Off-Season Roster Outlook: Defense

Just looking for an excuse to use a pic in these unis [Nhat V. Meyer / Bay Area News Group]

While our offense is (relatively) simple this off-season, our defense is very much the opposite. Starting with the core of our defensive resurgence…

Defensive Line

Take a breath. There’s a lot going on here.

Every defensive line coach ever talks about rotating defensive linemen to keep them fresh. But this year, under the tutelage of Kris Kocurek and the newly installed wide-nine scheme, we actually did that. Well, at least until we couldn’t any longer. That depth and rotation was crucial to our defensive turnaround and is something that we’ll need to keep going if we want to continue playing this scheme at this level.

Bosa, Buckner, Armstead, Jones, Ford, Blair, Thomas, and Day all had major rotational roles. The same could be said for Jullian Taylor, who — in the six games that he was healthy — played over 30% of defensive snaps four times. There was also Damontre Moore, who was only on roster and healthy for two games but averaged 37% of defensive snaps between them. And then you have the scores of reserves who were either promoted from the practice squad, activated from IR, or signed off the street to compensate for our huge wave of injuries by the end of the season. Let’s start with those late adds and go backwards up the depth chart, if for no other reason than so we can paint a slightly cleaner picture.

Earl Mitchell has already retired again. Anthony Zettel was added simply because we lacked bodies outside. If he gets brought back it’s on a minimum deal after the draft.

Jullian Taylor and Kevin Givens have a ton of potential inside, and both will be back. Taylor has two years left on his contract and is only making $685K in 2020. Givens was an undrafted free agent practice squad promotion who played in a single game. He’s raw but certainly worth locking up on a cheap multi-year contract. Both outplayed Kentavius Street, who has two years left on his contract to prove that he can shake the injuries that plagued him since college. If he doesn’t, his dead cap number is trivial and he could be a training camp cut.

Staying on the inside, Sheldon Day is a UFA. Despite his moderate snap counts, I’d have to assume the Niners are hoping some combination of Taylor/Givens/Street can replace his production, but with higher upside. D.J. Jones has one year left on a great deal, making just over $700K in 2020. As for Solomon Thomas, despite what is sure to be a push from some fans, there are no potential cap gains from cutting him. As a former No. 3 overall pick, his contract is fully guaranteed. There’s a chance we could split the difference of his nearly $9M cap hit if we were to trade him, but that too is something that would only be done after we’ve sorted through our situation on the DL.

On the edges, Damontre Moore — yet another AAF standout — was a mid-season add but a valuable pass rusher when he was on the field. He should be cheap to retain. Ronald Blair, a super underrated loss who went down to a torn ACL in week 10, probably won’t have a robust market given his injury. While he may not be able to contribute early, locking him up to something team-friendly would be a good way to sustain depth at the end position. He’s as good as it gets in terms of second-wave defensive ends. Losing both of those guys to IR around the exact same time really hurt us. Having either of them to spell Bosa/Ford in the Super Bowl could have been a game changer. According to PFF, both Moore and Blair had higher overall grades than Dee Ford, which… again, massive grain of salt, but they’re very good players.

Now, onto our starters (well, assuming a passing down, as no respect to DJ Jones).

Nick Bosa. Yeah, he’s not getting cut.

Dee Ford had the large majority of his guaranteed money front-loaded, a classic Paraag Marathe escape hatch that would allow us to move on from him without a huge dead cap hit if his play dipped or his injuries persisted. And while he was hampered by injuries this year, when he was on the field…

Dee Ford has been on the field for 172 pass plays this season for the #49ers and the team has pressured the QB on 32% of those plays per @sportradar. With Ford out, the pressure rate drops to 24.8%

— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) January 6, 2020

49ers could be looking at getting back Dee Ford, Jaquiski Tartt and Kwon Alexander back this week.

With Ford on the field, the 49ers defense has posted a 16.2% sack rate as opposed to a 5.4% sack rate with him off the field.

— Rich Hribar (@LordReebs) January 7, 2020

Bosa in particular really benefited from Ford’s presence. According to PFF, Bosa’s pass rush productivity rating was 10.3 on the season (a close second in the NFL behind Za’Darius Smith). In weeks without Ford, that dipped to 7.7 (19th in the league). In weeks with Ford, that rose to 11.9, which would have been first in the NFL by a VERY large margin.

Injuries aside, Ford was monumentally important to our defense. He’ll be retained on his current contract.

Next up is DeForest Buckner, whose sacks may have dipped a bit this season but who nabbed his first All-Pro selection in 2019. He’s started 63 of 64 possible games in his four years on the Niners and — in all four years — has led the team in snaps along the defensive line. Going into the fifth year option of his rookie contract, he’s in store for a massive extension.

While that extension will clearly be a hit to the salary cap over the long haul, it could actually lead to a cap discount this year. As a former top ten pick, his fifth year option rate is equal to the top 10 highest paid players at his position. So he’s on the books for $14.36M in 2020. Even if DeFo gets something in the $16.2M/year range (as estimated by Spotrac), which would make him the 5th-highest paid DT by annual salary, the contract structure could easily have a first year that’s closer to a $10M cap hit, thus giving us a bit more room to make other moves. Such as…

Re-signing Arik Armstead. It seems like getting a deal done with Armstead is the front office’s number one priority, and Armstead is certainly interested in continuing to play for the hometown favorite team that drafted him, so right now the tea leaves are saying that a deal gets done. But what would that look like?

Last year, six defensive linemen (including Dee Ford) signed contracts that would pay them an average annual salary over $17M. And both Frank Clark ($20.8M) and DeMarcus Lawrence ($21M) eclipsed the $20M/yr mark. I wouldn’t expect Armstead to set any new precedents, but determining his contract is further complicated by his very unique role in the Niners’ system.

Per Matt Barrows and David Lombardi of The Athletic:

A new deal for Armstead may be tricker. He’s coming off his best season by far, is due to be an unrestricted free agent and doesn’t fall easily into any category. He’s a base down defensive end who plays the run very well and who shifts inside to defensive tackle on passing downs. All 10 sacks in the regular season came while playing that spot.

The 49ers likely might be wary of inking a player coming off his lone standout season to a multi-year deal. Armstead, however, would be very difficult to replace. Without him, the team’s best in-house option would be a combination of Thomas and Blair — if Blair is re-signed — and neither player comes close to duplicating the 6-7 Armstead’s power.

There’s also two red flags to a contract extension of this type, and while — in the case of Armstead — I don’t think either will be a major issue, they’re both worth mentioning:

Injuries: Since 2016, Armstead has had foot, hand, and labrum surgeries, missing 22 games across his second and third seasons. Since then, he’s started all 16 games in back-to-back years. Hand injuries are pure flukes, and the foot injury was a minor cleanup. The labrum could be troublesome but that was back in 2016, so since there hasn’t been any flare ups, I wouldn’t worry about it. In terms of durability, Armstead is no Buckner, but I (knock on wood) don’t think injuries should be a major concern moving forward.

One Year Wonder, Contract Year Bump: A defensive lineman with little pass rush production who then blows up in their contract year is perhaps THE classic red flag of free agency, but I think it’s an overstated concern in the case of Armstead.

First off, that bump often happens from a speedy edge rusher who was raw out of college, finally put things together, had some luck with QB hits converting to sacks at an alarming rate, and who had motivation or consistency issues leading up to their contract year.

While Armstead was raw out of college, he’s a power rusher not a speed rusher, has never seemed to have motivation issues, has been a consistent force against the run for years, and he’s actually been on the wrong side of QB hits-to-sacks luck in previous years (his 29 QB hits over four years should have equated closer to 12 sacks, but instead of he netted only 7).

Further helping his cause, Armstead was drafted into a 3-4 system, where — according to PFF — he led the nation in pass rush productivity in both 2014 and 2015 (albeit with a much lower snap count than most others on the leaderboard and with very little sack production). He lost the majority of his first year in Saleh’s system, was a strong run defender in 2018, and then — with a new coach, new scheme, and a new role where he slid inside on passing downs — finally broke through as a pass rusher in 2019. All of that will be repeated in 2020. Finally, I would also posit that — given how many snaps he lined up on the edge where he is not as much of a pass rush threat — his pass rushing impact as an interior linemen is actually underrated.

Also worth mentioning, if Armstead walks in free agency, we are almost certainly looking at a third round comp pick in 2021 to offset his loss. He’s an edge rusher, they get paid, and if Armstead leaves his hometown favorite team to play somewhere else, he must REALLY be getting paid.

So yeah, I don’t have any issues locking up Armstead on a 3-5 year deal at somewhere in the $17-18M range. In a vacuum that makes total sense. But when you look at the fact that we could theoretically have three different players costing around ~$17M just on our defensive line (with Bosa only cheaper because he’s on a rookie deal), there are obvious questions about long-term sustainability.

