.
OFFENSE
For much of the season, our blown leads have been mostly the product of our defense and special teams. But while the defense did get shredded late, this was our worst offensive performance of the year.
Too Little Kittle. As in, none at all. Kittle’s late-week medical scratch highlighted how important he is to our offense. Lots of defenses have excellent nickel players. Seattle has one of the league’s best. But when Kittle’s healthy, teams have to deploy that nickel on either Kittle or CMC, leaving the other to feast on linebackers or safeties in the passing game. On the ground, Kittle’s health—since 2019—has resulted in half a yard more before contact on rushes, and we haven’t rushed for a single score this year without him on the field.
Excluding Purdy scrambles, we netted 91 yards on 22 carries (4.1 ypc) on the ground. Not a horrendous performance, but an inconsistent one that was devoid of explosive plays on a day when we desperately needed them.
Identity Crisis. Kittle or not, after watching the All-22, I was surprised by how many positive looks we had in the run game. We just got whupped up front. We’ve gotten used to teams loading up numbers in the box and forcing us to pass, but—until that last drive when Seattle did exactly that—the Seahawks were primarily running two-high and light or even boxes. Yes, they had some slants and well-timed tricks, but slants shouldn’t be a problem while running zone and stretch. For some reason, there were just far too many reps in this game where we were hesitant, where we struggled to diagnose and hand off defenders, or where we were just flat-out weak at the point of contact.
At full strength, the Seattle front is very talented. Their two-deep features two first-rounders and four second-rounders, including three guys picked or traded for in the last two years. But we need to be able to win on the ground when someone gives us fair fronts and numbers. And because we couldn’t (and because we kept putting ourselves in negative positions to get us out of the run game) our passing attack had to climb uphill all game.
The Devil You Know. We talked previously about how our offensive penalties–and their outsized impact on our yardage and points–were oddly impactful in the first half of the season. I even showed you this chart to prove it.
The assumption was that the prevalence and impact of these penalties were so out of the ordinary that they would regress to the mean. Well, maybe not.
We had seven offensive penalties in this game. Two wiped out third down conversions. A false start by McKivitz–followed up by a sack allowed by McKivitz–took us directly out of field goal range on a drive we’d wind up punting on. Back-to-back holding and illegal formation calls wiped away 22 yards of offense (or 37 net yards), taking us from a would-be 2nd-and-2 from the Seattle 8 to a 1st-and-25 from the Seattle 31. That’s a lot of points off the board in a game where we needed every last one of them.
Separation Anxiety. Entering the week, the Niners were dead last in the NFL in average yards of separation at the point of the catch. Our 3.0 ypc tied us with the Cowboys and put us narrowly behind the Giants, Titans, and Panthers (3.3 ypc). Yikes. That is a murderer’s row of offenses that you will go out of your way to avoid in your YoutubeTV quad split.
As a whole, we’re head and shoulders above those offenses (even if we didn’t look it this week), but our inability to gain separation has been an issue all season and one that became considerably more pressing once Aiyuk went down.
Diversifying our Interests. Our offense is all about running a handful of concepts from a bunch of different looks, formations, and personnel sets. But it’s games like this–which are becoming far too common–where I wish we could zig more when the defense zags.
Fundamentally, this offense is built off of condensed sets that force defenders into run-and-pass constraints. When you put guys in tight, you give defenders more critical responsibilities in the run game, and you can more easily put them in a bind. Throw in some play-action and it’s impossible for them to read it right every time. We saw that most clearly on Jennings’ touchdown. But the advantages we get from putting these defenders in binds dwindle the less that teams play us honestly. And these defenses are crafting their entire approach to our tendencies and our hot spots.
We know what defenses want to do against us. They want to stop the stretch and zone game with fast flow and overwhelming numbers in the box and they want to crowd the short-to-intermediate zones between the hashes to take away our quick hitters and digs. Not every team can do that. But teams with good personnel, a strong defensive-minded coach, and an extra week to prepare, can often slow us down–especially because half of the league now runs our offense.
Part of our overall lack of separation in the passing game is because our best separator is out the year. Part of it is because our second-best man-killer out wide (Jennings) does so with size and strength rather than speed and quickness. But part of it has to be the fact that teams are keying the hell out of the areas that we like to attack and the concepts we like to use to attack them.
