Once More, With Feeling
the boys are back
Over the past 10 years, teams make the playoffs 40% of the time when they finish the season with nine wins, 90% of the time when they finish with ten, and 100% of the time when they hit eleven or more. So a 5-4 finish would be sketchy (at best), a 6-3 finish might be good enough, and anything better than that basically secures us a chance to reclaim our NFC throne.
The good news? We’ve historically finished seasons well. Over the entire ShanaLynch era, we’re 39-21 (65%) in regular season games played in November or later. If we only include games where someone named Jimmy G or Brock Purdy started, we’re 33-7 (82.5%). If we only include games after that cursed 2020 season, we’re 23-4 (85%).
While it would be beyond ignorant to think that just because we’ve had late season success before we’ll have it again, at least there’s precedent. So despite holding a definitionally average 4-4 record and staring down the 4th-most difficult remaining schedule, now’s the time for us to turn the corner and voltron our many parts into the world-destroying (defending?) juggernaut we’ve come to expect… hopefully.
Le Health. Spoiler alert. A lot of the issues discussed below might just be solved by the return of reigning OPOTY Christian McCaffrey and top 10 linebacker Dre Greenlaw. CMC is expected to return against the Bucs. Greenlaw will likely be back a few weeks later. There are also a ton of key players–Kittle, Warner, Mason, Deebo, Jennings–who have been slowed by injuries and should benefit from the week off.
The Deets. Botched plays and miscommunications based on little details–both on offense and defense–have been at the forefront of our sloppy play. On offense, that means timing, releases, and depths of route combinations–especially in bunches and stacks. On defense, switches on the boundaries, hand-offs, and–in general–fewer blown coverages.
The horse is dead. But if we beat it one more time… Understatement of the year: special teams need to improve. We’re not asking for miracles. A bump to simply “below average” could be huge.
OFFENSE
The Niners’ inability to close out games usually gets pushed on its offense because Shanahan runs the offense, but a quick look at the stats shows that–this year–that probably shouldn’t be the case. Yes, it’s a full team effort and the collapse of the complementary football we always talk about is very much to blame for our late-game collapses. But our overall offensive stats vs fourth-quarter splits have remained quite potent.
A few notes before the data table. The darker the green the better it is. The darker the red the worse it is. Kneel-down drives are NOT counted in points per drive stats, so I didn’t include them in this breakdown. I also removed our two successful “game icing” drives from point and scoring figures as it felt weird to punish the offense during the rare case when NOT scoring was better than scoring. Also, the fourth quarter rankings compare our fourth quarter figures to league averages across all quarters. I didn’t break down all fourth quarters for every team. I have slightly more of a life than that. Which is the same reason I didn’t tabulate every team’s TD%.
It’s not all roses, but we’ve generally done our duty on offense late in games.
The Short Game. Needless to say, a shoulder injury affects a running back’s ability to break tackles, especially when the back is a bruiser like Mason. The bye week should help him get at least a tad bit healthier, but–due in part to his injury–we’ve settled into a rather average unit on the ground: 12th in Rushing DVOA, 11th in Rushing EPA/play. But the area we’ve struggled most–and where we (somewhat surprisingly) miss CMC–is in short yardage attempts.
This season, we’re second in the league in adjusted line yards but 17th in % of runs tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage and 20th in success rate on runs on 3rd or 4th and two or less. We’re still busting off medium and long runs at an impressive clip, but it’s the tough inside yards where we’ve lagged. Mason is an absolute battering ram. It’s not toughness or power that he’s missing on these short runs. It’s patience and trusting his blockers. More than a few times, both Mason and Guerendo have gotten caught either turning up field on a should-be bounce or cutting back against their blockers because the first look has been a bit cloudy. That’s natural for a young back getting their first big touches in the NFL, but CMC is a run scheme fundamentalist. I’d still love it if we implemented power or duo into our run game a bit more in these situations, but once CMC returns our short-yardage success rates should improve.
Unsurprisingly, short yardage running is quite important for redzone scoring. And while our redzone TD % has been a much more respectable 61.5% since the Cardinals snafu, CMC’s return will pay dividends within the twenties, both through the air and on the ground.
Quality over Quantity. While we’re on the run game, our fourth quarter run splits in wins versus losses are pretty telling. This does NOT include Purdy scrambles. Only designed runs.
It’s not surprising that we’re running more in wins when we’re more likely to be nursing a lead, but the efficiency disparity is alarming. And it’s not like we’ve abandoned the run in the games we’ve let slip away. If we exclude offensive snaps within the last two minutes of games when we were either tied or behind and hurrying to score, we had 19 total offensive plays against the Rams and the Cardinals. 10 of those plays were designed runs. This points to another problem that we’ll get to on the defensive side. That’s far too few offensive plays to work with.
Don’t listen to Drake. No one should have expected us to consistently move the ball against the Chiefs with Chris Conley, Ronnie Bell, and two rookies as our receiver corps, but Purdy left a bunch of yards on the field in that game because he was too aggressive and careless with the ball. While Purdy has taken massive steps forward in every facet of his game, when he gets into trouble it’s often because he’s forcing the ball or waiting too long for the big play to develop despite options being open underneath. It’s a bit ironic given Purdy’s mislabeling as a checkdown artist, but when his aggressiveness is appropriately dialed he performs like a top 5 QB. When he gets greedy, we can get behind the chains and become turnover-heavy.
Bill Vinovich’s Ghost. Don’t worry, the irony here isn’t lost on me. Despite ranking in the bottom ten in overall penalties, we’re fourth in offensive holds. And these holds often come at the worst possible time. Of the 15 fourth-quarter drives that ended in a field goal attempt or worse, four included a penalty during our last set of downs. Across the entire season, offensive penalties have wiped out four of our touchdowns, easily the worst mark in the league.
It’s something we need to clean up, but it also feels like something that’s likely to adjust to the mean. Or it won’t. Cause the world is terrible.
Matters of Man. At this point, we know what teams want to do against us. They want to run press man, blitz, and crowd the line of scrimmage to deter us from the run game. That will only become more apparent with the loss of Aiyuk, our top outside man-beater. Some teams–like the Chiefs–major in this scheme. They’ll naturally be more difficult to attack because they spend all year repping and perfecting this defense. Others, like the Cowboys last week, may try to dabble. Those are the teams we have to punish.
While the undermanned Cowboys won’t be our stiffest test offensively, it was good to see how quickly we adjusted to the schematic curveball they threw at us out of their bye week. We should see plenty of man-beaters in our playbook coming out of the bye week, and I’d love to get Jacob Cowing–and his speed–involved, even if it’s just in ways similar to how the Rams utilize Tutu Atwell. Also, CMC’s return means linebackers will have to guard him in the passing game, so… 🫡 good luck with that. But on top of the concepts themselves, the way we package plays could prove quite important.
Shanahan always gives Purdy two plays at the line of scrimmage so that he can “kill/can” the first one if the defensive look isn’t right. Usually, that second call is from the same or similar formation so that the play can attack a (theoretically) similar look. But against the Cowboys and their blatant crowding of the box and press man behind it, our second calls often moved us into the gun–to buy time from blitzers–and motioned us into empty–to give us favorable matchups and open up the middle for catch-and-runs. Perhaps the more meme-like a team wants to get in hedging against our run game and what we do best, the more drastic those checks will become to exploit it.
DEFENSE
I want to preface this by saying that I think Nick Sorensen has done a much better job over the past three weeks after an up-and-down first month as DC. Whether or not he’s the man for the job AFTER this season is a question for January (or February yeet yeet), when guys like Saleh and Dennis Allen are officially on the table. For now, patience isn’t just the best path forward, it’s the only one. Saleh had an adjustment period. Ryans had an adjustment period. While improvement in the second half is far from guaranteed, there’s no reason to believe Sorensen isn’t capable of following in his predecessors’ footsteps. So, with that said… let’s look at our chart.
Yeah… Complementary football has played a part in our late game collapses. We put away that Cardinals game if not for Jordan Mason’s fumble in the redzone, and special teams… well, you know. But the defense–for all its improvements in the past month–has gotten consistently killed in fourth quarters. So let’s try and figure out why.
The Long Con. It’d be one thing if our offense was hanging our defense out to dry with short fields based on quick punts and turnovers deep in our end, but of the 8 fourth-quarter touchdown drives we’ve allowed, only one has been under 70 yards in length (a Rams 55-yarder following a missed field goal). And our averages for drive length allowed–both in number of plays (8.3) and yardage (45.7)—are both worst in the league. There’s no real way around it, we’re just getting shredded in fourth quarters.
The Usual Suspects. Ever since 2019, the go-to assumption for any of our defensive struggles late in games has been fatigue–particularly in our pass rush. My assumption going into this was that our pass rush win rate would fall off a cliff in the fourth quarter of games, but 35% of our sacks have occurred in that final stanza. So maybe not.
