Bye Week Breakdown: Lance’s First Start

Clean Pockets, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose [Michael Zagaris/Getty Images]

Since this was the first (and potentially last) start for Lance during his rookie season, I figured it was worth a deeper look. So we’re gonna dive right into it.

The Gameplan

With Kittle out and Lance making his first career start on the road against the undefeated Cardinals, the Niners’ deployed an offensive gameplan much different than anything we’d seen to this point.

In the passing game, we sat in the gun and spread things out to make it easier for our young QB to read coverages. The spread sets—along with lots of trips formations—gave Lance mostly passing concepts in which he could pick a side of the defense based on pre-snap alignment then focus on half-field reads post-snap. While we ran a handful of stick concepts, there were far fewer lightning-quick underneath passes and RPOs compared to your standard Jimmy G gameplan. We still deployed slants and digs—any Shanahan offense is going to want to use those to attack defenses in the intermediate zones between the hashes—but the focus was more on down the field passing and some work outside the numbers.

The difference was most apparent in our play-action game, where—instead of gobbling up short-to-intermediate gains and dotting between the hashes with RPOS—we ran more deep routes with a lot of max protect. In essence, we catered the offense to Lance’s strengths—opting to showcase his strong arm while minimizing the tight windows he had to throw into and giving him more time to process defenses.

In the run game, we aimed to get outside quick on the edges with pitches to Mitchell behind a horde of crack blocks, and—of course—a heavy (some would say, too heavy) dose of option looks.

The Effectiveness

10 points despite a tremendous defensive effort.

Granted, that total is a bit misleading, as there were MANY points left on the field in this one. As has been the case for much of the season, our offense performed well enough to give us a bunch of great opportunities but couldn’t capitalize in the crucial moments. And this game had a lot of those moments.

We had four or five drops, an incredible five offensive holding penalties, and were only 3-of-11 on third down and 1-of-5 on fourth down. Eight of our nine offensive drives ended in Arizona territory, but only two of them resulted in scores. As a frustratingly perfect microcosm of how disjointed our offense has been this season, we had one ten-play drive that took us from our own 36 to the opposing 34 but ended up in a punt when a first down gain was nullified by our third holding call of the drive and a sack and incomplete pushed us back to 4th-and-22 from the Arizona 46.

The right side of our line was a major weakness in this contest, as JJ Watt had his way with both Dan Brunskill and Mike McGlinchey. According to PFF, Brunskill recorded a 13.7 pass pro score, which seems a bit drastic considering he only technically allowed one hit and one hurry on the game, but it’s a strong enough outlier that it’s worth noting. While McGlinchey, who has long been known for dominant run blocking and the occasional bad miss in pass pro, struggled on the ground. Unfortunately, that’s been a bit of a trend for him this season. In what was the worst run of the game for McGlinchey, he got beat by JJ Watt on three out of four plays, ending in the fourth-and-two QB power that got stuffed in the first quarter.

At the skill positions, we obviously need to minimize the drops. In a few instances, the ball came in a bit too hot or a bit too behind receivers, but they were all catchable passes. Some right on the money. We also need to do a better job of getting separation on our deep routes, as Lance’s down-the-field targets were blanketed more often than not. On the tight end front, we really missed Kittle in the run and the pass game, as Dwelley and Woerner also fell victim to some JJ Watt-ing as edge blockers.

That said, we outgained the Cardinals in total yardage (338-to-304) and per-play average (5.7 to 5.1) despite having one fewer offensive drive than them and a string of backbreaking penalties. We rushed for 152 yards on a whopping 5.4 ypc average despite them committing heavily to stopping the run throughout the day. In short, it’s more of the same of what we’ve been seeing.

Despite all of our backfield injuries and the changing of quarterbacks, entering the bye week we had the NFL’s 9th-best offense in terms of DVOA. Meaning there’s talent, there’s potential, and there’s glimpses of putting it all together. We just haven’t. Which is either encouraging or discouraging depending on how you look at it.

Lance’s Performance

More aggro. As briefly mentioned earlier, we went for it on fourth down five times. This, from a coaching staff that has historically leaned more conservative in fourth down aggressiveness. We’d always theorized that with Lance at the helm, Shanahan would be more comfortable going for it, and through this meager one-game sample size that looks to be the case. Granted, we have room for improvement on fourth down playcalling and execution, but anything that pushes us a bit more towards following the idea that possessions are king in today’s NFL is a positive in my book.

Batted Balls. Lance had three or four knocked down at the LOS, and at least one was set up for a giant gain if it hadn’t been. This was a bummer but not particularly surprising. Pass rushers are often taught to get their eyes on the quarterback and their hands up if they get stymied in their pass rush, so batted balls most often happen due to some combination of (1) pass rushers knowing that they can’t get to a quarterback in time, (2) a quarterback holding the ball too long so the DL can read his eyes, and (3) quarterbacks with longer releases.

At this point, Lance checks all of those boxes, and it’s no surprise that the majority of the batted passes happened later in the game, after the defense had been gashed so heavily on scrambles that they became content in sitting, reading, and batting down balls rather than chasing a quarterback who’d eluded them most of the game.

Take Fewer Hits (like by 100%). Everyone and their mother was in agreeance that Lance took way too many hits against the Cardinals. Multiple defensive players even said so in their press conferences. This problem was two-fold in that:

(1) He needs to learn to slide and do it 99% of the time: Not running over people. Not fighting for extra yardage on 2nd-and-8. Not that weird kinda falling over or crumbling to the side thing when you realize you should have slid (which also puts you at injury and contact risk). Sliding. Give up 2 or 3 yards on the scramble and just get the hell down so you can continue playing.

(2) We ran too many designed runs: Zone reads are fine as long as you’re making a regular conscious effort to protect him based on formations running to open sides, bluff blockers protecting your quarterback, etc. But the long-term hope for Lance is that he runs about as often as Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson, with his designed runs coming off the occasional zone-read keeper that he gets a chill seven yards on before sliding well before contact. What we should actively be trying to avoid is Cam Newton / RG3 ground game usage. And before you mention Lamar Jackson, just know that the only reason he can carry so much of the load as a runner is because he is fast enough and elusive enough and does a great job of not taking direct hits. If he was any less gifted in any three of those categories, his style would not be sustainable long-term.

Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic shared a great statistical tidbit while talking about this very issue.

We get it, Lance is a really good athlete and a big, tough kid. Against the Cardinals, 62 of his 89 rushing yards came after contact, and—to be fair—45 of those 89 yards came on scrambles versus designed runs. But we made the ultimate long-term investment in giving up the draft capital to pick a 20-year-old Trey Lance. Letting him take this kind of contact for a few extra yards in the regular season would be the ultimate short-term decision.

Scramble Drill / Holding = Mobile QB shit. We had a really bad run of holding calls in this one, but a few of them could be attributed to the natural adjustment of more movement behind center. When you have a mobile quarterback, you’re going to get more holding calls on your offensive line when he starts running around and buying time. Linemen are taught to block at an angle that keeps the quarterback protected at a certain depth and location within the pocket, so when that quarterback suddenly moves deeper in the pocket or vacates it entirely, those angles get thrown off and some holding calls are inevitable. Some. Not the amount that we had in this game.

Similarly, when you have a mobile quarterback, receivers need to be more aware of where they should run to get open when plays break down and the QB breaks the pocket. There were a few instances where Lance was flushed out of the pocket and—when the wideouts broke into the scramble drill—they weren’t totally in sync with where they were going in relation to Lance, his passing windows, and each other.

Every team has different scramble rules (some even dictated by specific route combinations), but the general rules for receivers when a quarterback breaks the pocket are: (1) put yourself in his passing window, (2) avoid bunching up multiple receivers heading into one area, and (3) keep moving so that you don’t entice a horrendous across body throw that could lead to an ugly pick.

The play below isn’t the best example, but it shows how our timing and spacing aren’t quite there when adjusting to a more mobile quarterback.

Here we have a slant-wheel concept to the trips side. On the snap, Lance looks to the right but is flushed out of the pocket before the running back can turn into his route, so he scrambles left. When the receivers notice they’re in scramble mode, they should likely be taking paths similar to the ones below so that they can get into passing windows while clearing space for one another.

But that’s not really what happens. And as Lance crosses the LOS, we’re looking at this.

Deebo realistically should have broken his route off earlier and headed to the sideline. On a slant, there’s not a lot he can do to help, but at the very least he could operate as a lead blocker if Lance runs or pull a defender away from his pursuit. Dwelley actually does this right. He breaks out of where he’d settled into his route and heads out towards the sideline while looking for space. But there’s no space for him to run to because Juice has attempted to turn back into an open window. There are two major problems with this:

(1) That window isn’t really open. There’s an underneath defender and you want to minimize the attempts your quarterback throws across his body while scrambling. If you draw a vertical line down the field from where Lance is, you typically only want him throwing on that line or outside of it. This is doubly the case since he’s a right-handed quarterback scrambling to his left.

(2) He’s blocking space for another receiver to enter. See, Dwelley.

(3) He’s bringing more defenders who can potentially tackle Lance if he runs. Remember, the goal of a scramble drill is to generate a completion off a broken play OR clear enough space so that the quarterback can run for a positive gain without being hit.

At the time of the scramble, Juice’s route was at a middle depth, and—knowing that Dwelley would be working his way towards the sideline—the fullback should have kept going deeper to clear out defenders. If Juice were simply to lose his man—or if a DB were to jump Dwelley on the crosser—he could still get a shot over the top, but with the spacing we’ve presented, Lance’s only option was to run.

One of the great benefits of having a quarterback who can scramble is that you can create positive plays off of what would be losses or incompletes. But that means putting practice time into getting that situational chemistry dialed in. The Seahawks obviously practice the scramble drill extensively (some would argue it’s their best play). This year the Ravens’ uptick in passing efficiency can partially be attributed to them giving their wideouts more freedom to work into space and freelance on their routes. They’ve basically leaned into the fact that Lamar’s athleticism creates a scramble drill on every play, and it’s paid dividends. For many reasons, it’s unlikely that we go anywhere near that extreme, but we will need to devote more time towards developing the chemistry between wideouts and their quarterback if we want more effective passing off of scrambles. Realistically, we probably can’t get there this season while flipping between Jimmy G and Lance. There’s just not enough reps to go around when each quarterback works differently with his wideouts. But it’s something to take note of for 2022.

The Many Flavors of Zone Read. As expected, option runs played a major part in our game plan this week, to mixed results. Our run game as a whole was strong, but it was also buoyed by Lance’s yardage on scrambles, and there was certainly room for improvement.

Today I’ll be focusing on the zone read—the most basic shotgun option play—and the different ways that it was deployed and defended in this game.

First, a refresher on the zone read with one of the simpler calls on the day.

This spread set means that we have a clear six-man box, which—given the nature of the play—means we have an innate numbers advantage when the QB is a run threat.

The linemen are zone blocking left, with two double teams working up to the second level. Dwelley will release outside to pull the defensive back then engage him down the field as a blocker. Lance is reading the end man on the line of scrimmage (EMOL)—in this case, a stand-up DE—who is marked by a triangle. If he crashes down the line and commits to the running back, Lance will pull the ball and run it himself. If he widens, keys the quarterback, or just sits there, Lance will give the ball to Mitchell.

At the mesh point, the defensive end has already committed. While he looks like he could viably middle both options in this photo if you look closely he is in the first stage of a large hop down the line. Thus, he has no chance of changing direction in time if Lance pulls it. Which he does.

The result is a seven-yard gain on the QB keeper. Yet it is rarely that simple.