Which I’ll get to later.

Linebackers

On the field, the big ticket acquisition of Kwon Alexander lasted 8 regular season games and a few up-and-down playoff performances, but the impact Kwon had on the locker room was immense. From the first snaps of training camp, he helped establish the energy and personality of the Niners’ defensive resurgence. That not only led to a huge leap in play from Fred Warner, but really seemed to be a case where a special leader lifted all boats.

And while it's easy to stress someone’s “intangibles” and “leadership” considering there are no ways to causally attach those qualities to wins on the field, Kwon’s locker room impact was shown repeatedly throughout the year. Despite being ejected in week 1 against the Bucs, Kwon was given the game ball. When asked who the team’s MVP was after the regular season, Nick Bosa named Kwon, despite the latter missing half of said season. And when it came to defensive coaches naming the team’s most inspirational player, Kwon took home the award.

In 2020, it’s clear that Kwon isn’t going anywhere, as he — like Richburg — restructured his contract mid-season to give the team more 2020 cap space, lowering his base salary below $1M and his cap hit to $4.5M, while making it financially impossible to cut him this year ($14.5M in dead cap).

Elsewhere, Fred Warner had a career year and is entering the third year of a third round rookie contract. He’s cheap. Greenlaw became the latest 5th round difference maker on our squad, starting half of the games and actually finishing the season as our best run defender amongst linebackers and one of the surest tacklers in the game. And while both Kwon and Warner had their tackling issues at times, Greenlaw’s four missed tackles on 96 attempts was good for second-best in the NFL in terms of tackling efficiency (behind only Corey Littleton).

Both Greenlaw and undrafted free agent Azeez Al-Shair, who played well when forced into action and will only improve now that he’s a full year removed from ACL surgery, are on incredibly team friendly deals. Together, they’ll barely cost $1M in 2020.

Elijah Lee is an RFA. He may be brought back, but if he is I’d expect it to be later in the off-season. I don’t think he gets tendered. Rounding out the linebackers, Mark Nzeocha plays only special teams, is making $1.5M with zero guaranteed cash, and would theoretically be a potential cut candidate. But… he is pretty good on special teams, and you can only deplete those units so much.

Looking to the future, in the 2021 season, the combination of Warner, Greenlaw, and Al-Shair COMBINED will make $2.3M. But for a team that only starts two linebackers and only uses three, how do we employ what could be four starting caliber linebackers in 2020 and beyond?

Again, I’ll get to that at the end.

Secondary

Let’s start with the cornerbacks.

Richard Sherman, fresh off an All-Pro selection that saw him hit a number of contract bonuses, returns for the final year of his contract at a $14M cap hit. Opposite him, undrafted free agent gem Emmanuel Moseley is an ERFA, meaning he can be brought back on the minimum. Although, similar to Brunskill, it may make sense to lock him up longer given their long-term outlook. Either way, he’s a lock for the 2020 roster.

K’Waun Williams, one of the top nickel corners in the game and a player who made our move to a base 4-2-5 much more tenable, has a year left on the contract he signed when Shanahan first came onboard. At $3.1M, he’s a steal.

As for the backups, it’s sink-or-swim time for Ahkello Witherspoon, who enters the final season of his rookie contract at a crossroads. Despite his length and movement skills, it would be surprising to see him surpass Moseley in the off-season. But while cutting him would save the team nearly $2M, you always need cornerback depth and he — at times — has played well. At a $2.5M salary and with tons of (largely untapped) potential, it would be a shocker if he’s not back in 2020.

DJ Reed has two more years left on his rookie deal and continues to provide depth and flexibility as a potential nickel corner or free safety. Jason Verrett played a grand total of four plays for us last year before getting toasted and injured. He likely won’t be back, but if he is, it will be in a Dontae Johnson “we’ll grab you later if we need you” sort of role. Finally, Tim Harris — 6th round rookie and PFF darling who was on IR all year — waits in the wing with considerable long-term potential (if he can stay healthy). I wouldn’t expect him to push for major minutes next year, but it should be taken as a good sign if he starts forcing his way into some dime personnel groups.

At safety, Jaquiski Tartt had his best season of the year. He’s on the last year of his contract and, with a $6.7M cap hit, could potentially be an extension candidate (although how they value him versus his extensive injury history could make negotiations interesting). While there’s a ton of noise with any of our end of season defensive stats, this was still the team’s performance with and without him.

Jaquiski Tartt's on-field presence has been critical to the @49ers success against downfield passes (10+ air yards).

Tartt ON: 68.6 passer rating allowed
Tartt OFF: 136.8 passer rating allowed#SBLIV | #GoNiners pic.twitter.com/pQVMiBT7TO

— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) January 31, 2020

His backup, Marcell Harris has one more year at just over the minimum. Despite clear coverage limitations, he’s a good player against the run, and you always need a backup for Tartt, a player who has yet to play all 16 games in his career.

The big question becomes Jimmie Ward, who — when finally healthy and finally playing free safety full-time — had a career year. He was seemingly always in the right place at the right time, using his impeccable timing to break up tons of passes over the middle and filling hard against the run. According to PFF, he was the third best safety in the NFL in 2019. All this would imply he’s in for a big pay day, but…

It’s really hard to tell what kind of market Ward will find in free agency. Unlike the consistently robust demand (and contract size) for defensive linemen, the market for safeties has been up and down. There are a handful that have gotten paid big contracts in the past few years, but the demand seems to run hot and cold.

Also unlike Armstead’s situation, while Ward had shown glimpses in his first five years in the league, he didn’t have something like “killer run defender” to hang his hat on for multiple seasons. Yes, part of that is because he was asked to play all over the field for a number of horrid defenses, but this was his best year by a country mile.

And while Armstead has largely shaken any durability red flags with two back-to-back years of starting 16 games, Ward finished the 2016, 2017, and 2018 seasons on IR, actually missed the first three games of this season, and has missed at least three games in every single season other than his second year in the league. His injuries (according to Sports Injury Predictor) include:

• 2014: quad (1 game); foot fracture repair after post-college surgery (7 games)

• 2016: quad (3 games); broken collarbone (2 games)

• 2017: hamstring (1 game); forearm fracture (8 games)

• 2018: forearm fracture (7 games)

• 2019: collarbone fracture (3 games)

That’s multiple soft tissue injuries, two forearm fractures, two injured collarbones — both which could have resulted in more lost games if not for their timing late in the season and early in training camp — and 32 missed games over a six year period.

So what does that mean for Ward’s next contract? In the past two seasons, Eddie Jackson, Kevin Byard, Tyrann Mathieu, Landon Collins, and Earl Thomas have all gotten contracts that give them ~$14M a year. I don’t expect Ward to get anywhere near that kind of money. While PFF projects (sees: totally guesses) something closer to 2-years at $8M a year for the Niners to retain him.

But at what point is the financial commitment of re-signing Ward so great that we hand the keys to Tarvarius Moore instead? He played (mostly) well in the three games to start the season, and still has two more years left on his rookie contract?

To get a better idea of that, we may have to look at…

The Future (oooh ahhh)

Let’s look at 2021 for a second. While it’s a ways away (a year, to be exact) it’s important to make all personnel decisions with the next few years in mind, especially as we’re talking about extensions and big contracts that are fatter in the back years.

So how much does it make sense to pay Ward when we clearly have a young replacement who is yes, a step down, but is much cheaper? And does it make sense to prioritize Ward over someone like Emmo Sanders who has a more specific and harder to replicate role on offense? Or should we move on from both and hope that the young players behind them improve enough to step into more prominent roles?

These are the tough questions facing the front office right now. Because while the urge to “run it back” is understandably high considering how dominant we were during the regular season and how close we were to winning the Super Bowl, that’s not always the best route towards sustained success.

Even if we retain Armstead and Ward, thus returning our entire starting defense, we have at least four defensive starters who have contracts up after 2020 (Sherman, Tartt, K’Waun, and DJ Jones), plus Solomon Thomas and Akhello Witherspoon and (depending on if he signs a one-year tender this off-season) Emmanuel Moseley. Plus players like Fred Warner and Tarvarius Moore will be entering the final year of their rookie contracts and could be looking at extensions.

In 2021, will it make sense to keep Kwon for $16.5M against the cap when there are 1-2 replacements on rookie deals behind him, one who is potentially already a better player against the run? Will we want to re-up a 33 year-old Richard Sherman on a contract that is likely to be less team friendly than his current one? We know we need a speedy edge rusher to maximize our pass rush, but will Dee Ford be healthy enough to play more than the 7th-most snaps amongst our DL (his 2019 mark)? If not, do we keep his $17.6M salary? Do we have to because we haven’t invested in a potential alternative in the draft? And these questions aren’t only for the defense. At the moment, Weston Richburg’s 2021 cap hit of $11.4M is greater than the average annual salary of any center in the league, so we’d naturally expect a consistently healthy, top tier center for that price point. But if he’s not that in 2020, do we have the depth to move on?