Remembering how the Cardinals and Chiefs chewed us up on the ground, I then looked at the running game. While it’s true that our splits have been worse in losses…
…I’m not sure those figures are dramatic enough to explain the problem. Yes, our run defense is ranked 19th in DVOA and 14th in EPA/play. Decidedly average. But for every Arizona or Kansas City who closed us out on the ground, there was a Los Angeles, Minnesota, or Dallas who diced us up just as badly through the air despite combining for 45 fourth-quarter rushing yards.
Our run defense as a whole is an issue. Absolutely. But the unfortunate takeaway from all this is that–when it comes to why we’ve allowed 71 points in fourth quarters (or 39% of our season total)—there isn’t one easy answer. The answer is it’s a little bit of everything.
Big Dom Better Watch Out. Let’s talk defensive theory. While all defenses require excellent coordination and connectivity, ours—which relies less on complexity and more on execution—needs it more than most. When our DL isn’t pressuring the quarterback, teams have too long to pass and can find spots in our predominantly soft zone coverages. When we aren’t flowing fast to the ball, our super-aggressive missed tackles don’t force ball carriers back into help, they just allow a lot of yards after contact. And when our linebackers aren’t smothering receivers down the field in coverage… turns out a lot opens up.
Our DL gets all the pub, but for years, our linebackers have been the real unique advantage of our defense. When you can blanket underneath receivers, cloud the middle of the field, and sink deeper than anyone else on intermediate routes, your pass rush has more time to get home, your safeties can play deeper and downhill, and you force offenses to either win their matchups down the field or chip away slowly on comebacks and snap routes outside the hashes.
This year, that has not been the case. But it might be again soon. While Warner is an absolute stud, Campbell and Flannigan-Fowles have been bright red targets on either side of him. That’s given offenses underneath safety valves that allow them to beat (or simply avoid) our pass rush while staying on schedule. With Dee Winters rapidly improving (if he can stay healthy) and Dre Greenlaw returning from injury, those passing lanes may close up in a hurry. And when they do, we might see a ripple effect throughout our defense.
The Burgeoning Back. The other reason for optimism here is the youth movement that we’re seeing in our secondary. While there have been hiccups and blown plays off of miscommunications and assignment issues early, there has also been stellar play from rookies Renardo Green and Malik Mustapha. Through the ShanaLynch era we’ve rarely (if ever) had three strong cornerbacks. Even when our defense was at its best, the weakness was usually “find a way to block long enough to try something deep over our second outside cornerback.” Whether it was Ahkello Witherspoon, Ambry Thomas, or anyone in between, there’s long been the belief that the one true weakness of our defense is that—if you play your cards right—you can get a big one over the top against us down the sideline.
Over the last three weeks, Renardo Green has taken over that third cornerback position on the outside. Right now, he’s PFF’s 7th-ranked cornerback. Sample size is important here, but he has looked STICKY in coverage. As long as we can hammer out the sporadic assignment/communication issues that have plagued us in the first half of the season, our secondary could be peaking in an impressive way come playoff time.
4 > 5. The NFL has largely moved to a five-man pressure league, and—over the first month of the season—our blitz rate seemed to follow that trend. By week four we were peaking somewhere around league average, sending blitzes upwards of 30% of the time. Well, not so fast.
After dialing back our extra rushers in a big way over the last four games, we’re back down to a 17.3% blitz rate. Good for third lowest in the NFL and right on par with our 18% blitz rate last season. And the main reason for that? We’re terrible at it. When we send extra men, we have the lowest defensive EPA in the NFL.
We’ve never been a big blitz team, but when we’re at our best the blitz has been a highly effective change-up. This has not been the case under Sorensen. But I do think a lot of the blitz-burning that’s torpedoed our EPA was from the first month of the season when we were figuring things out. And–as our young players develop and we get closer to full strength–perhaps we can get back to blitzing from time to time and actually be good at it.
We didn’t make a big splash along the DL at the trade deadline, only adding Khalil Davis—an athletic one-gapper who is familiar with our scheme from his time in Houston. But, with Yetur Gross-Matos returning and Sam Okuayinonu starting to get deployed in more inside-outside work as a pass rusher, we should be capable of doing a bit more mixing and matching on passing downs. Fronts and stunts on long downs and distances are always going to be more foundational to how we generate pass rush than blitzes. But if we can just get okay at blitzing, we open a much bigger playbook for Sorensen. And the ability to have a change-up that we don’t get absolutely shelled when deploying could help close out some games.
The defensive fourth quarter splits are undeniably bleak, but there’s reason for hope that we can turn the corner as we exit the bye week and get healthier on both sides of the ball. Based on the schedule ahead of us and the missed opportunities behind, we’ll have to do just that in order to make another run.
Go Niners 🏈👍
Trade Deadline Primer
it will probably be more interesting than this thumbnail
behold, the most generic image I could find
Through the ShanaLynch era, we’ve been as active a team as any at the trade deadline, adding at least one player at every deadline except for one (2018). The results have been overwhelmingly positive:
2017: Jimmy G (2nd round)
2019: Emmanuel Sanders (3rd round)
2020: Jordan Willis (6th/7th pick swap)
2021: Charles Omenihu (2023 6th round)
2022: Christian McCaffrey (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 2023 5th)
2023: Randy Gregory (6th/7th pick swap)
2023: Chase Young (3rd round)
Realistically, last year’s trades were the only ones you could really have any complaints about, and those were pretty necessary (plus, Chase Young did perform well in the Super Bowl). So with the trade deadline a week away, it makes sense to take a look at a potential trade or two during our bye week.
Unlike past years, I have no interest in swapping a third-rounder for a veteran. We need to get younger in a hurry so those are picks we need to keep. But given the atrocious returns teams have been getting for their established players thus far, we should be able to get someone of value for something in the 6th/7th round range.
When analyzing the trade market, I’m typically looking at (1) teams that suck who might be looking to sell off assets, (2) players with expiring contracts on teams that aren’t looking to re-sign them, and (3) teams that are flush with 2025 cap space, as a likely spending spree would cancel out any potential comp picks they might gain from their expiring contracts leaving via free agency. Teams that check any of the above boxes are more likely to be sellers, but teams that check all the boxes (looking at you, Patriots) are highly motivated to move players.
Of course, there are also some guys with multiple years left on their deals who could prove intriguing fits (CMC and Charles Omenihu in years past), but they’re a bit harder to single out without knowing who is truly being shopped and what teams have soured on what prospects.
While noting what could indicate a team is a seller, it’s also worth noting what could cockblock a trade before it even gets started. Those elements often include (A) an unreasonable owner who is either really old (like by owner standards, not normal human being standards) and hates moving players, (B) a team that is far too optimistic in its current and future prospects, and (C), and this is the big one, a team that has a coach and/or GM who might be getting their ass fired if they don’t finish the season better than they started it. Jerod Mayo, in his first year at the helm, is not getting fired by the Patriots. But the entirety of the Giants? TBD.
WIDE RECEIVERS
I’m a little torn about adding a receiver because–while we need an outside man-beater for the stretch run–we also drafted two wideouts this season and don’t want to hinder their development. Cowing may not break into the offense by season’s end, but it feels like we should at least be able to manufacture looks to utilize his speed, and Pearsall—despite playing only two games—has improved quite dramatically since returning from injury.
But, if we need someone a bit more established to carry the load–or even a rotational guy to help in small quantities and specific matchups–there are options available. Since Diontae Johnson was just had from the Ravens for the equivalent of a 10-ish pick swap at the bottom of the fifth round, anyone on this list should be able to be snagged for much less.
WR, Darius Slayton, Giants: Slayton has been consistently solid throughout the years and seems a tad underrated simply because he plays on a team that hasn’t been able to pass the ball since before the pandemic. He’s got legit field stretching ability–something we need–and is a smooth mover, which makes me think he could at least run the digs and crossers we like so much. Over the two games Malik Nabers missed due to a concussion, Slayton as WR1 averaged 7 grabs for 89.5 yards, and he just put up a 4-108-0 line against the Steelers on Monday night. If we add a one-year rental at wideout, he’s probably our best option.
WR, Kendrick Bourne, Patriots: Despite leaving the bay four years ago, KB seems to have a lot of fans left at Niners headquarters. He knows the scheme, we know he’s a good fit, and his vibes are (by all accounts) immaculate, but–in his four years in New England–he’s been ravaged by injuries and poor QB play. He missed the first month of the season due to injury and it’s hard to tell how much he’s got left in the tank.
WR, Mike Williams, Jets: Speaking of guys with questionable amounts left in the tank, Mike Williams has fallen deep down the depth chart with the addition of Davante Adams (and the fact that Aaron Rodgers probably hates him). He’s (in theory) still a vertical threat, but he’s never been much more than that, so not sure what our value is for a guy who specializes in clear outs and deep balls but isn’t well-versed in the underneath stuff.
WR, Dontayvion Wicks, Packers: File this under highly unlikely, but Wicks–who at times looked like the Packers’ best receiver last season–is fourth in snap count this year. There’s no real reason for the Packers to move on from a dude in the second year of his rookie deal and the Niners have two rookies who they like at the position, but—at some point—the Packers will need to make some decisions on their rookie contract receiving corps.