When the Niners were trying to get an extra blocker and—typically—an extra protector for Lance, they’d put an upback into the mix. In this case, Dwelley takes on the role by motioning into the backfield.

From the Niners’ perspective, the play is basically the same. Lance is still reading the EMOL. The line is still blocking the same. The only real difference is Dwelley, who is crossing the formation on an arc block. On these blocks he’s taught to read the EMOL. If he crashes down the line, he should bypass him and pick up the second-level defender. If he sits and widens, he should kick him out to give more space for the running back on the give. His decisions should mirror those of the quarterback.

But the Cardinals were expecting this, and—I believe—auto-checked into a double gap exchange on the weak-side after seeing motion into an upback position. Before the motion, this is what the Cardinals defense is showing as their gap responsibilities against the run.

But as the motion completes, the EMOL weakside DE slides from outside Trent Williams to directly in front of him, which tells me he’s shooting the B gap all the way while letting the linebacker behind him take his place in the C gap. They’re setting up squeeze-scrape, the most common counterpunch to defending the zone read.

But the Cardinals have taken it one step further. They're doing a similar gap exchange with their next lineman and linebacker. On the snap, the weak-side tackle shoots across our center’s face, forcing his way to the opposite A gap and latching hold so that Mack can’t release to the second level. At the same time, the strong-side linebacker—now free to roam—shuffles to the weak-side, then totally abandons his strong side A gap responsibility to fly outside and chase the quarterback.

The rationale behind this makes a lot of sense. It’s basically reverse-engineering the rules of the option. The weak-side end and linebackers switching gap responsibilities confuses the quarterback’s read. The end forces a pull because the QB sees the EMOL crashing towards the running back while the linebacker runs unblocked to the outside to chase the quarterback after they keep the ball.

Even if the QB diagnoses this and options that linebacker instead of the EMOL, a give would send the running back behind Trent Williams and into the hands of either the first linebacker on the squeeze-scrape or the strong-side linebacker who is going across formation unblocked. Yes, both A gaps are technically uncovered, but against the zone read, the Cardinals know that if they can force Trent Williams to block hard down the line, Mitchell would need to run behind him and into unblocked defenders. He wouldn’t be able to exploit the other open gaps because he’d never get to them in his read progression.

In case of a pull, even if the weak-side linebacker can’t bring down the QB, the strong-side linebacker has come across formation unaccounted for into what is effectively the D gap. While the option out of this set is meant to put the C gap defender in a bind, it doesn’t account for a D gap defender because there wasn’t any D gap before the play. So even if Dwelley can pick off one of the linebackers in his arc block, the Cardinals are betting that one of their speedy linebackers, unblocked, will be able to chase down Lance for a short gain. Which is exactly what happened.

The result was a gain of two, which was brought back on a hold by Travis Benjamin. Because of course it was.

But there’s a reason gap exchange isn’t commonly used outside of stopping the option. It can get gashed by traditional run plays, especially those like same-side powers, counters, and traps whose playside down blocks resemble weakside zone blocks. In essence, you want the gap exchanging players to think you’re running zone and cheat to stop it. Then you hit them in the areas that they vacated while doing so.

We tried an opposite side power out of pistol early in the game, but a JJ Watt inside slant into the backfield sent off a chain reaction of recovery blocks that led to a measly gain. That was a shame because I thought there were more opportunities to go to it in this game.

The one other time we did show something similar, a pistol split zone read with a kick-out block coming backside across the formation, we had success despite some sketchy execution.

The set-up here is very similar to the last play diagrammed, with the major change being Dwelley is starting from a wing-back position versus an upback, which—in turn—sells the misdirection better because he’s telegraphing his move less and is still a traditional passing threat. All blocking rules remain the same.

On the snap, JJ Watt ole’s Brunskill as he shoots inside, causing McGlinchey to block him down the line—which he does very well. The EMOL sits, trying to middle the mesh and likely force a give, while the weak-side linebacker drifts outside of McGlinchey’s block, anticipating either a handoff that will bend right outside of McGlinchey or a keeper that he can chase down unblocked.

But in this case, Lance gives the ball, Dwelley kicks out the defensive end so he can’t pursue, and Brunskill recovers nicely to get a hat on the linebacker, who has put himself out of position from his gap responsibility because he’s trying to cheat based on his knowledge of zone read rules. After an impressive jump cut to get back on track, Mitchell runs for a nine-yard gain through a hole that opened up like the red sea.

It’s also worth noting that gap exchanges can leave you very susceptible to the inverted veer, which we ran twice—in very janky fashion, I might add—to the tune of 21 yards in this contest. But since the inverted veer requires our quarterback to run the ball inside, it’s best that we have a few mixups that protect him a bit better. Mix-ups such as same-side powers and split zones.

Even without Lance at the helm, we’ve had a lot of success with our shotgun running game in years past, but—with Lance involved and teams adjusting to favor stopping the zone read—attacking defenses inside with quick-hitting runs that look like zone off the snap should become a greater emphasis in our rushing attack.

Timing/Anticipation. By now we know that Lance’s biggest areas of improvement are (1) making his mechanics more consistent so that his accuracy follows, and (2) adjusting to the speed of the NFL by quickening his progressions and anticipating open receivers. Ultimately, those are improvements that must come over time, but Lance’s ability to rapidly learn from his mistakes has us hoping that growth could come sooner rather than later.

On the last play of our opening drive, we can see all of his current weaknesses at once.

The play call here is a max protect play-action pass with a single-side read to the field (left) side of the formation. The progression is Benjamin, to Deebo, to Dwelley—with our tight end the delayed check down if the two-man route combo doesn’t work.

12:57 left in 1Q: 2nd-and-10 from ARI 45

The Cardinals are in a two-deep shell, and they don’t run with Deebo as he goes in motion, meaning they’re in some form of quarters or Cover 2. Since the field side corner backs away on motion towards him, it becomes even more likely that they’re in—or have at least checked to—quarters. Given the play call and the pre-snap motion, it doesn’t really matter which coverage they drop into as both will basically play out the same.

On the snap, the defense drops into quarters, with the middle linebacker sinking deep into the hole like it’s Tampa 2, trying to take away two staples or our play-action game—crossers and digs. Before the snap, Deebo’s motion widens the play side linebacker. After the snap, his swing/wheel keeps the attention of the field-side corner, who drops off Benjamin to cover him.

Benjamin takes a mandatory inside release that sets up his inside curl and plays to the rules of the defense. Whether it’s Cover 2 or quarters, two-high safeties with no real vertical seam threat means the corner has help inside. He won’t fight an inside release, especially one so inside as to put him out of position against Deebo. Thus, Benjamin gets cleanly off the LOS, which preserves the timing of the route combinations.

This play is intended for Benjamin all the way. Deebo is a decoy who only gets the ball if the cornerback bails on his responsibility to follow Benjamin’s inside release (aka, a blown coverage). It opens up perfectly, as the field side safety is respecting Benjamin’s speed and playing far overhead, the play-side corner is locking up Deebo, and Benjamin has gotten the perfect depth to threaten the dig before curling into the hole outside of the inside linebacker and inside and over the outside linebacker, who was originally widened out by Deebo’s pre-snap motion.

This is when the ball should be released. For a duo with more reps/chemistry together, you could even throw it earlier. But right now, Lance has a clean pocket and a passing lane to an open receiver. However, he holds it a beat too long—perhaps not yet seeing the route open up or unsure of where exactly Benjamin is going to curl up.

Even with the timing off, Benjamin remains open.

Benjamin giving the universal sign for being open

But Lance has started to feel the pass rush. He moves up into the pocket, which—due to how open Benjamin is could honestly be okay—but instead of sliding in the pocket while keeping his body ready to throw, he turns his shoulders as if he’s going to run.

To be fair, by squaring his shoulders downfield, Lance pulls the attention of the outside linebacker (you can see him starting forward in the previous photo), which puts the defender in no-man’s land between dropping to defend the pass and playing the run. This keeps open the window of time to throw to Benjamin.

But since Lance now has to flip his shoulders back to wind up and throw, he’s losing valuable fractions of a second. This allows the defenders to close in on Benjamin, tightening the passing window. Lance has the arm strength to fit into that window with ease, but he’s now rushing things. As he starts his throwing motion Benjamin begins to work back towards the LOS, a habit that he’s surely been taught to do but was actually unnecessary in this case as the safeties were so far off from him that there was no backline pressure.

Lance’s pass—likely intended to be thrown to where Benjamin was and not where he wound up—sails high—and into the awaiting arms of Budda Baker.

This unfortunate outcome is the product of both a lack of individual and combined reps between quarterback and pass-catcher and the janky overall timing that led to Lance’s throwing mechanics looking like this when he released the ball.

But there’s a clear silver-lining to this mishap, and that’s that—just one quarter later—Lance showed much better anticipation and accuracy on a very similar concept.

On third down late in the second quarter, the Niners showed trips to the field side with Mohamed Sanu and Brandon Aiyuk running—what I believe to be—double dig/post option routes. Both are given free rein to read the defense and break their routes off flat, head upfield on posts, or sit in the holes of zones if they find an opening.

The progression numbers are my best guess. Juice has a one-step slant to occupy underneath defenders and open up passing windows down the field, while Deebo has a run-off route. He’s got a mandatory outside release to make sure the deep defender on his side has to turn to the sideline and away from the posts coming the other way. He’s running off defenders and would only get the ball in a pre-snap alert against press-man coverage.

If the middle safety jumps your first option (Sanu) then that should open up your second option (Aiyuk) behind him. And if the Cardinals drop into man coverage across and you don’t like your matchups (although in the case of Aiyuk on a linebacker, you should like your matchups), then the double vertical stems from the slots will pull defenders out of the alley to open up space underneath, Sanu’s mandatory outside release will create a natural rub on the corner, and you can hit Juice in stride for a chunk play off the slant.

Just before the snap, the overhang safety (#34) bails to the middle of the field and the Cardinals rotate into what looks like Cover 3 Mable, which is Cover 3 to the trips side and man to the solo receiver side. Since they’re rotating their overhang safety to the deep middle, they’re running a cloud variation of Cover 3, meaning the corner and the trips-side hole defender (in this case the high safety) switch responsibilities. The corner squats in the flats while the high safety takes the deep third to the field side.

To the boundary side, the low linebacker opens up aggressively to the solo receiver (Deebo) to cover the flats, while the cornerback over him is playing inside leverage and deep. Often times you’ll see a bracket technique in this situation, where the corner is playing high and outside and the linebacker is playing low and inside. In this case, both defenders are playing inside. Almost certainly because they’re selling out to take away the slant from Deebo, which—if you’ve watched Deebo play—makes a lot of sense.

Upon seeing Juice take an immediate path inside towards the dropping JJ Watt, the field corner opens up to Sanu’s vertical release, tasked with helping on any kind of out or corner down the field. But it doesn’t really matter, as both the corner and the deep sideline defender will be out-leveraged by Sanu’s route.

As Sanu and Aiyuk reach their breakpoints, you can see the two low defenders are even with them, meaning the digs are not available and both wideouts must adjust into posts. Since the deep middle defender (#34) is middling both routes, Lance knows that he has to throw to Sanu immediately before that safety can close the gap.

Lance does exactly that. The photo above is right as he starts his throwing motion, which is before Sanu even clears the defenders and breaks into the post. And while the ball placement looks behind Sanu, that is an intentional decision by Lance, as a ball on the back shoulder slows up your receiver and prevents him from running head-on to the safety crashing down on him.

While it’s far from the tightest of NFL passing windows, you can see from the endzone angle that Lance is throwing on time, with anticipation and accuracy, past defenders on different levels coming from multiple directions.

