49ers 31, Jets 13

Athleticism and hands? Check. Ball security? TBD [Sarah Stier]

Boring games? Lots of backups? Devastating injuries out of nowhere? And they said there wasn’t gonna be a preseason this year.

But in all seriousness, when you’re comfortable pulling your starting quarterback and running back at halftime despite being up “only” 18 points, you know this one’s a snoozer. That being said, it was a chance for lots of young guys to get a bunch of snaps and gave us a much-needed win—even if it didn’t feel like one given the massive injuries we sustained in the process.

Hello darkness my old friend... We are just two weeks into the season and—by the start of the second half—we were down nine starters, three of them All-Pro talents. We know as much as we can about the PUP and IR guys; as of now it seems like they’re on schedule. George Kittle could likely play this week? Although given the Niners’ outspoken thoughts about the turf at MetLife Stadium, perhaps he’s held out one more week. That turf is likely to dictate decisions on Raheem Mostert and Jimmy Garoppolo as well. Mostert will be in Ohio this week for the birth of his next child. While his injury doesn’t seem severe, the Niners are deep at running back and may not to rush him back on a short week of practice (he probably wouldn’t be practicing anyways) onto the same turf that led to so many injuries this weekend. Jimmy G has the dreaded high-ankle sprain, but—depending on its severity—that’s something that he might be able to play on given his position. I’d expect the Niners to hold him out at least this week, but with a Sunday night matchup looming with an underachieving but very talented Eagles squad, how fast he’s back may in part be based on how well Nick Mullens performs in his stead.

The news seems more dire for Nick Bosa and Solomon Thomas, who both—as of this writing—are suspected of having torn ACLs. While Solly wasn’t an elite player along our defensive line, he was named the starter at the three-tech for a reason. Without him, rookie Javon Kinlaw will be forced into a starting role and more snaps—to his credit, Kinlaw has played well thus far—while finally healthy (knock on wood) Kentavius Street and second-year player Kevin Givens will need to take on larger roles. UDFA rookie Darrion Daniels, currently developing on the practice squad, may even get a promotion for depth. Jullian Taylor will come off the PUP list eventually and provide much-needed reinforcements, but as we learned from last year, our defense is greatly affected when it loses rotational pieces along the DL.

As for Bosa, there’s really no replacing the reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year, elite edge rusher, and preseason favorite for DPOTY. His blend of speed and power is rare, and—when you add in his technical mastery at such a young age—pretty much unheard of across the league. There’s a reason that Bosa, in just his second season, was named the third-best edge rusher in the NFL by a group of execs, coaches, and players. Bosa is likely our best player on defense. Even with a next-man-up philosophy, the Niners will surely have to adjust schematically to generate more pressure, and that’s not something they’ve liked doing in the past. Ronald Blair will return from the PUP list in a matter of weeks, but until then it’s likely that Dion Jordan will see a practice squad promotion or two (if not a full role on the active roster). I’d also expect the Niners to kick the tires on Ezekiel Ansah—who they’ve brought in multiple times this off-season—and potentially Damontre Moore. Expect at least one of them to be signed within the next few days.

OFFENSE

The Jets defense was pretty much as expected. Stout against the run but with questions about their edge speed—a question that we answered pretty clearly on the first play of the game. Other than the 80-yard opener and 55-yard run on third-and-31 (lol), the rest of our carries totaled 47 yards on 27 carries at a paltry 1.7 YPC clip. The passing game was needed in this one, and we were hugely efficient in that regard. 

The pee wee football special: The lead toss was amazing in this one, springing Mostert for an 80-yard TD on this opening play.

Mostert lead toss TD pic.twitter.com/BWCiccacTU

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 21, 2020

Our alignment (twins away from tight end) forces the Jets to set their “true” strong safety (Marcus Maye) to the passing strength. Motion towards the closed tight end makes us “even” again with the goal being to target the three DBs highlighted above in the run game with angles and size advantages.

#30 Bradley McDougald may be lined up as a linebacker but he’s the safety the Jets got from the Seahawks as part of the Jamal Adams trade. He’s got decent size at 6-2 215 pounds, but he’s still a defensive back. In the box. Against our 21 personnel.

I am still amazed every time teams try to start the game like this.

This is our stretch blocking scheme, with two key blocks highlighted in blue.