RUNNING BACKS
Consider this a “break glass in case of emergency” situation. If CMC is coming back healthy and Jordan Mason’s shoulder is expected to improve with time off, we don’t need another running back. But if either (or, god forbid, both) of our backs have injury concerns exiting the bye, we need to add another body to a running back room that otherwise only has a rookie who missed training camp and a special teamer.
RB, Chuba Hubbard, Panthers: CMC’s replacement in Carolina is bound for replacement himself with the eventual activation of second-round running back Jonathan Brooks. The Panthers are selling off the farm and with Hubbard on an expiring deal and Brooks the back of the future, there’s not a ton of incentive for them to keep him. Chuba’s been solid–albeit not spectacular–for years with little help in Carolina, and he’s been averaging 5.0 ypc and nearly 75 yards/game for the lowly Panthers this season. It’s not hard to see how he could feast in our run game and if we (again, god forbid) need a new starting running back, we could do much worse.
RB, Raheem Mostert, Dolphins: Is he injury-prone? Yes. Do we also know he could plug in where he left off and have immediate success? Also, yes. The Dolphins have drafted De’Von Achane and Jaylen Wright in the past two drafts. I still think they prefer Mostert to handle the dirty work between the tackles, but it’s a position of strength for a team that—if they lose to the Bills this week—is functionally eliminated from playoff contention.
RB, Jeff Wilson, Dolphins: Not sure how much Wilson’s got left in the tank, but we know he runs hard and we know he’s buried on the Dolphins depth chart.
DEFENSIVE TACKLES
Of all the positions we’re most likely to tap in the trade market, defensive tackle tops the list. With the off-season departures of Armstead and Kinlaw, the season-ending injury to Hargrave, and the long-term injury of Yetur Gross-Matos, we’ve gotten thin in a hurry on the interior. That’s been part to blame for our run defense being pretty average thus far. While we like Kalia Davis and Evan Anderson, a full season of major reps can wear down young tackles, and our defense requires a huge number of serviceable bodies along the DL.
DT, DJ Jones, Broncos: Another reunion candidate, DJ has been brought up a lot and would be a tremendous addition. He’s big and athletic and active against the run and the pass. Plus, he’s on an expiring deal and in the middle of a deep DL rotation. But I don’t think the Broncos are selling. They are (somehow) 5-3 and seem keen on keeping a fully stocked defensive line.
DT, DeForest Buckner, Colts: DeFo’s name has gotten floated around a bit as well, but he probably falls into a similar bucket as DJ Jones. Despite missing most of the season, he’s still performing at a high level and the Colts likely aren’t looking to sell. Even if they wanted to move him to clean up their cap (a very Colts thing to do), his contract, which has a $13M base salary and $10M guaranteed bonuses in both of the next two years would be costly enough that this might wind up a rental. That would likely mean draft compensation commensurate with a multi-year acquisition but attached to a contract we might not be able to stomach beyond this year. It’s a great thought, and if the compensation and the finances can be finagled, he’d be the best choice we could add. But those are some serious “ifs.”
DT, Davon Godchaux, Patriots: A true nose tackle in a 3-4 scheme, Godchaux hasn’t registered a sack in two years but leads the league in run stops, a truly impressive feat for an interior lineman. At 6’3 330 pounds, he’s a mountain of a man but still has enough quicks to run down Aaron Rodgers and deliver a hilarious post-game quote about it.
Unlike the first two names on this list, Godchaux is a realistic target who we might be able to secure on the cheap, but it’s unclear if his contract running through 2026 is a benefit or a drawback given our current roster construction.
DT, Calais Campbell, Dolphins: This probably isn’t happening, and there’s a chance that Campbell–especially at the age of 38–should only be playing in 3-4 fronts. But I’ve always liked him and he’s still got a shocking amount of pass rush juice, with 16 pressures and a 12.2% pass rush win rate this season. He could also bounce outside on clear running downs.
DT, Maurice Hurst, Browns: I feel like an absolute homer for still beating this drum, but Hurst is an excellent scheme fit, flashed with us before getting promptly hurt, has never finished a season with a PFF rating below 71 and peaked with an 83 PFF rating last season. He’s also on an expiring contract and is currently buried on a talented Browns DL that just drafted a rookie in the second round.
DT, Adam Butler, Raiders: Floating on a one-year deal for a team that’s going nowhere, Adam Butler was one of the pieces of those Patriots defenses that–not so long ago–was so strong that they made that team relevant. At this point, Butler’s probably a deep rotational dude, but he was known for his quick feet and versatility on stunts and twists with the Patriots. So there’s some hope of a little pass rush juice left.
DT, Sebastian Joseph-Day, Titans: Would we trade a 7th rounder (or less) to get back Joseph-Day, a player who we’re currently slotted to get a 7th round comp pick for after he left in the off-season? Is that even allowed? Not sure he’d move the needle beyond our young bloods, but if we’re looking for depth, I guess there’s a chance.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
I will continue to beat the drum of Sam Okuayinonu, who had another 5 pressures and a sack against the Cowboys, with three of those pressures coming from when he lined up inside. While Yetur Gross-Matos should return after the bye, the Niners are clearly toying with other ways to get outside speed on inside pass blockers. But despite the addition of Floyd, the emergence of Okuayinonu, and plenty of draft capital spent on the position, we still only have three functional defensive ends. We could use some more juice outside.
DE, Trey Hendrickson, Bengals: Hendrickson isn’t the sort of name that would typically be put on one of these lists, and maybe he shouldn’t be on this one either. Because of Burrow + Chase + Higgins, I don’t think the Bengals will be sellers at the deadline, and guys like Hendrickson (a team’s top edge rusher) typically just get locked up by their squads on long-term deals. But Hendrickson is nearly 30, he’s complained about his contract, and–perhaps most importantly–the Bengals are notoriously cheap. It’s not likely, but he’s worth mentioning cause he’s a really good player (7 sacks this season, 17.5 in 2023) at a position of need, and with his size (6-4 270 lbs.) he might even be able to give us some inside-outside versatility on passing downs.
DE, Azeez Ojulari, Giants: Like Hendrickson, Ojulari is a bit different from the other guys on this list because he’s so young (on his rookie deal) and has already produced at a pretty high level. Young productive players on the edge typically don’t get moved, but the Giants–who have so many needs at so many other positions–have two entrenched young players ahead of Ojulari on the depth chart: Brian Burns, who they just dimed out in the off-season, and Kayvon Thibodeaux, who they drafted fifth overall just two years ago. Thibodeaux has been injured for the past three weeks, and–while stepping in for him on the starting lineup–Ojulari has racked up 13 pressures and 5 of his 6 sacks on the season. While PFF doesn’t love him (middling 59.8 rating), he has more sacks than anyone on our team in a mostly rotational role and has an excellent 14% pressure rate on the year. Like Hendrickson, I don’t know what the asking price would be, and that could ultimately be a sticking point, but this would be a deal made with the hope of it resulting in a multi-year arrangement.
DE, Za’Darius Smith, Browns: A traditional “vet on an expiring contract” trade prospect, Smith–like Shaq Barrett–was part of that free agent pass rusher class that netted us Dee Ford. So there’s always been a bit of a “one that got away” energy to him. Smith–like Ford–also missed huge amounts of time with a neck injury, but–unlike Ford–has rebounded nicely and still provides a ton of juice off the edge. Despite his age (32), he’s registered 5 sacks so far this year and is coming off two straight seasons (across two different teams) with a PFF rating putting him in the top 15ish of edges. The Browns are very deep along the DL. If they do decide to move anyone, there are a few names–even in addition to the guys listed already–who could be in play.
DE, JaDeveon Clowney, Panthers: After getting functionally nothing in return for Diontae Johnson (the most generous calculation I’ve seen equated the draft capital gained to the equivalent of a seventh-round pick), Carolina is clearly in fire sale mode. I’ve always found Clowney pretty overrated. Dude came into the league as a “generational prospect,” but he hasn’t once registered double-digit sacks in his career and some of his comments and the contracts he’s been hunting haven’t always aligned with reality. But the physical tools are undeniable and when he’s on, he can still be a disruptive force on the line of scrimmage. Has he been on this season? Not really. But after going from the Ravens to the Panthers, a change of scenery might help.
DE, Arden Key, Titans: With the departure of Derrick Henry and the recent trade of DeAndre Hopkins, The Titans seem more willing than most to call a full-on fuck it and really commit to a rebuild. So perhaps we could be in for a reunion with Key, who is signed through 2025 but had his career resuscitated by Kocurek during his one year in Santa Clara. Key specialized on inside-out stunts on passing downs and–if acquired–would (sorta) help us fill two holes at once.
