2020 Roster Preview: Offense

A sign of things to come? [Sports Illustrated]

Training camp officially came to a close on Sunday, which means the Niners are moving into their regular season routine as they prep for the Cardinals in two(ish) weeks. With practices (mostly) closed to reporters from here on out and teams required to finalize their 53-man active rosters by Saturday, this seems like as good a time as any to look at the state of the team and examine the position and roster battles leading up to cut down day.

What’s that you say? This would make way more sense AFTER the roster is finalized? Well, I’m out of town this weekend so it’s now or never. Also I want the opportunity to point out random undrafted free agents as potential long-term sleepers just to see them get cut within a week.

This is gonna get long so the first installment is just about the offense. The second part will come later this week and will focus on the defense.

Injury Report :(

Per usual, we have a lengthy injury report (le sigh), and like last year, it seems like our offense will start the year bearing the brunt of the damage. The good news? There’s a lot of guys who could (should?) be returning very early in the season—some who could even be back (crossing fingers) by week one.

Injured Reserve
Will miss the entire season

WR, Jalen Hurd: Gotta feel for the kid. After rehabbing for an entire year to return from a stress fracture in his back and being brought back into training camp slowly and carefully by the medical staff, Hurd blew out his ACL during individual work on a side field. While Hurd’s intended “big slot” role could theoretically be absorbed by some combination of Jauan Jennings/Charlie Woerner/George Kittle, there is no one on this roster (or most rosters) who presents Hurd’s rare versatility and tantalizing size/speed combo. 

Remember, Hurd was a three-year starter at running back (where he played ahead of Alvin Kamara), and totaled 2800 yards and 23 scores on the ground before flipping over to Baylor to play wide receiver. He did this all at 6-5 230 pounds. Similar to Jet McKinnon last year, Hurd’s role can’t fully be replaced—losing him means losing a piece of our offense. And while we still haven’t gotten to see exactly what that piece is, we’ve had just enough evidence to believe it could be worth the wait. Hopefully his rehab will go smoothly and—in 2021—we’ll finally get to see what Hurd can do.

Players Unable to Perform (PUP) List
A player on the PUP list will miss at least the first six games of the season. While PUP designations aren’t official until cutdown day, it seems almost guaranteed that the name below will start the season there.

Weston Richburg: Richburg was supposed to be back in time for training camp, but his recovery from a torn meniscus has gone slower than expected. If he lands on the PUP list, that would mean he’d have missed at least 10 games in his three years with the team—in addition to playing most of 2017 while hampered with injuries. Richburg was brought in because he’s a superior athlete, a smart player, and for all three of his years in New York he was graded (by PFF) as a top 3 pass-blocking center. While he played well to start last year, he’s yet to match those expectations, and with a contracted salary cap next year, lots of free agents coming up, and a possible out built into his hefty contract after this season, Richburg may need to have an All-Pro-type year to secure his roster spot moving forward.

Expected early season return
These guys are currently injured but are expected back within the first few weeks of the season—if not sooner. 

WR, Deebo Samuel: Deebo’s recovery from a Jones fracture has been moving along well, and there’s a chance he’s ready for week 1. He’s been doing increasingly intense speed, agility, and conditioning work at practice—even catching stationary balls from some quarterbacks on Sunday—but he’ll still need to log the practice time and work his way back into football shape before he can see the field. With our receiver corps young and unproven—and Trent Taylor losing all of last season due to Jones fracture complications—the Niners are unlikely to rush Samuel back into the fold until he’s 100% healthy. There seems to be growing optimism that he will indeed be ready to open the season, but regardless, we should see him soon enough. 

WR, Richie James: James suffered a broken wrist before training camp. The upper body injury has allowed him to condition and run more than Samuel and—last I heard—it seems like he’ll be healthy somewhere around the start of the season. However, it remains to be seen if he’ll still have a roster spot once he returns.

C, Ben Garland: That’s right, after a whole off-season talking about improving our interior offensive line, we already have our top TWO centers out with injuries (plus our would-be third center in Jake Brendel, who opted out of the season due to COVID concerns). Garland sprained his ankle last week during practice and John Lynch has said he may be out “a couple weeks.” This has led to some very annoying shuffling along the offensive line (which we’ll get to later), but regardless of who starts at center, having Garland back in the fold will be very very important.

OG, Ross Reynolds: A practice squad darling from last year, Reynolds had a major injury scare last week but was ultimately diagnosed with a bone bruise. He isn’t expected to miss much time.

FB, Kyle Juszczyk: Juice suffered a hamstring strain about a week ago and has been labeled “week-to-week” ever since. Due to the vague and rarely mentioned nature of his injury, this could turn out to be nothing or one of those injuries that stretches into the regular season. If it’s the latter, the Niners will need to get creative. Would-be sub Ross Dwelley has missed time and been labeled “day-to-day” over the past week—although he has apparently been progressing well—and the Niners would prefer not to throw undrafted rookie Josh Hokit into the fire right off the bat.

WR, Brandon Aiyuk: Staying on the topic of hamstring strains with “week-to-week” designations, Aiyuk came up gimpy on a deep route last Sunday and his availability for week one is currently in doubt. The word is that he won’t be sidelined for long (and he may indeed even play in the opener), but for a rookie in a shortened off-season, every snap before the games start is vitally important. Like Deebo, we should have a better idea of Aiyuk’s recovery timetable based on practice reports from the week leading up to opening kickoff. 

Expected to play week 1

TE, George Kittle: Kittle’s missed a little time with “hamstring tightness” at the end of camp, but it doesn’t seem to be anything major. Hamstring issues are always complicated, so this could be either a precautionary move or—in a similar fashion to Juice—the downplaying of something that could leak into the regular season. For now, I’ll lean towards the former and stay bullish on Kittle’s chances of playing week one, but—as someone who tore their hamstring twice—I’d stress caution on any and all of our hamstring injuries.

Rehab Warriors

After that bucket of cold water, here’s the good news on the injury front. Each of these guys has struggled for the past 2+ years with injuries, and each of them has been getting rave reviews at practice for how much better and healthier they’ve looked.

Jet McKinnon has apparently been totally unguardable in 1-on-1 drills—an especially impressive feat considering we have one of the best coverage linebacker corps in the NFL. Many people have commented on how much healthier and explosive he looks this year compared to his ill-fated return in 2019, and he seems ready to carve out a role as a dangerous third down back (plus potentially more). A truly dangerous receiving back is something we’ve been looking for since Shanahan arrived, and it would be excellent to have one this year given our youth at receiver and the many question marks along our interior OL.

The only “true” slot receiver on the roster, Trent Taylor’s 2018 was hobbled by a back injury and his 2019 was lost after a preseason injury led to numerous complications and setbacks. By multiple accounts, Taylor is healthy and back to being the reliable underneath safety blanket that he was for Jimmy G in his rookie year. He also gives us an option on punt returns, a duty which he at least shared in both 2017 and 2018 and a position in which he seems like the front-runner due to his sure hands and the fact that the staff likely won’t want to overload Aiyuk if he’s getting major snaps on offense. 

Finally, Jordan Reed—our newest addition—may have started training camp slowly as he was held out of most team activities for precautionary reasons, but he’s come on strong in the last few sessions. Shanahan has referred to Reed as the best route-running tight end he’s seen, and that’s shown up in 1-on-1’s against our safeties and during team sessions where he’s been getting open early and often. 

This is probably as good a time as any to talk about the Reed pickup. Reed, when healthy, is one of the better receiving tight ends in the league. He’s very much a “move” tight end, who is most comfortable operating in the wing, off the LOS, or anywhere where he can use his superior athleticism and route running to win matchups in space. He is very versatile in the passing game and while he’ll never be a great run blocker, he’s willing and Shanahan has lauded his effort on the ground in the past. 

For the Niners, he’ll be a specialty second tight end, coming in largely to create mismatches in the passing game. While rookie Charlie Woerner was brought in mostly for his blocking, Reed has absolutely been brought in for his receiving ability, and if he can stay on the field he would provide valuable rest for Kittle and make for some super intriguing double tight sets. Every extra man on the LOS creates another gap for our zone and stretch schemes and even more horizontal flow that we can exploit via play action passes. And while last year that second tight end was Toilolo or Celek, Reed presents a true second option at tight end who can be very dangerous in the open field.

That being said, it’s best to keep your expectations similar to 2019 Jason Verrett’s. In seven years in the NFL, Reed has only played in 65 games, has never played in more than 14 games during one year, and missed the entirety of last season after sustaining a concussion (the 7th documented concussion in his career) on a helmet-to-helmet hit in the preseason of 2019. After that hit, he was in the concussion protocol for six months before he was cleared to play. While he looks healthy now, the nature of his injury history means it’s best to temper expectations. But if he can play, he‘ll have an impact. Potentially, a very big one.

Position Breakdowns

QUARTERBACK

Jimmy G is your starter and may have a higher level of comfort both physically (a full year removed from his ACL tear and now without a knee brace) and mentally (a full year starting within Shanahan’s scheme) than we’ve seen before. While a few uneven practice performances have thrown some cold water on the idea of a second-year breakout, it’s worth wondering how much those issues will translate to the regular season when (a) it’s camp and (b) the glut of the issues have come with up to six starters missing on the offensive side of the ball. Only time—and the health of our offense—will tell. 

Up for Grabs: Backup QB. Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard are still competing for the second spot. Given the drastic difference in on-field play when they’ve seen snaps, Mullens would have to be the front runner, but Shanahan has said they’re both neck-and-neck going into the season. The Niners are also expected to keep three quarterbacks on their active roster, meaning the backup designation won’t be something that determines a roster spot.

RUNNING BACK

While the Niners are unlikely to ditch a platoon-style system, the hope is that Raheem Mostert—a year removed from topping the league in many advanced metrics and with a newly bulked up physique and a freshly incentivized contract—gets the bulk of the carries. But it is worth noting, Mostert has zero career starts at running back.