These questions may be a year away, but they NEED to be taken into account now so that we keep the cap space and flexibility to pick and choose who we need to retain in the following years. This is the struggle for good teams in a hard-capped league. When you’re bad, you can retain everyone, you just don’t want to. When you’re good, you can’t retain everyone, even though you’re more likely to want to. And all the while, you need to build depth through the draft and bargain basement free agency acquisitions.

In the NFL, a big part of sustained success is being picky with your extensions and letting the right people walk (and accruing comp picks in the process). Now that we no longer have the free-spending cap space and mentality of a bad team, can we pick and choose correctly? Because while it’s an inarguable fact that Lynch and Shanahan (and Adam Peters and Marathe) have done a great job of rebuilding this team and assembling a bonafide contender, staying at the top is an entirely different animal.

Off-Season Roster Outlook: Offense

Someone’s been squeezing rice in buckets [Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle]

In the past few years, we’ve been buyers. Now, our main goal is retention.

Now before I get into this, I am fully aware that few, if any, people reading this are as interested in the minutiae and finances of the NFL salary cap as I am. But… I also know that you need to understand the fundamentals of the salary cap for any of this to make sense. So I’m going to try and make this explanation of how things works as quick and simple as possible.

Salary Cap: For Beginners

• The NFL has a hard salary cap that is set before each year. That means the salaries (or salary cap figures, more accurately) of every player on the roster must fit under that salary cap EVERY year.

• Each player’s salary cap figure is a combination of annual salary, signing bonus (prorated evenly across each year of the contract), likely to be earned (LTBE) incentives, and roster bonuses. These figures fluctuate (sometimes wildly) from year-to-year.

• NFL contracts are NOT guaranteed, but they often include some guaranteed money (see: Kirk Cousins’ entire deal). All signing bonuses are guaranteed and paid out at time of signing, but for cap purposes they are prorated evenly across the years of the contract.

• Whenever a player is cut/released before his contract is complete, the team’s salary cap is charged all of the remaining guaranteed money on the contract. That leftover money, paid to a player who is no longer on the team, is called “dead cap.”

• So if a player signs a three-year contract that gives him $5M annually in non-guaranteed salary with a $12M signing bonus, they are counting $9M against the cap each year. But if they’re cut after only a single season, the team will be off the hook for the remaining non-guaranteed salary ($5M a year) but will have to pay out all of the signing bonus at once ($8M). Thus, cutting that player would result in a loss of $3M in the salary cap, or a “dead cap hit” or $3M.

Cap Space: While we won’t know for sure until the NFL comes out with an official salary cap number for 2020, the Niners are expected to have ~$13M in spending room in 2020. If that doesn’t sound like much — especially when you consider the free agents and major extensions we have looming this off-season — you’re right.

It’s not.

Luckily, we have salary cap wizard Paraag Marathe leading the charge. But while we can expect Marathe to milk every last drop out of this salary cap, we’re still going to have to make some tough decisions.

Note: As of this writing, the NFL is in collective bargaining talks with the NFLPA, with a couple of proposals on the table that could change the salary cap dramatically. The most obvious one being the discussed 17-game season, which will only be ratified if the players receive an increase in revenue share. For the record, I’m against an expanded playoff (for the sports’ sake), I’m against a 17-game season (for competitive balance and the players’ sake), and I’m 100% against a London team (for everyone’s sake because that’s the stupidest thing ever). But… if there is a London team… I hope it’s the Chargers in the AFC West because that’s like the worst case scenario and the NFL should be made to feel extra stupid for being so stupid.

Quarterback

Much has been made about the fact that Jimmy G has no more guaranteed money left on his contract, and — if released — would free up $22M in cap space. Indeed, this was the idea behind the “two-year tryout” that was built into Garoppolo’s contract when he signed that big extension. If after two years the Niners brass had soured on the idea of him leading the franchise, they could move on with little penalty.

And while much of that first year was lost due to a torn ACL and Jimmy G ended the Super Bowl on a sour note, he did just lead the Niners to the brink of a championship, performed very well over the course of his first full season as a starter, and is 21-5 as the team’s starting quarterback over the past three years. When he hasn’t started, we’re 4-20 (420, bwa bwa bwa).

Let’s not overthink this.

It’s also worth noting that Garoppolo’s fat contract should be looked at in the greater scheme of NFL quarterback contracts. Based on annual salary, Garoppolo is currently the 8th highest paid QB in the league, and will soon be surpassed by Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, etc. Remember, Garoppolo may be making an average of $27.5M per year, but Goff is making $33.5M, Foles is making $22M to (potentially) not even start, and Alex Smith — who hasn’t played in a year and a half — is making $23.5M. Replacing Garoppolo with another starting caliber quarterback would likely LOSE us money.

So again, let’s not overthink this.

As for backups, I would guess — unless a former Shanahan protege comes calling and offering a 5th rounder or better — we keep both Beathard and Mullens on the roster. Beathard is still on his rookie contract and Mullens is an exclusive rights free agent, meaning that as long as the Niners offer him $735K, the league minimum salary for third year players, he’ll be on the roster on opening day. Which is obviously an incredible bargain for a serviceable backup.

Running Back

Hats off to Shanahan and Lynch for recognizing how well Raheem Mostert was playing to end 2018 and signing him to a three-year $8.7M deal last off-season. That’s gotta be the best deal on the roster amongst non-rookies. But other than Mostert, the running back room could look noticeably different in 2020.

Tevin Coleman was an excellent addition and a great complement to Mostert on a reasonable salary. That being said, he has a $4.9M cap hit in 2020, his last season under contract, and none of that is guaranteed. Unless the Niners whiff on re-signing some of their own UFAs, I wouldn’t expect him back in 2020.

Jeff Wilson is an ERFA. He’s definitely worth the veteran minimum, especially if Coleman, our resident power back is let go.

Matt Breida is a restricted free agent (RFA), meaning the Niners can offer him one of three tier levels of contracts, each tied to draft pick compensation if another team were to sign him away. Tier 1 = $4M or a first round pick. Tier 2 = $3.3M or a second round pick. Tier 3 = $2.1M or no compensation. While Breida was a non-factor down the stretch, I would expect a tender. Probably at $3.3M to be safe.

That leads us to Jerick McKinnon, the 7th-biggest cap hit on our roster, who has made upwards of $16M without suiting up for a single regular season snap for the 49ers. While cutting him — and saving $4.55M in cap space — is what everyone is clamoring for, I would expect something a bit more nuanced. We’re obviously not going to pay his $8.55M cap hit, but given the loyalty we’ve shown him and the fact that his value in the free market is practically nil, I would expect a major restructuring instead of a release. Jet has said he wants to play for the 49ers, so knocking his salary down to something closer to the veteran’s minimum — and thus saving more money than we would have by cutting him — seems plausible. Either way, we’re going to save AT LEAST $4.55M on his contract. So you can add that to the cap.

Lastly, our fullback. The 2019 season has shown exactly how crucial Juice has been to our offense and he’s entering the final year of his contract. At 28, as a key contributor to the team, and at a $6.7M cap hit, I would expect an extension that can save us a few million this off-season.

Whatever series of events the Niners brass decides on, we’ll certainly be adding spending money to our salary cap here. Potentially, quite a bit.

Wide Receiver

Deebo and Pettis are on rookie contracts. Bourne is a RFA, and I would expect he gets a second round tender given his play and how many teams would like to swoop up a young player like him. Richie James had a rough Super Bowl but was — for the most part — good on special teams. I wouldn’t expect him to make an offensive impact, but at a salary under $700K, he’ll be around unless a new addition pushes him out. Jordan Mathews will be gone, but — based on his availability last year — would be a natural add mid-season if injuries (knock on wood) strike the group. And lastly, I think we can all agree that Marquise Goodwin, despite being a unanimously well-liked and super nice guy, will be released, freeing up $3.65M.

That leaves us with only one question mark: 33 year-old Emmanuel Sanders.

The mid-season trade for Sanders was a huge boost to our passing attack, providing both a legitimate threat on all levels of the field and a veteran presence that greatly helped the development of our young receiver corps. Statistically speaking, here’s that impact, courtesy of The Athletic (and from a paid PFF subscription level that I don’t have):

While there’s potentially a tiny bit of statistical noise in there considering Garoppolo was coming off an ACL tear and naturally was going to start the season slower, the trade for Sanders (week 7) was relatively close to Shanahan’s decision to shrink his receiver rotation to three (week 11), and we got our starting left tackles back during that time (week 9; week 13), the impact Sanders had was real and apparent.

It’s also worth noting, that Garoppolo’s stats after the Sanders trade included top 5 finishes in: yards per attempt (1st), completion % (2nd), PFF passing grade (5th), passing yards (2nd), passer rating (4th), and touchdown passes (4th). Sanders was clearly a massive upgrade to our receiving corps.