DE, Baron Browning, Broncos: This is a swing on potential more than anything else. Browning is an interesting prospect because he had 5 sacks in 2022 and 4.5 last year, but has yet to take down the quarterback this season while rotating in as the Broncos’ fourth defensive end. But he’s a former five-star recruit and a truly elite athlete. At the NFL combine in 2021, his RAS athleticism score was a 9.98 out of 10, which was good for 5th-best out of 2,118 prospects since 1987… at linebacker. And now he’s playing on the edge. We’ve targeted and had a lot of success with guys like Omenihu and Jordan Willis who we liked the physical profile of out of college but who simply weren’t developed enough where they were drafted. Browning would be a splashier athlete than any of them and one with substantial upside.
Go Niners 🏈👍
49ers 36, Seahawks 24
:)
Did it get dicey? You betcha. Did our special teams surrender a massive momentum-swinging play at the worst possible time to give our opponent life when we could have otherwise run away with the game? YOU. BETCHA. But if there’s one thing these Niners have been over the years, it’s Hard to Kill. Like the Steven Seagull movie. But also like the Steven Seagull movie, there are sizable chunks that are mostly unwatchable. Like our special teams. Or the moments where he “acts.” Nonetheless, we typically play our best when our back is up against the wall, and–for better or worse–that’s likely how we’ll have to play the rest of the season to make another legitimate run at this thing. The hope here is that we peak at the right time. This is at least a step in the right direction.
The Infirmary. We entered this game without CMC, Greenlaw, Hufanga, Ward, and three of our top four defensive tackles, then suffered in-game injuries to Mason and Mustapha before the game was done. But there is good news on the injury front. With the mini-bye to follow, Mason (AC sprain) and Mustapha (ankle sprain) likely won’t miss any more game time, Ward was a game-time decision–meaning he should be good to go 10 days from now–and Ricky Pearsall just had his practice window opened (even if the soonest we’ll see him is against Dallas).
There’s also (finally) some positivity on the CMC front. CMC has apparently ramped up his workouts, and–unlike in the ramp-up before the Jets game–there haven’t been any setbacks. The Niners hope to have him back to practice sooner rather than later, with a post-bye week return seeming the most likely scenario. So his practice window could open as soon as Monday.
Depth Charges. The other good news is that it seems like our rookie class is pretty legit. Sample sizes are always worth noting, but we played eight rookies in this game, with three starting and five getting at least 12 offensive or defensive snaps.
Dominick Puni–who has started every game this season–registered the highest PFF rating of his career and is currently ranked 8th out of 69 NFL guards. We can say for certain that he’s (at least) good. His PFF rating for this game was eclipsed only by that of Evan Anderson–whose hefty UDFA signing bonus has looked like a brilliant move early in a season where we desperately need interior players. Malik Mustapha and Renardo Green recorded the first interceptions of their careers while helping hold Geno Smith to 6.0 ypa on the day. Even Isaac Guerendo–who has looked pretty meh in limited touches after missing most of training camp–finally showcased his patented speed on a 76-yard scamper that largely sealed the game for us late in the fourth quarter.
Throw in Jordan Mason–a known quantity at this point–and emerging second-year edge Sam Okuayinonu–who tallied three pressures and our only sack on the day–and it seems like our much-needed influx of youth has arrived. It’s just a start, but after trades, free agency, and bad draft picks have gutted our depth in recent years, it’s a much-needed win for our roster’s long-term health.
📺💸 This would have been top billing if we’d lost because of it, but if the NFL wants to expand to 50 different streaming platforms, they need to make sure their ducks are in a row production-wise. Because this muffed punt return…
…could have easily been the difference in this game.
If we can see a replay with indisputable evidence BEFORE the refs make a challenge decision over the PA, there is something wrong with the system. And if we’re going to be doing this “expedited review from on high” stuff, it seems more than reasonable that they should be able to call down to the ref, tell him to go back to the booth and give him the new angle before he makes a game-altering decision. Just no excuse for this sort of thing to happen.
OFFENSE
Even if they returned most of their injured DL in time for this game, the Seahawks had just allowed the NY Giants and their backup running back to run for 175 yards. So the plan, as it so often is when we need to right the ship, was to run the ball until they proved they could stop it. In many ways, it felt like the strategy we’d deploy against the Rams in past “get right” games. A heavy dose of the run game paired with a patient chipping away in the passing game against Cover 3 and Quarters.
Certainly, there was more to it than that, but this run-centric game plan led to 36 points, 0 turnovers, a whopping 7.9 ypp, and 483 yards of offense–the third-highest offensive yardage total in the Brock Purdy era.
What were the two highest yardage totals since Purdy took over? 527 yards on December 10th of last season and 505 yards in the wild-card round of the year prior. Both against the Seahawks.
Lol.
Back to Basics. Mason has been an absolute stud while filling in for Christian McCaffrey, leading the league in broken tackles and ranking second in rushing yards and third in % rush yards over expected entering this game. But as a runner, the one area where he’s occasionally looked his age is when facing muddied gap run looks. As is the case with many young backs, he’s sometimes gotten impatient, bouncing interior runs or bailing on a tight running lane to fight against traffic for (at best) a minimal gain and (at worst) a loss of yardage that puts us behind schedule.
While we’ve been letting him work through those issues early in this season, we kept things much simpler for his backups once he was knocked out in the second quarter. Guerendo and Taylor combined for 15 carries and 115 yards. All of their runs were variations of zone or stretch concepts. This made sense for this matchup but also from a developmental standpoint.
Despite his 225-pound build and 4.3 speed, Guerendo hasn’t looked that big or that fast through the first month and a half of the season. His runs have often felt a bit robotic and he hasn’t yet figured out how his pacing and angles as a runner can set defenders up for failure–especially in zone and stretch concepts. That was once again the case for much of Thursday’s game, but it was good to see him get a bit more physical as his confidence grew. And to see his speed finally show up when we needed it most.
This is perfect blocking on the edge, but Guerendo’s ability to stay on his track without rushing things, then lets him turn on the jets as he bursts through the hole and blow-up the safety’s angle. Little things like that go a long way when you run a 4.3.
We entered this season expecting Guerendo to be our fourth running back. Injuries changed that in a hurry. When CMC gets back we’re almost certainly looking at a two-man rotation with Mason, but the reps Guerendo is getting now could prove invaluable towards his long-term development.
Sideline shots. I thought the Seahawks did a pretty good job of mixing up coverages in this game, but in the rare instances where we wanted to go deep, we did a good job of playing to their tendencies. The Seahawks are primarily a press-bail Cover 3 team but their favorite mix-up coverage is Quarters. So our primary deep ball route combination was some variation of a drift-wheel concept.
In the first half, we lined up in pistol with a twin stack to our left. We’re pulling a guard and showing downhill run action in hopes of springing open the drift route behind biting linebackers or the wheel/delay fade route down the sideline.
In response, the Seahawks are either in a two-high pattern matching coverage. I honestly can’t tell if it’s quarters or something like Cover 2 match because of how many people bit on the play fake. But against this pass concept, the rules are similar.
In quarters, the outside cornerback will run with the #1 WR on anything vertical. In cover 2 match, he’ll do the same unless the #2 receiver breaks outside immediately. In both quarters and cover 2 match, the near safety will run with #2 on anything vertical, but—if #2 does anything short—the safety will leave him and try to “rob” #1, essentially creating bracket coverage.
Knowing this, we have Deebo release straight ahead and delay his route with stutter steps (and a run block fake) until Aiyuk exits his vertical stem and breaks into the drift route. This ensures that—regardless of quarters or cover 2 match—the corner will read #1 vertical and stick on Aiyuk while the near safety will read #2 shallow and move his eyes to Aiyuk as well. And with the linebackers underneath having either bit on the run fake or keying Purdy’s eyes in hopes of jumping underneath routes…
Deebo has snuck outside of the coverage and down the sideline. The near safety finally sees this and works to recover, but Purdy intentionally puts the ball a touch inside and behind his receiver. This makes Deebo slow up and come back to the ball, essentially messing up the angle of the safety–who is hoofing it while in catch-up mode–and letting Deebo wall the ball off from the defender.
The result is a catch and run down the sideline for a 76-yard score.
In the second half, we go back to a similar concept for our only other completion thrown more than 15 yards downfield.
This time, we’re in a pure dropback with five guys out on routes, but it’s still functionally a two-man drift-wheel/fade concept. Only this time, we’ve added a clearout (Aiyuk) and two underneath routes (Guerendo/Juice). Think of the hard play action version as trying to get the linebackers to move forward on the play fake to throw over their heads, while this dropback version wants the safeties to bail deep on the clearout to throw underneath them. We’re still attacking the same zone in the same way, we’re just manipulating a different group of defenders to attack it further down the field.
Here, the Seahawks look to be in Cover 6, so quarters rules to the top of the screen and Cover 2 rules to the bottom.
Just as before, the timing is critical so that Deebo’s break inside pulls the outside corner and the near safety just as Kittle breaks outside. And with all of the linebackers dropping and reading Purdy’s eyes…
They get caught up inside and Purdy makes an easy throw down the sideline to a wide-open Kittle.