That’s because last year the Niners preferred to start games with Tevin Coleman, under the idea that Coleman’s bigger size could soften up the defense for Mostert’s speedy counter punch. After a vintage Tevin Coleman fantasy cock-tease season (118 yards and four touchdowns one week against what was then one of the league’s top-rated defenses; 36 yards and no scores the next week against the doormat Cardinals), we’re hoping for a bit more consistency—even if it won’t necessarily be seen on the scoresheets.

As discussed above, Jet McKinnon has cemented his roster spot. He should be expected to fill the third down back role from the jump. Since the Niners prefer the “hot hand” method to running back touches, it would be great if he could sprinkle in some run game success as well. After all, while Matt Breida’s touches disappeared down the stretch, he did rush for 600+ yards on a whopping 5.1 ypc last year, and there were times where he looked like our lead back. The Niners system is better the more guys it has who can break big gains on the ground. McKinnon seems destined for a role in the passing game, but we’d only benefit from him carving out some touches in the run game as well.

Up for Grabs: Last rostered (4th) RB. Undrafted free agent JaMycal Hasty has shown speed, elusiveness, and playmaking ability in the passing game as he vies for the final roster spot against fan-favorite Jeff Wilson, who has a bigger, more bruising style, and is far from a slouch in the passing game.

JEFF WILSON JR. TOUCHDOWN FOR THE LEAD!

@WakeEmupJeff903 | #GoNiners pic.twitter.com/uHzw6BepL6

— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) November 18, 2019

Whoever doesn’t make it will certainly be put on the practice squad, but will they be able to survive there without getting swooped up by the competition?

Wilson is the better interior runner (we haven’t seen Hasty in full takedown tackling yet due to no preseason games), providing some battering ram insurance in case Coleman struggles in short-yardage situations and/or Mostert’s increased bulk doesn’t lead to more interior carries (although to his credit, Mostert did very well on said carries at a lighter weight last year). Hasty’s superior burst likely gives him more long-term upside (especially on an undrafted rookie contract), and his potential in the passing game could be nice insurance in case Jet McKinnon doesn’t make it through the year.

Ultimately this decision is more for next year than this one and while the training camp hype may make it difficult to stash Hasty on the practice squad (fellow undrafted free agent Salvon Ahmed was swooped up by the Dolphins the second the Niners let him go), the lack of preseason games could lead to less waiver wire movement from rookies once teams lock in their active 53. If I had to guess, Wilson’s experience coupled with his own ability on third downs (he caught three straight TD passes during the red zone drill of the last day of training camp) would give him the nod. But it’s a close race. 

Intrigue: Undrafted free agent Josh Hokit could be Juice’s heir apparent if the Harvard product doesn’t re-sign with the Niners after the season. A football player and All-American wrestler in college, Hokit catches the ball well and has the athleticism and physicality to develop into the kind of dynamic lead blocker that a Shanahan offense needs to field an elite stretch game. But no one, even us, rosters two fullbacks, so Hokit seems destined for the practice squad.

WIDE RECEIVER

Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and Kendrick Bourne are all guaranteed roster spots. Deebo looked amazing in the off-season, but obviously we would have liked the guy to be healthy for his ever-important second-year training camp. How he returns from injury will be key. Bourne, now the elder statesman of the receiver corps, has been a consistent performer through team activities. His role at X is solidified. Meanwhile, Aiyuk has been the star of training camp, getting mentions from reporters and teammates seemingly every day for his quick-study of the playbook, his professional demeanor towards practices, and his regular impact on the field. If early reports are any indication, it seems like the exponential growth he showed towards the tail end of his college career has moved seamlessly into his rookie year, and—after he recovers from his dinged up hamstring—we should be seeing him a lot in 2020.

Trent Taylor seems destined for the fourth roster spot. He has the most specific skill set of the bunch (slot receiver) and—when healthy—has been a consistent performer for us and a nice underneath safety blanket for Jimmy G. 

Much-maligned Dante Pettis seems to have locked in a roster spot as well. According to practice reports and coaches, he’s shown up with more mass, more physicality, and a renewed sense of focus to his craft. He’s mentioned often on camp reports and seems to have improved his ability to work against the physical coverage he’s struggled with in the past. This is by far his best training camp to date, and a third-year surge would be great news for a young receiving corps that is currently dinged up and may have a committee approach throughout the season.

Up for Grabs: Last rostered (6th) WR. In the running for (likely) the last wideout spot on the active roster (although depending on Aiyuk and Samuel’s status entering week 1, we could start with 7 wideouts) are two guys with skill sets and physical profiles that are nearly the exact opposite of one another. 

After two years in Dallas spent mostly returning punts, former Rams top 10 pick Tavon Austin was brought in early in training camp. Drafted high due to his speed and elusiveness with the ball in his hand, Austin has underperformed—never really cementing himself as more than a gadget player—but if there’s a place you’d think he could potentially carve out a niche as a speedy dude who excels after the catch and can carry the ball on reverses and sweeps (a hefty 1,340 yards and 10TDs RUSHING on 6.8 YPC in his career), it could be the Niners. He’s also an accomplished punt returner, which helps his stock if Taylor doesn’t secure the position.

He’s going up against Jauan Jennings, the physical seventh-round pick out of Tennessee who has seemingly impressed with his route-running savvy so far in camp. He hasn’t garnered nearly the mentions of Pettis or Aiyuk, and he seems far from a polished product, but then again, he’s a seventh round rookie. And while it would seem to make sense that a rookie in the last round of a draft held during a pandemic-shortened off-season would be safe on the practice squad, that may not be the case for Jennings—as NFL teams love buyer’s remorse and poaching successful teams, even if those same teams JUST passed on Jennings months ago. Hurd’s injury would seem to present a need for a replacement big slot in Jennings and thus would help his chances of making the active roster. So would the fact that a seventh round rookie has considerably more cost control and potential than a journeyman veteran. But it seems like Austin has made a bigger splash thus far. 

In an ideal world, neither of these guys is playing much this year, so I would expect the Niners to lean towards Jennings—giving him limited snaps at big slot and X in situational packages where they can use his size. But if they think they can stash him on the practice squad and/or want Austin’s gadget and return ability, it could go the other way.

TIGHT END

George Kittle reigns supreme, fresh off a contract extension that makes him the highest-paid tight end in the league but is also a very team-friendly, reasonable deal. The Niners have been very public about trying to decrease his workload and add talent behind him this off-season, and they’ve done just that with veteran Jordan Reed and sixth-round pick Charlie Woerner.

While Woerner was drafted mostly for his blocking skills, his athletic profile and former (high school) All-American status as a receiver has always made for some intriguing receiver potential. While I was bearish after the draft about how dangerous he could be in the passing game, it seems like his route-running and athleticism has been turning some heads during training camp. And while training camp chatter is sometimes just that, the Niners quickly reaffirmed the positive takes by—in a move reminiscent of Kittle/Vance McDonald in 2017—cutting last year’s practice squad darling Daniel Helm just two days into camp. I would be thrilled if I’ve mistakenly undersold Woerner’s receiver potential, both because it would mean we have a two-way player backing up Kittle without a lengthy history of injuries, and because it would allow me to make even more fun of Georgia’s horrendous offense.

But where does that leave last year’s backup TE/fullback Ross Dwelley? The San Diego product did an admirable job of filling in for both Kittle and Juice last year, registering two super clutch close out catches and (somehow) a two touchdown performance against the Cardinals. But after injuries have hampered his snaps in training camp, he seems like the odd man out in the tight end room. The Niners opened the season with four tight ends last year, but that was due to the injury status of Garrett Celek. This year, I’d expect Dwelley to start the season as one of our half-dozen practice squad veterans (a COVID season special), where he could be called up in case of injuries at tight end or fullback.

OFFENSIVE TACKLE

So far Trent Williams has been just as advertised and more, rarely losing a snap all training camp despite the strength of our defensive line and routinely coming out ahead in his matchups against Nick Bosa. He’s got great feet and seems rejuvenated by his year off from football (and from finally leaving the Racial Slurs), but his power has stood out both in the run and the passing game. And despite Ferrari IG videos—which he claims were recorded by his brother—Williams has gotten rave reviews for his locker room presence as well. As much of a legend as Joe Staley was for our franchise, Williams will be an upgrade at the left tackle position.

At right tackle, we’re just as secure with Mike McGlinchey, a top-tier run blocker who we’re all hoping can take a step forward as a pass protector in year three. There hasn’t been much talk about him good or bad this training camp. He’s an offensive lineman up against one of the best defensive lines in the league, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Shon Coleman’s COVID opt-out and uncertainties on the interior pulling bodies inside have pretty much handed Justin Skule the swing tackle position. He seems like our third tackle once again, but—in comparison to last year where he routinely got worked in training camp—multiple reports say he’s looked much better this time around.

Intrigue: Jaryd Jones-Smith. A 2018 undrafted free agent who spent time in training camp with both the Texans and the Dolphins, Jones-Smith—like Brunskill—moved over to the AAF, where he was eventually spotted by the Niners. He was signed last October and put on the practice squad and so far this camp, has been turning some heads. Part of that is probably because at 6-7 345 pounds he’s the biggest player on the roster, but his quickness and feet are good for a guy for his size, and he’s performed consistently well this year in training camp. What does that mean for this year? Hopefully nothing because our tackles stay healthy all year. But he’s a name to watch moving forward. 

OFFENSIVE GUARD

Team ironman and potential future neurosurgeon Laken Tomlinson returns on the left side, where his incredible strength has made for some tough sledding for first-round pick Javon Kinlaw throughout camp. Tomlinson may not be spectacular, but he’s rock solid on the left. But on the other side...