Whether it’s the run game or the passing game, we should still major in the concepts that we’ve made into our bread-and-butter. We don’t want to lose the forest through the trees. But we need to do better at minoring in the other things when teams cheat to our hot spots and refuse to play us straight.
Hot or Not. After a preseason chat with Tim Kawakami about Shanahan’s preference to lean towards hot routes against the blitz rather than asking QBs to check protections at the line of scrimmage, there’s been a decent amount of discussion about how the Niners should face blitzing defenses. The best analysis of this comes from this article by Ted Nguyen of The Athletic, but the long and short is this.
Shanahan feels that it makes things simpler and better for QBs when they can recognize a blitz and throw a hot route to beat it rather than asking them to check protections at the line of scrimmage every play. But, following the Super Bowl, defenses have realized that and have started to send unblockable extras on crucial downs to force hot route throws short of the sticks. This is most clearly shown in the third-and-nine (featured in the article) that we threw short of the sticks against the Bucs late in the fourth quarter… I just can’t find a video of it.
But it was brought up again this week since the Seahawks sent a six-man pressure on the third-and-long that we threw short of the sticks on our last offensive drive.
Now there are a couple of things worth noting here. First off, Shanahan never said he doesn’t allow his quarterbacks to change protections at the line of scrimmage. I believe he actually said they always have that freedom but that they’re taught to do it less often. And yes, a Shanahan “suggestion” is probably closer to an “order,” but it’s not something that flat-out doesn’t exist in the playbook. Purdy and Shanahan both have stated that he has the freedom to change protections at the line of scrimmage right now.
Secondly, the Niners’ offense and Purdy are routinely one of the best at beating the blitz, so—on aggregate—opting for hot routes over protection changes is likely the right choice.
Finally, on that clip against the Seahawks, don’t we pick up the blitz correctly? Seems like both our tackles just got beat. Only the Niners know whether it was that pressure—or the pre-snap pressure look—that caused Purdy to throw the hot route rather than let the concept open up, but the Seahawks example is a little different than the Bucs generating a free-runner a week before.
Ultimately, my takeaway would be similar to Ted Nguyen’s. Prioritizing hot routes over protection checks makes sense most of the time. I’d argue that it makes sense almost every time that we’re on schedule and on any third or fourth downs where the yardage is short enough (~4 yards) that the hot route can get it. But defenses are getting more and more complex and teams are getting more blitz-heavy than ever. So when we’re in third and fourth-and-long situations, Purdy should start to get comfortable adjusting protections so that we’re not forced into underneath throws far short of the sticks. It may make sense not to overwhelm a young QB (or Jimmy G lol) with that kind of responsibility. But Purdy is a smart dude and our QB of the future. I think he can handle it.
Again, it’s about accepting that what we do is largely correct but having the flexibility to break some tendencies so that we can hit another level.
DEFENSE
The defense played great until they didn’t, and the reason why things fell apart was both obvious at the moment and part of a more alarming long-term question of sustainability. All defenses win by some combo of pressure, confusion, and execution. So as a soft zone team that doesn’t disguise its coverages that much, when our pass rush disappears, teams can paper-cut us to death. That’s what happened late in this game.
The Big Question. Here are our splits before Bosa re-aggravated his oblique injury early in the third quarter versus after.
Healthy Bosa: 5 drives, 30 plays, 82 yards, 2 FGs, 1 INT (2.7 ypp)
Injured Bosa: 3 drives, 31 plays, 190 yards, 2 TDs (6.1 ypp)
Woof.
To be fair, Hargrave’s already out the season, which means our top two pass rushers were down. And Leonard Floyd and Yetur Gross-Matos did combine for 2.5 sacks rushing from the edges. But those sacks were all before Bosa went down. To rush solely with four—without extra men or sim blitzes—you need so much juice upfront and so far this season we’ve relied far too heavily on Bosa to open up rush lanes for everyone else.
Let’s look at the DLs of other teams that rely so heavily on four-man pressure without spamming sim blitzes and confusion to get there. The Jets (before the Saleh firing, lol) were the cleanest example because they run our defense. Their two-deep employs 5 first-rounders in Quinnen Williams, Will McDonald, Solomon Thomas, and Javon Kinlaw, plus high-priced free agent Haason Reddick. The Eagles start four first-rounders across the board, three of them (Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith) taken in the past three drafts, plus a high-priced free agent (Bryce Huff) and reliable vet Josh Sweat. The Bills have three first-round picks (Ed Oliver, Von Miller, Greg Rousseau) plus second-rounder AJ Epenesa. Building a defense like this is an investment.