On the edge, Ross Dwelley is chipping with a mandatory outside release—giving McGlinchey help on the edge defender—as this is the key block to the play. If you miss the hook this play often turns into a tackle for loss before it can even get started.

On the inside Ben Garland made his presence felt early. While our backup center, he’s an excellent athlete and has performed incredibly well for us in the run game. Here he’s tasked with working up to the second level and erasing the mike linebacker as he flows play-side.

At this point, the play-side blocks have been engaged, creating this gigantic running lane for Mostert. They may not know it yet, but the Jets are already screwed.

This is a better look at exactly how screwed the Jets are. It’s also a better look at the extent to which Garland dominated his man.

Since Mostert is Mostert, he was able to burst through the hole before any defenders could adjust or slide off their blocks. Since he is still Mostert, the angles of the two defenders three and five yards down field from him will be roasted in short order. While we’ve got a lot of speed in our backfield, Mostert’s speed is something else. He is unquestionably the biggest homerun threat at running back in the league right now.

Mostert could have had—with no exaggeration—230 yards and three scores on just lead tosses in this game. The 67-yard score called back on an unnecessary hold was a lead toss, as was McKinnon’s third-and-31 conversion (again, lol), which Mostert likely would have housed. Eventually, the Jets did adjust, having their second-line sell hard play-side to penetrate whenever they saw Ross Dwelley in-line and Juice in the backfield. But by then the damage was done. 

Double tight incoming: With so many weapons out, some second-line dudes had a chance to shine. Obviously the biggest standout was Jordan Reed, who looked smooth, caught the ball very well, and looked fresh and athletic in space. Given his injury history, the Niners would like to do a “load management” kind of situation with Reed, but whenever they do decide to employ double tight looks with Kittle and Reed, they’ll have some serious matchup advantages in the passing game.

Aiyuk sighting: Aiyuk was far from a difference-maker in this one but—while his first catch was on a very rookie-like snag on a pass that was likely intended to someone else—he flashed some serious athleticism and YAC ability with the ball in his hands. Something to look forward to for later. Hopefully not too much later. Or just soon.

Jimmy G rebound: Despite suffering what is likely a high-ankle sprain, Garoppolo played incredibly well in this one, completing 14-of-16 for 131 yards and two scores, grading out at an astronomical 99.6 QBR (out of 100), and guiding the Niners to a 21-3 lead entering halftime. It’s a nice bounce back game for Garoppolo—even if it wasn’t against the most intimidating of opponents—so it was a bummer to see him knocked out of the game (even if it gave us a Nick Mullens sighting). We need Jimmy G to get as many reps and as much rhythm going as possible. Despite an uneven performance in week one, the fact still remains that Garoppolo will need to take a step forward this year if we’re to accomplish our goals—especially with a front that is down DeFo and Bosa.

DEFENSE

I get Jets CEO Chris Thompson publicly backing Adam Gase after media concern following the Jets’ opener. After all, no one benefits from going all Jerry Jones and blasting your coach when he’s still your coach. But calling Gase an “offensive genius” is borderline insulting. It’s like when Comcast advertises their incredible service. It’s such a lie and so clearly targets a product’s known weakness as a strength that it almost seems like a troll job aimed at your own fans. 

Quick game: Offensive game plans will certainly adjust now that teams don’t have to account for Bosa, but the Jets did exactly what was expected in this one. They committed to the run game despite average returns and threw almost entirely out of the quick game.

Initially the Jets had some “success” with this game plan. In the first half, Darnold was 9-of-11 for 65 yards, converted a third-down scramble, only suffered a single sack, and—due in part to the Niners blitzing more after losing Bosa and Thomas on near back-to-back plays—was able to find open space underneath while leading the Jets on 11- and 13-play drives into Niners territory. Even though those drives netted just a single field goal and the Jets’ 3.93 YPP in the first half would have been worst in the league over all of last year—0.7 YPP less than the worst offense in 2019, which was... (checks notes) also the Jets—you could at least see how they hoped to stay in this one just by making the game as short and boring as possible. 

But the quick game can only take you so far, and in the second half Saleh and the defense adjusted despite being down to only six defensive linemen. The safeties crept up on their man and curl/flat responsibilities—rightfully disregarding the Jets’ deep threat as anything more than theoretical—and Saleh dialed up a few blitz looks that were setup specifically to take away the quick game outside the hashes.