What looked like a wide open competition for the starting right guard spot has run into quite a few roadblocks. Injuries have forced front-runner Daniel Brunskill inside to center, where he’s taken most of his training camp snaps (to some extent, by default). That’s left the majority of first-team snaps to journeyman Tom Compton. In the past two weeks, rookie Colton McKivitz has started splitting those snaps. While he has swing potential, the staff seems to be focusing him on the interior at the moment, and he’s been as quick a study as advertised, getting better as training camp has gone on. Another young guy who is slotted somewhere on the interior and has improved throughout training camp is Ross Reynolds, although his rough start to camp made a climb a bit easier to come by on his part. Just as he started to improve, he went down to injury, and while that injury doesn’t seem long-term, it’s probably best for Reynolds and the Niners if he gets more development time before seeing the field. 

CENTER

Ben Garland should return in a matter of weeks, and when he does, he’ll be our starting center. Last year he was a beast in the run game and... okay as a pass protector. But despite his age (32 years old), Garland could still have some growth left in his game. After all, he’s only been a full-time offensive lineman since 2017, playing just as many snaps on offense (42) as he did on defense (42) during the Falcons’ Super Bowl run (he even recorded a safety of Russell Wilson in the playoffs that year).  

Meanwhile, with our top two (or three) centers out, Daniel Brunskill has taken nearly all the first-team snaps since Garland went down; this despite still being in competition for the starting right guard position. Those snaps have gone... unevenly to say the least. While I am very much onboard the “Dan Brunskill 2021 starting center hope train,” he’s had some issues in one-on-one pass protection drills—which, to be fair, are an absolute bitch for an undersized interior lineman—and has had problems with snapping consistency—a bad shotgun snap even sailing over Jimmy G’s head for a safety during Friday’s practice.

Both to add depth and (potentially) to let Brunskill get more snaps at right guard where the team would like him to play, the Niners added Hroniss Grasu, a journeyman center with the name of an old-world grandmother wearing a shawl and selling magical charms in a fantasy movie. He’s seen progressively fewer snaps in each of his four years in the league (totaling one in garbage time all of last year), and while he’s settled in a bit after a rocky start to camp, he’s been about as good as you’d expect from a fifth-year center who is jobless come August. 

Intrigue: But adding Grasu still meant Brunskill was running the first-team at center, so the Niners—just this weekend—brought in Dakoda Shepley, who is as intriguing of a prospect as one can bring in on the day before training camp ends.

In 2018, Shepley was the fifth overall pick(!)... of the Canadian Football League, joining the Saskatchewan Roughriders after being cut from the Jets’ practice squad. That season he was the CFL’s rookie of the year runner-up (since they’re Canadians perhaps they appreciate interior linemen more with these kind of awards) and was all set to play for the Roughriders again this year until the CFL canceled its season due to COVID concerns. After the cancelation, Shepley chose to opt out of his contract and test the NFL waters. This was August 25th. The very next day, Shepley was on a plane to the Bay Area for the tryout with the Niners. Three days later—on Saturday—he was officially signed.  And one day later, he was operating the Niners’ second-team unit for their final practice of training camp, allowing Brunskill to see his most snaps at right guard since the beginning of training camp.

I have no idea how well our Canadian transplant played or if there’s any chance for him to make the active roster or the practice squad. In fact, he could be getting cut as I type this sentence. But I’m hoping we’ve found a gem here, and that’s only in part because Shepley also played Omega Red (of X-Men the Animated Series and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 fame) in Deadpool 2, and—despite his scene getting cut—seemed to have a deep and pure understanding of the character. 

What’s that? We’re talking about our would-be sixth-string center’s acting career? That means it’s time for this post to end. Later this week, I’ll dive into defense. 

Closing Time Pt II: Offense

This one was close on the scoreboards, but not really on the field… (Niners Noise)

I’ve said before that close games in the NFL are—in the long run—largely 50/50 affairs. The teams that are consistently strong every year are the teams that handily beat the most opponents because a larger winning margin means there’s less chance that a bad bounce, bad call, or single mental error can cost you the game. That’s why a team that has had an otherworldly record in close games one year, like the 2018 LA Rams who went 8-1 in such games (and hopefully the 2019 Seahawks, who went 11-3 in said games last year), is often a prime candidate for regression the following season.

Many believe that an elite quarterback playing at an MVP-ish level greatly changes close game win probability, and while that kind of play under center may provide a boost in spurts, the long-term stats tell a different story.

That’s six first-ballot Hall-of-Famers on six of the winningest teams of the past decade, but —other than the Belichick-Brady machine—none of them are tilting close games heavily in their favor. So what determines how well a team plays down the stretch? And how do we get on that evil Patriots level?

For these purposes, “closing a game” means the offense retains a fourth quarter lead, independent of how well or poorly the defense plays when they’re on the field, and there’s no great stat to measure that. The old world of thinking prioritized time of possession, but in recent years spread-heads and analytics nuts have said there’s no correlation between TOP and winning. That is, like most things, a half-truth.

Yes, while going out of your way to win time of possession above all else is pointless, running more plays, with better success, and converting more yards into first downs is clearly a recipe for winning games, and—particularly in the NFL, where no huddle attacks can only go so fast—that typically means you have the ball longer. When you have the ball for a long drive that usually means you’re getting first downs and either scoring or creating a field position advantage, and scoring (that thing that determines who wins the game) and field position (the greatest determinant towards opposing offensive success) are pretty important. Finally, regardless of your opinions on what the score needs to be and how much time needs to be left in the game before you start bleeding clock, I think we can all agree that if you’re up late and can ice a game by keeping possession, your goal is to do just that—keep possession and win the game. So if you’re a team that’s successful and finds itself up more often while late in games, you’re more likely to have a time of possession advantage.

Over the past three seasons, the top five teams in time of possession have made the playoffs each year—that’s 15-of-15 teams with 23-of-30 of the top ten in T.O.P. going to the post-season over that period. That would seem to imply time of possession at least has some positive correlational effect towards winning games, and—in the 2019 regular season—the Niners were fifth in the league in time of possession and second in the league during the fourth quarter. Theoretically, that means we don’t have a problem. 

But if we were to isolate time of possession into the factors that largely make up the positive aspects of the stat (getting yards, getting first downs, etc.) while ignoring the more pointless elements (running the play clock down when you can’t ice the game, taking way too damn long to call plays, etc.) then we might get a clearer picture.

For instance, when you have the lead in the fourth quarter, there is no instance—except, perhaps when you are in an absolute blowout—that you aren’t trying to get yards and first downs. Yards give your defense better field position, which is the biggest factor towards opposing offensive success; first downs give you a new set of downs which churns clock and gives you extra chances to gain yards.

The Niners ranked 10th in offensive yards/drive (33.58 yards) while 5th in points/drive (2.47 points). The first figure is probably somewhat deflated based on the strong play of our defense, which often gave us better field position and capped the number of yards we could travel, while the second figure is likely inflated due to the exact same thing.

Then perhaps the best stat is Football Outsiders’ Drive Success Rate (DSR)? This stat, in which we ranked ninth, examines the percentage of offensive drives that either scored points or secured at least one first down. But it doesn’t separate by quarter, nor does it reward a team for securing four first downs in a drive versus one then punting the ball away. Thus, it too is flawed for these purposes.

Basically this was an incredibly roundabout way of saying that there is no great stat to determining offensive performance in close games, but we were pretty good at it in 2019. Long-term it’s not something we should necessarily be worried about, but it is something that we can improve. After all, the dream is to have close-game stats that resemble the Belichick-Brady outlier percentages as that’s what can vault a team from “perennial contender” to a legitimate dynasty.

So let’s look at some…

POTENTIAL PROBLEM AREAS

Jimmy Garoppolo

Just to get it out of the way, let’s start with the culprit that every angry ex-defensive player on ESPN trying to carve out a niche as a sound bite savant will point to first. 

*1st-3rd QTR stats are averages per quarter

During the fourth quarter, Garoppolo’s stats across the board are actually better or equal to his averages across the first three quarters, including considerably fewer turnovers and a higher QB rating in the fourth. Now, the decreased YPA and slightly fewer first downs could mean there’s some stalling out come the fourth… but that’s a bit of a stretch all things considered. When you account for the fewer attempts, the first downs / attempts is almost exactly the same, while the YPA difference is likely in part due to the fact that the Niners predominantly held the lead in fourth quarters this year; more conservative play-calling with fewer deep shots would mean less big gain outliers, which would prevent Jimmy G from boosting his averages. 

If that’s not enough to assuage your concerns, think of it this way. In 2019, Patrick Mahomes—the undisputed best QB in football—saw his QB rating drop 15 points and his completion percentage 8% during fourth quarters; Jimmy G’s YPA dip isn’t ideal, but it’s far from evidence that he can’t ball late in games.

Granted, if Jimmy plays better in the last five minutes of the Super Bowl do we win? Yes. Absolutely. But considering him the focal point of our fourth quarter struggles, or, I dunno, rating him the 20th best quarterback in the league, is—at best—short-sighted short-term memory nonsense and a claim that is nearly impossible to make independent of our other issues on offense (which we’ll talk about later).

In the past three years, the Niners are 4-20 without Jimmy G and 21-6 when he’s their starting quarterback. That includes a 9-4 career record in games decided by one score or less and a league-leading four 4th quarter comebacks last season. Garoppolo has a lot of areas where he can improve and improvement should be the expectation, but while he’s at times inconsistent or frustratingly careless with the ball, neither his stats nor his film should suggest that he’s a liability in close games. 

Feast-or-Famine Run Game

By practically any measurement, our 2019 run game was a success. While our offensive rushing DVOA finished only 12th in the league, that’s a figure that was greatly dampened by our early season string of offensive injuries. Once Staley, McGlinchey, Juice, and Kittle returned and Mostert started carrying more of the load, we were unquestionably one of the best rushing attacks in the league. In fact, on an expected points added (EPA) per play basis, we were the best offense in football when both Juice and Kittle were on the field.