Remember, the Ravens last season picked off Purdy three times largely because they were spot-dropping to our hot spots on the inside and having their linebackers and low safeties read Purdy’s vision. This trend continued into the Super Bowl with Spagnuolo’s “vision rat” defenders and has become a larger trend throughout the league as the Ravens system and sim pressures percolate the NFL.
In both of these plays, we use that to our advantage–pinning the Seahawks’ linebackers inside with Purdy’s eyes and their DBs inside with their pattern match rules before outflanking them to the sideline. As more and more teams try to replicate what the Ravens (and other teams) did successfully against us last year, it’s cool to see how we start to adapt to punish them for it. And if they get tired of getting beat down the sideline and start to play us straight? Then those digs and slants will open back up in a hurry.
Second Half Slog. But what about that butthole-clenching moment in the second half when it was a two-score game? What caused three consecutive punts after we’d sliced and diced this defense so thoroughly coming out of the half? The easiest (see: laziest) answer is penalties and sloppy execution taking us out of the run game and putting us in third and longs.
In those three drives that ended in punts, we had three penalties, one botched play (Brendel likely couldn’t hear the cadence), and third downs of 18, 10, and 9 yards. While we’d hope we’d be better at climbing back from long downs and distances by now, the best way to get our offense off track is still to generate negatives on first and second downs.
Offensively and defensively, we’re still very much a work in progress. But it’s nice to be able to do this sort of damage while still dealing with injuries and execution issues.
DEFENSE
Hats off to Sorensen and the defense. Yes, we allowed two long touchdown drives in the second half to keep this game annoyingly tight, but we also forced three turnovers and held the Seahawks to only 358 yards of offense and 17 points on 73 offensive plays. Our DC put together an A+ game plan on a short week while piloting an injury-ravaged defense, and it all started with a mammoth effort against the run.
Good v. Bad. The Seahawks haven’t exactly been world-beaters in the run game over the past few weeks, but our front seven held them to 52 yards on a laughable 2.6 ypc. There were some well-timed stems and stunts up front, but we weren’t doing anything crazy schematically to get there. We were just playing cleaner and more confidently.
Sorensen last week talked about “bad” missed tackles and “good” missed tackles, and I think it’s worth bringing that up here. Because we had just as many missed tackles against the Seahawks as we did against the Cardinals, but those missed tackles felt very different. Against the Cardinals, we were missing tackles in the hole or in space that led to an additional 5+ yards down the field. Those are “bad” missed tackles. They were misses that put the rest of our defense in a worse spot. Against the Seahawks, many of our missed tackles were from players being aggressive or trying to grab someone in the backfield or on the edge. So while they may have missed the tackle, they still slowed up the ball carrier and forced him into defensive help. They were misses that still fit within the scheme of the defense.
Front and Center. While we only sacked Geno once, our whopping 31 pressures were our second-best total on the year (32 against New England), with Nick Bosa registering an outrageous 14(!!!) of those pressures himself. Once again, we’ve seen that (for better or worse) our defense runs through our ability to generate consistent pressure up front. Sure, you could say that holds true with most defenses, but–unlike most defenses these days–we rely less on deception and the threat of extra bodies and more on our front four just winning.
Checking the Checks. In our losses, our defense has had a bad habit of getting beaten by a look early and then getting beaten by a similar look later in the game (typically in back-breaking fashion). The Seahawks tried to replicate that in the second half while deploying a “check with me” offense on some critical third downs. I don’t know what our rules were when this happened, but Warner would regularly wait for them to see the defense and change the play before we’d then check to something else entirely.
Back Seven Developments. Rookies Malik Mustapha and Renardo Green both put up career-high PFF grades while securing a pick each, Isaac Yiadom still needs to improve a bit as a run defender but has only allowed 3 of 9 catches over the past three weeks after being hard-targeted earlier in the season. It’s still a work in progress, but If Ward can come back healthy and closer to his 2023 form, our secondary could round into shape in a hurry.
Special Teams Will Be Mentioned Until Morale Improves. I miss the years of special teams being a sporadic low-key problem versus a consistent high-key momentum-swinging game-losing problem. Nothing new here. Just a re-iteration that there’s gotta be something new here if we want to have high-level success this season.
Also, Eric Wright dislocated his shoulder on one of our bad second-half kickoffs. So we just signed Anders Carlson to our practice squad in case he can’t go on Sunday. I’m sure there’s a reason for this (perhaps he won a tryout) but the last time we saw Carlson he was pretty damn bad. In his one year with the Packers, he missed five extra points and nearly half of his attempts beyond 40 yards. In his last game with the Packers, he missed a 41-yarder against us deep in the fourth quarter of the divisional round. That kept the Packers’ lead at four and allowed Purdy to drive us down the field for the game-winning touchdown.
Let’s hope he’s gotten better. Or that he doesn’t have to play.
NEXT UP: SUNDAY vs. THE ABSOLUTE BONERS (5-0) @ 1:25 PM
One of only two remaining unbeaten teams and coming off a bye week (Andy Reid is 21-3 coming out of byes), the Chiefs are as formidable as they are annoying. But they’ve needed some luck in winning four one-score contests and their point differential is worse than every team in the NFC North. This is a machine, but I wouldn’t call it a juggernaut.
Despite injuries to Rashee Rice and Isaiah Pacheco, their offense continues to charge forward on the back of the creativity of Andy Reid, the arm of Patrick Mahomes, and a talented interior line. Our beat-up DT corps will have their hands full in this one, and our success on defense could hinge on how well we can slow them in the running game and pressure their sketchy tackles. Andy Reid coming out of the bye means they’ll have some designer plays built just for us, so we’ll have to adjust to make sure they’re one-offs (or none-offs) rather than the foundation for a recurring issue (like the fly sweeps two years ago).
Defensively, the Chiefs press more than twice as much as anyone else in the league and are a high-volume quarters and split-field coverage team. But they also run as much Cover 0 as anyone. We know from the Super Bowl that they can bracket up and blitz with abandon if they think that’s the best path forward, so pass protection will be key against a defense that has been one of the league’s best against the run but is a bit more susceptible on the backend with the loss of L’Jarius Sneed. If we can regularly get their safeties in one-on-ones, we’re probably doing alright offensively.
Go Niners 🏈👍
49ers 23, Cardinals 24
digging holes
Another week, another inexcusable loss to an underwhelming divisional foe. Now, as we enter a two-month stretch against eight straight teams currently with winning records, our margin for error has largely evaporated. And we have only ourselves to blame.
Fortunately (unfortunately?) we’ve been here before. In 2022, when we started 3-4 before running off 10 straight to close the season. In 2021, when we were 2-4 before an 8-2 finish secured us a wildcard spot. In both those seasons, we made the NFC Championship Game. We know how this goes. And we know that the road will be bumpy.
Sneaking into the playoffs from a bloated middle class may be more realistic in a season like this, when—through five games—only five NFL teams have fewer than 2 losses, but our early-season stumbles sure have made Thursday’s game in Seattle feel like a must-win situation. A victory puts us in a tie atop the NFC West. A loss and we’re suddenly the guy holding a rubber chicken in a knife fight.
Because after the Seahawks we have the Chiefs—who will be coming off a bye—then the Cowboys—who will be coming off a bye. Then before you know it we’ll be hosting the Seahawks—who will be coming off a bye—before traveling to Buffalo for a night game in December to play the Bills, who will be–you guessed it–coming off a bye. If we’re going to right the ship, we’ll have to do it at some point during this stretch of the schedule while juggling a historically bad rest differential of -21 days.
OFFENSE
There are so many moments in each game—and statistics, advanced or otherwise—that support the idea that we’re an excellent offense. We almost always move the chains, leading the league by a mile in drives where we pick up at least one first down. We hold the ball on our possessions for longer than any other team, meaning we often string together multiple first downs and rarely stop the clock with incompletions. And we get into the red zone as often as any team in football. Unfortunately, that’s where the good times have come to a grinding halt.
Short Yardage Slump. This week we were a pathetic 1 of 6 in converting red zone looks into touchdowns, with two of those trips resulting in zero points. That dropped our red zone touchdown rate to 40.9% on the season, which beats out only the lowly Patriots and the Tua-less Dolphins for the third-worst mark in the league.
Let’s look at how all six of those red zone possessions ended.
1Q - Field goal from the 10-yard line.
1Q - Touchdown pass from the 4-yard line.
2Q - Field goal from the 2-yard line.
2Q - Field goal from the 7-yard line as time expired in the half.
3Q - Turnover on downs from the 27(!!!)-yard line when we didn’t have a kicker.
4Q - Jordan Mason’s fumble on the 12-yard line.
We’ll talk about the turnover on downs later, but the two attempts in italics don’t need much explaining. One was a touchdown and one was a back-breaking mistake. However, the three attempts in bold are worth mentioning from a macro-decision-making level.
Talking to Management. 3rd-and-longs are difficult. Passing in the red zone is difficult. Compound the two and a fourth-and-goal from the 10-yard line should be a field goal attempt almost every time. But the fourth-and-goal form the 2-yard line in the second quarter? That’s another story.