Armstead bat down pic.twitter.com/pvA1VywWbZ

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 21, 2020

The Niners crowd the LOS here, trying to get a free rusher due to OL confusion. Each of the seven guys on the line will take at least one first step downhill like they’re rushing—in hopes of pulling the attention of a blocker—before the non-rushers peel off into coverage responsibilities.

We’re allowed to show this kind of an aggressive look because (A) it’s third-and-nine so we’re not worried about any underneath stuff as long as long as it’s not chunk plays, (B) the offense has been attacking short game outside the hashes all game, and (C) we’re playing the Jets.

The Jets have dialed up a designed one-man quick out that’s meant to look like a stick route. They’re likely looking at numbers outside (a 3-2 advantage) and believing that two blocks will give their wideout tons of room to run before our high safety can come down and tackle him.

Now, you might be thinking: why are the Jets running a two-yard out on third-and-nine?

As mentioned above, they are the Jets.

Armstead and Warner are the peel-off defenders in this situation. Warner bails to the trips side—potentially in man coverage on the third receiver (kind of hard to tell for sure the coverage given how fast the pass is out, but it looks like man across the board).

Meanwhile, Armstead widens along the line of scrimmage, sliding outside with the goal of reading Darnold’s eyes and feet to get into the passing lane. If the Jets were running a pass concept down the field, Armstead would quickly become useless in this position, but since the Jets have been leaning so heavily on quick game outside the hashes, Saleh has the confidence to call this play and he’s rewarded.

It’s pretty much impossible to see Armstead batting down this pass from this shot, but trust me, it happened. This is the benefit of having a 6-7 former college basketball player on your defensive line.

In response to us keying the short game, Adam Gase—as he is wont to do—didn’t really adjust at all. If you exclude the garbage touchdown drive against our backups, the Jets ran 22 plays for 93 yards in the second half. It was a horrendous showing. 

Kerry Hyder’s emergence: In back-to-back games and—in this one at least—major snaps, Kerry Hyder has really come on as our first defensive end off the bench… although with Bosa out the rest of the year, Hyder won’t be off the bench anymore. For more than a few reasons, it’s a shame that Bosa went down in the fashion that he did. If he (and the Niners as a whole) had better luck, the emergence of Hyder and the impending PUP return of Ronald Blair would have given us a five-deep edge rotation of talented rushers. That kind of depth would have netted a monstrous advantage down the stretch. Alas. 

As it stands now, the Niners are down nine starters, at least three of them All-Pros, and while some players are close to returning and reinforcements may be on the horizon, this certainly takes the damper out of such a resounding win.

That is all.

Go Niners 👍🏈

Preview: Wk 2 @ Jets

Almost certainly their best player, playing the position their former best player used to play [USA Today]

Date: 9/20
Location: East Rutherford, NJ
Kickoff: 10 AM PT
TV: FOX, or wherever you stream it illegally

The worst part about playing the Jets is that it means you’re required to watch at least one Jets game this season. But despite their lack of aesthetic appeal, their historically bad injury luck, their young quarterback missing three games with mono (lol), and the fact that they played in a division with two double-digit win teams, the Jets still managed to scrape together a 7-9 record last year on the heels of a 6-2 finish. So perhaps there’s more than meets the eye with this squad? 

Or maybe not.

INJURY REPORT

As of Wednesday: Despite playing all of the second half, George Kittle was diagnosed with a knee sprain after the game. He’s unlikely to practice this week and—while he remains optimistic—his status for the game is unclear… even more shocking—although it explains why they worked out four corners this week—Richard Sherman was placed on short-term IR on Wednesday with what is supposedly a calf injury. He won’t be eligible to return until the Dolphins game in week 5… in his stead, Ahkello Witherspoon is expected to start, that is if he passes the concussion protocol, while Jason Verrett, our would-be next corner up, deals with a hamstring injury. Neither are practicing on Wednesday, but either or both could play Sunday… Richie James’ hamstring injury kept him out of practice on Wednesday. My guess would be he doesn’t play, but there’s a shot… Deebo Samuel, placed on short-term IR before the Cardinals game, will have to sit out two more games. The earliest he’s eligible to return is the early October night game against the Eagles… On the bright side, Ben Garland and Brandon Aiyuk both practiced in full on Wednesday. Barring any setbacks, they seem on track to make their 2020 debuts (or for Aiyuk, his NFL debut) this weekend.