So why is our run game even being brought up here? I’ve mentioned before that our heavy reliance on zone and—more importantly—stretch run concepts means that our rushing attack is inherently more feast-or-famine than, say, a Harbaugh inside power scheme. We rely on big plays more than small consistent ones. Our stretch concepts and speedy backfield mean we’ve got a much better chance than most at ripping off gains of 10 or more yards, and the horizontal/lateral pressure that we put on defenses because of that opens up the deadly array of reverses, misdirections, and play action passes that we ravaged teams with all year. But it also means, that on a play-to-play basis, we might not be as consistent. That shows in our advanced OL statistics below.

Adjusted Line Yards is the overall ranking, which tries to gauge how a team—in a world where they all had the same league average running back—sets up their running game for success. The Niners’ 8th-best ranking makes sense.

The other two greens are explosive run rate stats, which gauge how often an offense creates gains of 5-10 yards (second-level) or 11+ yards (open field). As expected, our penchant for explosive runs puts us near the top of the league in both of those categories.

But then we get to Power Success, which measures the success of teams when they’re within two-yards from the goal line and/or require two-or-less yards to convert a third or fourth down. Here we’re barely better than average. And when it comes to Stuff Rate, which measures the percentage of runs where a running back is tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage, we’re a below average performer.

Now is this simply the way it is? A give-and-take that we concede in order to be able to witness the sight of Matt Breida scampering at a league-best 22.05mph while he bolts past the Cleveland Browns to open Monday Night Football? Not necessarily. Most teams are zone-leaning now, and—while few run stretch as religiously as we do—there are ways to increase down-to-down consistency without throwing away our big-play ability. Which we’ll get to later.

We are Not a “Roll the Ball Out” Offense

In true West Coast offense-style, we are a very structured and methodical offense. Shanahan’s notoriously long play-calls include checks, sight adjustments, shifts, motion, and—particularly at the beginning of drives—secondary calls baked in if we see an unfavorable defensive front. It’s this complexity and attention to detail that makes our offense so dangerous at all times and so difficult to prepare for. But that also mean’s it’s not a “roll the ball out” offense. In fact, it’s probably the exact opposite of that.

What is a “roll the ball out” offense? It’s a scheme that does its best work out of the gun in the two minute drill, where the concepts and plays are minimized and route and technique adjustments reign supreme; where improvisation and scramble drills are king and defenses’ inability to make checks or substitutions means they’re playing more backyard ball in simple coverages; where dinking-and-dunking, going deep, and then hitting comebacks becomes a broken record. Basically, it’s the second half of every Seahawks passing play and the fourth quarter of all their games (when they are inherently behind and they take the reins off Russell Wilson). These offenses that thrive on improvisation, the vertical game, and passes outside the hashes are inherently more comfortable operating in no huddle situations—with fewer shifts, motions, and pre-snap adjustments. In some cases, it’s preferred because the QBs have less to process and can get in the flow of the game without all those complexities.

We are not that offense, and while that doesn’t mean we necessarily struggle in come-from-behind situations, it does mean that our five minute offense and our two minute offense look starkly different. Without a regular outside deep ball threat, teams can collapse down on us, press outside, and send the house, and—when we don’t have the time to run our full playbook—that means we have to drop the methodical flow of our gameplay, which often means the elimination of many of the shifts, motions, and other pre-snap adjustments that makes our attack so dangerous.

Improvisation will always play a role in football, but less of it isn’t necessarily a bad thing (see: the Patriots Dynasty, Bill Walsh’s entire philosophy). After all, Deshaun Watson has to improvise so much because the Texans can’t be troubled with making a coherent game plan in back-to-back weeks (or quarters). Aaron Rodgers, one of the best “roll the ball out” players of all time, often had to showcase his improvisational skills because Mike McCarthy spent the better part of a decade alternating between calling Da Bomb and Sub Zero. A play that’s called open is gonna succeed more often than a play that needs to go off script to get there, but without our whole bag of tricks, our offense can lack spontaneity at times. That can show in performance, where our YPA and big gains shrink late in games, as well as in play-calling, where Shanahan can lean conservative — potentially to offset the threat of exposing problem areas. Which we’ll get to in a second.

Potential Solutions/Improvements

Receiver Maturation:

Here are the quarterbacks who were hurt most by dropped passes in 2019. This shows the total EPA that was lost from a drop if we assume the receiver would have otherwise caught the pass and run for zero yards after the catch. Drops data: @Sportradar, EPA: @nflfastR pic.twitter.com/A11n9LZK1U

— Anthony Reinhard (@reinhurdler) May 11, 2020

This chart shows raw EPA (expected points added) lost due to drops last year. As you can see, Jimmy G was near the top of the league. It’s important to note that this is NOT a rate stat, so it is NOT an average of EPA lost per attempted pass. So guys like Dak Prescott or Carson Wentz, who both finished in the top 6 in attempts last season, were considerably less affected by drops on a per-pass basis than guys like Josh Allen or Garoppolo, who both had about 130 fewer attempts on the season.

This chart also assumes that the receiver who dropped the ball would have made zero yards after the catch, which, considering how our offense is built around creating chunk plays and how we’re arguably the top YAC team in the NFL, likely underrates the impact these drops had on Jimmy’s total EPA. So it’s safe to say, Jimmy G was actually impacted more by drops than any other QB in the league last year.

Obviously, we had a ton of issues in our receiver corps until the mid-season trade for Emmanuel Sanders. Now he’s gone and Deebo Samuel, our defacto No.1, is out until at least the beginning of the season with a Jones fracture in his foot. But there’s still a chance for improvement in this area.

If he returns healthy, I think Deebo is in for a HUGE season. We’ve also added Brandon Aiyuk, who is clearly less polished and accomplished than Sanders but brings a major athletic upside that we lacked last season. Kendrick Bourne and Dante Pettis (who may stikk carve out a role) are a year older and more developed, and we’ve functionally added three new wideouts to the team. Trent Taylor is your standard underneath slot receiver, consistent on third downs and short-to-intermediate gains. While Jalen Hurd and Jauan Jennings provide a size and physicality that we’ve lacked on the outside throughout the Shanahan tenure.

Injuries and rust could mean a slow start to the season, but this receiver corps has the potential to be better and much more versatile than last year’s by season’s end. Adding more guys who can get open late in games and catch the ball in tight coverage is clearly a benefit when it comes to closing out games.

Slot receivers and pass-catching backs

No knock on Emmo, but he wasn’t really a true slot receiver. He played a bunch of snaps there for us, but was more of an outside guy who could lineup anywhere rather than the dude you always wanted inside. Third downs are when traditional slot receivers like Taylor—who can get open quick underneath—and physical “big slots” like Hurd and Jennings—who can fight off and wall off physical man coverage—make their money. But it’s also when a dynamic pass-catching back really comes in handy.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... still shame on me. But fool me three times…? Jet McKinnon’s recovery has been much better this year, he’s looked great in higher intensity off-season workouts, and this season—much more than in the past two—it actually looks like he could see the field and contribute for the Niners. If that’s the case, his greatest contribution will be as a pass-catcher, and the time we’ll need him most is on third downs. I love Mostert, but last year our best matchup threat out of the backfield was our fullback. That will no longer be the case if McKinnon’s knee is up to speed.

Give it to Mostert?

Speaking of Mostert, when it comes to upping our short-yardage running game, could it be this simple? Well, no, but it’s still worth looking at this chart from David Lombardi at The Athletic:

Here’s how significantly Raheem Mostert outperformed other 49ers running backs last year. It does put a dent in the “all RBs are replaceable” theory.

Full link to the breakdown: https://t.co/F1OdHzXlWu pic.twitter.com/IuSuOaCdvr

— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) July 8, 2020

Last year Mostert led all RBs in YPC, his DVOA also topped the NFL by a very wide margin, his elusiveness rating was 3rd best amongst RBs, and his success rate (the closest thing we have for a measure of how often he won’t get stuffed) was ninth in the league. While Tevin Coleman’s bigger size, better durability, and reputation would make it seem like he’s the Niners’ short-yardage back of choice, Mostert actually outperformed him, the rest of the Niners’ backfield, and the rest of the league in nearly all situations.

Now like all stats, these should be taken with a grain of salt. Despite adjusting for defense and trying to eliminate as many outside variables as possible, no stat can put these backs completely in a vacuum, and—to Coleman’s credit—he faced boxes of 8+ defenders on a league-leading 40.2% of his runs—nearly 8% more often than Mostert—so his efficiency was bound to take a hit. That being said, it does seem like Mostert—who just got his contract reworked and has been beefing up in the off-season to shoulder a greater load—should be getting a lion’s share of the carries, whether it’s to bleed the clock, convert short-yardage gains, or otherwise. And if he can repeat last year’s performance, that’ll be good news for us.

Get Better on the OL

To me, addressing the OL is clearly the most important step towards getting better at icing games. I think we may be grossly underestimating how poor our interior pass protection was by the end of the season and how much that affected both Garoppolo’s play and Shanahan’s play-calling. 

It’s easy to say that Shanahan simply didn’t trust Garoppolo in the playoffs, and—to some extent—I’m sure there’s some validity to that. But if you’re getting interior pressure, you simply can’t call a lot of drop back passes, and with the run-game humming the way that it was down the stretch, our heavy reliance on the ground-and-pound almost made our downfield limitations even more prominent.

According to ESPN’s pass-block win rate, which measures how often a line holds its blocks for over 2.5 seconds, the Niners OL was 26th in the league last year. And while it would be easy to point to the 13 combined games where the Niners were missing a starting tackle (or two) for negatively influencing that stat, our interior OL was the biggest problem.