Unfortunately, this pass got dropped, and we punted the next play.

It may seem like baby steps, but it’s nice to see that Lance so quickly learned from his first quarter mistake and that he already has the capability to see receivers early and throw them open—even if his consistency in doing so is still a work in progress.

In Conclusion

All things considered, I thought Lance played pretty well. After watching film, I thought he played even better. His accuracy is going to be an issue, especially early in games. He just comes in super juiced and hasn’t had the time to consistently iron out those kinks in his mechanics quite yet. He’s also not going to see the field or get the ball out as quickly as Jimmy G. But he does add explosive potential with his arm, legs, and improvisational ability. That can absolutely open up an attack that’s been bogged down as of late, but it also doesn’t play to our current strengths as an offense.

Jimmy probably still gives us the best chance at winning. After all, the last time we saw him he was dicing up the Seahawks before being pulled due to injury, and that—and the Green Bay game—were when we only had one healthy running back. Now, Mitchell is back and Hasty should be returning soon. For a team that wants to run the ball—and wants to have the speed in the backfield to run stretch plays—that’s a pretty big deal.

But… if you told me tomorrow that we were trading Jimmy (for good value) and riding it out with a healthy Lance who we were going to protect much better than we did against Arizona, I’d be okay with it. Because while Jimmy may give us a better chance at winning now, it’s hard to say who would give us a better chance of winning two months from now.

That said, Lance isn’t healthy, and he’s unlikely to even suit up for the Colts game this weekend. And if our game plan is limited to the point where Lance has to run this much because the staff isn’t yet confident in him carrying more in the passing game, then there’s no sense in rolling him out in a way where he could get seriously injured. The most likely scenario is that Jimmy starts the rest of the season (unless he is, knock on wood, injured again) with the QB change happening over the off-season—when the staff has more time and focus to build the offense around our young quarterback and find more ways to protect him from contact. But at the very least, I think Lance showed that he’s ready to tackle a few more snaps per game, and we should allow him that opportunity once he’s back to full health.

Go Niners 👍🏈

2021 Quarterly Recap

Hard to tackle, easy to love [Tony Avelar/AP]

A month into the season, we sit at 2-2 and the panic level is… middling? 

Realistically, we should probably be 3-1. The first two games weren’t as close as their final scores. We started out so poorly against the Packers that—despite us being 37 seconds away from a victory—it would be hard to say we “should have” won that game. But combine that with a Seattle contest in which we dominated on both sides of the ball for the first half, had our kicker and starting quarterback go down, and had one dude’s special teams miscues cost us at least a touchdown, and it’s easy to say at least one of those contests could have / should have fell in our favor. You could even say, we were just fingertips away.

Dontae Johnson came close to blocking Mason Crosby as time expired. Hard to tell if ball went just over/under hand. pic.twitter.com/DrH6ZHB9qi

— Matt Barrows (@mattbarrows) September 27, 2021

Obviously, none of that matters. Thus, the 2-2 record.

While our start—and the 4-0 and 3-1 records of the Cardinals and Rams, respectively—means we’ll be climbing out of a hole for the foreseeable future, a .500 record through four weeks is far from a death knell for our hopes of contending this season, especially in a year when there is only one undefeated team after four weeks. With a seventeen game season, it’s more important than ever that we peak at the right time, and there’s plenty of season left to do just that. 

That said, the next five games will be telling. With matchups against the Colts, Bears, Rams, and Cardinals (2x), we’re looking at the toughest section of our schedule before we enter a run of six of seven games against teams currently .500 or lower (plus the 3-1 Bengals). If we can get through the next five contests with at least a 3-2 record, we’re still in a solid position to reach the 11-ish wins that should be enough to get us into the playoffs.

OFFENSE

insert quote from the movie Friday here [Tony Avelar/AP]

Is the Trey Lance era officially underway? TBD.

With Monday’s news that Garoppolo’s calf injury was less significant than anticipated and that he might even play this weekend, a full-time move to Lance seems less likely than it did on Sunday night. In fact, if Jimmy is truly back by this Sunday, this whole section could be moot by the time I post this. But I expect Lance to start against the Cardinals, both because the Niners surely remember how Jimmy G’s ankle injury lingered last year and was made worse when he played on it and because our week 6 bye would give Jimmy an extra seven days to heal up.

After the Seahawks game, the estimated timetable for Garoppolo’s return was “a couple weeks.” If that had stretched to three or four games, then the likelihood of Lance fully supplanting him would have grown. Basically, the longer the audition, the more sense it would make to roll with the rookie. Either he would have struggled against two of the best looking teams in the conference, leading to results that may have shifted our expectations on the season and made it more palpable to stomach rookie quarterback pains down the home stretch, or he would have excelled and led us to a string of victories, which would have made him very hard to put back on the bench.

If Jimmy G can play this Sunday or—more likely—misses this game but returns for the next one, the time that Lance has to develop and grow as a starter decreases tremendously. A single start on the road against the only undefeated team in the league while potentially missing your star left tackle and 80% of your running backs is not the best scenario to break your young signal-caller in gently, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Shanahan turn back to the veteran after the bye if Lance doesn’t look ready. In fact, that should be the expectation.

To Garoppolo’s credit, he’s started out this year better than any of his past seasons, piecing up the Lions in one of his best performances as a Niner then finding his groove in the second half in games against the Eagles and Packers. While his cold start against the Eagles helped make that game closer than it needed to be, he’s largely been a better version of the guy we’ve seen for the past few years, and if he hadn’t gotten hurt in the first drive against the Seahawks—his velocity/accuracy slowly decreasing until he couldn’t play the second half—we likely would have kept the offensive momentum going and come away with a victory.

Lance is still ironing out the changes to his fundamentals, which leads to bouts of inaccuracy—like his first two passes against Seattle—and he shouldn’t be expected to read defenses quickly and concisely at this stage in his development. In short, the gameplan we had against Seattle—quick passes and RPOs as the Seahawks loaded the box, then crossers when they tried to take away the RPOs by running man—had to change dramatically when Lance was thrust into the starting lineup with only a minute left in halftime. But even in an uneven performance off the bench, Lance showed glimpses of why we gave up so much for him.

Everything he does (for better or worse) is explosive, from his rocket arm, to his ability to evade tacklers to buy time or pick up chunks of yards on the ground. So even in an up-and-down game, we were given a glimpse of the improvisational ability in both the run and the pass game that could open up an entirely different dimension of Shanahan’s offense.

🤔 pic.twitter.com/goMe5wgUtB

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) October 8, 2021

It’s a short pass that won’t get circled on box scores, but shaking a defender, finding a passing lane, and getting the ball over a second-level defender makes for a high-difficulty play. While Garoppolo’s mobility has been markedly better this season as he is yet another year removed from ACL surgery, this kind of movement and improvisational skill gives us the chance for a positive play, even when the called one is snuffed out. 

🏃‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/OAexCKpsRa

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) October 8, 2021

We knew Lance was an explosive athlete and that he could run, but his elusiveness and ability to slip tacklers in the open field has really impressed me thus far. He can both buy time with his feet or bolt upfield for chunks of yardage, and seeing as both of the above plays were on fourth downs, it’s clear that—while he still has a long ways to go—the moment isn’t too big for him. 

Even if Lance struggles on Sunday, Jimmy’s unfortunate injury history means he may be getting more starts this season regardless. But for now, consider it a one-week audition.

Consistently Inconsistent. With the exception of the game against the Lions, where we just steamrolled them, our offense has yet to string two strong halves together this year.

Granted, the small sample size means there are a number of extenuating circumstances in our up-and-down offensive performances. The offense gets a pass against Seattle due to the situation we just discussed. We also out-gained them by over 200 yards, so there was a lot of flukey stuff going on there. Garoppolo’s early misses in week 2 really prevented us from limiting the Eagles’ pass rush off the bat with well-timed screens, leading to a defensive battle the rest of the way—a battle which was made even uglier when our three remaining running backs went down. Finally, against the Packers, we were left with a single healthy running back, and one that the staff clearly didn’t entirely trust.

While we all love Juice, we’re not going to be breaking any big runs with him as a solo back running zone and stretch. Without that home run threat from the run game, teams are less likely to bite hard on the play-action concepts that we use to spring most of our big gains through the air. Shanahan’s attack is largely about keeping defenses off-guard with misdirection and counter punches; when the run game is humming, the passing game usually is as well, and vice versa. But if we can’t get anything going initially, it becomes harder to gain the momentum needed to set up those big haymakers later in games. That’s reinforced in our explosive play metrics, where we rank 28th in explosive run rate and 27th in explosive pass rate. If that run rate starts to improve, the pass rate improves. Success in one area breeds success in the other.

But even as Garoppolo has played pretty well, we’ve continued to see how his limitations—namely his struggles on deep balls and passes thrown far outside the numbers—have allowed defenses to load up between the hashes. By packing the box, defenses can focus on the run and force us to throw into tight windows when we throw slants and digs behind them off of run fakes. While Jimmy has gotten much better at avoiding the “linebacker cloaking device” type of turnovers that plagued him in 2019, both of his picks this year have come off DBs jumping his deeper in-breaking routes—likely in no small part because they don’t believe he can make them pay over the top down the sideline so they are comfortable bailing early off those assignments. In short, defenses have crunched down the field so that we have to execute even tighter in both the pass and the run game in order to consistently move the ball. They’ve essentially limited our margin for error whether we’re running or passing, and that makes getting into (and sustaining) an offensive flow more difficult. All this to say, it’s not hard to see why the team got Lance, who—once he’s ready—will be able to create explosive plays both on the ground, in the dropback passing game, and while improvising when plays break down. It just makes our margin for error that much greater.

But this doesn’t mean we’re screwed in the short-term. Sermon settled into the offense with a strong game against the Seahawks and Elijah Mitchell should be back soon, which would finally give the Niners a second playable running back. And no matter how much you may have tired of Garoppolo and/or want Lance to play right away, this is the same scheme and staff that had us averaging 380 yards/game over the last six games of last season despite missing key contributors each week, playing and living out of a hotel in Arizona, and rotating backup quarterbacks. So unless you truly believe that the Beathard/Mullens platoon was more effective than Jimmy G, it’s worth betting on our offense eventually finding its groove.

Not sharing target shares. Through four games, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle are accounting for an absurd 54.6% of our targets in the passing game. For Kittle, that usage rate isn’t actually that weird. If we apply some sketchy math and equally spread out a season’s worth of targets across every game to equate for the contests Kittle has missed due to injury (because I am way too lazy to calculate it more accurately), his usage rates over the past four years look like this:

2018: 26.5%
2019: 26.2%
2020: 22.7%
2021: 22.3%

But, if we apply the same fuzzy math to Deebo Samuel’s usage, the contrast is stark.

2019: 18.5%
2020: 18.2%
2021: 32.3%

Deebo is top 5 in the league in target share and receptions. He leads the NFL in receiving yards (490!). He’s also tops in the league in yards per route run and (the least surprising of the stats) yards after catch over expected. While I’m not going to pretend I saw this coming to this extent, his uptick in usage isn’t as drastic as those numbers would indicate. As was mentioned last year when he went on IR after the Washington game, Deebo has always been a gigantic (and largely underrated) part of our offensive identity, he just wasn’t seen as such on a nationwide level. Until, I would think, now.

Every offense has something they do well (unless, of course, they just suck). Defenses know this and the good ones commit to stopping whatever that thing may be. Naturally, as defenses do this, they start to sell out a bit too much—cheating their other responsibilities in order to stop the offense’s bread-and-butter. That’s where constraint plays come in. Constraint plays are basically counterpunches for when teams cheat to stop what they do best. They punish teams for not playing normal, fundamentally sound football. The simplest example is a shotgun spread team that bases its offense on the zone read (what they do well) and pairs it with something like a bubble screen (a constraint play) to widen defenses out and punish them if they’re loading the box to stop the zone read.