Inside the two-yard line–when you have the legitimate threat of a run or a pass–I think you should basically be going for it every time. There are a few specific instances when you’d kick the ball (like if you were down by two with time running out), but this isn’t one of them.
As for the field goal from the 7-yard line? The logic makes sense to me for the same reasons it made sense from the 10-yard line. But I did have issues with the process we took to get to that situation.
While scoring as time expires is always the ideal situation, we’re often so hyper-focused on the opponent not getting the ball before the half that we let far too much time run off the clock. This limits the calls we can make and the way we can execute them. For instance, we had a 1st-and-goal from the ARI 7 with 16 seconds left on the clock. Yes, we were able to barely squeeze out three pass attempts at the endzone before kicking, but–because we’d let a minute twenty run off the clock on the first two plays of that drive–those passes were rushed. The concepts we could run were limited. There wasn’t enough time for a sprint out pass, a bootleg, or a patented Purdy scramble. The ball had to get out of his hands quickly. And the plays HAD to be passes.
We easily could have been more uptempo earlier in that drive and given ourselves some run-pass optionality and play-calling flexibility down by the goalline. Now, would speeding up earlier run the risk that we might give the ball back to the Cardinals with time for a few plays left on the clock? Yes. But I’d rather give them 25 seconds after a touchdown than settle for a field goal. The way we approach the ends of halves often feels too much like we’re playing for a kick rather than a touchdown. Possessions and scoring opportunities are critical, and in a game where we only had four possessions in the second half, these kinds of decisions—which fail to maximize our scoring output—are magnified.
We don’t need another hero. Let’s talk about that last red zone attempt: the turnover on downs from the ARI 27. To me, this was the worst game of the year for Purdy. He had his moments–especially in the second quarter–where he diced up the Cardinals, but there were signs last week that he was holding the ball too long for the homerun and neglecting checkdowns. And that trend continued in a bad way in this game.
Shanahan said after the game that the Niners were comfortable kicking field goals with Wishnowsky from about the 15-yard line and in. With that in mind, Purdy CANNOT take a scramble-around sack for -9 yards on second-and-14 from the ARI 18. It’s one thing if a free blitzer came in and Purdy had no shot, but he could have gotten rid of that ball earlier. He could have dumped it off to an underneath receiver, or—if no one had opened up—just thrown it away. It was second down and we were mere yards from a comfortable field goal attempt.
Purdy has to have better situational awareness there and know that–in this odd and unlikely scenario–he may be in the red zone but he’s also on the cusp of giving up points. Instead, he takes the sack, we throw an incomplete on third down, and we functionally use the fourth down as a punt to pin the Cardinals back deeper into their territory. That’s a likely three points off the board.
Plays like this make me a bit more willing than usual to blame Purdy for his interception on the final drive. Here we’re lined up in a standard 2x2 set with Kittle in-line and we’re trying to send our outside receivers on deep comebacks, our slot on a two-high splitting skinny post, and Kittle on a delayed shallow in case the secondary plays way off.
The Cardinals line up in what looks like some kind of Cover 3 or man variation but are actually sending six and backing way off in a quarter-quarter-half shell.
This means the Saints have an unblockable overload blitz to the side of the running back but that Kittle will open early and with plenty of space to run. And that’s exactly what happens.
The middle linebacker—the only defender who could make a play on Kittle—has totally lost him and is instead eyeing Purdy (almost like a spy defender). The two DBs to the left of the formation are bailing deep to cover the vertical routes. Kittle is WIDE open with a ton of room to run if Purdy hits him here.
But he doesn’t. In a hurry to get the play snapped, Purdy missed the overload blitz and he holds too long on the skinny post in hopes that it will break open. By the time he starts the throw to Kittle, it’s too late. The result is a game-losing interception off a QB hit. Purdy had been big-game hunting all day long, and he did it one too many times here, costing us the game in the process.
We love how Purdy can improvise, buy time, and make plays off-schedule. But there needs to be a balance. We need to hit the plays ON-SCHEDULE first. Because hero ball is NOT (nor has ever been) a sustainable offense.
Identity Crisis. It’s great that we can throw the ball deep this season and that we can deploy more dropback looks in varied situations. That allows Purdy more time to see coverages develop without having to turn his back for play-action looks, gives us more firepower on long downs-and-distances, and in general allows us to attack defenses with another look. But it’s hard not to feel like we may have overcorrected and that our offensive identity has become foggy as a result.
Our dropback game has always been the least advanced and unique aspect of our offense, and our skew toward true pass sets seems to have taken away from the explosive play-action passes, intense misdirection, and YAC generators that we’ve excelled at for so many years.
Shanahan is calling the offense more like when he had Matt Ryan at the helm than at any other point in his tenure with the 49ers. That’s a testament to his ever-growing trust in Purdy. But there’s got to be a middle ground where we can still showcase the power run game and play action haymakers that we’ve thrived on for years.
The good thing is it’s still early. By figuring out how much Purdy can handle now, he gets important reps for the stretch run and we gain the confidence in him to call more pure dropback passes when the games get tight and the defenses get more savvy. But for now, let’s lower the level of difficulty (and variance) a bit, and get back to what we do best.
One Stat to Rule Them All. Since the beginning of 2022, we are an NFL-best 29-3 when we don’t turn the ball over two or more times (and one of those three losses was week 18 last year when we rested our starters). But when we turn the ball over 2 or more times, we are 2-11, which is tied for 24th in the league. Turnovers are always important in football, but the formula is especially clear for us. We are practically unbeatable when we take care of the ball (the last game we lost without a turnover was the season opener of 2020). But when we give the ball up in bunches, we struggle more than most to keep up.
DEFENSE
Yards per play is far from a be-all, end-all stat, but it’s worth noting that through 17 regular season games last year, we gave up upwards of 6.0 ypp three times. Through five games this season, two teams have already eclipsed that mark. And one of them was THIS team.
To be fair, things were promising in bunches. We only allowed 10 points and were stout against the (non-QB) running game in the first half. But that changed in a hurry. We held the Cardinals to zero first downs three times. But also allowed them to score on three straight long drives to end the game. The Cardinals were only 4-of-11 on third- and fourth-down attempts. But two of those successful conversions kept their last two scoring drives alive.
Running Man. They referenced this stat like fifty times throughout the game but James Connor going 6 for 9 yards (1.5 ypc) in the first half and 13 for 77 yards (5.9 ypc) is telling. So were the 14 missed tackles the Niners racked up. And the fact that the Niners only had four offensive drives in the entire second half. We couldn’t stop the run or get off the field to save our lives.
We kinda knew that the Cardinals–who were first in the league in conversion % on third-and-short and last in the league on third-and-long–would live and die by their ability to run on early downs. So when the Cardinals got their run game going, everything snowballed from there.
Injuries didn’t help here. Javon Hargrave is out the year and Yetur Gross-Matos–who was expected to play more inside reps to help shoulder the load–had knee surgery on Friday and is out at least 1-2 months. Talanoa Hufanga had to leave the game after 11 snaps with a wrist injury and will almost certainly miss the Thursday night game. And Fred Warner–despite playing the whole game at mike linebacker and racking up a team-leading 12 tackles–was clearly hampered by his ankle sprain. But the fact remains that the guys who did play had to tackle and fit the run better. And they didn’t.
The Sequel No One Wanted. Then there were Kyler Murray’s rushing yards. Murray is the fastest QB in football and is tough to bring down in the open field when he takes off scrambling, but 70 of his 83 yards were on designed runs.
So far in every one of our losses, our defense has gotten beat multiple times by a recurring concept. The Vikings forced bad switches with bunch sets and exploited the “safety on JJ” coverage for—among other things—a 97-yard touchdown. The Rams ran duo over and over and motioned Tutu Atwell into bunches on crossing routes against our vacated interior when we went man. The Cardinals also beat us with switches (I don’t know what the problem is with our communication on the edges), but the recurring backbreaker was the read option.
On the first drive of the game, the Cardinals have shifted their third tight end (#84) to the left of the formation and are planning to run a pistol duo read to the right. The tight end is going to loop around and kick out our corner, with Bosa (in the red triangle) as the read man. If he crashes inside, Kyler will pull. If he sits, Kyler will give the ball to Conner.
We’re slanting weak-side so—versus a read play—this is basically squeeze scrape, meaning Bosa and DeVondre Campbell will switch gap responsibilities against the run (run fits are shown with dotted lines). Bosa will slant inside, causing Kyler to pull the ball, and DeVondre Campbell will be tasked with working outside to play the QB, or—in this case—reset the edge and funnel Kyler inside to help.
On the snap, an excellent ball fake (with Conner turning his backside shoulder away from the defenders to hide the ball he doesn’t have) and bad reads from Warner and Huf take all of our support defenders inside. While DeVondre is too slow to trigger downhill, gets hooked, and gives up his outside shoulder—thus giving Kyler a free path to the edge.