While Pro Football Focus is far from perfect, it is still the only outfit that rates every single snap of every single offensive lineman and since I don’t hate myself nearly enough to do that, that means it’s still the best reference we have for determining individual OL effectiveness. According to PFF, out of 65 qualifying guards, LG Laken Tomlinson finished 38th in the league in pass block efficiency while Person finished 53rd. I think Tomlinson is actually a tad underrated by that figure, but Person’s grade… yeah, not great.

Despite a small sample size, I’m super bullish on Daniel Brunskill. He stepped in mid-game at tackle against one of the fiercest pass rushes in the league and didn’t miss a beat, started games at left and right tackle and during that—albeit short—run, ranked 18th in run-blocking and 4th in pass blocking efficiency in the entire NFL... amongst tackles (!). While his numbers at guard were actually way worse—largely due to nightmare matchup against Aaron Donald in his first ever start on the interior—he played really well against Seattle and should be considered the front-runner to replace Person as the starter.

Issues to start the game against the Rams and struggles down the stretch against the Falcons were largely the result of major lapses along the interior line, and I don’t have to go into how often Chris Jones had this kind of impact in the Super Bowl. We’ve already added Trent Williams, who—if he’s the same player he was in Washington—will be a major addition, particularly in the run game, but shoring up the right guard position and keeping Richburg healthy at center could mean massive strides in terms of pass protection and our short-yardage run game. That could mean gains in the consistency of our short-yardage runs, as well as the confidence required to dial up more drop back passes, vertical shots, and throws outside the numbers. 

Increased Aggressiveness (especially early in games)

There were times last year where it seemed like we relied too heavily on the idea that our defense would smother the opposition, punting balls, kicking field goals, and playing conservative in the first three quarters when we could have been going for knockout blows. While I’d argue the analytics push in football is a bit like the constant commentator references to RPOs (importance overexaggerated and mentioned way too often), I do tend to agree with the overall concepts of its fourth down decision-making charts: in essence, go for it more often. While I would NEVER want to go full baseball manager and be making fourth down decisions based on one or two percentage points in a binder, I think in general, football coaches are too conservative when it comes to fourth-and-short inside enemy territory. As stated above, the best way to beat teams in the NFL is to put them away before the fourth quarter, and if there was an area where the Niners struggled at times last year, it was in letting teams hang around after vastly outplaying them in the first three quarters. Maybe that’s a fourth quarter problem, or maybe we ought to approach the first three a bit differently.

For example, let’s look at two pillars of (well-executed) aggressiveness: The 2019 Ravens had a good defense, an incredible run game, and they regularly went for it on fourth down. Because while analytic-types LOVE to knock the run-game, short yardage conversions are still the one area where the run game and full backs and all that stuff that “modern day” offensive minds hate are proven to be super effective. The Ravens’ offense was insanely efficient because their run game kept them ahead of the sticks, put them in a position where fourth downs were short and attainable (thus maximizing DSR), got people wide open in their passing attack (thus inflating passing efficiency), and minimized defensive possessions. And when they didn’t convert those fourth downs, they still gave their defense good field position, which—as stated above—is the greatest indicator of offensive success. Where they expectedly fell flat in the playoffs? They had no short-to-intermediate passing game. Running the ball and throwing deep off play action can only work if you can run the ball; if someone loads up against the run then both strengths are nullified. Offenses that are only built off one thing always run into a defense that stops them, and that’s what happened against the Titans last year.

So for a longer track record that doesn’t require having someone with the athleticism and moves of a punt returner at QB, let’s look at the Patriots (although not last year’s Patriots, lol). New England’s offense is built on a shotgun-heavy short-to-intermediate passing game and a heavy-set gap-running scheme; they are literally built to convert 3rd-and-5’s and 4th-and-1’s. It’s no wonder Belichick has always been at the forefront of fourth down aggressiveness. Because like the Ravens, he understands the importance of maximizing possessions.

The good news? It’s not hard to see how the Niners’ offense can be just as good at converting third and fourth downs as the two teams above. Possibly even more so. We have a strong run game and nasty play action attack. Jimmy G is at his best with short-to-intermediate passes and all our weapons are built for YAC. We are quickly assembling a roster full of dudes who block, run, catch, and present massive mismatches all over the field. What linebackers can cover Juice and Kittle? What cornerbacks and safeties can tackle Deebo (and hopefully Aiyuk) in the open field? What the hell do you do with Hurd/Jennings lining up in the slot on third-and-short? If we shore up our short yardage run game and keep Jimmy G as clean as Brady was in his time in New England, there’s no reason to think we can’t be just as effective closing out games… if these improvements come with a boost in aggressiveness.

Here’s Football Outsiders’ Aggressiveness Index scores for last year, which include “Aggressiveness Index,” a measure that compares each coach’s chance of going for it on fourth down versus the league average, and “go for it rate,” which is simply the % of fourth downs the coach attempted to convert.

For reference, the league average AI figure was 1.46 this year

Unsurprisingly, John Harbaugh set a new record for AI and go for it rate in 2019, while Shanahan—ranked 28th this year and 31st last year—was near the bottom of the league in AI. And yes, while his go for it rate was 6th-highest in the NFL, he also had by far the most fourth-and-short situations where the average coach (over time, not even in today’s more aggressive NFL) would have gone for it.

Is being more aggressive always better? Obviously not, and it’s worth noting that Belichick (17th) actually landed near middle of the pack in 2019 (in part likely due to the fact that his offense sucked and his defense was amazing), Andy Reid was only one spot ahead of Shanahan at 27th, and the mean average rank of every playoff qualifier was 16.08, or exactly the middle of the pack in terms of aggressiveness. Going for it more on fourth down won’t overcome issues on first through third, nor will it assure success in the fourth quarter, but—as stated at length above—putting teams out of their misery early is the best way to sustain success in the NFL, and if a lean more aggressive in the first three quarters could mean fewer close games, that’s clearly a step we should take.

Last year, I can understand the Niners’ conservative lean. We had a quarterback coming off an ACL tear, in his first full year as an NFL starter, who is prone to turnovers at seemingly random times. We had a receiver corps that—other than Emmo—didn’t have a single player operating outside of their rookie contract (this year, Bourne is the only player not on his rookie deal and he’s on an RFA so it’s pretty much the same thing). We had an offensive line that excelled in the run game but had a tendency to give up interior pressure—especially on clear passing downs—that could get in the face of your pocket passing quarterback (which is one of the last things you wanna see coming off a knee injury). And we had a defense that was—for certain parts of the season—absolutely unreal.

But this year? With an improved offensive line? With Jimmy G more seasoned and confident? With Mostert (hopefully) taking a greater share of the team’s carries? This year, a more aggressive lean should be expected, in no small part because it should be much more feasible. That may help us close out games in the fourth quarter, but—perhaps more importantly—could help us finish teams off before it even gets to that point.

The Jamal Adams Trade

How worried should we be? [Rich Barnes - USA Today]

While this isn’t specifically Niners news, I felt I should chime in since the Seahawks are our top rival, we were in on trade discussions with Adams, and now we’ll have to see him twice a year.

But I’ll try and make it (relatively) quick.

The Trade

Jets receive: SS Bradley McDougald, 2021 first-round pick, 2022 first-round pick, 2021 third-round pick

Seahawks receive: SS Jamal Adams, 2022 fourth-round pick

In short, it’s a bummer that Jamal Adams—the best box safety in the game and one of, if not the single best safeties period—is now with our division rivals. The combination of the underrated Quandre Diggs, the probably slightly overrated Shaquill Griffin, and now Adams makes for a formidable secondary and quickly shores up what was a major weak spot for Seattle as recently as the beginning of last season. Adams is a superstar player, and he clearly makes the Seahawks better.

That being said, I have major questions about what they gave up.

Pick haul

Losing two first-rounders (and change) is always a tough sell—and probably more so when the NFL is facing at least one year of a diminished salary cap—but the Seahawks likely made this move because they feel they’re one player away from Super Bowl contention. While a +7 point differential last season, the loss of their only good pass rusher from an already weak front, and an unrepeatable 10-2 record in close games—a giant statistical outlier helped in part by opponents missing would-be game-winning field goals to end at least two divisional contests—makes me doubt their elite status, the Seahawks clearly believe the first-round picks they gave up will be deep in the twenties. Now will the three picks they lost net a single player of Adams’ caliber? Unlikely, especially given the Seahawks haven’t selected a single first-round pick who could even be considered decent since 2012, but this isn’t the NBA where you should always flip a handful of good players for one great one. Depth matters more and you need at least 4x as many regular contributors in the NFL, the Seahawks had much bigger areas of need (OL and DL) that they now have fewer means to address, and early round draft incompetence is no excuse for devaluing high picks; believing so would be the literal equivalence of thinking two wrongs make a right. 

And we haven’t even gotten to the money yet.

Salary

Jamal Adams will play out the cheap fourth year of his rookie contract this season before demanding a long-term extension that will almost certainly have to reset the safety market. He left the Jets in part because they were dragging their feet on a long-term deal and made it public that he’d be willing to play out the 2020 season on his current contract with the right squad but that an extension would need to come next summer. With the top four safeties currently making $14M or more and Earl Thomas right on their heels, the baseline average annual salary that we should expect him to make following this season is at least $15M/year. As a super conservative estimate, let’s say he signs an extension of 4 years at $60M. Meanwhile, the two first-rounders the Seahawks gave up (at ~$12M/yr in the mid-twenties) and the third-rounder (at $4.5-5M/year) will combine to make around $29M over the same time span. So you’re paying literally twice as much for one player over three. And while you could make an argument for that at certain positions, it’s hard to make that argument for this position in this scheme. 

Positional value within scheme

The Seahawks run the same base scheme as we do, and—like us—shifted more towards quarters coverage last year as they dealt with life after Earl Thomas. While some might think that means Adams will slide into Thomas’ vacated single-high role and Seattle can re-animate the corpse of the Legion of Boom, that would be quite a stretch. Adams, while great, has spent his entire career lined up in the box, where he is unquestionably at his best and most disruptive. In fact, he actually tallied more snaps lining up at linebacker or defensive end than he has at safety since entering the league, and if you look at where he’s lined up over that time, I feel pretty comfortable saying he won’t be playing centerfield for the Hawks. 