Deebo Samuel is basically a one-man constraint play. He can hit you on a reverse if you’re too eager to fast-flow against our outside run game. He can pop you over the top for a slant if you’re triggering downhill too quickly to stop the run. Hell, you can even just throw him a quick screen if a team goes small in its personnel sets because you know those skinny DBs won’t be able to chop down his thunder thighs. Since midway through his rookie year, the Niners have seen Deebo as their all-purpose wideout/tailback/fullback. But now he’s in the best shape of his life, he’s healthy, and they’re finally able to deploy him as such.

While it’s been downright glorious seeing what Deebo can do when he (and the majority of our passing attack) are healthy, the biggest usage question thus far has been the lack of looks for Brandon Aiyuk, whose impressive rookie season catching passes mostly from backups and strong off-season seemed to point to a sophomore breakout. As is the case for most things after four total games, I would urge you not to jump to any conclusions quite yet.

Shanahan brought Aiyuk back slowly from a preseason hamstring injury, so he played 47% and 54% of offensive snaps in week one and two, respectively. Since then, he’s been on the field for 85% and 67% of snaps in the past two games—the latter figure likely dampened a bit by our run-heavy approach in the early second half when Trey Lance took over.

I know fans have PTSD about how Dante Pettis went from a high-round pick with an impressive rookie season to out the door in less than two years, but Pettis himself has admitted that he was immature and didn’t take practice as seriously as he should have while with the Niners. By all accounts, Aiyuk has not had that problem. He’s regularly been praised for his approach and effort, and I expect that when our offense requires more deep shots and passes outside the hashes (and/or when teams start rotating more help towards Deebo), Aiyuk will re-emerge as the promising speedster we saw last year.

Thunder and lightning (sans the lightning). When you’re down to a single healthy running back, it becomes clear in a hurry why the Shanahan family were early pioneers into the idea of rotational backfields—both for decreasing the workload on each player and (theoretically) decreasing injury risk but also to give defenses drastically different looks.

Having a Coleman/Wilson-type bludgeon you between the tackles is a great way to lull a DB to sleep so that a Mostert/Breida/Mitchell-type can obliterate a bad angle en route to a house call. With Sermon our only healthy back for the past two games, teams have been able to get situated with our backfield’s speed and running style in a way that won’t be the case once we get some guys back to health.

While adding speed will obviously increase our likelihood of big plays on the ground, having complementary power and speed backs will be extra beneficial in our option game. Whether it’s fully deployed this year or next, the inverted veer/power read concepts really need a horizontal stretch player on the give (aka. someone very fast) to be effective. You want to stretch out those gaps as much as possible to give more room to run in case of a keeper, and you do that by having someone like Mostert who can get the edge on a defense even when the read key is in decent position. Conversely, a more traditional zone read play wants someone who can grind out some tough yardage between the tackles, particularly out of the pistol where the running back’s path is more downhill. 

In short, you want some guys who are faster, some guys who are more powerful, and when we start getting some of those guys back, our running game should benefit immediately—regardless of whether we’re utilizing option runs or not.

Misc. Trent Williams has cemented himself as the best tackle in the game. Dude is ragdolling world-class athletes on a regular basis and has been excellent in pass pro… While our targets haven’t been spread out that much, our receiver corps has been much deeper this year. Sanu, Jennings, and Sherfield have rotated through as our third wideout and they’ve all proven their value… Raheem Mostert’s contract is up after this year. I’m hoping he’ll re-sign on the cheap because (1) I think he’s just the chillest guy, (2) the off-season surgery might actually give him a chance at staying more durable since it’s been his knee that has bothered him most in the past few years, and (3) I do think he’s the ideal running back for this system. Not pairing him on option runs with Lance in 2022 would be a crime… I’m usually against early-season byes, but this time it could work out well for us. Jimmy G, Kittle, Trent Williams, and Elijah Mitchell are all dealing with injuries. JaMycal Hasty can also return from IR after Sunday. The extra week of rest could be clutch.

DEFENSE

Getting the band back together [49ers.com]

Cornerback concerns. Obviously, we’re leading with this because despite entering the season with a defense that looked primed for an excellent season, everyone and their mother could point to the glaring depth issue we had at one key position. Three quarters in Detroit later, we’re still searching for ways to patch that hole.

First off, you gotta feel terrible for Jason Verrett. Dude spent the better part of FOUR YEARS (playing in only six contests from 2016 through 2019) rehabbing his knees from injury. The mere fact that he was able to return to form last year as one of the top cover corners in the league was a miracle. This off-season—for the first time in half a decade—he was able to focus on his craft instead of rehab, leading to a bigger and stronger JV who had absolutely dominated training camp. Now, at age 30 and playing on a one-year contract, he goes down to another ACL injury, and since his injury woes started during his third year in the league, he’s yet to get a significant payday as a pro. If anyone can return to form once again, it’s Verrett. 

Here’s hoping.

As for where this leaves us, the most succinct answer can be described as scrounging for scraps. We knew entering the year what sort of depth concerns we had, and that—if someone were to go down—we’d be looking at rookies sooner rather than later. Well, consider it sooner.

We knew Ambry Thomas was a bit of a project considering he’s a little too handsy, needs to get better off the line and in his turn to be able to get high shoulder against down the field against NFL speed, and sat out all of last year due to COVID concerns. So the fact that he hasn’t played a snap on defense since the opener shouldn’t be cause for concern. Yet.

As for the rest of our outside corners… Moseley has played like a No.1 since coming back from injury in week three but opposite him has been a rotating door of Dontae Johnson, new signee Josh Norman, new signee Dre Kirkpatrick, and fifth-round rookie Deommodore Lenoir. It’s unlikely that we have the cap space or the future draft capital to make a big move to address the position before the trading deadline. So we’re probably rolling with who we have now, and the results have been… mixed. 

Lenoir has been targeted heavily. I still like his long-term potential, but if you’re a late sub fifth-round rookie lining up against Aaron Rodgers, you’re gonna get targeted. Norman and Kirkpatrick have been… fine, I guess. Ultimately—unless we’re up against a mind-meld situation like Rodgers-Davante have—the rest of our defense is typically able to hide issues at the second corner spot most of the time…

Except when teams go deep.

Big Plays 4 Dayz. Overall, the transition to DeMeco Ryans has gone pretty smoothly. We’ve yet to see one of the complete shut down defensive performances that we’d gotten used to in the past two years under Saleh, but we’ve seen glimpses of becoming a much stingier defense as the season goes on. If we can shore up our problem with big plays.

We currently rank 28th in preventing explosive runs. I don’t think there’s anything structurally wrong with what we’re doing against the run, but we’ve had some lane discipline issues along the DL and our linebackers have not been playing as well they have in the past. Greenlaw going down hurts, even if Al-Shaair has had his moments and (when he breaks down to tackle) has looked fast in space, but in general, our LBs haven’t been triggering downhill into their run fits as quick as they could be.

But our play against the pass is likely more problematic. While our ranking of 17th in preventing explosive passes doesn’t look that bad, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t include our league-leading 8(!) pass interference calls for an astounding 153 yards, which—for those keeping track at home—is equal to 11% of ALL the defensive yardage we’ve given up on the year. 

That is an ALARMING stat any way you cut it. For reference, last year saw an absolute explosion in defensive PI calls across the league, and the “leader” in DPI was the New Orleans Saints, who were flagged 19 times across 18 games (including playoffs). Our pace for the regular season is 32. In terms of yardage, last year’s league leader was the Jaguars, and their 348 DPI yards accounted for only 5.2% of the yardage they allowed on the year.

Part of me is like “this has to be a result of small sample size and an outlier that will eventually regress to the mean.” The other part of me looks at our depth chart at cornerback and isn’t quite sure. Realistically, this penalty pace cannot keep up, and you’d hope that with more reps (five different corners have started on the outside through four games), guys will get more comfortable and less handsy at the catch point. Josh Norman, for example, is far removed from his Pro Bowl days with the Panthers, but he had a bit of a career resurgence stepping in for the Bills last year. There’s hope that once he’s back healthy he can shape into a decent No.2 opposite Moseley. But our struggles staying in-phase down the field—and opposing teams’ willingness to test said struggles—will be an issue until our guys prove we can cover the deep ball without drawing flags.

Takeaways. We have 1. That is last in the league. The team we’re tied with is the Jaguars. This is not great.

With Sherman and Verrett gone, we don’t have a lot of ball hawks in the secondary. Moseley is more of a good, sound coverage guy than an interception guy. Ward and Tartt, despite their senior standings, only have 3 and 4 picks, respectively, on their careers. Our linebackers—despite taking a step back in coverage thus far—might be our best bet to turn things around? Warner had two picks and two fumble recoveries last year. Greenlaw housed a pick in the opener—our first and last takeaway of the 2021 season thus far. But they’re still linebackers, and Greenlaw is likely out until mid-season.

In today’s NFL, you really need to generate takeaways to have a really good defense. There’s just too many advantages for the offense to thrive without stealing a few possessions. While it’s a lot to put on the shoulders of a dude who is 34, was a free agent a month ago, and is currently coming off of bruised lungs, Josh Norman has 15 picks and 3 defensive touchdowns in his career. Maybe he can step up and get us the ball back a few times. If so, it could help offset our less-than-ideal situation at cornerback.

D-Line stock check. Sadly, we have yet to reach anywhere near the peak terror levels of the 2019 campaign, when teams were straight-up only throwing slants, hitches, and quick game because they had zero faith they could pass protect for more than two seconds against our DL. We’ve had our moments (like every third down during the first half of the Seahawks), but we’re a far cry from that buzzsaw of a defensive line.

Bosa has been a beast and our best defensive lineman thus far. Neither of those statements should come as a surprise. His 13 pressures are nearly half of our team’s 32, and he paces the squad with 4 sacks. Arik Armstead has been his typically reliable self, even if his game doesn’t always show up as much in the passing game and in the stat sheet as Bosa’s. DJ Jones is back to doing DJ Jones things. He’s got that nice blend of size and quickness to be active along the LOS, even if his center-pancaking sack of Russell Wilson may wind up his career highlight as a pass rusher.

Elsewhere, Javon Kinlaw was a welcome addition to our run defense in week 2, but he’s yet to take the step forward we were hoping for. He hasn’t gotten worse, but given where he was last year, his incredible potential, and the draft capital we invested in him, anything short of steady growth is a bummer. Also along the interior, neither Zach Kerr’s strong 2020 nor Kentavius Street’s training camp hype seem to have resulted in much in the early goings. That’s certainly part of the reason we’ve had some issues against the run this year.

On the plus side, we’d said that anything Dee Ford gave us this year would be found money. While he’s not at the level he once was (and I can’t speak confidently about his work against the run), he’s given us some much-needed juice off the edge. With Samson Ebukam being largely a nonfactor thus far, Ford’s five pressures and three sacks have been a welcome sight and both are good for second on the squad.

Finally, Mo Hurst made his debut against the Seahawks and impressed off the bat. He was quick off the line, moved well laterally, and was disruptive in the backfield. Small sample size, but he was one of our better interior linemen through camp, and I could see him pushing for greater snaps, especially with Givens hurt and other DTs underperforming.