But since it was a one year rental and he’s now an Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA), that means he can sign wherever he pleases. And that leaves us with a handful of questions in determining if we can afford him.

(1) Was his impact a jumpstart or more of an ongoing mentorship?

If the former, perhaps that one year was enough to set Deebo and Bourne on a path for continued development and growth. If the latter, Sanders could be more important to this receiving corps than his raw statistics say.

(2) At this point in his career, would he take a chip-chasing discount?

At the moment, Spotrac projects Sanders’ annual salary to be $10M on a two-year deal. If we re-sign Armstead, that would likely put Sanders out of our price range.

However, Sanders said pre-trade that he was thinking of playing 2-3 more years and was prioritizing competing for championships during that time. He’s clearly a perfect fit for our receiving corps and was an overthrow away from an epic double coverage-beating game-winning touchdown. We can always hope for a discount.

(3) Is there anyone on the roster who can replicate his production?

That answer to that is pretty clearly no, but there’s at least a chance to patchwork together some of his snaps from multiple sources.

Trent Taylor, who — long ago in 2017 — was one of Garoppolo’s favorite targets will (theoretically) be healthy next year. While Taylor is predominantly a slot receiver, Sanders played 38% of his snaps in the slot, so it’s not hard to see Taylor soaking up some of those.

There’s also Jalen Hurd, who will likely have a varied position-less role (similar to Deebo but morphing between different positions). It’s hard to see him playing a ton outside in year one — particularly cause he didn’t really do that in college — but he too could take slot reps, even if his play is a bit more like a tight end.

Finally, there’s Dante Pettis. The theoretical breakout star of 2019 turned permanent dog house inhabitant could theoretically put things together and maximize the vast physical tools he has. But given his sophomore campaign, that’s obviously not something that we can necessarily bank on.

Unless he’s willing to give us a discount, or we don’t re-sign Armstead, it doesn’t seem like Sanders will be back. If that’s the case, replicating his presence would require tremendous growth from our wideouts, a potential cheap-o free agent looking for a chip/prove it deal, or one of the many many talented wideouts in this draft class (there are many who believe it to be the best WR class in multiple decades).

Most likely, it will require some combination of the above.

Tight End

George Kittle, whose $719K salary for 2019 was the NFL’s best deal, now enters the last year of his rookie contract and is about to GET PAID. It’s figuring out exactly how much that is gonna be the tricky part.

It likely helps us here that the tight end market is rather tame. The highest paid tight end (in terms of annual salary) is — somehow — Jimmy Graham ($10M), followed closely by Travis Kelce ($9.38M, on a deal signed three years ago), and Jordan Reed ($9.35M), whose biggest news story of late is that he’s finally getting healthy enough to get cut.

Kittle, who is both an A+ blocker and finished the year as the #1 most efficient pass catcher in the NFL regardless of position, is clearly the best tight end in football. Thus, he will reset this market. The question becomes if he “resets it” or blows it out of the fucking water.

A multi-year deal averaging $11.4M a year (as projected by Spotrac) would be a major win for us. Others are guessing something closer to the $15M/year range. While that would still be worth it, it would be nice to be able to lock Kittle up long-term without giving him a salary that is 50% bigger than literally everyone else in the NFL who plays the position.

We’ve done “resetting the market” deals for other players in the past, but — given the state of rebuild our team was in and the salary cap space we had — we had a bit more leeway to do that. We want Kittle happy and well-compensated, but if we can keep his annual salary the highest for a tight end and not way way way the highest for a tight end, that would be nice, as any money saved there could prove crucial in retaining other talent.

Elsewhere, Levine Toilolo is a UFA but I’d love to get him back for his mauling run blocking ability. He was only $800K this year and can likely be retained for something similar in 2020. Ross Dwelley, who did a great job filling in for Kittle and Juice is an ERFA. He should be back on the league minimum.

Undrafted free agent tight end/fullback Daniel Helm was getting some love in the preseason and made it onto the practice squad. By the end of the year, whether due to play or other teams’ interest or both, he was on the 53-man roster. I’d assume he gets re-upped as well.

Offensive Line

While the back half of our season wasn’t always kind to our interior offensive line, it’s still worth mentioning we were a dominant run blocking team, and the players who had some issues in pass pro (namely Garland and Person), were a big part of that success on the ground. Also, while the blitz pickups weren’t ideal in the Super Bowl, there’s no shame in losing reps against top 5 defensive tackles (Jarrett, Jones, Donald twice). That being said, this is still (according to ESPN’s somewhat dubious stat) the league’s 26th-ranked squad in pass block win rate. As far as pass protection goes, there’s room for improvement.

At tackle, Joe Staley and Mike McGlinchey both missed time due to injury, but once they got back to health, they were dominant in both phases of the game. McGlinchey, despite a slow start to the season, really showed improvement in his pass pro down the stretch and finished the season ranked the 5th-best tackle in terms of pass-block win rate by ESPN. And while I have serious questions about a ranking that didn’t include either New Orleans tackle or Mitchell Schwartz in its top ten… at least that’s something. Staley has two more years on his deal and McGlinchey is still on his rookie contract. They’ll be back.

Behind our top two tackles are two very intriguing young players. 6th round rookie Justin Skule performed admirably on the left side, really only struggling while dinged up against the Packers. While Daniel Brunskill, NFL journeyman, AAF standout, and player who had never seen a snap in the regular season up until this season, was — to borrow from every review of every movie or TV show — “an absolute revelation” as the Niners’ tackle/swing man. Skule is on his rookie contract. Brunskill is an ERFA and will be back next year.

On the inside, Weston Richburg was playing good ball before he went down, and it should be noted that the interior OL wasn’t getting as much attention until he was shelved for the season. Despite a long injury history, Richburg isn’t going anywhere. He recently restructured his contact to free up more cap space in 2020.

Backup Ben Garland is an interesting case. As a 31 year-old backup center who was playing on a one-year minimum contract, we got a ton out of him last year. And perhaps we can get him back for a similar rate in 2020. Yes, he had his issues in pass protection, but — according to PFF — those issues were outweighed by a run blocking grade that was massively superior to Richburg’s. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was better than Richburg (after all, PFF has some questionable OL grades and Richburg was getting mentions as an All-Pro candidate midway through the season), having a solid backup around given Richburg’s injury history would be nice.

At left guard, Laken Tomlinson is a rock. He’s a smart player — unsurprising considering he’s a Duke grad with plans to go into neurosurgery post-NFL — and while not a world beater, he’s been consistent, both in his snap counts (he played 100% of offensive snaps this year, 97% the last) and his play.

The clear weak spot in pass pro is our right guard, Mike Person, whose incredibly generic moniker sounds like the default name of someone you’d find wandering the neighborhood in The Sims 2. But while there’s no more guaranteed money left on his contract, that contract also only pays him $2.5M a year, which is a great deal for a starting guard. I highly doubt ShanaLynch wants to shell out big money for a guard — probably ever but especially in this off-season — so I doubt Person is going anywhere either.

But if there’s any shuffling along the starting OL it would likely be Brunskill taking over for Person. Brunskill — at 26 years old — projects as a possible successor at tackle when Joe Staley retires in the next few years and gives the Niners the rare situation where they have (up to) two viable tackles on their bench. But he also got snaps in at guard near the end of the season. And while his first interior start was a bit of a baptism by fire at the hands of Aaron Donald, he performed very well the next week against the Seahawks. Could he potentially get the nod over Person? Or will the Niners, who — at pick #31 — are slotted in prime “trade down and get a starting interior lineman” territory, add to their ranks via the draft?

That’s where our roster stands in terms of offense. Next up (unsurprisingly) is defense.

Super Bowl Recap: Offense

Deebo doing Deebo things [Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle]

In many ways, our offense in the Super Bowl was reminiscent of our offense throughout the season: a dominant run game, massive misdirection springing big plays, explosive scoring drives that made us look unstoppable, and a methodical underneath passing game.

However, the pass protection issues that we’d seen glimpses of throughout the year gave way to the Chiefs’ late blitzes, and that — in conjunction with a few plays that I’m sure Jimmy G would have liked to have back — led to that underneath passing game stalling out at the worst possible time. And with it, went our offense.

Since then, there’s been a lot of finger pointing, but — just like on defense — it was a combination of many little things that led to our undoing.

Edge Play. As expected, we gashed the Chiefs’ defense on the ground, proving we were simply too fast to the edge for them to stop. Even when the Chiefs did a good job of stringing our stretch plays out past the numbers, we’d still find ways to cut up field and plug for 4-6 yard gains with regularity. And when the defense really started to over pursue, we punished them regularly with end arounds to Deebo.