Now, we’ve certainly tried. Bosa was the #2 overall pick in 2019 and has a massive contract. Leonard Floyd was a first-rounder way back in 2016 and is an established vet. Hargrave is on a big free agent deal, he’s just out the rest of the year. But first-round whiffs on Solomon Thomas and Javon Kinlaw, a big miss on Drake Jackson–who won’t play at all this season–in the second round of 2022, the steady departures of valuable contributors such as DeFo, DJ Jones, Arik Armstead, Arden Key, Charles Omenihu, Jordan Willis, Kerry Hyder, and the missing draft picks from big trades (the Trey Lance one being the biggest) has gutted our defensive line depth over the years.
Last year, with a banged-up Arik Armstead in and out of the lineup, we traded for Randy Gregory and Chase Young at the deadline. Now those three guys plus Javon Kinlaw, Clelin Ferrell, and Sebastian Joseph-Day are off the roster. And while Evan Anderson and Sam Okuayinonu are ascending talents and viable second-line players who may even become full-time starters one day, they’re young and that day isn’t now.
At the moment, there’s not a lot we can do about this problem other than hope that Bosa isn’t out long. But when we can’t pressure with four, shit gets dicey in a hurry. And we need to figure out if that’s sustainable long-term or if we need a larger schematic adjustment in the off-season.
NEXT UP = SUNDAY (11/24) AT PACKERS (7-3) @ 1:25 PT
To have a decent shot at the playoffs, we need to finish 5-2. A single loss worse than that and the odds are heavily against us. Luckily for us, this weekend is the first of three remaining games against teams with a legitimate shot at securing a first-round bye. Not great.
Despite missing two games and playing uneven football for much of the year, Jordan Love helms an offense that is one of the league’s best, with a five(?)-headed receiving corps and creative run game powering the Packers to a #3 ranking in both pass and run game DVOA. Josh Jacobs is out of his Raiders-induced depression and is back to his bruising, bell-cow ways, while Jayden Reed is their gadget player and big-play threat. Although if we’re being honest, all of their wideouts are big-play threats. The weakness, if there is one, is probably their interior line and Love’s streaky, turnover-prone ways. He’s thrown at least one pick in every single game he’s started this season.
During the off-season, the Pack brought in old friend and former Niners DB coach Jeff Hafley to run their defense, and while they’re not an elite unit, they’re a stark improvement from the bottom-dwelling Packers defense of last year. The addition of Xavier McKinney at safety and the healthy return of Jaire Alexander have buoyed a secondary that can be pretty meh at the cornerback position. Although Alexander got dinged up last week and his availability is in question. They’re better against the pass than the run, mixing in a lot of coverages with average blitz rates but above-average sim rates and sky-high stunt rates. All this to say, the picture will be cloudy. Unless, of course, Jaire plays and they decide to load the box and run man against us. Regardless, their linebackers and non-Jaire corners are our likely targets in the passing game and we’ll want to be able to establish the run early to get those LBs in play-action situations.
This is a very talented team, but they’re also 5-2 in one-score games this season. This includes needing a blocked field goal as time expired to beat a Bears team in freefall and—two weeks prior—requiring a last-second kick of their own to fend off a 10-point 4th quarter rally from the lowly Jags. Perhaps some of that close game variance will swing our way for a change. But to even get that chance, we’ll need to execute much better than we did last weekend.
Go Niners 🏈👍
49ers 23, Bucs 20
Hoping for a cathartic post-bye blowout over a banged-up opponent who had just lost three in a row? Best I can give you is three missed field goals and a mild heart attack. This is 2024. Those are the rules.
OFFENSE
Sunday marked the third time in four games that we eclipsed 400 yards of offense. We’re now second in yards per game and yards per play, seventh in scoring, and third in scoring %. In nine offensive drives against the Bucs, we only punted once. The redzone issues are still there (29th in league), and–despite a clean sheet this week–we’ve got to keep the turnovers in check (23rd). But as we round back into health, there’s no reason to believe we can’t become an elite offense down the stretch.