Misc. The Panthers traded a 2023 sixth-rounder to the Patriots for former DPOTY Stephon Gilmore. The price tag was so low because (a) Gilmore is currently injured, (b) fewer teams have the cap space to take on his contract during a year when the cap has been affected by COVID, and (c) it is likely a one-year rental before Gilmore wants another deal. He’s from Carolina and they’ve looked solid so far, so maybe he re-ups with them. But it won’t be at the friendly rate he’s playing on this year. FWIW, the Niners wouldn’t have had the cap space to acquire him even if they’d tried… Since Kevin Givens was put on IR after week 2, his practice window will open up during our bye week. However, no word yet on if he’ll be close to being back by then… after undergoing core muscle surgery, Dre Greenlaw’s is still 2-4 weeks away, at the earliest.

Go Niners 👍🏈

2021 Preview: Defense

[Daniel Shirey/Getty Images]

Before we jump into the preview, I wanted to give a shoutout to Johnny Holland, the Niners’ linebacker coach who stepped away from the team a week ago to deal with a relapse of multiple myeloma.

Holland has been with the Niners since Shanahan came onboard, first as a linebackers coach, then an outside linebackers coach and run game specialist, and finally a linebackers coach once more when DeMeco Ryans ascended to the role of defensive coordinator this offseason. While Ryans gets much of the fanfare (and rightfully so), Holland surely played a role in shaping an undersized nickel safety out of BYU into a first-team All-Pro linebacker and a little-known prospect from Arkansas whose 4.73 forty-yard dash plummeted him into the fifth round into one of the surest tacklers in the business.

Just a reminder that @DreGreenlaw secured the NFC West title in the most epic way. 🔥

🎥: @49ers pic.twitter.com/N12lZC6wcm

— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) May 14, 2020

While it can often be difficult to evaluate the impact of a single assistant coach on an NFL football team, Holland’s track record speaks for itself. This guy fucks. Coach Holland, wishing you a speedy recovery so we can see you on the sideline in the red and gold once again.

Now, onto the three (cause I’m running out of time) questions.

What changes under DeMeco Ryans?

[Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images]

A preseason in which many of our starters were held out for most, if not all, of the games doesn’t tell us much about the style and scheme of our new defensive coordinator. But there are a few things we can infer from the off-season as a whole. Let’s start with what won’t change.

Two years ago, the move to a 4-2-5 nickel base and a Wide 9 alignment up front quickly turned Robert Saleh from a DC on the hot seat to one of the most sought-after head coaching candidates in the country. While Saleh is off to the Jets, Kris Kocurek—our fiery DL coach whose hiring brought the Wide 9 in the first place–is back, and there’s no reason to fix what’s not broken. The Niners will continue to use the same base fronts and alignments that they’ve had so much success with over the past two seasons.

The same could be said for the faces. With the exception of Richard Sherman—who only started five games last year and was typically less effective than Emmanuel Moseley during that time—nearly everyone in our starting lineup is a familiar face. In essence, the only new starters are Tavon Wilson at strong safety—assuming Jaquiski Tartt’s prolonged injury through camp means he won’t immediately retake his starting role—and Samson Ebukam, who—despite being a potential breakout player for us this year—may be tasked more with piloting our Bravo and Turbo units than lining up entirely with the ones.

In terms of what might change, I think we’ll be more aggressive. Mostly because that was openly stated by Shanahan at an early off-season presser when talking about Ryans vs Saleh:

"DeMeco's an aggressive guy. I always messed with Saleh because I said I don't think he's ever lost a dollar in his life gambling because Saleh doesn't want to gamble too much. I think DeMeco will do that a little bit more. Sometimes there's a little risk in that but sometimes there's some reward also. We'll see how he finds his way with that. It takes time though. But I don't think it's going to take DeMeco too long."

Like any concept that’s co-signed by your drunk uncle who barks at the TV screen while complaining about how soft people have become about concussions and gender pronouns, aggressiveness on defense is a complicated thing. You obviously want your players to be aggressive. They must have an aggressive mentality and be confident in their film study, read keys, and instincts in order to dictate game flow in what is inherently a reactionary position. But aggressiveness schematically can be hit or miss.

The Baltimore Ravens (and really, nearly all of the AFC North) have long been one of the NFL’s most aggressive defenses, building from back-to-front by investing in tons of secondary talent so that they can dial up lots of man coverage while leading the league in blitzing every year. The Bucs, Steelers, and Patriots (and Patriots off-shoots) are similarly aggressive, which makes it easy for people to attribute “aggressiveness” with defensive success. But you know what other defenses have been near the top of the league in terms of blitz % the past few years? The Jets and the Texans. And obviously, they suck. 

While aggressiveness can work on a schematic level, it’s often just a catch-all term for any newly hired football coach. Whether it’s offense or defense, no one rolls up to the podium of their first press conference and is like “we’re gonna win by being more conservative.” Aggressiveness, as they say, “gets the people goin.” That doesn’t mean more aggressive = better (see: Erickson, Dennis). Often times, it doesn’t mean anything. 

It’s also worth noting that some of the best defenses in recent memory—like Vic Fangio’s squads in Chicago or our defense in 2019—have been some of the least aggressive schematically. The pass rush is still fierce, the players still fly to the ball and arrive with bad intentions, but in terms of X’s and O’s, these teams are regularly near the bottom of the league in blitz percentage and the top of the league in zone coverage. Instead of dialing up man and extra rushers, these teams focus more on keying tendencies, making little tweaks in alignments and stunts, and limiting big plays. 

Robert Saleh’s defenses clearly fit that mold. He was at his best game-planning the shit out of offenses and making assignments and communication crystal clear while relying on his front four to generate the pressure required to burden the offense with a rapidly ticking clock. On early downs, he ran variations of Cover 3 and quarters as heavily as anyone in the league. When everything was humming, this turned big gains into small gains and small gains into nothing. It shut down even elite offenses because a defense like that, in theory, has no real weaknesses. But if that pass rush wasn’t getting home, you’d sometimes get the sense that you could get dink-and-dunked to death. That’s what injuries caused near the end of 2019, and it’s why—when injuries ravaged our d-line early in 2020—Saleh adapted by running more man coverage and blitzing more to generate pressure. Against the majority of offenses, it worked. But against the elite units, we had some ugly moments.

So what does “more aggressive” mean for our new defensive coordinator? Ryans inherits an incredibly deep and talented front seven, a free safety whose position-less first years in the league have made him a scheme versatile chess piece, and one of the best man corners in the league. My guess is that what he’ll do with all this talent is try and split the difference between the past two years. I’d expect a continuation of the trends we saw last season—more man coverage and more blitzing—but as more of a polished second-pitch than as a reactionary response to a lengthy list of injuries. To be clear, I still think we’re primarily a zone defense, alternating single and two-high looks with lots of split field coverages. Again, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But there’s enough smoke around the belief that we’re shifting to more man coverage that I buy the shift in philosophy.

There will likely be times where Ryans will think a four-man front can get home but he’ll send an extra guy just in case or where he’ll hop into man coverage on early downs in hopes of setting up a more difficult third down later on. In essence, he’ll gamble more. He’ll take more risks. At times, that may burn us in a way that we weren’t used to under Saleh. But it should also make us less susceptible to death by a million paper cuts. I don’t know if the product will be better or worse, but I’d expect more variance. 

Is our defensive line better than in 2019?

[Christian Petersen/Getty Images]

Until Kinlaw actualizes much more of his potential, it’s hard to rank a unit without DeFo over a unit with DeFo. The dude is one of the top three people on the planet at doing what he does. So I wouldn’t go so far as to say this year’s line is better. But it could be deeper, especially along the interior.

While there may not be a single superstar on the inside, we have 5-6 dudes with starter-quality talent for two tackle spots (or one in our Turbo packages when Armstead slides inside). Even coming off an injury-riddled 2020, we know the unique blend of size and speed that DJ Jones possesses. Kevin Givens, Zach Kerr, and Mo Hurst (a sneaky breakout candidate if he can return cleanly from his ankle injury) are all first-step mavens who fit our aggressive one-gap scheme perfectly. There’s hype coming from camp that Kentavius Street is finally putting things together into a complete package. And of course, there’s Javon Kinlaw, our sophomore behemoth whose size/power/explosiveness package is near-unmatched in the league. Our interior line is so deep that Darrion Daniels, the second-year UDFA who the Niners feel has a legitimate chance to become their starting nose tackle down the road, had to be stashed on the practice squad.

Outside there are more questions, but (if healthy) loads of talent. Armstead continues to be Armstead, a 6-7 280-pound forklift who routinely puts linemen on skates. Bosa is back on the outside, poised to stake his claim as one of the five best edge rushers on the planet. While people around the team seem cautiously optimistic that Dee Ford—who’ll be on a snap count to start (and possibly throughout) the season—has put his neck issues behind him. I’m high on Samson Ebukam—who will be tasked with doing some Dee Ford things, some Kerry Hyder things, and (depending on how many snaps Bosa gets right away) some Nick Bosa things—and I think Jordan Willis will slot in nicely into the rotation in his first full year in the scheme. Arden Key? I’m not expecting much, but there are crazier things than betting on high upside and the general dysfunction of the Raiders.

But let’s not underestimate the DeFo/Armstead interior rush duo—which was easily one of the best pass-rushing interior tandems that I’ve ever seen. Our 2019 squad featured a Turbo package that had four dudes with legitimate Pro Bowl talent, and—when healthy—the other two rotational pieces were peak DJ Jones and Ronald Blair. Unless Kinlaw takes a big step forward in year two, we can’t make the claim that this defensive line is better than that one. But perhaps it’s deeper. And given the heavy rotations that Kris Kocurek likes to employ and our track record with injuries, perhaps that’s more important?  

How big of a concern is our lack of depth at cornerback?

[Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images]

Well, we just signed Josh Norman, so I would say “pretty big.” 

Playing more man coverage is nice in theory, and if we have Verrett on the opposing #1 with Moseley on their #2, I’m thumbs-up emoji all the way. K’Waun Williams is one of the best nickel corners in the league, Jimmie Ward’s experience playing corner makes him more than capable to roll down into the slot, and we have one of the best coverage linebacker corps in the NFL. If we’re talking our starters, we match up well against nine out of ten teams, and that’s certainly good enough to play a bit more man here and there. But after those starters, things could get dicey.

The more you want to play man coverage the more you’re shifting both the skillset that you’re looking for in a corner and the amount that you’re prioritizing the position. Up until this year’s draft, the amount that the Niners prioritized corner could be considered next to none. We drafted Ahkello Witherspoon in the third round of the first ShanaLynch draft then didn’t address the position with a big-name addition or a draft pick in the first two days until now. It was a conscious decision, as Lynch and Shanahan openly prioritized a front-to-back approach to building defense. Spend more capital to load up the defensive line—which we’ve done—while saving money on cornerbacks due to our DB-friendly scheme. But if we go too much more towards man coverage, the math—and the type of player we’re targeting—may change.

Richard Sherman is gone, and—even if he wasn’t dealing with his own issues off the field—he’s a zone corner through and through. Witherspoon is off to the Steelers—via the Seahawks, who (of course) picked him up before shipping him out of town when they planned to start someone else. And the Tim Harris experiment finally ended with a whimper. He got some good play at the beginning of camp after a strong showing in OTAs, but after getting beat a few times then suffering a groin injury, that ship has finally sailed. RIP my hype train of blind hope.