Jamal Adams's heat map from 2019 pic.twitter.com/LREY0z3XFo

— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) July 25, 2020

Every offensive and defensive scheme prioritizes which positions are worthy of top-dollar pay. For the Chiefs (Mathieu), Ravens (Earl Thomas), Patriots (Devin McCourty and Patrick Chung), and Vikings (Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris), it makes more sense for them to pay their safeties well because they’re asked to do roles that are either much harder to accomplish (single-high safety) or require a varied Swiss Army knife skillset. I actually love the movement towards safeties as the defensive equivalent of versatile chess piece—playing in the box, running the alley, locking up slot receivers, or sitting back in coverage—but that’s not what we or the Seahawks do; thus it doesn’t make sense to pay top dollar for the position.

Role / Scheme Changes?

Adams can play the Kam Chancellor role and do it better than Chancellor ever did (at least now that you can’t murder people over the middle), and while he could also perform well as a two-high safety, he—similar to Matthieu— is still at his best closer to the line of scrimmage. So perhaps the Seahawks have aspirations for him grander than a strong safety?

As the league shifts towards hybrids, it’s not hard to see Adams playing more linebacker on passing downs, setting the edge against the stretch runs of the Niners and Rams, spying Kyler Murray, and being used to man up in the slot against the George Kittles of the world. Or perhaps he’s a hybrid Will LB/nickel corner, bouncing in and out of the box but always staying near the line of scrimmage? Adams is also one of the league’s best pass rushers amongst DBs so he could help off the edge, but that’s still amongst DBs and would require a pretty significant change to the Seahawks’ scheme in order to tap into.

Seattle has drafted four safeties in the past three years (plus two safety/corner types who wound up playing on the boundary); this includes spending last year’s second-round pick on Marquis Blair. They have the numbers to run a lot of three safety packages and keep Adams near the line of scrimmage where he rarely—if ever—has to play deep (similar, again, to the Chiefs and Mathieu). 

But how much are the Seahawks willing to adapt their scheme to maximize Adams’ skills? I’m sure to some extent. Carroll is a top notch DB coach and whenever you add a star player—and Adams is exactly that—you adapt to what they bring to the table. But the safety-reliant schemes that the Chiefs, Ravens, and Patriots employ all heavily lean towards man coverage, and it’s difficult to see the Seahawks going that far away from the core defensive principles that Carroll has specialized in since arriving in Seattle. They’re still the second-winningest team in the league since Russell Wilson showed up, and if there’s anything Carroll has shown with his commitment to ineffectively running the ball out of pro sets, it’s that he believes in his schemes, regardless of what direction the league may be going.

If I’m just totally guessing right now (which I am), I’d say Adams plays the Kam Chancellor role in base packages, setting the edge against the run, working shallow underneath coverages, and mirroring Kittle-like people, while he bounces between Will linebacker and big nickel in sub packages, where he can be utilized off the edge as a pass rusher, can help offset the coverage limitations that have started showing a bit with Bobby Wagner, and can keep Seattle from being outmatched based on personnel sets alone.

Future Team-Building Power

While Griffin and Adams will need long-term extensions next year, the rest of their 2021 free agents are take-it-or-leave-it types, and the Seahawks will be in relatively good spending position regardless of where the Corona cap lies. But—as stated above—I think they’re a much less complete team than they do, so they’ll likely need that money. 

Their OL, which was already meh, is replacing two starters with unproven commodities and is being projected by PFF as the 28th-rated unit going into 2020. Their pass rush, ranked 30th last year, just lost Jadeveon Clowney while LJ Collier—his heir apparent, but realistically the dude they’re hoping is their next Frank Clark—will need to play much better as a sophomore after registering just 3 total tackles in 11 games of part-time duty last year. While these holes could theoretically be filled via second-day picks (where the Seahawks have often excelled), losing two firsts greatly diminishes their drafting power and the capital they need to move around as much as they typically like to. Compound that with the fact that offensive line and pass rush are two of the highest-demand and highest-drafted positions, and they may have to dip into free agency to patch their roster holes. 

The problem with that strategy is that paying for top-tier players in free agency often means overpaying, and offensive line and pass rush are notoriously the most expensive free agent acquisitions to begin with. Any valuation bump in the draft is reflected in free agency tenfold and by giving up your two most valuable future picks while expending big money on a position that your own scheme doesn’t necessarily prioritize, the Seahawks have made their future fixes along the OL and DL more expensive and thus—due to cost and a greater squeeze on the salary cap with Adams’ eventual extension—inherently riskier. In the Seahawks’ nightmare scenario, the trade and extension for Adams will push them to reach for both a new tackle and a new edge rusher, and they’ll find themselves paying top-dollar for a great safety while greatly overpaying two average-or-worse performers at crucial positions; it could result in an expensive snowball.

Perhaps they’ll get it right, finding help on the second-day of the draft or with buy-low prospects in free agency. Or perhaps they’ll continue to stop-gap the tackle position—letting Russell Wilson run for his life—while Collier lives up to his first-round selection. But as always, giving up draft picks means giving up rounds in the chamber. With this trade for Adams, the Hawks are really banking on the idea that they won’t miss.

Conclusion

Adams is a great player, but while the Chiefs’ high-priced acquisition of Tyrann Mathieu made sense for them, they were transitioning to a scheme that required a hybrid player of his talents, and—even more importantly—they got him in free agency. They gave up nothing. Meanwhile, the Seahawks traded two first-round picks, a third, and a starting safety, a bounty that is hard to justify for anyone other than a quarterback. It’s probably not a great sign that—other than the Khalil Mack trade, which you can at least justify—the other three trades of a similar scope were by the Rams—who no one should be taking cap management and big-deal transaction advice from—the Dave Gettleman Giants and Bill O’Brien. 

So have the Seahawks improved through this trade? Absolutely. Adams is too durable and too strong of a locker room presence for this trade to blow-up in their faces like the Percy Harvin deal; he’s too young and good of a player to underwhelm in a new setting like Jimmy Graham did. Adams gives them one of the best secondaries in the league, and I don’t look forward to seeing him twice a year. But have the Seahawks improved enough through this trade to offset the future team-building power they gave up? Unlikely. 

Closing Time Pt I: Do we have an issue closing games?

Didn’t love it [Sports Illustrated]

Ever since the end of the Super Bowl, you knew this was going to be a point of discussion during the off-season, and while a lot of things had to go wrong for the Niners to lose the Super Bowl in the fashion that they did (including the refs absolutely blowing it on missed calls), there have been enough traces of late game issues to give it a closer look. Also, who knows if there’s even a season, so fuck it. At least it’s an excuse for some football content.

For the first section of this three-part series, I’ll be trying (and potentially failing) to determine how substantial our late game issues really were based on a mix of statistics. In the second part, I’ll look at potential culprits and solutions in regards to our late-game offense. The third part will focus on defense. 

Alright, let’s jump in.

Level 1 Analysis: Drunk at a bar with a rando

On the surface level, the worry—or more realistically, the trolling—centers around the fact that the Niners’ biggest blown lead was in the Super Bowl and that Kyle Shanahan was the OC of the most famous Super Bowl meltdown in league history (and for some reason has shouldered the majority of the blame in both instances). This is also the easy media cop-out as, well, sports media kind of sucks, and—in the case of most outlets (and unfortunately most standard news media as well)—they make their money by stirring up knee-jerk theories, manufacturing hilariously bad takes, and generating hot take clickbait.

Others could point to Shanahan’s first season as the head man, when the Niners started 0-9 and went an (I think record) five straight games where they lost by three or fewer points. But that team was absolutely devoid of talent, had Hoyer/Beathard at the helm, and close losses like that are actually more of a sign of future success than anything else. You keep your young guys energized and focused, you show progress while not destroying your draft positioning, and you get the bad close game luck out of the way so you can regress to the mean in future seasons when the games actually matter. Also—in this particular case—how the locker room gelled and stayed together despite that brutal start actually pointed to how well Shanahan and Lynch had started to build a team culture and how hard players would play for Shanahan, even when there was no hope for the playoffs.

I’ve already made clear what I think happened during the Super Bowl, but in general, know that the people who are making the “Shanahan chokes away leads” claim likely share a healthy Venn diagram overlap with those who have said Andy Reid can’t win the big game or that Dabo Swinney’s five-game losing streak to South Carolina (the longest in the 100+ year history of the series) was proof that Clemson would never amount to championship material. They’re right only until they’re inevitably very very wrong, and since neither accuracy nor projection are barometers for success in the sports media world, it’s unfortunately something that Shanahan will have to hear until he breaks through and wins a Lombardi trophy.

Level 2 Analysis: Drunkenly discussing with friends 

But how much did the Niners REALLY struggle to close out games last year? The Niners were 6-3 in one score games (if we include both Cardinals games in the equation), but while our defense finished 7th in points allowed/game (19.5), it was 17th in points allowed per fourth quarter (6.3). Over their last six games, we saw fourth quarter leads of nine (Falcons), ten (Chiefs), and—almost—twelve (Seahawks) evaporate in dramatic fashion. That included allowing 14+ points in the fourth quarter of five of our last seven games (despite winning three of those contests) and—in four of those five games—letting the opposition score within the last 3:36 of the game to either take the lead, tie, or get within a field goal.