The heart wants what it wants. Much had been made about how Todd Bowles had laid off the blitzing in the Bucs’ last two matchups. Well, anyone who has ever watched a Todd Bowles defense knew that was a situational aberration, not a trend. Bowles was back to his blitzing ways on Sunday, which meant we had to get the ball out quickly and accurately. Purdy started the game 2-for-5 and a bit scattershot with his accuracy, but he settled in to throw for a season-high 353 yards and two scores.
There’s the beef. Outside of an absolute gashing in Brock Purdy’s first start two years ago, we typically don’t run the ball all that well against Bowles’ defenses. The nearly 800 pounds of mass that they deploy on the interior in Vita Vea and Greg Gaines makes it hard for our interior line to move or climb anywhere with ease, letting Lavonte David aggressively shoot gaps as he sees them. Plus, there’s the blitzing.
We had sporadic success running outside, but we averaged 3.4 yards per carry; this game would have to be won through the air. Which made it extra funny when Tom Brady kept suggesting that once we entered the redzone we should hand the ball off three times in a row to CMC because that’s “what was working.” There’s still a way to go to fix our redzone offense (we were 1-for-3 in this game), but it won’t be as simple as “just run more.”
Aerial assault. While McCaffrey was largely bottled up on the ground in his long-awaited return, he made an instant impact in the passing game–corralling 6 catches for 68 yards on a mere 7 targets. He was a much-needed safety valve against the Bucs’ extra rushers and–after dicing them underneath all game–he was able to leverage that success to spring open for a gorgeous 30-yard grab midway through the fourth quarter.
Here we are in the third quarter on 3rd-and-5. We’ve set trips to the field side and put Pearsall on a cheat motion to thin out the box and create a two-on-two high-low look to the boundary. The idea is to widen and lengthen the defense and hit CMC or the late-releasing Kittle inside.
The Bucs have loaded the line of scrimmage but are in a sim blitz and dropping into Cover 1. I don’t know if we knew based on film that they were more likely to drop the end away from trips to the short side of the field (theoretically hedging the amount of space they’d have to cover), but—based on alignment—it doesn’t really matter. Either guy would have been in terrible position to guard CMC in space.
We’d been hitting them with the drift route to this point, so the rat defender keys Deebo. While the edge drops to defend CMC, who beats him easily at the breakpoint and scampers for the first down.
We come back to a similar look in the fourth quarter to jumpstart our go-ahead touchdown drive.
We once again have set trips to the field side and used a cheat motion to send Juice out wide before the snap, opening space for high-lows across the board. The big difference is that CMC is faking the option route and going vertical down the sideline.
This time the Bucs are in a five-man pressure with no rat defender and a linebacker on CMC rather than a defensive end.
Tired of getting chipped to death by CMC’s option routes, the linebacker breaks down on the stutter step and gets roasted over the top. This was a would-be easy completion made more dramatic by the fact that—up front—it seems like we messed up the protection. Trent opens out to the edge because he knows Kittle will eventually be releasing into a route, but Brendel has set the protection to the opposite side of the nose tackle. So an interior rusher goes unblocked.
Regardless, Purdy does a great job of anticipating and releasing the ball before CMC even makes his stutter move, dropping one in the bucket for a big gain.
X Gon Give It To Ya. Jennings hasn’t played since before Aiyuk’s season-ending injury against the Chiefs, so it wasn’t clear how we’d deploy our receiver corps once he returned. Shanahan opted to move Jennings outside to the X position, filling in for Aiyuk but removing his dominant run blocking from the slot. While he’ll be missed in the run game, the move outside paid immediate dividends.
We desperately need a guy who can win outside against man coverage, and while Jennings isn’t the quickest or the fastest, he’s smooth, smart, and a big receiver who plays to his size. He uses his strength and wingspan to wall off defenders and win at the catch point, and his seven grabs for 93 yards paced the Niners. And in a game where every foot mattered for kicking purposes, his last catch of the day–where he deked outside then burst upfield for an extra eight yards–could have easily been the difference between a game-winning field goal and OT.
Return of the YAC. After much consternation through September, we’ve now put up YAC totals of 141 and 179 in back-to-back games while averaging upwards of 7 YAC/catch in three of the past four contests.