So backing up our starters we have two rookies and two veteran zone corners. Josh Norman, who peaked in 2015 and had a three-year run in Washington that ended disastrously in 2019. To his credit, he rebounded well in Buffalo and played a meaningful role for them in 2020, but even so, he’s 33 and I’ve always considered him primarily a zone cornerback. The same could be said for the guy who got waived to sign him. Dontae Johnson has bounced on and off the roster twice in the past week. I’m sure we’ll see him at some point again this season. While his physical profile also leans more towards a Cover 3 corner, he played unquestionably his best ball last season when we were in more hybrid coverages. Perhaps this is a sign that we won’t be employing more man coverage after all? But then you look at our rookies.

Deommodore Lenoir and Ambry Thomas are both handsy, aggressive cornerbacks whose college experience was mostly in press-man coverage. Despite a lesser draft position, Lenoir seems to have surpassed Thomas on the depth chart and is likely the team’s top backup outside. Since Emmanuel Moseley hasn’t practiced all week due to a hamstring injury, maybe that means Lenoir is our week one starter? 

Wondering when the Niners will address the future (and present?) of the cornerback position has been a recurring theme of every off-season. In the past, we’ve been bailed out by the emergence of Emmanuel Moseley (2019) or the healthy return to form of Jason Verrett (2020). Is this the year it finally bites us in the ass? 

The hope is that our incredibly talented front seven can pick up the slack if one of our starters misses time. And as long as we’re healthy up front, we can always lean more heavily on zone coverage if someone like Johnson or Norman are pushed into major snaps. All this to say, there are ways to hide someone if we need to, especially against lesser offenses. But it’s not the best spot to be in, and if there ends up being a crack in our defense, it’s likely our cornerback depth.

Go Niners 🏈👍

2021 Preview: Offense

Would be REAL CHILL if we have red zone trips ending like this [Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group]

Four questions (and four attempts at answers) that could shape our offense this year.

Should Trey Lance be starting?

[Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group]

No.

To be fair, I understand the appeal. After all, there are only two instances in my life where I can remember cackling with glee during a preseason game and both involved our rookie signal-caller. His first career pass completion:

TREY LANCE. 80 YARDS.#KCvsSF #NFLPreseason pic.twitter.com/ixGwWzCcgj

— NFL (@NFL) August 15, 2021

And when Shanahan finally showed him in an inside-out option look with Mostert going wide:

🚀 pic.twitter.com/FM23IpyNfG

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 8, 2021

I’ll put out an in-depth write-up about our option game once we get into the thick of the regular season, but the CliffsNotes version is this: LOL

I’m too removed from coaching to know what the terminology for this play is called, so I’ll just call it QB Counter Read. In the simplest of terms, our offensive line runs counter left—a blocking scheme that we already know from past years—while Lance has the option to keep the ball running inside to the offensive left or hand it off to Mostert, who has an unblocked (or “naked”) sweep to the right. The first defender this puts into a bind is the end man on the line of scrimmage (orange triangle), who is our read key.

On the snap, Lance sees that the defensive end is flat-footed and trying to play both him and the running back. If the end were to crash down the line it would be an easy give. If he were to immediately widen, it would be a keep. But since he’s flat-footed, and a defensive end, and Mostert still has a jet pack strapped to his back, it doesn’t matter how much the end tries to read and react off the option mesh. He’s getting beat outside.

Also highlighted above is the inside linebacker. Yes, he could theoretically scream outside to try and cut off Mostert before he can get the edge. If combined with the defensive end crashing down the line, the two defenders would basically be switching gap responsibilities, effectively replicating the squeeze-scrape technique used commonly to combat option plays. However, everything about our blocking says that this play is counter left. So unless told specifically not to, the linebacker needs to stay true to his reads. Because if he was to guess wrong and immediately chase Mostert towards the sideline, a Lance keeper would feature a convoy of Trent Williams and Mike McGlinchey lead blocking onto air. The linebacker has to stay put through the handoff, which means—by the time he makes contact with Mostert—the ball carrier is already ten yards down the field.

TLDR: no flat-footed defensive end is gonna be setting the edge against the fastest man in football on a fly sweep.

But I digress. And despite all the tantalizing potential of Lance’s arm talent and running ability, he is still a work in progress. A work that is far closer to completion than we likely thought when we drafted him, but a work in progress nonetheless. While the Niner staff—as well as Lance himself and his private coaches—have done a tremendous job of cleaning up his throwing mechanics, those improvements still waver when he’s hurried or pressing. He’ll clean it up with time, but at the moment, it leads to bouts of inaccuracy. 

While Shanahan’s offense may make things easier on quarterbacks, that’s only after they get comfortable in his notoriously complex scheme. This is the same core offense that took a thirty-year-old Matt Ryan a year to get accustomed to in Atlanta. Expecting a rookie who has played one game in two years to immediately pilot it without issue is simply unrealistic.

After seeing clusters of inaccurate throws and short passes rocketed a bit behind receivers on routes across the middle, it’s hard to make the claim that right now, for the 2021 season, Lance is a more efficient passer than a healthy Garoppolo. This is especially true given how much we like to rely on in-breaking routes and chunk plays to guys like Kittle, Deebo, and Aiyuk.

But the best argument IN FAVOR of starting Lance right away isn’t really thinking about 2021. Instead, this argument posits Lance’s development as an extension of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours concept. In short, give the kid as many reps as possible so that he can master the craft as quickly as possible. Under this thinking, a second-string Lance would be losing both valuable game AND practice snaps, so—by not starting him—we’d be stunting his growth. Like many Gladwellian concepts, there’s legitimacy to parts of this concept but issues as well.

First off, this assumes that Lance won’t be getting any practice snaps or seeing the field if Garoppolo is the starter. More on that later, but it’s safe to say that won’t be the case. Second, it simplifies the idea of growth to the point where time spent is mutually exclusive: you’re either getting reps and growing or you’re not. This fails to look at how growth can occur outside of game reps through film study, meeting rooms, side work with coaches, etc. Next, it neglects the inherent downside of immediate playtime. Whereas practicing the violin to become first-chair in the LA Philharmonic only has the potential pitfalls of growth inefficiency (if you’re practicing the wrong way or with the wrong teacher) or burnout (a potential downside of literally anything), we only need to look at the recently jettisoned Josh Rosen to see how the idea of playtime = progress is more complicated in team sports. Throwing someone “into the fire” is a nice expression to use by suits in pre-game shows, but it’s not especially productive if all they do is burn. While Lance seems to have the team support and mental makeup to avoid the crippling fate of a high draft pick thrown to the wolves, putting someone into play before they’re ready always comes with the risk of developing bad habits or debilitating mental blocks. And finally, the 10,000 hours approach doesn’t take into account team success. This is a group with championship aspirations, and Shanahan is trying to tow a line where we can win now and later, rather than one or the other.

Are we really running a two-quarterback system?

[Randy Vazquez/ Bay Area News Group]

Not in week 1 at least, as Lance is still recovering from a minor bone chip in his finger. But given the way Shanahan rotated quarterbacks in our final preseason game (and the fact that he’s openly stated that both QBs will have a role moving forward), there’s a natural curiosity as to how much we’ll really see Lance and how effective a true committee approach can be at the position.

In general, football heads and media members alike are equally skeptical of a two-quarterback approach—especially on the NFL level. And as the importance of the position has grown (and the mythology of its importance has grown exponentially), so too has that skepticism. You’ve undoubtedly heard the oft-repeated idiom that “if you have two starting quarterbacks, you have no starting quarterbacks.” If you haven’t, expect to hear it plenty this season. Any Garoppolo or Lance miscue will likely be followed by a meathead color guy saying something along the lines of “you gotta wonder if they can’t get in a rhythm because they’re coming in and out of the game like this.” If there’s a miscommunication with a wideout, questions will undoubtedly follow about whether “either quarterback has gotten enough reps in practice to get on the same page with his guys.” 

To be fair, these are all legitimate concerns. No coach wants less reps for his players, especially when that player touches the ball on every snap. And miscommunications and mistakes can arise from lack of familiarity. But if you’re doing a two-quarterback system right, the practice reps that you’re losing should be offset by the practice reps your opponent loses while preparing for two separate offenses.

While rare, quarterback rotation is something we’ve seen before. Our fan base has actually seen it multiple times. Colin Kaepernick had a few run plays each game as he got brought along slowly as a rookie, but that could hardly be considered a rotation. Joe Montana would get pulled for Steve Young at times, but that was more along the lines of Bill Walsh trying to get the best out of two Hall of Farmers at once. Even Montana, when he was a rookie, would come in for Steve Deberg during red zone trips. But probably the most successful instance of full-on quarterback rotation was the 2006 Florida Gators, who rode a senior Chris Leak and a battering ram freshman Tim Tebow to the BCS Championship. More recently—and perhaps more importantly, on the NFL level—the gold standard has been the twilight Drew Brees and Taysom Hill combo. 

Shanahan has openly referenced the Saints duo as a framework for what the Niners may do with Lance—especially in how the threat of a QB run game opens things up offensively. But in this case, our change-up is considerably more dangerous than theirs, as Lance is not only a tremendous athlete, but he—unlike Hill in his rotational role—can actually throw the ball. Perhaps we see Lance as a match-up-based change-up, sprinkled in like a wildcat formation that actually works. Perhaps he sees the field as regularly as he did in our preseason finale. At the very least, I think he gets good play on short-yardage situations and in the red zone, where his running ability can help the offensive arithmetic and his play-action potential will force defenses to make some tough decisions.

While most teams likely cannot (or should not) run a two-quarterback system, there are reasons to believe that the Niners can be the exception. We have one of the top offensive minds in all of football, two players with distinctly different styles and strengths, a strong locker room run by veteran leaders, and a young quarterback who we’re trying to groom to be our 2022 starter. There will be hiccups, and you have to imagine that the first time Lance puts the ball on the ground off an option mesh, Tim Ryan or whoever his regional away-game-equivalent is will remind you of this fact. But if the Niners can weather the early storm and get into a groove playing both Jimmy G and Lance, this could be our most exciting offense in decades. 

And that is exactly how Shanahan plans to bridge the present and the future.

What does our extra beefy wideout corps mean for our offensive identity?

[Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images]

After roster cutdowns, the six wideouts on our opening day squad average 214 pounds, making us one of the thicccer receiving corps in the NFL (and that’s including Deebo at a dubious listed weight of 215). A filled-out Brandon Aiyuk is the lightest of the bunch at 200 pounds, with former running back Jalen Hurd topping them off at 230, but what’s really keeping the average weight up is the fact that this is the first roster of Shanahan’s tenure that has simply declined to keep a traditional slot receiver.

During the ShanaLynch era, the Niners have always rostered at least one player to fill the role of a smaller, quicker slot receiver. Whether it was Trent Taylor (5-8, 178 pounds) or Richie James (5-9, 185 pounds), their job was to create separation underneath on short-to-intermediate routes and act as the quarterbacks’ security blanket. So why the change of heart now? 

Granted, James was put on IR just before cutdown day, so it’s not like the Niners are just done with him (although since he was put on IR before the roster cutdown he is NOT eligible to return later this year). But the decision to keep all bigger bodies in the receiving corps despite keeping one more wideout (6) than they have in the past, strikes me as a calculated one.

If I had to guess, there could be a few reasons behind this decision. First off, the slot receiver as a security blanket was cool in practice but largely nonexistent in reality. With the exception of Taylor’s rookie year back in 2017, none of our slot-type bodies have come close to replicating the kind of play that [insert undersized white receiver from New England] made a living off of. When we needed a short completion underneath, it usually went to Kittle—who often split out into the slot and replaced a “slot-type body” anyways—and our second man up was typically Kendrick Bourne—who did the majority of his damage on slants and square ins from out wide. The last time our slot receiver felt like a slot receiver was Shanahan’s first year, before Taylor’s explosiveness was sapped by injury, and as part of an offense that was more of a hybrid between what Shanahan wanted to run and what Jimmy G—who was obtained mid-season—was used to with the Patriots. That meant more shotgun sets and more of a reliance on option and pivot routes from slot receivers like Taylor. Four years later and with a roster shaped to his liking, perhaps Shanahan figured the drawbacks of an undersized slot outweighed the benefits.