Realistically, neither Huf nor Warner was likely going to make this play because they’d bit too far inside, but—if Kyler was forced up the field into help—Huf at least had a shot. Instead, Campbell gets hooked, Ward doesn’t step up soon enough or aggressively enough to squeeze down the hole, and Kyler hits the edge for long, untouched score.
Fast forward to 2:08 left in the fourth quarter. The Cardinals are driving for the game-winning field goal. They’re on our 46 and are running almost the exact same concept.
They’re in gun instead of pistol this time and don’t have the loop-around blocker from the back side, but they once again have two tight ends to the formation’s right and are optioning Bosa with duo read. And we’re once again slanting inside to combat it.
Just like before, we know that Bosa will go inside and Kyler will pull the ball. But now, we’re in much more of a pass defense look. Mustapha, who is eight yards off the line of scrimmage, and Campbell will be tasked with playing the quarterback on a pull and forcing him back inside to help.
Unfortunately, on the snap, Warner gets caught up inside by a second-level blocker, Campbell gets blown off the line of scrimmage by a tight end—widening a hole that we wanted to shrink—and Mustapha has been slow to trigger in run support, opening that hole even further.
If we’d been able to hold the line on the edge and push Kyler back inside, the hope is Warner and Ji’Ayir could have cleaned him up for a short gain.
But by the time Kyler has hit the hole, Campbell has been widened from just outside the hash to just inside the numbers, Ji’Ayir and Warner are far too inside to be able to close that distance, and Kyler scampers for a free run of 13 yards that puts the Cardinals into field goal position.
These were well-structured plays that were called at the right time. It’s not easy to know when they’re coming and the option game is always mathematically difficult to stop. But we have got to stop getting beat in critical downs with these kinds of repeat concepts.
Blitzgression to the Mean. I wondered last week if we were going to see more blitzing from our defense to (a) make up for our dwindling depth and mediocre success rates up front and (b) take DeVondre Campbell out of coverage situations. At least for this week, the answer was yes and yes. Unfortunately, the efficacy of those blitzes was not particularly good.
We blitzed on 36% of dropbacks on Sunday, the 10th-highest rate in the league, and a continuation of a season-long trend towards sending extra men.
Unfortunately, those blitzes led to little success. Which is also a troubling season-long trend. Even with all the pressure we generated on blitzes last week against the Patriots’ JV offensive line, our season total numbers when blitzing have resulted in a 67% completion percentage and a league-worst passer rating of 150.2.
Not great, Bob. Not great.
While our scheme was built as a four-man pressure unit, it is possible to blitz and blitz well out of our defense. The Jets have been doing it this season without their holdout edge rusher and their defense is still one of the top units in the league. The Texans have also been upping their rush rate, with Ryans going to the double mug well to great success as of late. So it’s possible. Which is good. Because with two of our three best pass rushers gone from last season, we will probably need to send extras a healthy amount to turn things around defensively.
Mooney Matters. Not quite sure what’s been going on but Charvarius Ward–who was legitimately a top 5 corner last season–has struggled in coverage through these first five weeks. While Isaac Yiadom only allowed one catch on Sunday (it was the big 4th down one to Marvin Harrison Jr.) and Lenoir blanked his matchups, Ward gave up three catches for 75 yards and a 116.7 passer rating.
In 2022, Ward was PFF’s 6th-best corner. In 2023, he hopped up to 5th. Through five games thus far, he’s ranked 89th. Ward’s not hiding from it. After this game, he told the media that he was playing “the worst ball of his career.” Considering one of Ward’s signature games last season was blanketing DK Metcalf against the Seahawks, it would be a good time for him to shake that funk and figure things out.
Return of the Mack? I don’t know how well this would go over with our newly installed DC or if we’d be looking at a "too many cooks” situation with Staley already in the building, but you can’t help but wonder if recently-fired former DC Robert Saleh can get back to Santa Clara ASAP—even as just a consultant.
Saleh didn’t kill it as a head coach in NY, but he unquestionably got railroaded by an incompetent GM, a horrendous OC who was forced on him by a meddling owner, a neverending game of shitty QB roulette, and Aaron Rodgers’ best attempt at late-stage Lebron cosplay. Good luck running zero motion and throwing slants and high-difficulty fades to Allen Lazard 🫡
I’m sure it’ll turn out great.
But if this is the scheme we’re sticking to long-term (or even if it isn’t), it may make sense to get Saleh—one of the best to ever run it and a guy beloved by our locker room—back in the fold.
NEXT UP: THURSDAY DEATHMATCH @ SEATTLE (3-2) @ 5:15 PM
The Mike Macdonald era started with three straight wins before a highly entertaining slop-fest shootout of a Monday night loss against the Lions led to a shocking home loss to a Giants team without Malik Nabers or its starting running back (tbf, their starting running back is Devin Singletary so…). While the Seahawks seem to have taken well to Macdonald’s coaching and his staff has pulled them out of the schematic stone age, it’s tough to tell what’s real and what’s a product of a schedule against some of the worst offenses known to man.
As the godfather of the modern amoeba defense, Mike Macdonald’s scheme is all about varying coverages and fronts while sending (or simming) blitzes from all over the field. He wants his defense to feature many interchangeable parts (kind of like our offense) and so far that’s resulted in a heavy use of three-safety lineups. Macdonald loves to put that extra safety into the nickel while curling up his big-ass corners into press coverage, basically attempting to eliminate the outsides with his corners and letting everyone else create confusion and havoc on the interior. Right now this Seahawks defense is a bit beat up, particularly along the DL, but they had a few of their injured guys return last week and expect a few more to return by Thursday. While they’ll certainly be more formidable at full strength, it’s important to note that this defense has faced off against Bo Nix (in his first NFL start), Jacoby Brissett, Skylar Thompson, Jared Goff—who went 18-of-18 and CAUGHT a touchdown against them—and Daniel Jones—who kinda diced them up while throwing to Darius Slayton. Through three weeks they looked like one of the surprise units of the season. But after giving up 78 points over the last two weeks, we can’t even be certain they’re good. Again, injuries are big here, so the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Offensively, the Seapenises have imported Ryan Grubb from last year’s University of Washington team. He runs a modern pro-style offense, which means it’s the most advanced thing Seattle has seen since Mike Holmgren was in charge. Kenneth Walker is their bell cow, and he can break a big run at any time (especially if we tackle like we did against the Cardinals), while their trio of pass catchers remains potent. Former Niner Laken Tomlinson has paired with Charles Cross to give them solid play along the left side of their OL but the right side is somewhere between bad and terrible. Their right guard, Anthony Bradford, is graded as PFF’s 69th guard out of 70 qualifiers. Right tackle Stone Forsythe is PFF’s 74th tackle out of 78. Blanketing DK, tackling well, and taking advantage of those two question marks along the line seems like the best recipe for success.
Go Niners 🏈👍
49ers 30, Patriots 13
on the path to good
With so many pre-season darlings stumbling out of the blocks, this could be a year where many of the end-game contenders emerge from what could be a burgeoning middle class. So while our performance was too sloppy and our opposition too horrendous to call it a “get right” game, Sunday was a much-needed victory in a season where W’s may be at a premium.
OFFENSE
With 431 yards on 7.2 ypp, we carved chunks out of the Patriots’ defense like the roast beef guy at Hometown Buffet. But missteps and sloppiness prevented us from truly actualizing our full potential. Is that still good for one of the game’s better offenses? Yes. According to DVOA, we’re the league’s 7th-ranked offense. EPA also has us ranked 7th. And per PFF, we’re the top offense in the country. But there’s potential (and reasonable expectation) for much more. And we likely need to hit those lofty heights if we want to ride this unit to the promised land.
Fuck it, go deep. The Patriots loaded the box against the run and played man across, basically daring us to throw over them to open up the offense. We happily (perhaps too happily) obliged, hucking the ball deep down the field more regularly than we have all season. Purdy finished the game 4-of-7 for 142 yards and a pick on passes that traveled 20+ yards downfield, completing two deep crossers and–once they started keying those–two big posts further down the field. This helped contribute to Purdy’s weirdly low completion percentage (55.5%) and season-high in yards per attempt (10.7).
This was not the cleanest Purdy game, as the aggressive nature of the script seemed to lead to him occasionally vacating the pocket a bit early and locking onto deep receivers a beat too long. But it did help reiterate what we already knew–that a gameplan like this might have slowed down our 2020 offense, but Purdy can (and wants to) sling it deep when the occasion arises. With so many teams loading boxes and stuffing defenders into the middle of the field, the more ways we can beat defenses, the better we’ll be down the stretch.
It’s also worth noting that while the Patriots’ defense is considerably different than the Flores / Macdonald-style systems that are currently permeating the league, the top-down strategy for attacking it might be translatable. After all, one of the biggest weaknesses of Cover 2 is just passing concepts that send three or four dudes vertical. So if you can throw it deep, it may be worth sacrificing some consistency and completion percentage for big chunk yardage. That’s easier said than done against the sort of pressures those teams can apply, but when we can protect upfront, don’t be surprised if we have a few more games where we let it rip in a way that would have seemed unfathomable a few years ago.