Eliminating Jimmy G’s single scramble and his kneel to end the first half, we racked up 139 yards on a whopping 6.95 yards per carry. And while you can say some of that is skewed based on Deebo’s 3 carries for 53 yards (17.7 ypc), both Mostert and Coleman averaged over 4.6 ypc on the day with matching long runs of 17 yards. We were explosive but we were also consistent.

The one place where our running game struggled was with our gap runs, which we didn’t turn to often. Now part of that dip in production could be attributed to the fact that we didn’t go to these runs until later in the game (when the Chiefs were down and selling out against the run), but a number of our gap runs involved someone losing their 1-on-1 matchup and a stop for little gain. And that lack of an interior counter punch hurt us in the late game.

Matchups in man. Also, as expected, the Chiefs’ linebackers and safeties got routinely abused by our backs and tight ends in man coverage. Their linebackers got repeatedly worked by our backfield, with Niemann getting beat by everyone from Juice down the field to Jeff Wilson on angle routes. “Dirty Dan” Sorensen gave up A LOT of yardage. While it never seemed like he fully blew an assignment, he was always a step slow or out of position, whether it was guarding Kittle down the field on a “push off,” guarding a slot receiver, or marking up Juice on play actions.

The work with Juice was particularly impressive, with Shanahan dialing up inside play action passes off of cross blocking action, hitting the Chiefs in the alleys when they were expecting a full bootleg look, and making Kansas City’s second-level box defenders continually wrong in regards to run vs. pass.

Eventually — whether it was because of how ineffective the linebackers were in coverage or simply as a means to generate pressure — Steve Spagnuolo started sending them on blitzes, rushing 5 or 6 on seemingly every down late in the game. To his credit, this strategy worked well. Although it wasn’t what I would call a full strategic victory as it left a number of people wide open.

We’ll get to that later.

YPA. As is almost always the case, we were the superior team in terms of yards per play (6.5 to the Chiefs’ 5.3) but wound up with 21 fewer offensive plays than Kansas City. That 6.5 ypp mark is excellent and would have been good enough for tops in the NFL across a full season. And that’s including our inefficient and ineffective last few offensive drives. So, theoretically, when you look at that offensive output, you’d think we’d have been able to get more than 20 points and a victory.

But this wasn’t the first time we’d dominated YPP yet found ourselves in close games. We out-gained the Ravens by 50 yards at a 6.4 YPP to 4.6 clip but lost on a last second field goal. The week after, we out-gained the Saints by 50 yards at an absurd 8.2 YPP (to the Saints’ also great 6.8 YPP), but would have lost if not for some George Kittle fourth down heroics. And in week 17 against the Seahawks we (yet again) out-gained our opponent by 50 yards on an absolutely ludicrous 8.3 YPP (to the Seahawks’ 4.9) but needed a goal line stop to preserve the win.

We somehow averaged three and a half more yards PER PLAY but still almost lost.

Game Flow. I talked about this a little after the last Seahawks game, when I pinpointed game flow as the single biggest reason why Seattle was in every game late despite a point differential that pointed to more of a .500 team, but that wasn’t a very lengthy nor in-depth discussion…

And this won’t be either. I’ll have to look more at film to try and break everything down (game flow is a LOT of things, some of which are luck), and will try and include a better analysis of the factors that make up a game flow advantage when I look at our ability to close games later this spring, BUT — despite our dominance — it did seem like we were typically on the wrong side of game flow this year.

That disadvantage can’t be attributed to turnovers, as all four of the games referenced above ended with a turnover margin of 0. It can’t be attributed to poor passing performances as Jimmy G was near-perfect against the Saints and the Seahawks, including in both fourth quarters. Nor can it be attributed to poor rushing performances as we averaged 151 yards rushing across those games.

I have some theories as to why we sometimes struggle with game flow, but I’ll wait until I do the necessary research to share any of them. But for now, know that it’s probably a thing. How big a thing? And how much should we worry about it moving forward? That remains to be seen.

Mathieu and Clark: Both talked some shit after the game but neither did much in this contest. Clark had a sack on the fourth-and-long following the overthrow to Sanders, but that was his only stat of the game (other than another QB hit that happened on the next drive when the game was already over). The idea that he “finished” the past three games with a sack is a cute tidbit — albeit not an accurate one — but each of those games were with double digit leads and teams desperately trying to claw back. He was a non-factor otherwise.

Meanwhile Mathieu totaled six tackles but was largely nullified by Shanahan’s game planning and even — at times — targeted in man coverage. His versatility and instincts make him an integral part of this Chiefs defense, but the many Swiss army knife weapons we had at our disposal proved troublesome for him at times.

With the remaining players on the defense largely replacement-level talent, Mathieu and Clark’s quiet games meant that the only way this defense was going to perform was from role players stepping up. And/or from a monster game by Chris Jones.

Which… well…

Chris Jones: While Mahomes took home the MVP, in a world where Super Bowl MVP voting was even remotely accurate, there’s an argument that Jones should have been given the award instead. Because despite recording only a single assisted tackle on the stat sheet, I think we drop 40 on this Chiefs team without him.

First off, the attention the Niners had to give him allowed the Chiefs to have success elsewhere in their pass rush. There were many instances where a double team on Jones let another defensive lineman win one-on-one somewhere else, or — more noticeably — where the attention Jones got allowed the Chiefs to dial up the delayed linebacker blitzes that were so effective late in the game.

When Jones did get one-on-one looks, he mostly succeeded, blowing by Person in the second quarter to get a hand on Garoppolo and force him into the hands of Mike Pennel (who also played a good game). This pressure would result in Jimmy G’s ugly pick to Breeland and a major momentum swing.

Yet even when Jones wasn’t getting home with his rush, he was still disrupting our passing game with three batted balls, all in the back half of the fourth quarter, all on big-time plays (which we will, unfortunately, get to later).

While not as splashy or incredibly obvious as the dominant showings that Aaron Donald and Grady Jarrett had against us, Jones’ and Pennel’s performances against our interior line were an unfortunate reminder of the worries that we had from that position group entering the post-season. And the reason why that’s an area where we could see some additions this off-season.

Shanahan’s Aggressiveness. Much of the talk after the game has been about Shanahan’s aggressiveness or lack thereof, and how that “lost us the Super Bowl.” The primary two critiques are:

(1) That he was too conservative at the end of the second quarter and should have called a timeout to give the offense another shot at points

(2) That he was too aggressive at the end of the game and should have ran the ball more.

So let’s break down both critiques, piece by agonizing piece.

Argument #1: Shanahan was too conservative.

Re: that weird end-of-half sequence of events, I would have liked to see Shanahan call a timeout and give our offense the time to see what we could do. But it appears there were plenty of people around the league who agreed with (or at least understood) Shanahan’s decision to let the clock run.

Per Mike Sando from The Athletic:

“People will kill Kyle for the end of the half, but if he takes the timeout and then Kansas City downs the punt deep, then Mahomes is getting the ball at midfield with around 50 seconds left in the half,” another coach said. “He played it safe. We would be killing him if he calls the timeout and Kansas City downs the punt.”

The Chiefs should have downed the punt inside the 5, but they did not play the ball very well, allowing it to bounce into the end zone for a touchback. About seven percent of punts from that general area of the field pin the opponent inside his own 5. About 30 percent pin the opponent within his own 10.

Based on those percentages I’d agree that — based on field position — it was a harder decision than many people thought. But I’d still call the timeout and take the shot.

I know Shanahan has leaned more heavily on his defense this season than in years past because of how strong it’s been, but I think — in this situation in particular and against this offense in particular — we should be playing to maximize scoring opportunities. Which means never giving up a possession.

Yes, you get the ball at the half and it’s currently a tie game. Yes, you know that — unlike the Chiefs — you don’t really have the capability to just drop back and huck it all over the field. But, based on the Chiefs’ ability to get red hot on offense at any moment, I don’t think you can throw away any chance to potentially score points. Regardless of the score.

So with that in mind, I do think the Niners should have called a timeout before the punt. And even if they didn’t take a timeout then, then after the punt was a touchback and they knew their field position, they should have used the timeouts as they attempted to drive down the field.

I also think that — in following with the mindset of maximizing each possession — the Niners should have at least played with the idea of four down territory once they got inside the Chiefs’ 30 on the opening drive of the second half. That doesn’t mean they had to go for it instead of kick the field goal, but I think if they’d opened themselves up a bit more to the idea that they could go for it, this game could have been put out of reach.

While I like to poke fun at the NFL’s newfound obsession with analytics and the belief that you can succeed with a Dave Roberts-like football coach who is a puppet of percentage points and statistical charts, I do agree with the movement on certain things. And one of those things is going for it more often. Especially given the strengths (and weaknesses) of our offense.

But this email is long enough and the next section is about to be gigantic, so I’ll save that discussion for a later time.