I’m not going to go into the Jets’ injury report except to say the Le’Veon Bell was put on short-term IR with a hamstring injury meaning that the Jets’ starting running back in this game could be… Frank Gore(!!!).

NEW GUYS

On Tuesday the Niners signed receiver Mohamed Sanu to a one-year deal. Last year, Sanu was the guy the Niners were after at the trade deadline but—to our benefit—the Patriots outbid us, and we instead got Emmanuel Sanders. While I wouldn’t hold out hope that Sanu makes a Sanders-like impact, at 6-2, 215 pounds, Sanu is a big-bodied possession receiver who will bring value to the offense with his route-running ability, sure hands, and his physical nature on underneath routes. While not an electric athlete or particularly dynamic with the ball in his hands, he’ll bring a veteran presence to our green receiving corps. 

COVID regulations mean Sanu won’t be able to practice with the Niners until Friday, but he could still see limited snaps this weekend given his knowledge of Shanahan’s playbook from their time together in Atlanta. Once he sees the field, Sanu will likely be a contested catch specialist—taking some snaps at X and perhaps playing some of the big slot role that was envisioned for Jalen Hurd/Jauan Jennings. At the moment, he’s an emergency bandaid for our many injury woes. As our receiving corps returns to health it’s harder to say what his role will be. Finally—while it is way too early to imagine him deeply involved in our offense—it’s worth noting that Sanu has an excellent arm. Whether out of the wildcat or on gadget plays, Sanu has a career passing line of 7-of-8 for 233 yards and 4 touchdowns and a perfect QB rating. 

Just sayin. 

To bolster our dwindling cornerback room, the Niners have officially moved Dontae Johnson up to the active roster (he was a practice squad game day pull-up last Sunday). FWIW, the blocked punt likely wasn’t his fault. Regardless, I am still somewhat terrified of seeing him on defense considering he started all 16 games for us in 2017 and routinely got roasted. He’s had two years since then. I’ll trust the staff that he’s improved vastly during that time. For anyone asking “well why don’t we bring up Tim Harris from the practice squad?”, I was thinking the same thing… until I saw he was put on the practice squad/IR just this week with a calf injury. The Niners added two more CBs to the practice squad to replace Harris and Johnson and scooped up Ken Webster from the Dolphins practice squad and onto our active roster. Webster was a 2019 seventh-round pick by the Patriots, who—after being cut—was picked up by the Dolphins and started 5 games last year. I have never seen him play and have absolutely no idea what he brings to the table. Fingers crossed he doesn’t have to see the field.

DEFENSE

The Jets had one of the worst offenses in the league last year, ranking dead-last in Offensive DVOA, dead-last in passing DVOA, and second-to-last in rushing DVOA (to only the Dolphins, who were purposefully a JV squad for the first half of the year).

If there’s hope it’s that would-be franchise QB Sam Darnold was 9th-best in the league against zone coverage and 32nd against man. That means (a) the Bills and Patriots absolutely took his goddamn lunch, and (b) the Jets probably didn’t have the talent to be good on offense last year anyway (yes, this counts as hope when you’re a Jets fan). Team brass responded by bringing in six new starters on offense, including four(!) new offensive linemen, size-speed ratio boss Denzel Mims, and Breshad Perriman—who had a career year last season in Tampa… but that was as a fourth option in a loaded Bruce Arians offense. These additions, combined with the reliable but unspectacular slot play of Jamison Crowder, the return of tight end Chris Herndon—who showed promise as a rookie before missing all but 18 snaps of last year due to suspension and injury—and a (hopefully) healthy season from Darnold should have the Jets’ offensive arrow pointing up because, well... there is literally no way it could get any worse.

But personnel isn’t the only problem. Under Gase, the Jets have had the pleasure of an offense that is both stubborn and predictable—leading to one of the single-worst early-down success rates in the league and an average third down distance coming in at 8.1(!) yards to go. That is not a combo you want. All last year the Jets were awful on first down, which set up second-and-longs where they’d usually go into heavy personnel and—despite all data saying that you should pass on second-and-long—call an unsuccessful run play, which would in turn lead to them getting wrecked on third-and-long. It was a vicious cycle and one that Gase seemed uninterested in stopping.