Now, there is very clearly a correlation between those figures and our injury status on defense by the end of the regular season, but it would be overly optimistic to believe that was the entirety of the problem. After all, the Niners’ offense was riddled with key injuries through much of the first-half of the season, but the effect on that side of the ball in close games—save for the Seahawks OT loss—wasn’t nearly as pronounced. And while our scheme and the natural obligations of different position groups demands more depth on the defensive side (particularly along the defensive line) than on offense, we still had all of our non-IR guys back for the Super Bowl and the NFC Champ Game but allowed a combined 34 points in the fourth quarters of those two contests.  Sure, letting in 13 in the NFC Champ Game when we were up 27 may not seem like much, but there’s enough anecdotal evidence throughout the season to at least warrant a closer look.

Level 3 Analysis: Nerding the fuck out / being hammered

As is always the case, there’s a ton of noise in football stats, so I tried to look deeper into our late game questions by charting the team’s performances in the fourth quarter and overtime but excluding blowouts. Thus, the only games included in this chart (which unfortunately has to be opened in a separate Google Sheet because Squarespace lacks table functionality) are ones where the Niners or their opponent were within a score at any point in the fourth quarter. That means 12 of 19 games.  

While the reasoning behind this selection was to see how the Niners fared in higher pressure situations while both teams were playing their starters and trying their best to win, this sampling decision will inherently—based on the type of year the team had in 2019—skew against the Niners.  They had no blowout losses, didn’t lose a single game until the Super Bowl by more than one possession (on a score that happened when the game was functionally already decided), and all of the instances where they had a comfortable lead then put teams away in the fourth are missing from this chart. For clarification, the 7 games excluded from this table were all “blowout” wins, with two coming in the playoffs. So any takeaways should be met with a grain of salt.

Now is this the best way of charting for these purposes? I dunno. I took like one statistics class in college and rarely even showed up. But as I’d rather lean more pessimistic/conservative when evaluating the weaknesses of a 13-3 team that was some bad luck, a few missed opportunities, and a game filled of blatant missed holds away from winning a Super Bowl, it’s the way I went with.

Again, my apologies for the table and the write-up existing in separate windows. If there’s any solace to this formatting fail it’s that the chart is so large that perhaps it will be easier to read and reference in two windows rather than one (he said only half-believing it).

A quick glossary before we dive in:

Drives: the number of drives on offense or defense in the fourth quarter + OT. This was far from scientific, with drives that were in progress as the fourth quarter started or ended as the game did counting as 0.5 while full drives counted as 1. 

YPP: Yards per play

YPD: Yards per drive

Penalties: “Pen” marks the total number of penalties committed by either team while “P. Yards” is the net difference in yardage. For the purposes of this chart, positivity/negativity of P.Yards is in regards to how the penalty affected the Niners (i.e. negative yards while the Niners are on offense hurt the offense while negative yards when the Niners are on defense helped the offense. So a negative mark is always bad for the Niners). 

“P. FD” is how many first downs were taken away or given out based on penalties. This includes instances where a player was granted a first down despite the result on the field, but not in addition to the result. So when George Kittle rail-roaded the entire Saints team and then was face-masked thirty-yards past the sticks, the first down was already earned and so a “penalty first down” is NOT recorded.

Finally, “P. Mar” refers to marginal penalty yards, which tries to look at the hidden yardage found in particular types of penalties. While blocking penalties are likely the most common offensive penalty, they’re spot fouls that don’t reset the downs, and—on any successful run or completed pass—they take away otherwise earned yardage (i.e. a hold that comes on a five yard run can result in the exact same penalty yardage of a hold that comes early in a forty yard run). Thus their yardage impact is typically minimized in pure statistics. In contrast, the only spot fouls on defense are pass interference, which—while potentially accounting for a whopping amount of yards—spot the ball at the point of the penalty so the yardage is much more likely to be shown on the stat sheet. And while there are instances where a pick six or a sack or a would-be touchdown could be wiped out by a pass interference call, the most likely positive defensive outcome that gets erased by pass interference is typically an incomplete pass.

The shit-show of the Steelers game is a perfect example of all of this at work. In the fourth quarter, two holds and a clip on Justin Skule created -29 in official penalty yardage, while a defensive hold on Mark Barron gave the Niners 5 yards. In terms of penalty yards, that would make the Niners -25 on offense for that quarter. But while Barron’s defensive holding nullified an incomplete pass—thus making his net yards and marginal yards the same—Skule’s penalties wiped away 11 yards of offense. Thus, his marginal loss generated was -40 yards. Meanwhile, on defense, we had one -32 yard pass interference penalty from Jason Verrett on an incomplete pass. The net and marginal penalty yardage were the same. And yes, that’s right, we had -68 marginal penalty yards in the fourth quarter alone against the Steelers, which largely contributed to how hideous and close a game it was. 

Exclusions: Drives that were nearly finished (had one play to go) when they started the fourth quarter, I excluded. The same goes for last play defensive touchdowns that did nothing but mess with the spread (to end the second Cardinals game and to end the Falcons game). Those tell us nothing about our actual play and are (outside of Vegas) totally pointless to include.

Offensive Takeaways

Positives: In terms of drives and yardage, we’re nearly identical from the first three quarters to the fourth. In fact, in the fourth quarter we actually average slightly more yards, slightly fewer turnovers, and half a point more than in each of the other three quarters. We also trended the right way as we got healthier. After the first Cardinals game (in which we were missing both our starting tackles, our top swing tackle, Juice, and — by the end of the game — Kittle), the only real instances of a massive fourth quarter drop in YPP were against the Ravens and Chiefs. And while you could also include the Saints game, going from an otherworldly 10.15 YPP to 5.9 YPP—which would have been good for 6th-best in the NFL across all quarters and was only 0.1 YPP under our season average—shouldn’t reasonably be called a “massive drop.”

Our yards-per-drive (YPD) stat also sees a slight boost, but it’s important not to take away too much from that figure. Remember that drive # is the loosest figure in this chart by far and was put in primarily just to see how many times each team got the ball in the last stanza. Since it is a figure that basically rounds to the nearest half-drive, once it is divided / multiplied / manipulated it becomes increasingly irrelevant.

Negatives: The dips in yards per play (YPP) and first downs (FD) are worth noting, particularly because when you’re up in the fourth quarter the most important thing is keeping it that way. That means generating consistent yardage and first downs. Some of the 1.1 YPP difference could be explained by a natural conservative lean when you have a lead (the Niners entered 9 of 12 of these fourth quarters ahead) and how that can eliminate the big shot plays that balloon averages, but you shouldn’t actually get very conservative until much later in the fourth quarter than many people think and conservative or not, that doesn’t shed any light on the 1.1 FD drop. You’re never NOT trying to get first downs and keep the ball. Penalties could also be somewhat at fault. -3.3 marginal yards doesn’t sound like much, but it’s not hard to imagine that yardage being the difference between a stalled out drive on a third down and a narrow conversion to continue running the clock. There’s also the obvious ripples that come from a penalty putting the offense behind the sticks and that affecting future play-calling. But we’ll get into that more in detail in the second part.

Defensive Takeaways

Positives: The stats aren’t pretty, but the majority of the issues were back-loaded to the time when we had fewer healthy bodies. Other than the Steelers game and a first matchup with the Cardinals where the YPP numbers are greatly skewed by a 90-yd touchdown catch, we didn’t see a major drop-off in YPP until that Saints game in week 14 (and by the end of that game we were down Dee Ford, DJ Jones, Jaquiski Tartt, Ronald Blair, Damontre Moore, and Jullian Taylor). We also showed the ability to adapt while far from full-strength with incredibly impressive fourth quarter performances against the Ravens (2.94 YPP) and the Rams (3.09 YPP) during the second-half stretch, not to mention our work in the playoffs.

Negatives: Unfortunately, there are quite a bit of worrisome figures. The upticks in plays +4.2, yards allowed +43, and points +3.5 do not paint a friendly picture. While the first down figures may not shift much, it’s clear that opposing teams are getting bigger gains past the sticks in the fourth quarter. If you look at an even broader picture, while we finished 7th in points allowed/game (19.5) across the regular season we were T-18th in points allowed/4th quarter (6.5). The figures look even worse across this particular sample of close games. Our 8.5 points allowed/4th quarter would rank 29th in the NFL if prorated across an entire season (which isn’t a fair thing to do, but still…), and even if you take our two fourth quarter defensive touchdowns (and their two point conversions) to subtract that from that total points allowed (which is even more arguable, but whatever) our figure of 7.2 points allowed/4th quarter would still rank 25th in the league.

Again, some of this is injuries. If you take the first seven games on this chart (when we were still reasonably healthy on defense) and count the Seahawks OT game as two separate fourth quarters (as it went the entire extra stanza), our defense was allowing less than 3.4 first downs and 4.6 points allowed/4th quarter. The first figure would be excellent and much better than the 5.1 first downs conceded/quarter across the first three periods of this 12-game sample. The second figure would be good for T-4th in the NFL if extrapolated over an entire season. On the flip side, over the last five games, our first downs conceded more than doubled to 7 first downs/4th quarter and our points allowed nearly tripled to 13 points/4th quarter. Unsurprisingly, that scoring mark—if applied to an entire season—would be worst in the league. It’s important to note that it is far from fair to extrapolate either the good or the bad figures of this chart to a whole season, but it at least lets you see the potential issues at hand.

Now is there some bad penalty luck on the defensive side as well? Sure. -4.8 marginal yards and half a first down per fourth quarter can certainly be the difference when you’re looking at one score games. But that doesn’t account for such a drastic dip in performance late in games.

Again, it’s important to note these statistics are only statistics and what they’re inferring is far from world-ending. We were 13-3, on a the edge of a championship, and our 6-3 record in close games means there was considerably less luck involved—and thus, more repeatability—than, say, the 2018 Rams’ 6-1 record. While the Super Bowl hangover is something that is often referenced, I actually think we’re in a great position to avoid that fate, but finding and addressing any late-game concerns will be necessary for sustained long-term success.

We’ll look at that in the next post, coming… hopefully soon cause I don’t have a job.