The second more obvious reason for the change is that Shanahan wants to run the ball, and a bigger roster of wideouts will allow him to do that. When Taylor finally came back from injury last year, it was his superior blocking that kept him ahead of James in the pecking order until the latter’s breakout game against Green Bay. When Dante Pettis was deep in Shanahan’s dog house, it was often a lack of urgency and physicality that sent him there (and kept him there) for long periods of time. Ultimately, I think Shanahan got fed up with the outside runs that we sprung so easily in 2019 getting shut down last year because of a single missed block on the edge. So he sought out a receiving corps filled with willing and capable blockers. By focusing more on size and physicality out wide, Shanahan is likely hoping to eliminate the sporadic edge blocking of last year that often turned a fifteen-yard gain into a five-yard one and a would-be house call into a third-and-short.

I’d also guess that this change—like our constant attempts to bolster the interior line—has something to do with the Super Bowl loss. As stated before, that game included an inordinate amount of uncalled holding calls. And while the lack of offensive holding was more obvious and showed up more readily during the Chiefs’ big plays, the lack of defensive holding—in conjunction with Chris Jones—stymied our passing attack. Shanahan has always prioritized separation ability from his wideouts, but perhaps his opinion on what that means—like his opinion on the benefits of a quarterback who can create off-script—has shifted in step with the NFL’s changing enforcement of their rules. Since defensive holding has plummeted in lieu of pass interference, bigger wideouts are more likely to be able to fight through grabby defensive backs at the line and create defensive PI calls down the field. Sure, we’re poking at theoretical margins here, but Shanahan’s attention to detail and his ability to be one step ahead of the curve when it comes to offensive trends is one of the things that makes him such a great offensive mind. 

Finally, our focus on XXL wideouts certainly points to an interest in finding a way to lighten the offensive burden on Kittle. We kept one more wideout and one fewer tight end than we normally do, which likely means that (A) the staff is happy with Charlie Woerner’s progression, and (B) our wideouts will be tasked with doing some of the things Kittle does when he’s lined up in the slot or in the wing. Kittle’s style of play and tremendous blocking ability mean that he’ll always be an injury risk, and the best way to minimize that risk is to get him a breather every once in a while. Since his emergence as one of the NFL’s premier tight ends, we’ve been trying (and failing) to do just that. But with a stable of wideouts who can all block down into the box and two would-be “jumbo slots” in Jalen Hurd and Jauan Jennings, perhaps this is the year where we can finally give Kittle a break.

Have we finally fixed our interior OL issues?

[Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Alex Mack will be a massive upgrade at center over the rotating door we had at the position last year, and the presence of Jake Brendel on the practice squad means that Daniel Brunskill can focus solely on right guard—a starting position that he all but secured after the struggles and ensuing injury of Aaron Banks. Mike McGlinchey has put on 25 pounds of solid weight in the off-season to help him deal with bull rushers on the edge, and—entering a quasi-contract year—seems focused and motivated to clean up the sporadic pass protection whiffs that routinely infuriate our fan base. Barring injury, our offensive line will definitely be better than last year’s unit. But how much better? And what happens if someone misses time?

Our track record at offensive guard hasn’t been stellar. Banks—who we wanted to start right away—struggled mightily in his only preseason action and then missed the rest of training camp with an injury. While he’s now healthy, it would be difficult to expect much—if anything—from him in his rookie year. After regressing in 2020, Justin Skule slid inside from tackle to guard before going down for the season prior to training camp. Colton McKivitz, last year’s fifth-rounder, didn’t even make the active roster. He now resides on the practice squad. While he had a rough start to the preseason, he settled down and looked better than he did last year. But again, he’s on the practice squad for a reason. If we get anything from him it’ll be a bonus. If there’s a bright spot it’s been the play of Tom Compton, who was greatly hindered by last year’s nonexistent off-season and an injury he sustained mid-season. Word out of camp is that he returned a much better player, and the staff seems confident that he can step in on the interior if called upon. But what does that look like?

Outside, there are just as many questions. Fifth-rounder Jaylon Moore has acquitted himself better than anyone could have expected given his draft position, but he had some struggles in the first preseason game and may not be ready for heavy snaps. While his future looks bright (be it inside or out), you never feel great about a Day 3 rookie being your swing tackle. Shon Coleman finally wrapped up a three-year stint on the team in which he played in 0 games despite theoretically being our swing tackle. And Skule—as noted above—is both hurt and potentially destined for the interior. While Moore likely gets the nod if either Williams or McGlinchey misses time, we may be looking at… all-purpose swing Tom Compton?

Ultimately, you’d be hard-pressed to find many squads who are THAT deep at offensive line, and I am cautiously optimistic that Compton can fill-in for spot duty if needed. There’s also the classic “throw Brunskill at the problem and move someone into his place” approach, but after a full calendar year of that, I think we can safely say that isn’t the best outcome for anyone (including Brunskill). A world where Banks took the starting job and Brunskill could learn behind Mack while being a true swingman across all five positions would have naturally alleviated many of our concerns. But alas, that isn’t the world we live in.

Go Niners 🏈👍

2021 Team Preview: The Rookies

Trey 2 Trey, hot new 90’s RnB group or dynamic backfield? [USA Today]

Training camp is a few days in. Our first pre-season game is just over a week away. It’s about that time to dust off the old hype train and get back to it.

We’ll start with the rookies. But first, a few thoughts on the draft class as a whole.

DRAFT TRENDS

1. Fit over perceived value: Fit over perceived value: More than a few experts have said we reached on our second-day picks while getting great value on our third-round picks. Ultimately, everything after the first few tiers of players becomes very much up for debate, but what’s clear is that the Niners really narrowed in on their dudes and got them—some higher than many would expect they’d go. We’ve talked before about the Niners potentially being too aggressive when it comes to moving up and “getting their dudes”—as opposed to accumulating more picks and thus more swings at the plate—but those moves have also led to guys like Brandon Aiyuk and Dre Greenlaw. Time will tell if we reached on some of these guys or not, but the Niners clearly prioritized fit in this class, both schematically and within the locker room.

2. Guys they could scout the most: While Lance’s lack of film is well-known, the Niners had weeks of in-depth scouting courtesy of their connection with John Beck and Lance’s second pro day. He was thoroughly scouted. And in a year when prospect interaction was down across the league due to COVID restrictions, the Niners really leaned into picking guys who they could scout the most. Out of the eight draftees, five played in the Senior Bowl. One who didn’t—Deommodore Lenoir—has a mentor and former high school coach who is close with Richard Sherman. Aaron Banks was vouched for by Mike McGlinchey and Notre Dame’s OL coach—who Chris Foerster has a good relationship with. In a year when they couldn’t meet most prospects in person, the Niners relied heavily on trusted confidants within coaching and scouting circles to ensure that the guys they were looking at were culture fits.

3. A weird year for roster building: While the bevy of picks that we sent away to draft Lance would make one assume that our goal was to trade back and accumulate as many picks as possible, that would have been hard to do given our roster make-up. With so many returning veterans on one-year contracts, we don’t actually have many viable roster openings for the 2021 season. So while accumulating picks for the 2022 draft and beyond makes total sense (when we’ll have plenty of openings), simply adding more guys who would then get cut after training camp would have been a waste of capital. It’s an odd position to be in and likely not one that we’ll see again next off-season.

Round 1, Pick 3: QB, Trey Lance, North Dakota State

[Dai Sugano / Bay Area News Group]

Despite putting Fields ahead of Lance in my final QB rankings, this was a case where my head said Fields while my heart said Lance. So, as a fan, I am absolutely thrilled with this pick. While that may sound like I’m changing my mind after the fact, Fields’ ranking was always based on the idea that his larger sample size and superior accuracy made me—as someone who had never sat down with either player and who did not have access to All-22 film of Trey Lance—want to hedge risk. It was a final ranking made knowing that I had considerably less information on one of the prospects than the other, and it always came with the stated caveat that if the Niners were blown away by Lance in the interview process and if they thought he had already taken big steps towards improving his accuracy, that they ought to take the swing and lean towards the superior upside. Clearly, that wound up being the case.

Remember, the team’s goal is to draft players not for what they are or what they can be, but what they are most likely to become. In that regard, Lance’s intangibles, intelligence, processing speed, and physical traits were always going to help his cause, but—if early training camp reports have any merit (and training camp reports must always be taken with a giant grain of salt)—we may have struck gold on the trait that is so often hard to predict and regularly undervalued: growth trajectory. When we talk ad nauseam about how Lance accomplished this and that at only 19 or 20 years-old, it’s not simply to commend a prodigious talent but to use his past accomplishments as a means for gauging how high and how fast he may grow to hit future ones. And from beat reporters to players to the head man himself, everyone agrees that Lance has improved dramatically from the beginning of OTAs to now—just a few days into training camp. Which could mean we’ll be seeing him sooner than anticipated. 

That said, I am perfectly fine with taking our time and letting Lance really grow into the starting quarterback role before handing him the keys. The benefits he’d get from a few extra games of starting experience are dwarfed by the potential drawbacks of throwing him into the fire a few games too early. And while we’re far too talented and well-run of a team to see a repeat of an Alex Smith/Josh Rosen scenario (knock on wood), tossing Lance into the deep-end right away could still hinder his growth, and—unlike Smith or Rosen or countless of other highly drafted quarterbacks heading to bad teams—Lance would be facing the expectations and pressures of being a point-man for a team with championship aspirations. Whereas someone like Burrow or Herbert can toss the ball around and learn through costly mistakes as a rookie because their teams are a ways away from contention, those same mistakes will be more disheartening and impactful for a team two years removed from a Super Bowl and in the toughest division in the NFL. Per usual, any argument that “the Niners didn’t trade away x number of picks to sit Lance” is the equivalent of saying “you didn’t buy those green bananas to not eat them all before they ripen” or “you didn’t open that retirement account to not withdraw half of it to purchase a PS5.” There are reasons to play Lance early, but the people giving that particular reason are likely the same ones who KNEW that Mac Jones was the pick at No. 3. Believe me, I am as excited to see Trey Lance as you are, but we need to be patient.

But regardless of when Lance gets his first NFL start, expect to see him in sub-packages right away. For a team that has struggled in the red zone during Shanahan’s tenure, adding a 6-4 225-pound battering ram at the quarterback position will certainly make for some interesting option and run-pass looks when the field gets tight. And those same looks could be shown between the 20’s as well. While a tightened field means that a running quarterback can even the blocking up front, a 3rd-and-inches from midfield puts defenses in an entirely different predicament. Do you shift down and commit to the run—which we’ll likely be showing both in personnel and formation—or do you play it safe to not get burned over the top, which in turn makes the short-yardage conversion easier? 

We’ll get more into the specifics of what the Niners could do with Lance when he actually starts getting in-game snaps. But know this. The first time he lines up in the gun with Deebo and Kittle in the backfield, it’s gonna be six-to-midnight in a hurry.

Round 2, Pick 48: OG, Aaron Banks, Notre Dame

[Ninerswire]

First with the addition of Alex Mack, then the drafting of Aaron Banks, the Niners have spent a lot of resources cleaning up the interior line issues that have plagued us for the greater part of a year and change. In Banks, the Niners have a massive (6-5 338-pound) mauling-type guard with great strength, a bay area kid coming home (El Cerrito), and a dude who—as mentioned above—McGlinchey and ND’s former OL coach vouched highly for. But many have questioned both the value of the pick—he was largely considered a third-rounder—and his fit within the Niners’ stretch-heavy scheme. Here’s what I’d say about that. 