Argument #2: Shanahan was too aggressive

Okaaaaaay. So if the going argument is that Shanahan should have ran the ball more and — if he did — the Niners would have won, let’s put that to the test. Here’s every single play call from the 49ers’ offense after picking off the Chiefs with 11:57 left in the fourth quarter while up 20-10.

At this point, our goal is to put the nail in the coffin. The worst possible outcome is a short drive that does nothing in terms of yardage, but we’re also 12 minutes out from the end of the game, so there’s far too much time left on the clock to think about milking it.

1-and-10, SF 20: Mostert power lead for 6 yards. Nice.

2-and-4, SF 26: Pass to George Kittle for 12 yards. Play action stretch with an end around look over the top opens up the middle for Kittle.

1-and-10, SF 38: Mostert power lead for 1 yard. On this play, this was the Chiefs’ defensive front.

A six man front with — Including the press CBs — eight defenders at the line of scrimmage. Plus an additional two in the box and a free safety creeping down. Coming out in this front is tantamount to saying “we know you want to run so we’re going to bet you continue running, even though we’re lining up in a front that makes running nearly impossible.”

The Chiefs are selling out to stop the run and, after Garland whiffs on Jones and Sanders can’t dig out Sorensen on a crack block, we get stopped for one yard.

2nd-and-9, SF 39: Incomplete pass to Deebo. Could we have run the ball here, especially since they had softened up the box? Sure. Shanahan may have even called a run, but — as pointed out by Bill Barnwell…

Second-and-9 in the fourth quarter. Garoppolo checks to a pass versus a KC blitz. Pressure from Hitchens forces him to sail the throw. Swing pass was wide-open but not sure if that was hot. pic.twitter.com/tj5zrIJapH

— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) February 3, 2020

Two guys open but Jimmy doesn’t deliver the ball while under intense pressure.

3rd-and-9, SF 39: False start on Joe Staley. For a Super Bowl, it was oddly loud in that stadium. At different times, both teams had to use a silent count. This contributed to a few false start issues late, including on the next play…

3rd-and-14, SF 34: Jimmy G scrambles for 3 yards. On this play, the refs missed a clear offsides, but they also missed it due to what was a less clear potential false start, so… whatever? I guess?

The Chiefs score on the next drive. Now it’s 20-17 with 6:06 left in the fourth.

1st-and-10, SF 20: Mostert stretch for 5 yards. Nice.

2nd-and-5, SF 25: Incomplete pass to Kittle. Batted at the LOS by Chris Jones.

When asked after the game, Shanahan said that up three with ~6 minutes left in the game, you are not in clock killing mode, you are in first down getting and potentially scoring mode. Which I agree with. Yet this is the play that people have critiqued the most heavily. We just got good yardage on the ground. Why not go to the ground again on second down?

Let’s look at the Chiefs’ alignment first.

As you can see, the Chiefs have six men on the LOS and two more in the box. It’s quite similar to the defensive front they showed just last drive when they stuffed our power lead. They also have Sorensen and an extended CB playing the edge opposite Mostert, giving them numbers to that side.

So Shanahan dials up a play action pass.

Deebo goes across formation then back to the twins receivers in orbit motion as a coverage indicator. He’ll swing out wide on the snap, while both Kittle and Juice will fake a stalk block like it’s a run play then try and settle around the sticks in the vacated space of the linebackers when they bite on the fake.

The play opens up perfectly. Even more so because the Chiefs send one of their linebackers as a blitzer while the other crosses formation to lock up a blocking Mostert in man. But Suggs, who was lined up as a DE, drops into coverage to undercut Kittle. Obviously this isn’t going to work, but it does stall Jimmy’s release just enough so that…

Jones can bat the ball down at the line of scrimmage. This is a screenshot from the exact moment Jones hit the ball. Look how open Kittle is. That’s at least a ten yard gain and a first down. Based on the space in front of him that’s probably at least 20 yards. And based on the overall size/athleticism advantage Kittle has on the two guys down the field, it could have been much much more than that.

This is a high percentage play action pass to the side of the formation with a potential numbers advantage. It also has a built in check down in case of pressure. And it opens up perfectly if not for a batted ball at the line of scrimmage.

Against an eight man box, it’s hard to say that play call wasn’t the right one.

3rd-and-5, SF 25: Incomplete pass to Kendrick Bourne.

Based on down and distance we need to throw here, and we assume the Chiefs will be locked in on Kittle (especially since he just ran free the play before). But, against man coverage and two blitzing linebackers, Shanahan frees up Kittle AGAIN. In almost the exact same spot as the play before.

I’ve put Kittle’s path in pink here just so it’s a bit easier to see.

They motion him from the bottom of the frame to the opposite side of the formation into a bunch trips alignment. Mathieu follows him, showing that it’s man coverage (unsurprisingly, their top DB is on our top wideout on third down). The bunch alignment and route combinations are made to clear out space and create two natural rubs for Kittle and/or to force a switch between Mathieu and the cornerback on Bourne.

On the snap, that switch occurs. The corner takes Kittle while Mathieu takes Bourne, and Jimmy — perhaps seeing the leverage Bourne naturally has on a comeback route versus a high and inside Mathieu — locks onto his receiver. Which is unfortunate because…

Kittle is wide open. Like wide wide wide open. And if the last play would have been at least a 10 yard gain, Kittle catching this one on the run is at LEAST 30 yards. Honestly — given the fact that every single defender is turned away from him except one that’s already been dusted and another who is gonna have to tackle Kittle in the open field after he gets a twenty yard head start — a touchdown is the most likely outcome.

Instead, Garoppolo never comes off of Bourne, throwing an incomplete as Niemann delivers a helmet-to-helmet hit that isn’t called (because why would you call roughing the passer on third down). The Niners have to punt on the next play.

The Chiefs score on the next drive. Now it’s 24-20 Chiefs with 2:39 left in the game.

1st-and-10, SF 15: Mostert gun stretch RPO for 17 yards. Fuck yeah.

1st-and-10, SF 32: False start on Emmanuel Sanders. The called play was a run. Shanahan is clearly trying to get runs in here before the two minute warning.

1st-and-15, SF 27: Pass complete to Kittle for 8 yards. Simple quick out on loose coverage.

Two Minute Warning

2nd-and-7, SF 35: Pass complete to Bourne for 16 yards. On a play that is sniffed out relatively well, Bourne and Jimmy G show some nice improvisational skills, with Jimmy tossing the ball high over a linebacker who has lost track of Bourne, and the receiver not only securing the pass but getting out of bounds.

1st-and-10, KC 49: Incomplete pass to Deebo. Batted at the LOS by Chris Jones. Goddamn you Chris Jones. Deebo had shook his corner but — even with his incredible ability in the open field — it only would have been a modest gain underneath, even if it was completed.

2nd-and-10, KC 49: Incomplete pass to Bourne. Also tipped by Chris Jones, this ball was an intended slant that the safety jumped and batted down. While it certainly could have been an interception, it would have been a very tough one as the safety dove horizontally to bat it down.

3rd-and-10, KC 49: Incomplete pass to Sanders. This was ultimately the ball game and was actually a brilliant concept that Shanahan dialed up to attack the very coverage that he knew Spagnuolo would use.

Per Ted Nguyen of The Athletic:

On third-and-10, Spagnuolo once again called for two double-teams. With Kittle in the backfield, the Chiefs doubled Samuel and Sanders. They called a “cut” on Sanders, which meant the inside defender played shallow and the outside defender played deep. Shanahan seemed to know that this is how the Chiefs would line up because he called the perfect play to beat this coverage — he had Sanders run a deep post. With the insider defender playing shallow, Sanders had the speed to get on top of him and run away from the outside defender.

With the only deep defender playing outside of Sanders, he got wide open in the middle of the field.

However, Garoppolo overthrew him by nearly 5 yards. This throw isn’t easy but with how much separation Sanders created, if the ball was thrown anywhere near him he would have had a great chance at bringing the pass in or drawing a defensive pass interference.

There’s two things I’d add to that breakdown. (1) Sanders was much more open than that picture indicated, as he had multiple steps on both defenders before he slowed up at the last second realizing that he couldn’t run under that ball. (2) Jimmy G also had the option of going to Bourne on the dig route for a sure first down (he is very open; as you can see in the first image above).

I don’t hate the shot that Jimmy took. When you get a receiver with that kind of separation on a potential Super Bowl game-winner, you generally take it.

But alas, Jimmy G couldn’t make the throw. So what could have been an easy pitch and catch to Bourne for the first down or an epic touchdown bomb to Sanders became a fourth-and-long. And the game was pretty much over at that point.

The next play the Niners would keep seven guys back to block, running three wideouts into five DBs in deep coverage. And while Kittle would eventually open up on a delayed release underneath, Jimmy G never saw him, as he was already sliding into what would end up a game-ending sack.