Mid-Summer Questions

A lot of this last year [Niners Wire]

With NFL football still theoretically a thing and the Niners expected to report to the facility on July 26th, here are a few lingering questions before training camp begins.

Where’s Kittle’s extension and should we be scared yet?

The hang-up in getting Kittle signed to a long-term deal is likely due to a number of factors, most of which we’ve already discussed. 

Nothing has changed in terms of the poorly paid tight end market, whose highest-paid player makes $10.6M and whose franchise tender value—since its calculated by the average of the top five salaries in regards to cap percentage—is currently $10.5M. This gives the Niners leverage because they can lock in Kittle for 2020 and—if using the franchise tag—for 2021 at a grand total of about $13M. It also presents a starting point for contract negotiations. Since the tight end market is so low, even a second consecutive franchise tag—which would likely mean a 20% increase of the previous tag’s rate—would put the Niners out something like $26M over three years. And while there’s no way the Niners are pitching a $8.3M/year contract to Kittle, you can understand why they’d be hesitant to blow all other deals out of the water considering the power they hold.

On Kittle’s side, his agent wants a “Kittle deal, not a tight end deal,” which is totally fair given Kittle is definitely the best tight end in the league and his role on the Niners makes him vitally important given his skill set. There is not a single tight end in the league who could replicate Kittle’s receiving and blocking impact, and there’s an argument that there isn’t one who could replicate either given how well he fits into our scheme and what he brings to the table.

Add in the fact that sweet sweet coronavirus continues to rage on and that there’s been no concrete solution as to what the NFL plans to do to offset losses in revenue in regards to future salary cap figures, and it’s easy to see the impasse.

Am I worried about Kittle being traded for picks? Absolutely not. But I will be worried if the Niners don’t iron out a deal before the season starts. While the franchise tender may give a team control, it has burned many a bridge and usually leads to either a messy divorce or an absolutely gigantic long-term salary. Considering Kittle has been a top performer for multiple years on a fifth-round draft pick salary, he needs to get paid, and doing so this off-season would be cheaper, easier, and better than doing it later down the road.

Some expect the deal to wind up at a team-friendly $13M/year. If so, that would be a major win for the Niners.

Should we trade for Jamal Adams?

No. 

He’s both a great player and the guy we realistically should have drafted instead of Solomon Thomas back in 2017 (Pat Mahomes clearly being the player we unrealistically should have drafted), but—in terms of salary and capital lost to acquire him—we can’t afford it.

Since Adams is entering the fourth year of his rookie contract, any trade that includes Jaquiski Tartt (which I would assume would have to be the case), would actually help our cap situation for 2020 but would kill our books long-term. Adams is demanding a trade because (a) he plays for the Jets, (b) he wants to get paid as one of the top safeties in the NFL, and (c) he plays for the Jets. The five highest-paid safeties in the league average just over $14M/year. Jimmie Ward, who—despite the increased interchangeability of our safeties last year and a greater shift towards quarters coverage—plays the deep middle and is thus the more important safety for our scheme, is making $9.5M/year. There’s just no way to make the math work, especially for a scheme that ultimately wants to save money on the strong safety position.

Additionally, the amount of draft capital we’d have to give up would be untenable, especially considering how many picks we’ve lost in the past season. The Jets’ starting price is a first round pick, but—while Adams can be worth that for a team that asks for a more versatile chess piece and playmaker from the SS position—given our cap situation, scheme, and the fact that Adams has already used three years of his rookie discount years and would want an extension after this year at the latest, it’s an unfortunate no from me.

Please, for the love of god, no more trading picks. 

What will/should happen with Raheem Mostert’s contract?

I’d off-hand mentioned earlier this year how Mostert’s deal now looked like a brilliant move for the Niners since he was one of the top backs in the league last year and is making approximately $3M/year over the next two years. Well... apparently Mostert’s agent realized that as well, and—after an undetermined length of behind the scenes negotiations—went to Twitter to request a trade last week.

From the Niners’ perspective, Shanahan’s system has been churning out runners for literally decades, they run a backfield-by-committee approach, and they don’t want to set the precedent of renegotiating contracts that were just signed one year ago. They also see a 2020 salary cap that needs to juggle possible extensions to Kittle and Kendrick Bourne and a 2021 off-season that will feature a ton of key free agents and a very cloudy salary cap situation.

From Mostert’s perspective, he has clearly outplayed his contract, wants to finally get paid after a journeyman special teams career, wants more guaranteed money, and—if rumors are true—legitimately only wants to be paid like the rest of the 49ers backs (aka Tevin Coleman). That would mean a bump in $2M or less, which seems deserved.

Bridging that $2M gap seems doable, although it is annoying that it has gotten to this point for so many reasons. First off, while Shanahan’s system can create backfield production, Mostert is the prototypical ideal for it as a runner, and—while 28–he has very little tread on his legs and could theoretically age well. Mostert is a guy we should want to keep, and I think it would be presumptuous to think we can replace his production with a full platoon when he so clearly outperformed that platoon last year. Secondly, much has been made about Tevin Coleman’s lack of guarantees on the remaining $4.55M of his contract and how he could have been (or could still be) cut to save money. But since we’re so late in the process, that is no longer entirely the case. $2M of Coleman’s deal became guaranteed in the spring, and while cutting him would free up $2.55M to potentially send Mostert’s way, there is no outcome that involves moving Coleman where we’re not left disappointed that—if he was gonna get moved anyways—it wasn’t done sooner.

Obviously, this is a case where Mostert has zero leverage, but whereas a team like the Patriots has created a culture of business-first, second, and also hand jobs, sticky contract situations could be more damaging to a Niners locker room that has been repeatedly lauded as being more family-like, personally close, and transparent. While I get the worry about setting a precedent of restructuring deals one year in, I also don’t expect many guys to go from special teams to star running backs overnight (Moseley and Brunskill had similarly meteoric rises but are also ERFA, thus they’re boned regardless). Finally, while Mostert has a short track record of elite play and would almost certainly see a drop in production anywhere else, we just traded Matt Breida, Jet McKinnon hasn’t played in two years, and Tevin and Jeff Wilson are more inside runners. We need Mostert’s speed and skill set to really hum as an offense and would likely get very little in return in a trade. Coleman was seen as a discount deal for signing a 2-year deal worth ~$5M/year last off-season. Retaining a back who could potentially be an elite performer at the same rate would still—despite the running back market—make for a great deal. The goal should be to retain him.

So what would that look like? My first order of business would be to guarantee the $2.58M of his 2020 base salary, which is entirely non-guaranteed at the moment. There is zero chance we’re cutting Mostert in 2020, so guaranteeing his salary would be a nice gesture that wouldn’t affect our cap and give him a sense of security that is particularly valuable for a player whose been a journeyman most of is career, during a year where we might not even have a season. I’d then look at adding onto the pre-existing contract with incentives. For as great as Mostert’s been in his limited touches over the past two years, he only rushed for 772 yards last year. It would be incredibly easy to structure NLTBE incentives above his 2019 numbers, which would then move over to next year’s cap if actualized (if that’s what we want), while protecting the team if he gets injured, doesn’t perform well, or the season is cut short. If the Niners believe more so that the season will be cut short or not played at all, they could set lower marks and make those incentives LTBE, affecting this year’s cap but giving us a potentially-much-needed boost to next year’s figure if those marks aren’t hit. I don’t know what Mostert’s team wants after this year, but a similar move—and/or an increase in non-guaranteed base salary—could likely be managed for 2021, and seeing as the Niners would be doing a solid by restructuring a contract a year in, I would push for an additional, team-friendly option year to tack on to the back of the contract. That would give us more locked in years if Mostert does emerge as a true bell cow back, some flexibility if he doesn’t, and another year to potentially spread out any guaranteed money cap hits in case the 2021 cap absolutely plummets. 

I’m not in the negotiating room, but that seems fair to all parties. Shanahan is likely never going to give a single running back a monster share of carries, but if Mostert becomes the lead back on the team he gets paid like it while the Niners are protected against potential issues of sample size and injury history that have hurt Mostert in the past. 

What will happen with the salary cap next year and how does that affect both of the above?

Now everything above could be void if (a) there is no season this year and/or (b) the salary cap is fuuuuuuucked in 2021.

Since the salary cap is directly tied to revenue, there is no way to imagine that it won’t be down in 2021, which would mark the first time the salary cap has NOT increased since... I dunno, but—for functional purposes at least—ever.

If the cap takes a major hit, it’s a lose-lose for everyone except a handful of cheap-ass owners with a ton of cap space (Mike Brown, anyone?). That would lead to a lot of talented veterans getting cut, much cheaper deals all around, all teams and the overall level of play being way shittier, and—in general—large scale shuffling of rosters that benefits no one (except, again, those usually-shit owners who would likely still be cheap and blame it on the rona). A dip in the salary cap punishes good teams and good players, so—to me—the reasonable move from both sides would be to accept the drop in revenue this year and use projected future earnings to spread out that drop across multiple years. Thus, any money lost this year in revenue cuts into the revenue gains of the however many x years that follow. Then the salary cap can stay largely stagnant until the revenue gains have replenished the losses and it can grow again. The NFL is not like movie theaters or giant buffet chains, it’s being temporarily threatened not permanently threatened. The giant evil empire known as the shield can expect a return to massive revenue post-COVID and with a new TV deal in place (those negotiations will be interesting...), as long as they don’t royally fuck things up now.

Which brings us to our final question. While the Niners’ negotiations are clearly tied in part to uncertainty about the salary cap moving forward, is there a chance that part of the reason the team has been dragging its feet is because it strongly believes there won’t be a season to begin with? Or that the season will be shortened to the point that it will genuinely effect contractual obligations? If that’s the case, the complexity of contract years, payouts, etc. is going to be massively complicated, and perhaps the Niners are just waiting until as much of that is cleared up as possible before pulling the trigger on any new contracts.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

COVID, baby.