Ultimately, this is a group of skill players that you need to scheme open, and the Jets just have not created many easy completions. Darnold’s raw stats may be ugly, but he actually ranked 15th in the league in output over expected completion percentage (there’s that Jets hope again), but his expected completion percentage was a meager 36th of 39 qualifiers. You’d think play action would help, but out of their heavy sets the Jets were near the bottom of the league in terms of pass-likelihood, and when they did throw out of 12, 13, or 21 personnel, they typically did it from under center—this despite Darnold having otherworldly production (on small sample sizes) when throwing from those sets out of the gun (12.0 YPA and a near-perfect 156.3 QB rating). 

But perhaps the Jets are trying to change. In week one, they seemed to lean more gun-heavy with the intent of opening things up a bit. While that may give them some long-term hope, it clearly didn’t amount to much against the Bills. The Jets totaled 254 yards of offense on 4.8 YPP, 69 of which came on this short catch and run to Jamison Crowder. 

Jamison Crowder goes 69-yards to the 🏠

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/L0y5RMDJx2

— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) September 13, 2020

On passes with air travel upwards of 15 yards, the Jets were 1-for-6 with an interception last week. On throws over 30 yards IN HIS CAREER Darnold is 6-30 with four touchdowns and three picks. With that in mind and their top tailback injured, I’d expect them to try and dink-and-dunk against us—hoping for better success against our defense as we blitz less and play more zone. Even without Sherman, I’d expect the Niners to stress fundamentals and tendencies in this game after a sloppy finish against the Cardinals. Our DL missed DeFo in the opener; against a Jets’ OL that’s still getting settled, we need a good showing upfront if our team’s going to have anywhere near the ceiling that we’d like to this year.

Despite having potential, Darnold has—all the way since college—consistently been a turnover machine, especially when trying to freelance while under pressure. Given this fact, plus Gase’s predictability and the likelihood for long downs and distances, a well-timed blitz or two could pay dividends. Darnold fumbled 11 times in only 13 games last year, so if he scrambles look for more Kwon Alexander karate chop action (despite some issues last week, Kwon does create splash plays and forced at least two fumbles against the Cards). In general, I think all three of our linebackers will have to play well, as they’ll be tasked with handling a lot of underneath work and their coverage skills will be even more important with our corners banged up. With the injuries we have at the position, the Jets will surely try and test our boundaries, but it’s TBD if they have the talent to do so. Hopefully our strength in the front seven and deep zone scheme on the back-end will take the pressure off our new corners. Overall, this is still their weakness versus our strength, so it should be a game where we can iron out some kinks, adjust to what we want to do differently this year on defense, and settle down after last week’s late-game struggles.

DEFENSE

In contrast to the Jets’ offense, the defense impressed in its first year under Gregg Williams. While the D—just like the team’s overall record—benefited from an easy schedule that included facing only three teams in the top 14 in passing DVOA all year, the Jets still finished the season 11th in Defensive DVOA, 20th in Passing DVOA, and 2nd in Rushing DVOA. This was despite being the most injury-affected defense in the league.

Give Gregg Williams credit. Sure, he is almost certainly a douche, and looks like a bad guy from a nineties teen movie, and—given the fact that he’s coached for 7 teams in the past 12 years—probably hard to work with; and yeah, while he was with the Saints he put out bounties on our players during the 2012 playoffs and later wrote it off as “nothing that hadn’t been done before;” and okay, when the Browns fired their head coach and offensive coordinator and promoted Williams to interim HC simply because he was the only warm body left, he may have taken the time—in his very first press conference as HC—to boast/probably lie about how, despite his 17-31 career record, he was in such high demand that he’d received 11 head coaching offers, four of which said he “didn’t even have to interview, just show up and sign the contract.” Despite all that… ah, I forgot what I was gonna say.  

Williams runs an aggressive 3-4 zone-blitzing scheme. Last year he sent extra dudes at the fourth-highest rate in the league, succeeding both when his defense blitzed and when it bluffed looks pre-snap to bait bad throws underneath. In almost direct contrast to our scheme, which uses a four-man pass rush with little blitzing and alternates deep coverage looks to take away the big play first, the Jets—while running the fifth-most zone coverage in the league—ran considerably more Cover 2 than Cover 4. While we choose to rally up from deep-to-short, they’re hunting for turnovers by crowding the shorter zones and trusting that their extra rushers will get home before they can get beat over the top with the deep ball.