The idea that Shanahan “blew another Super Bowl in the fourth quarter cause he can’t hold a lead” was always going to be too easy and too clean of a narrative for the nonsensical talking heads to avoid. They had to jump on it. It lets them yell things with angry expressions on their faces while repeating whatever their equivalent of “I told you so” is until people stop paying attention. Which, unfortunately, they don’t.

And while it is totally understandable to have felt that way about Shanahan in the rage of the hours following the Super Bowl, a closer look at the film paints a much different narrative.

TLDR; in the fourth quarter, Shanahan called a better game than most people thought. Jimmy G played worse than most people thought. And the Chiefs’ blitzes — despite successfully pressuring Garoppolo — left a lot of dudes open. But just like how our defense faltered due to a few bad breaks (or bad calls, cough cough), it was the few missed receivers that lost us the game on offense.

It’s certainly plausible that if a single one of those turning point plays on offense or defense goes our way, the Niners are coming home with their sixth Lombardi Trophy.

So yeah, that sucks.

But while losing in the Super Bowl is a bummer, it’s important to keep a few things in perspective.

The Niners have the 11th-youngest team in the league, with their average age of 25.7 only half a year older than the first place Dolphins. We only have five starters (including our kicker) over the age of 28.

Jimmy Garoppolo has 26 career regular season starts. In the past twenty years, Super Bowl winning quarterbacks have an average of 100 starts. And during that time, only three have won with fewer starts than Garoppolo: Ben Roethlisberger (25), Kurt Warner (16), and Tom Brady (14). Three Hall of Famers.

Garoppolo didn’t play well at the end of the game, but he’d been slicing and dicing through the second and third quarters after he threw that pick. He’ll get better.

Kyle Shanahan just turned 40 and is in his third season as a head coach. In the past twenty years, the average Super Bowl-winning coach is 56 years old with 10 years of experience. He’ll get better too.

There are only two coaches younger than 40 to ever win a Super Bowl, and in the three years before they were hired, their franchises had a combined five playoff appearances, one Super Bowl championship, and a 67% winning percentage. In the three years before Shanahan, the Niners’ winning percentage was less than half of that (31.3%).

Three years ago, Chip Kelly was running zone reads with Blaine Gabbert, Jeremy Kerley was our leading receiver, and we had (quite literally) one of the worst rushing defenses of all-time. What our staff and players have been able to accomplish since then has been nothing short of remarkable. Now the Niners are contenders again, and they did it a year ahead of even the most optimistic of projections. The leadership and the talent is in place for a sustained run.

And hopefully, another Super Bowl next year. This one with a better outcome.

Go Niners 👍🏈

Super Bowl Recap: Defense

Lot of this. Coulda used more. [Scott Strazzante]

This is your regularly scheduled reminder not to trust the media.

As predicted, a series of hot takes have been flooding in since the Super Bowl ended, and -- given the end result -- their headlines and narratives have been just as predictable and off-base as you could expect. In general, football is hard to tackle for your standard sports journalist, largely because said journalists crave a five word description that can sum up the entirety of a 60 minute game of 11-on-11 that requires the active regular involvement of 30+ players per team, a dozen coaches per side, and a never-ending series of nuanced complex schematic decisions. The local writers are the ones who typically know their shit the most cause they're in it all year and are more team and sport specific. But on a national scale? You've got some Bill Barnwells and people on The Athletic -- sports people who actually know what they're talking about -- but in general, football journalism has become a lot like every other form of journalism. Articles built backwards from their trend-worthy titles. Click-bait prorated into a few hundred words. Empty calories.

And if John F. Bachelors Degree in English with a minor in French postmodern literature from Emerson College (Class of 2011) is fine with setting that bar, what do you think @FortWhiners69 and @RIPNateDogg510 have to say about it? Please, by all means, let's turn to @KansasCityQueefs and @TylerThigpenEra2008, because they really have some outstanding football analysis when they're not trying to sell me dope discount Ray-Bans at one tenth market price as long as I buy now. 

All this to say, everyone has their opinions. But when those opinions are simply misstatements of the facts — which in itself is a much larger problem that is much more damaging to realms much more important than football — they probably qualify a bit more as bullshit than they do as opinions. So don’t feel bad if you shut them down. Because people being wrong who are adamant that they're right is the backbone of the most dangerous of breed: the unreasonably confident incompetents. And those are the guys who really mess things up for everyone. Or, you know, go on to ref the Super Bowl after blowing the Saints-Rams game last year.

I'm not salty. You're salty.

Alright, let's get to the recap. Defense first.

DEFENSE

According to script… until it wasn’t. As expected, we ran more two-high looks, gave the Chiefs lighter boxes to dare them to run, mixed up our coverages, and leaned on our overall team speed and disruptive DL. For the first three and a half quarters, it worked. Then, it didn’t. We’ll try and unpack why later.

Zebras (usually) have excellent eyesight. I already wrote up plenty about the officiating in this game. It’s almost impossible not to mention it when discussing some of the crucial plays in this game because so many of those plays were directly affected by the refs. But I will try to keep that discussion to a minimum.

Dudes playing like dudes. Our top dudes along the defensive line continued their dominant stretch, controlling the line of scrimmage and pressuring Mahomes into an inconsistent performance and some uncharacteristic mistakes. But none were more disruptive than Nick Bosa, our would-have-been MVP had we won this game.

Bosa dominated from the jump, punking Eric Fisher on the very first pass play of the game and tallying 12 pressures and 10 QB hurries in the contest. He was an unstoppable force for the first three quarters of the game and — while our pressure as a whole slowed down some in the fourth — could have (likely would have) put the cherry on the top of an MVP performance had he not been blatantly held after beating his man on the third-and-15 conversion to Tyreek Hill.

Bosa was so dominant that his impact on the Chiefs’ play-calling became obvious in a hurry. Case in point: Mahomes’ first pick of the game.

Patrick, that's a linebacker, don't throw it to him!pic.twitter.com/MEPEFxhPR0

— PFF (@PFF) February 3, 2020

Not only did they roll the pocket away from Bosa, splitting their field in half, but they still dedicated THREE GUYS to blocking him.

Dude is an absolute force.

Other guys played like… well… While on paper this really didn’t seem like the game that we’d miss our pluggers in the middle (DJ Jones and Jullian Taylor), our lack of girth was apparent against the run. Against the Vikings and Packers we could get away with focusing on the run, knowing that they needed their run games to slow down our DL and set up their passing attacks. But against the Chiefs, we (reasonably) leaned more on two-high sets to stop the pass, which put more pressure on our front six to execute and win their one-on-one matchups.

For the most part our edge players delivered, but our non-DeFo tackles proved a weak spot en route to an 18 carry 104-yard rushing performance by the Chiefs’ tailbacks. Our subpar play on the interior was evident in PFF’s grades for the game (Day - 46.6, Thomas - 33.8, Mitchell - 29.3). There were just a few too many plays like the one below (featuring Thomas and Day):

I know they were dealing with double teams, but you just can’t allow that kind of push and expect to have a strong showing against the run. And while the Chiefs’ yards-per-carry was only an “okay” 3.8 when you take out the long run after the game was over, our play on the interior allowed the Chiefs to chip away for a lot of small consistent gains on the interior. And in a game as close as this one, those little gains can add up.

Option game. Reid dialed up a number of different ways to attack our edges with the speed option game (like on the game’s first play from scrimmage), namely by pressuring the solo side of trips formations to ensure he could outflank us. It wasn’t a gamebreaking development, but it worked enough times on crucial downs to be worth mentioning. Reid knew he had to keep some semblance of balance to attack our defense, so he did so by stealing a gap with the option game.

Due to this and the above mentioned issues on the interior, the Chiefs did just enough to get some first downs on the ground and keep us honest. Which was likely their entire goal of the running game in this game.

Having boundary issues. While Sherman and Moseley played outstanding this year, both of them struggled in this one. Moseley was at least partly complicit in two of the Chiefs’ big completions over 20 yards and Sherman really struggled in man coverage, allowing more yards in this game than he had in any other game this season.

The speed of the Chiefs receivers really got to him, including on the deep shot to Sammy Watkins where he got beat on an outside-in fake at the LOS and on the long third down on the Chiefs’ very first scoring drive, where Sherman’s slip on the press of Mecole Hardman created a domino effect that pulled Tartt off his robber/spy duties to pick up the rookie, and which — in part — allowed Mahomes the open lane to scramble for a fourth-and-one. The next play they would convert with that old Michigan play that people won’t stop talking about. They’d score a touchdown three plays later.

Kwon. I’m not gonna be too hard on a guy who came back crazy early from a torn pec because he wanted to help his teammates in the playoffs, but he did not play well at all. He had a handful of bad missed tackles, wasn’t particularly sharp or confident in coverage while giving up a handful of receptions, and stood out for all the wrong reasons. This despite playing less than a quarter of the defensive snaps. According to PFF, his 24.6 grade was the worst of any player on the Niners roster.