The Niners traded down five spots before taking Banks. I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that they—knowing Banks’ perceived value—were trying to move down again before taking him and—unable to find any suitors—pulled the trigger on the guy they had highest on their board. Much of the criticism about Banks is that he doesn’t move that well in space and lunges a bit in his blocking, leading to questions of whether or not he’s an immediate starter on the interior. Adam Peters has gone on record vouching for Banks’ quickness, saying that Banks—at a svelte 325 pounds—moved incredibly well for his size at his Pro Day. That weight loss and athletic potential, combined with the fact that the All-American guard allowed just two sacks and nineteen career pressures despite starting two-and-a-half years straight, made the Niners confident in picking Banks both for his polish—even if he does need hand work—and his upside.

As for fit, if his greater quickness at a still-humongous 325 pounds is any indicator, the transition to the Niners’ scheme won’t be as dramatic as some would believe. It’s also worth noting that it’s our tackles—who are regularly out of the box making difficult reach blocks—that truly NEED to be plus athletes in order to succeed in this scheme. While our guards have to be able to move and to get up to the second level, I think the Niners actually prefer a bit more heft on the interior. Teams have been overcommitting like crazy to stop our stretch running game, which opens the door for the gap runs that can punish them inside, and we—as stated above—are still looking for better short-yardage and red zone performance. Some extra pounds may help both those causes. Ultimately, Banks’ scouting report—a big, super strong dude with great durability and some questions about his ability in space—greatly mirrors that of Laken Tomlinson. And the Niners would be more than happy to shore up our interior with another Tomlinson-type.

I like Daniel Brunskill, but I feel like the Niners see him as either the all-important sixth man swing along the offensive line or a future center who can learn under Mack. Brunskill after all is a converted tight end, who—up until about a year ago—was listed as 252 pounds(!) on the NFL’s official site. While he’s played quality snaps at both center and guard, he may physically be better suited for the point position. If Banks wins the starting right guard position outright in training camp, that’s a good sign both for him and the overall composition of our offensive line.

Round 3, Pick 88: RB, Trey Sermon, Ohio State/Oklahoma

[NFL.com]

Consider me surprised that the Niners traded up into the third round to take a running back when we already have Mostert, Wilson, and Gallman under contract with JaMycal Hasty waiting in the wings. But that’s a testament to how highly the team thinks of Sermon. And since the selection comes with the blessing of Bobby Turner, that’s good enough for me.

Turner is probably the least appreciated contributor to the Niners staff. As the running backs coach under Kyle and Mike Shanahan since 1995(!), he’s unearthed gems like Breida, Mostert, Wilson, Alfred Morris (6th), Olandis Gary (4th round), Mike Anderson (6th round), and Hall-of-Famer Terrell Davis (6th round). He is the best running back coach on the planet. So we should probably trust his judgment.

Sermon also fits our scheme like a glove. While his deep speed isn’t incredible, he’s got great burst through the hole (with an impressive 10-yard split time on his 40), excellent cutback vision, and tremendous balance. He runs hard but has the ability to make guys miss in space, and catches the ball well out of the backfield.

Sermon DESTROYED this post-season, running for a Big Ten Championship Game-record 331 yards against Northwestern in a game where the Buckeyes passing attack needed much bailing out, then put up another 193 against Clemson. 

But a dislocation of his SC shoulder joint on the first play of the national champ game caused him to miss that contest, and unfortunately, injuries are a red flag. He had a cracked L5 vertebrae in high school—causing him to miss his junior year— and tore the LCL in his left knee—causing him to miss the end of his collegiate junior year. With only five games missed in college (plus the majority of the NC) and 45 games played in, perhaps he’s not actually that injury-prone. But given our luck in recent years… it’s always worth mentioning.

Shanahan wants AT LEAST three healthy running backs at all times so that he can rotate bodies and keep people fresh. Many people critiqued that strategy when Mostert exploded at the end of 2019, then immediately walked back said criticism when all of our running backs were continually injured a year later. With Jeff Wilson already down and likely to miss some time, stockpiling running backs looks smarter by the day. 

Mostert should continue to start, but Sermon will be among the three backs in that rotation, and—based on where he was selected—the Niners likely expect him to have a more featured role in years to follow. After all, he’ll be the only running back on roster locked up into 2022.

It’s also worth noting that Peters gushed about Sermon’s character, in particular his ability to deal with adversity while not letting it effect his outlook on life. This is likely due in large part to Sermon’s impressive mother, who lost two brothers—one shot to death—both her parents—within two weeks of each other—and her first two children—the youngest murdered by a former boyfriend who is now serving a life sentence in prison before Trey and his sister were born. Needless to say, no one expects Sermon to complain about sharing the load in the backfield.

Round 3, Pick 102: CB, Ambry Thomas, Michigan

No, that is not Emmanuel Moseley. E-Man switched to #4 with the new jersey rules… and then Jimmie Ward switched to #1… and then Thomas switched to #20 [NBC Sports]

I’ll admit I was worried when three straight cornerbacks—two of which I was highly interested in—went directly before the Niners picked at the bottom of the third, but I think they got a good one in Ambry Thomas. There are a number of draft experts who graded Thomas lower than a third rounder, but—as someone who (often sadly) watches every Michigan game—I can confidently say that I felt Thomas was undervalued on most draft boards.

He’s long, athletic, and tenacious with experience both in Don Brown’s man-press scheme and a handful of zones that the Wolverines had to throw into the mix to offset some personnel issues in 2019. But since Ambry was only a full-time starter for one year and sat out the 2020 season—for medical reasons that we’ll get to in a second—people kind of forgot about him. If anyone watched a Michigan game last year, rest assured that fans of Michigan missed him dearly. So did the coaches, as they gushed about Thomas’ competitive spirit and tenacity in their talks with the Niners leading up to the draft.

As a testament to his work ethic, Thomas—who was diagnosed with colitis in the summer before the 2019 season—lost 35 pounds while hospitalized for a month, missed all of fall camp, and was told he should medically redshirt… then wound up not missing a single start en route to a highly successful junior year.

It’s interesting because Syracuse’s Ifeatu Melifonwu—who went a single pick before Thomas and combines elite movement skills alongside a 6-2 205-pound frame—is basically the physical prototype of an NFL corner. Yet he dropped to the third round based on some questions about instincts, anticipation, and consistency. In many ways, he was a more polished Ahkello Witherspoon. While it’s impossible to know if the Niners had him higher on their board than Thomas, it’s easy to wonder if their focus on toughness and physicality over raw physical tools is in part because things never fully materialized with Spoon.

To be clear, Thomas is no slouch athletically. He returned kicks at Michigan and even played a little offense when he was further down the depth chart at cornerback. He’s got good top speed, quick feet, and very good hands, but tends to get a bit grabby at times. And while physical and willing, it’s unclear if he can really add any more mass onto his rather slender frame. He’s definitely a guy who needs more in-game experience, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him get some snaps as a rookie. In terms of long-term projection, this is definitely a guy who can become a fixture outside. Perhaps as soon as 2022.

Round 5, Pick 155: OL, Jaylon Moore, Western Michigan

[49ers.com]

A three-year starter at left tackle, Moore’s lack of ideal length and power initially had him sliding inside to guard with the Niners. But after Justin Skule went down with a torn ACL in OTAs, Moore has been running with the second team at tackle. While it’s a bummer for Skule, I don’t mind Moore getting a shot outside first. A popular prospect in scouting circles, the experts are near-unanimous that the Niners got both a steal in the fifth round and a dude whose quickness, movement skills, and second-level climbing ability make for an outstanding schematic fit. To me, he seems like the perfect swing tackle and hopefully getting early snaps outside will help him transition to such a role.

However, considering Moore was drafted initially to play inside, his selection brings up a lot of questions about our two-deep on the offensive line. Was Skule, before his injury, on his way out anyway after taking a big step back from his mostly-solid substitute cameos in 2019? Is it getting late early for Colton McKivitz, who looked totally overwhelmed during his rookie year? Or will a more normal off-season help him in year two? Will Shon Coleman ever play a snap for us?  Still plenty of questions along our offensive line. Hopefully, they’ll be answered by the time the regular season rolls around.

Round 5, Pick 172: CB, Deommodore Lenoir, Oregon

[R. Ross Cameron / USA Today]

A scrappy corner out of Oregon who started three straight seasons in what was—before COVID opt-outs—perhaps the most talented secondary in the country, Lenoir is a tad undersized and lacks the twitch to really make up for it, but he’s a physical and intelligent DB who plays under control. As evidenced by a rookie camp clip that quickly made the rounds…

Somebody call the police because that was AGGRAVATED ASSAULT https://t.co/aFr1KSCP4o

— COACH PRIME (@DeionSanders) May 15, 2021

…and possibly got the Niners in trouble for their OTAs having “contact.”

Lenoir’s basically the Niners’ answer for the void in the slot vacated by DJ Reed—a player who he greatly resembles—but the Niners see Lenoir with a bit more inside/outside potential (although Reed currently starts outside for the Seahawks so…). Similar to Reed, expect him to get shots at subpackage work on the inside and for him to work his way up from there.

Round 5, Pick 180: S, Talanoa Hufanga, USC

[Sports Illustrated]

The reigning Pac-12 defensive player of the year and AP first-team All-American, Hufanga seems like an absolute steal where we got him. Super instinctual and physical with great intelligence (he was one of two Niners’ draftees—the other Trey Lance—who got the coveted Golden Helmet designation during the draft process), Hufanga slipped because he ran an atrocious forty time (4.63) and has serious medical questions about his shoulders. With TWO season-ending right collarbone surgeries—the second of which led to a metal plate—and a dislocated shoulder that wound up requiring surgery after his sophomore year, the medicals could have taken him off the boards of some teams.

That said, this is the fifth round. You take risks somewhere, and Hufanga could well exceed his draft slot if he can stay healthy. People question his coverage ability due to his lack of elite speed and ask if he can play deep middle or even deep half. Totally fair. But his tape is faster than his timed speed and he doesn’t HAVE to play deep coverage in order to see the field with the Niners. In fact, I’d guess Hufanga’s first snaps (other than special teams, where he should immediately be a difference-maker) will be in a similar role as what Marcell Harris was doing for us by the end of last year. A matchup-specific subpackage outside linebacker who can cover better than most while being physical enough not to get overwhelmed in the box. If Hufanga tops out as Marcell Harris, we’ll easily take that for the next four years on a fifth-rounder deal. But he at least has the potential to carve out a bigger role, and that’s great value in the fifth.

Round 6, Pick 194: Elijah Mitchell, Louisiana-Lafayette

[Stan Szeto / USA Today]

Despite eyeing linebackers in this round, the Niners ended up pulling the trigger on Mitchell for the same reason they did on Moore and Banks and Sermon—he just fit their value chart. Mitchell is a speedy guy (4.38 forty) with a one cut running style who ran plenty of outside zone in college. You don’t see a lot of dynamic moves or creativity in his running style, but he’s fast, usually hits the right hole, and runs harder than his size would indicate. That’s certainly enough to have some success in our scheme. 

While the injury to Wilson will likely push some difficult roster decisions to a later date, the battle for the fourth running back spot between Wayne Ellington, JaMychal Hasty, and Mitchell will be one to keep an eye on in training camp.

Next Up? Guys with pictures that were NOT taken from the rookie minicamp.

Go Niners 🏈👍