Their run defense is the unit’s obvious strength, which is impressive considering the Jets ran their nickel defense for 77% of their snaps in 2019, a strategy which both mitigated the loss of free agent linebacker CJ Moseley—who missed all but two games last year then opted out of this season—and got Brian Poole—one of the best nickel corners in the game—on the field more often. They were able to play small while excelling against the run because (a) they have a strong, big-bodied DL that ranked best in the league in terms of adjusted line yards against the run, and (b) they had swiss-army knife Jamal Adams who played mostly around the LOS.

In addition to his ability against the run and in coverage, Adams was second on the team in sacks last season and led all Jets in QB hits. There’s some hope that rookie DE Jabari Zuniga could become a pass rush presence sooner rather than later, but he got put on IR on Monday. There’s also optimism that Quinnen Williams, last year’s 3rd overall pick, will add some pressure capability with the increased maturation and slimmed-down frame that he’s sported this off-season, but that didn’t translate in the opener. Realistically, replacing Adams will largely rely on how Marcus Maye—the team’s second-best defensive player last year—takes over Adams’ old role near the LOS. With 10 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 TFLs, 2 pass deflections, and a forced fumble in the opener, the results have been largely positive. Losing Adams may not be as big a blow as expected, and their run defense at least—after holding the Bills running backs to 2.3 YPC in the opener—seems to be just as stout as last year.

However, against the pass there are question marks, the biggest of which being the team’s cornerbacks. Other than Poole, the Jets are relying on Blessaun “someone’s parents liked God” Austin—a potential breakout second-rounder who performed well as a rookie—and Pierre Desir—who was just jettisoned from the Colts one year into a three-year extension. The group is unproven and just allowed Bills receivers to account for 23 receptions and 247 yards of Josh Allen’s career-high 312 passing yards last week. It would be nice to test them in the passing game. We’ll see if we have enough healthy bodies out wide to do so.

While it would be nice to have a week 2 foe that we could easily shred on the ground and hit over the top for some confidence-boosting play action bombs (see: 2019 Bengals), we’re going to have to execute to consistently move the ball in this one. This defense could actually be good. While Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, and (checks notes) Ryan Fitzpatrick(?) all had success as running quarterbacks against this defense, the Jets haven’t allowed a 100-yard rusher (Ezekiel Elliott) since week 6 of last year. They’re big and stout against the run but have pass rush questions and potential coverage issues in their back seven. This is a game where we may need to pass to open up the running game, and with a zone blitz scheme that likes to send extra rushers and drop underneath defenders into unexpected spots (aka the 2019 Jimmy G interception blueprint), our offense would benefit in a big way if our quarterback can muster a bounce back game on the road.

The Niners are considerably more talented than the Jets. After last week’s disappointment, this would be a great chance to make that abundantly clear. But in order to make this game delightfully boring and drama-free, our offense—and in particular our passing game—will have to be much more in sync than it was last week. The laundry list of injuries, but they can either be something that derails us as a team or an opportunity for backups to get valuable snaps—which in turn gives us more depth as the season goes on. Let’s hope it’s the latter.

Go Niners 👍🏈

Cardinals 24, 49ers 20

Some bullshit about the scoring system in horseshoes [Paul Kitagaki Jr.]

Well that sucked.

In a game that felt somewhere between last year’s matchups against the Steelers and Falcons but with a result more like the latter, the Niners dropped their first game of the season to go 0-1 while every other team in the division won. 

Already, there’s some catching up to do.

OFFENSE

Despite a hot start to the game that saw us put up 190 yards and 10 points (should have been 17) on 22 plays for an outstanding 8.63 yard per play average—our offense fizzled for large stretches of the mid-game. Tasked with pulling out two would-be go-ahead touchdown drives to secure the game in the fourth quarter, our discombobulated passing attack fell just short.

Wideout Shortage: With Samuel and Aiyuk sidelined, the Niners entered the game with four healthy wideouts. Then Richie James got hurt early (he played only 10 snaps, including specials), giving us three. While the team went in knowing that they’d be limited and would have to target their backs and tight ends more in the passing game, having only three wideouts—one of them almost exclusively a slot receiver—pretty much relegated the team to 12, 21, and 22 personnel the rest of the way. When the Niners did line up with all three of their healthy wideouts, the results were pretty rough. Per PFF:

With three or more wide receivers on the field, San Francisco produced -0.7 expected points added per pass, by far the lowest among offenses on such plays today.