More like the “dead” zone (count it). After stalling out inside the Patriots’ ten-yard line on both of our opening drives, we finished the game 2-for-4 on converting red zone opportunities into touchdowns–matching the 50% mark we’ve had this season. That coin-flip figure, which lands us right around the league average, is still miles away from the 68% mark we led the league with last season. But we’re not alone.
Across the NFL, scoring has dropped but redzone scoring has plummeted–in part because passing success rate and on-target percentages have cratered inside the 20s. While the latter has been on a steady decline since 2016, there’s a chance this dip in redzone scoring balances itself as the season goes on. Only time will tell. But if we can up our game inside the twenties faster than average, it could go a long way towards separating ourselves in what has been the lowest-scoring NFL season in a decade.
Bumbling Balls. Clean execution would help up that scoring. With three fumbles (one on special teams) and an endzone pick, our carelessness with the ball let the Patriots stay in the game longer than they should have. The string of penalties (even if a lot of them were trash) didn’t help either. Now there’s an argument that the Patriots are so devoid of offensive talent that they were never truly in this game, but the point stands. Our record when we win the turnover differential is unquestioned. So is the negative impact of penalties that put us behind the sticks and into passing mode. Cleaning up our red zone game may increase our offensive ceiling, but fixing our execution and ball-security issues is the best way to raise our floor.
Lacking YAC. Ever since Shanahan arrived in 2017, even when we’ve sucked we’ve been at the top of the league in YAC yardage. A month into the season, this hasn’t been the case. After placing 1st (2021, 2023) and 2nd (2022) in yards after catch per reception over the past three years, we’re currently ranked 31st. Some of this has to do with CMC, Deebo, and Kittle–three of the top players in the game at generating YAC yardage–missing a combined six games through four weeks. But this is the same scheme that–on a short week with a last-second COVID scratch in 2020–led Richie James to 184 yards receiving on 15 YAC/catch. So what gives?
A lot of this is a product of opposing defenses’ heavy emphasis on two-high shells while crowding the middle of the field. This not only takes away our favorite hot spots in the passing game but funnels passes to the outside, where a receiver’s proximity to the sideline lessens YAC potential. Additionally, with extra bodies in the shallow areas, the passing windows that used to belong to slants, square-ins, and other “on-the-run” routes are now smaller and more likely to be attacked with routes where receivers sit in the zone or curl back to the quarterback.
The result has been less YAC yardage but similar total yardage. Purdy led the league in yards per attempt last year and continues to lead it in 2024 while pacing the NFL in overall passing yards. The passing yardage isn’t gone. It’s just that the point of completion is further down the field with less room to run. Hopefully, as the season goes on, we can find a healthy middle ground. Because I do miss the childlike glee that comes with Deebo catching a slant route in space.
DEFENSE
Neutering this Patriots offense is about as impressive as using your turn signal. Sure, some people can’t do it, but that doesn’t mean it’s impressive. Due to that, all defensive improvements should be considered with a grain of salt. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get excited about a few positive developments in a unit that has struggled early this season.
The Heft. What happens when Javon Hargrave goes down for (likely) the season and Jordan Elliott, his replacement, gets hurt in the first half? Naturally, our interior DL responds with 5 sacks. Rookie UDFA Evan Anderson–in his first call-up NFL game–registered his first career sack on a clean-up play, Maliek Collins added 1.5 sacks of his own, and Kevin Givens registered more sacks (2.5) in this game than he had in any season in his previous 5 years in the NFL.
On the edges, Nick Bosa demolished the poor tackle he was matched up against, Leonard Floyd registered three QB hits, and Sam Okuayinonu–in limited but growing snaps–continues to look like a potential diamond in the rough–registering two pressures, a QB hit, and a forced fumble. This was both a promising and a sobering reminder of how we structure our defense. When the pass rush is eating, the timing of everything else falls into place.
Blitz Boys. But was our upfront dominance more a product of our talent on the defensive line, the terrible Patriots OL we were facing, or our foray into blitzing? Despite entering this game last in the NFL in blitz rate, we took a page from the Jets’ playbook a week ago and ramped up our blitz rate closer to the league average (~30%). 10 hits, six sacks, and 168 yards of passing allowed would indicate that the blitzing worked. But was this a one-week aberration that we committed to after seeing it work against the Pats a week ago or a sign of things to come?
Youth Movement. The silver lining of injuries is you get to give the kids some run, and this was a great “transition game” to test the readiness of some of our younger defenders. We talked about Okauyinonu and Anderson, who both played 19 snaps on defense, but Malik Mustapha started and played every snap at safety in place of Hufanga, Dee Winters played in three linebacker sets (they were likely still holding him out from big snaps for health reasons), and–for the first time this season–Renardo Green got more snaps with the first-team defense than Isaac Yiadom. Even Tatum Bethune played a handful of snaps late when Flannigan-Fowles got banged up.
All-in-all the kids performed well. Both the d-linemen played great. Mustapha got shook bad on a third-down completion but otherwise seemed comfortable playing major snaps. And Green was only targeted once (on the deep ball that Ja’Lynn Polk almost caught), so we may have to wait until next week to get a better read on whether he should replace Yiadom in the starting lineup.
Glasses and fake mustaches. Over the past two games, I’ve been on the Niners’ about telegraphing pressure and man coverage on crucial downs and then getting promptly burnt as a result. So it was nice to see Sorensen go to what initially looked like a similar look before backing off into a fire zone blitz to tremendous effect.
On this third-and-5, the Patriots are in trips and we’ve lined up in what looks like Cover 1 with six-man pressure.
To counteract this, the Patriots are trying to run what is functionally a weak side three receiver over concept with a strong side shallow underneath.
The thought is that one of these crossers will open against man and the shallow will either free up due to a natural pick or create a pick for someone else.
But we’re not in man. We’re dropping Campbell and Warner off the line of scrimmage and playing Cover 2 behind it. I’ll be honest, I don’t love straight Cover 2 against trips, but I do love the general idea of showing pressure and letting Warner use his unique set of skills to patrol and make plays in the middle of the field on critical downs.
The result was a lot of (sometimes clunky) hand-offs in the middle of the field, a confused picture for Brissett, and a highly enjoyable exclamation point to cap it all off.
All-Pro Fred. Granted, the play call above is only a good one and not an exceptional one if we had a mere mortal playing Mike linebacker. It’s been ten years since an off-the-ball linebacker won DPOTY, and during that stretch, only one non-lineman (Stephon Gilmore, 2021) has taken home the award. But Fred Warner is making quite the case for himself. He didn’t play in the second half after hurting his ankle late in the second quarter, but as of now, he’s listed as day-to-day.
HolyShitThoseSpecialTeamsThough. If it wasn’t for the last two weeks we might be able to write off some sketchy punt coverage and a fumbled kickoff return on injury depletion. Alas, the last two weeks did indeed happen. And man do our special teams suck.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why our special teams are so horrid. It would be too easy to say it’s our coordinator since he was one of the better special teams coordinators in the NFL for a decade with the Seahawks. It’s unlikely he’s just lost his touch. Maybe it’s not enough of an emphasis during practice? Maybe it’s not enough of an emphasis in our roster decisions?
It’s impossible to say from the outside. But mother of god is it a problem that needs fixing. There’s a very real argument that, with just adequate special teams play, we could be 4-0 right now. That kind of special teams ineptitude is how you guarantee an early (and likely devastating) playoff exit.
NEXT UP: SUNDAY VS. ARIZONA (1-3) @ 1:05 PT
For no reason whatsoever, the Cardinals have been kind of a pain in the ass for us over the years, tallying tough outs and random upsets with regularity (even when they suck). This year they probably(?) don’t suck, as they’ve had one-score losses against the Bills and the Lions and whupped a Rams team we just lost to. Then again, they just got blown out at home against the Commanders. So… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
These Cardinals are schizophrenic even by Cardinal standards, but offensively we know they start hot (35 points in opening quarters this year), we know Kyler is off his two-year Call of Duty sabbatical and playing well, and we know James Conner continues to be difficult to tackle. Marvin Harrison Jr and Michael Wilson make for an intriguing young wide receiver corps, even if they don’t seem to be utilized that creatively, and Trey McBride—if he’s healthy—helps them tremendously as an underneath safety blanket.
Defensively, Gannon hails from the Fangio coaching tree, and his 3-4 base defense features a heavy dose of disguised coverages, sim blitzes, and just blitzes in general. Some of these complex defensive schemes elevate their personnel (Vikings) while others shape a creative and disruptive shell to showcase it (Ravens ‘23). In the case of these Cardinals, I’d argue the scheme mostly masks an overall lack of talent. They have a couple of players (Budda Baker comes to mind), but a whole lot of randos who feel ripe for the picking as long as we can sift through the smoke.
Go Niners 🏈👍