DEFENSE
We held the Bucs to 215(!) yards of offense and 3.7(!!) yards per play. Without Godwin and Evans, they couldn’t throw the ball more than five yards down the field, and–except for when they were forced to–they didn’t even try. This was, for the most part, the exact kind of defensive performance we needed coming out of the bye week.
But one issue once again reared its ugly head, and–like a gun planted in the first act of a movie—its presence looms ominously over our Super Bowl aspirations.
The Ground Game. If you exclude Baker Mayfield’s late game Senzu Bean-inspired Super Saiyan cameo, the Bucs’ most impressive possession was their 10-play, 70-yard touchdown drive that bridged the third and fourth quarters. Seven of those plays and 53 yards were gained on runs, including their touchdown—which was emblematic of several issues we’ve had stopping the run.
The Bucs are running a toss sweep to the field side with fly motion to the boundary. The motion is meant to freeze an unblocked Bosa and take away the will linebacker’s backside pursuit while a pulling tackle and tight end lead a convoy to the perimeter.
On the snap, Warner reads this immediately. Look at the difference in his body positioning (yellow) versus Campbell’s (red). Knowing he’s the last line of defense, Warner’s firing out and trying to knife underneath to attack the toss. This is an aggressive play but one we’re happy with Warner making because he triggers quickly and runs like the wind. Plus, if he tries to run over the top, there’s no inside help for a potential cutback. Unfortunately, Campbell has taken a false hop step to the fly motion so he’s slow out of the gates and…
…Warner collides with him before trying to shove him into the proper lane. Maybe Campbell would have recovered better if he hadn’t gotten shoved, but the damage is done.
The collision has slowed Warner’s inside path. Campbell is about to get washed out of the hole—a hole which is going to be extra large because Mustapha—who should be attacking the outside of the pulling tackle—is too wide and is instead contacting the inside shoulder of the tight end. So while Green was in solid outside position on the edge…
…Mustapha actually pushes the tight end to Green’s outside, allowing him to get hooked. This doesn’t really matter, because Mustapha is now too off-balance and out of position to make a play, Campbell’s too wide and too deep, and the hole is gigantic. This—plus being slowed up by the collision with Campbell—means Warner gets beat to an ever-widening edge, and Rachaad White can walk in for the touchdown.
It’s hard not to watch that drive and get PTSD from losses against the Cardinals and the Chiefs, when hot weather and high play counts allowed passing-deficient offenses to grind out late-game victories against our defense. While the hot weather shouldn’t be a problem come theoretical playoff time, the run defense needs to improve or we won’t stand a chance against grinders like Baltimore and Detroit (and the Cardinals again in Week 17).
Yetur Gross-Matos, Kevin Givens, and–most importantly–Dre Greenlaw are all expected to return to the defense over the next few weeks. Perhaps those additions and continued reps can fix the issue.
SPECIAL TEAMS GAAAAH!
Deebo was all of us on Sunday
Depending on how you calculate it, our special teams were responsible for somewhere between -12 and -16 points on Sunday. In a 23-20 game. Pro Football Reference puts our performance at -15.44 points, which was somehow only our second-worst outing of the season.
Fuck meter: MIDNIGHT 🙃🔫
NEXT UP = SUNDAY (9/17) VS. SEAHAWKS (4-5) @ 1:05 PT
Realistically, a record of 3-1 or better in these first four games out of the bye would put us in a good position for the stretch run. So, with road games against the Packers and the Bills (off a bye) still to come, notching another win against Seattle is critical.
After their 3-0 start, the Seahawks have lost five of six, but they’re fresh off their bye week, have a new starting MLB, and are desperate to climb back into the playoff picture before they get lost in the dust. Expect a highly detailed game plan and tons of designer plays made just for us.
McDonald was in Baltimore when they traded for MLB Roquan Smith–a move that launched their defense to new heights and led to the popularization of their MLB pick blitz. Ernest Jones IV isn’t the player Roquan is, but don’t be surprised if his addition and the extra week off leads to more of the complex looks and sim blitzes McDonald became famous for. After we torched them for almost 500 yards at home a month ago, they know they’ll need to pressure and confuse Purdy in order to slow us down offensively.
Go Niners 🏈👍