Masters of Disguise. We did a great job of disguising our coverages for the majority of the game. messing with Mahomes’ pre-snap reads just enough so that our pass rush could flush him into a bad or ill-timed throw. Take this first down in the third quarter, deep in our territory:

We’re in a single-high look with Moseley squared up on Sammy Watkins at the top of the screen. So it looks like (at least on Moseley’s side) some kind of man coverage.

After sending Tyreek Hill in orbit motion — both as a coverage indicator and as a means to work their four man flood concept — the Chiefs see K’Waun Williams follow him across formation, doubling down on the idea that we’re in man.

On the snap, Mahomes is expecting he’ll get a natural rub from his two vertical routes coming out of the backfield, opening up Watkins on the slant. But despite our nickelback following Hill across the formation, the Niners aren’t actually in man. They’re in a three deep zone.

By the time Mahomes has completed his play fake and looked up, our boundary corners have taken the deep routes, Warner has moved off his low wall and is now double teaming the seam route with K’Waun, and Greenlaw is working to high wall Watkins, who has adjusted his slant to a deep settle route upon reading zone coverage.

Meanwhile, with Kelce going across formation behind the LOS, Tartt can play a full “Robber” role, looking to undercut anything underneath and inside and keeping his eyes on Mahomes as a spy in case he scrambles.

The result? A confused pre-snap read, no one open, and a DeFo sack.

Well, after he was blatantly held that is.

Because last time I checked “wrapping your hands around a defender’s waist while you grab them from behind like you’re taking photos at prom” is not a legal blocking technique. Except for, apparently, in this game.

Alright, I’ll stop.

…

No I won’t. Call a fucking hold.

War of attrition. But… there’s only so many sound coverage combinations you can show someone, and when you give a talented passer and play caller too many shots, they’re likely gonna start figuring it out and hit some. Particularly when someone makes a mistake. Like on the third-and-15 conversion in the fourth quarter that everyone and their mom is having a boner over (yes that’s right, their moms have boners).

Here’s how that play unfolded, courtesy of Ted Nguyen at The Athletic.

In the Super Bowl, the 49ers played Cover 3 Buzz. In Cover 3 Buzz, the linebacker will run with the No. 2 receiver vertical for a distance, but it is the corner’s or free safety’s responsibility to take him deep.

Hill lined up as the No. 2 receiver and tight end Travis Kelce lined up as the No. 3 receiver. Kelce ran a deep crosser and Hill ran right at Ward on what looked like a seam. The play was designed to look like verticals, initially.

However, instead of a fade, Watkins ran a dig on the outside. Cornerback Emmanuel Moseley, who was supposed to stay in his deep third, made the fatal mistake of following Watkins. Ward’s job is to defend the middle of the field, so when Hill broke off his seam to the corner, he had no shot of making the play.

Top-tier quarterback + top-tier play caller is always gonna get theirs at some point when they can protect it. Add in a mistake by a cornerback trying to drive on a dig at the sticks and a pass rush that didn’t hit home in part because of a blatant missed hold and that’s how you start giving up big plays in the passing game.

Just how it is sometimes. While not a revelatory answer nor a satisfying one, it seems fitting in this case. There’s no single reason why our defense collapsed with half a quarter left in the Super Bowl, and when you look at their performance objectively it’s not really as much of a collapse as it may seem.

Let’s eliminate the long TD drive when the game was — for functional purposes — already over and look at their two fourth quarter scoring drives to take the lead:

Drive #1 was 12 plays for 83 yards and took 2:34 seconds. But 65 of those 83 yards happened on two plays, both on 3rd-and-10+: the 44-yard completion to Hill which should have been a hold on Bosa and the 21-yard pass interference call on Tarvarious Moore that put the ball on the one-yard line. So otherwise you’re looking at 10 plays for 18 yards…

Drive #2 was 7 plays for 65 yards in 2:20. An early first down came when Bosa narrowly missed Mahomes and blocked Dee Ford (who had also beat his man) in the process. Then 38 of those yards came on Sherman getting beat deep in man coverage by Watkins. To cap it off, the five-yard score was on a blatant offensive pass interference on Travis Kelce (on once again, a third down).

Football is a sport where a single missed assignment or call can start a chain reaction that leads to an entirely different outcome. It’s part of the randomness that comes from the sequential nature of the game and the far fewer possessions that football has versus a sport like basketball or hockey. Sure, in retrospect you can say the Niners shouldn’t have been in man coverage on that big play, but putting your All-Pro cornerback on their third option when you have trips on the opposite side is not a crazy or egregious play call.

A lot of shit had to go wrong to lose this lead, and the bad breaks and bad calls just seemed to converge in this one.

So what’s next? While the Niners, as much as any squad, have the right blend of coaching, management, locker room leadership, and young talent to theoretically become a consistent contender, a lost Super Bowl opportunity is always one thing. And that’s a kick to the balls. Potentially even more so for teams that rely on a dominant defense.

Of the top 5 DVOA defenses since 2009:

- 74% rank worse the next year
- 38% stick in top 5 the next year
- 34% experience a double-digit drop
- Avg. drop of 7.3 spots

SEA stuck 5 years straight. DEN/ARI/CHI did it 3 years in a row. BAL is going into year 4.

— Michael Kist (@MichaelKistNFL) February 5, 2020

Plus further evidence from Josh Hermsmeyer at 538:

Defensive performance is just much harder to predict and repeat than offensive performance. The rules (in general) are built to help offenses, it’s harder to hide a weak link on defense, and the big negative plays and takeaways that are so important towards defensive performance are — as shown in the chart above — some of the hardest plays to predict on a year-to-year basis. That’s especially the case for takeaways.

In 2018, we ranked 25th in Defensive DVOA, in part because our historically bad takeaway numbers had us last in the league at generating turnovers. In 2019, we jumped to 5th in Defensive DVOA and 6th in takeaways. While our off-season influx of talent may make that jump seem predetermined, the ebb and flow of team takeaways is much more random than that.

Take a look at this graph (which I totally just made to test out the graph building functionality of Squarespace). It shows the six teams who either led the league (1st) or were last in the league (32nd) at takeaways during the past three years.

Takeaway Rankings by Year (2017-2019)

The only consistency is the inconsistency... and the pretty colors

Every single one of those teams ranked 22nd or worse AND 6th or better in takeaways at some point… in only a three year span. And of those six teams, the Ravens were the only one to get into the top ten more than once.

Even if our defense continues to be strong, and there is every reason to believe it will be, it’s worth expecting our takeaway numbers to move closer to the mean. Which would — in theory — move our overall defensive output closer to the mean as well.

But if there’s hope for continued defensive dominance, it’s likely in our pass rush. This year we led the league in hurry rate and finished second in sack rate (both important, influential, and potentially repeatable statistics for offensive disruption). But QB hits — a statistical category where we’re oddly middle-of-the-pack — has proven to be one of the most consistently predictable performance stats (defensive or otherwise) on a year-to-year basis.

Once again, from Josh Hermsmeyer at 538:

Still there is some hope for lovers of the three-and-out. While rare, there are plays a defense makes that do tend to carry over from year to year. One of the most stable defensive stats is hits on the quarterback, which has a relatively impressive year-to-year r-squared of 0.21 — better even than total offensive DVOA, which is the gold standard for stability in team metrics. Quarterback hits include sacks — 43.5 percent of QB hits end in a sack, and those by themselves tend to not be predictive — but also plays in which the passer is contacted after the pass is thrown, and that contact is incredibly disruptive to a passing offense.

I’m picking and choosing for this graph, so take it with a grain of salt, but I tried to select teams who placed in the top ten in QB hits during the 2017-2019 stretch and had the same scheme and/or defensive mind in place for all three years. Then I added the Niners for context. And the Raiders (lol).

The results are encouraging.

QB Hit Rankings by Year (2017-2019)

That’s four strong defensive teams, who — despite having differing schemes and, in some cases, a rotating door of talent — have been incredibly consistent in terms of generating QB hits.

And while our QB hits have stayed near league average the past three years, I would guess in our case that that’s an anomaly. Like many other statistics, our QB hits took a dip in the back half of our regular season before picking up again once our defense got healthy (we registered 8 or more QB hits in three of our last four games, including the Super Bowl). And while each year has teams and players whose pressure is overstated because they convert hits into sacks at an abnormally high rate, leading (or near-leading) the league in both hurry rate and sack rate would imply that the QB hits will soon be on their way.

So perhaps it isn’t all doom and gloom. We’re young, well-coached, and — if we can keep up our pass rush — have the means to suit up another dominant defense in 2020. But it’s unlikely we’ll have the turnover luck we had in 2019, and in order to offset that and build a perennial contender, our offense will need to improve.

That’s next time.