Even with an injured Kittle a non-factor in the second half, the backs and tight ends tallied 15 catches, 218 yards, and 2 TDs through the air. In contrast, the receivers combined for 4 grabs for 41 yards. It’s not even that our wideouts played all that poorly, just that their No.1 on our No.3–and the snowball effect that creates for matchups down the line—isn’t a battle we should expect to dominate. Clearly we need more health and production from our wideouts moving forward. As of now Aiyuk is expected to play on Sunday. Even if he does, the Niners may have a chat with Mohamed Sanu during the week.

OL stock check: With Ben Garland a game-time inactive, practice squadder Hroniss Grasu became our starting center. All things considered, he seemed to play okay. Right guard Daniel Brunskill actually struggled more, giving up an early sack and missing some blocks in the run game—likely in part since he had to take mostly center snaps during training camp. Beside Brunskill, McGlinchey didn’t have his best game either, making our right side inconsistent in the opener.

Despite that our OL played okay as a unit, helping us rush for 123 on 4.9 yards per carry despite an often wavering passing attack. But there was one very clear positive. Trent Williams seems to be living up to the hype—as evidenced by this snuff film:

This Trent Williams pancake 🥞 @brgridiron

(via @thecheckdown)pic.twitter.com/xYcCYC0Arc

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) September 13, 2020

While our long run of the game was an early 16-yard scamper from Mostert, we were on the brink of a few big gains, including the play above—where it’s a TD if Trent Taylor makes his block—and the Mostert bend-back where Budda narrowly tripped him up—turning a likely 60-yard touchdown scamper into a 3-yard gain. Ultimately our split flow backfield blocking action seemed to give us the most success. We could have potentially gone to it more often to off-set their aggressive front seven, but the looks were there; we should expect to hit more of them in future weeks.

Isaiah Simmons Watch: The Cardinals used their first round pick in way more positions than I’d have expected given the matchup. This led to—ahem—mixed results. Per PFF:

[Simmons] logged 18 snaps in total, lining up in the box, slot, defensive line and at outside corner. What he did in coverage, however, was nothing like what we saw from him at Clemson. On his eight coverage snaps, Simmons was targeted three times — he allowed three catches for 86 yards and two touchdowns.

That includes this beauty of a play, where Shanahan uses alignments and deep route combinations to pull every single defender out of the way and create a runway down the middle of the field. Anything that’s made into a foot race is good for us, and this play saw Mostert hit a top speed of 22.74 mph, the fastest speed of any ball carrier over the past two years.

Mosterati was GONE 💨@RMos_8Ball with the 76-yard touchdown! #FTTB pic.twitter.com/LFMJ6SuvSG

— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) September 13, 2020

I don’t hate the nickname.

Simmons also had a 15-yard penalty on the very first play of the game and was a big part in the (at the time) go-ahead touchdown. The rookie’s got talent, but… not a great start.

Jimmy “Not Great, Bob” Garoppolo. Man he struggled, especially down the stretch. He looked bad. Probably the worst he’s looked over a full game since... week 1 of last year against the Bucs? He had some success early, seemed to be in rhythm, but his timing and accuracy really wavered as the game went on. Part of that was due to the pressure he was facing, but despite all of our issues offensively, we had guys open for potential big plays and we simply couldn’t make it happen.

Juice leak out wheel pic.twitter.com/hKGdFIEjBm

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 15, 2020

Considering the pressure he was facing on his throwing side, I’ll cut Jimmy some slack here. You’d have liked for him to come off the left side earlier after looking off the safety, but it’s hard to blame him in full given he couldn’t step, slide, or follow through towards the open man.

RZ Mostert Wheel pic.twitter.com/G9gagB2kLC

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 15, 2020

Here the Niners use a three-man cluster of tight ends and backs to create confusion on defensive assignments. While Chandler Jones recognizes and widens to contact Mostert out of the backfield, Mostert is our #1 read here and this is the exact matchup we want. Garoppolo pops off the read in a hurry, missing the fact that Jones lets Mostert go—handing him off to a DB who never arrives. This leads to a blown coverage so severe that it alarms both Jones and Mostert.

You and me both, Raheem. You and me both.

It takes a special kind of open for your mild-mannered former special teamer running back to start throwing his arms up in the air for the ball. Jimmy needs to see and hit that layup for a touchdown. 

KB underthrow pic.twitter.com/YMoJyppdwN

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 15, 2020

This one is entirely on Jimmy G, and seeing as I have no access to coaches film at the moment, this is the best look you’re gonna get at it. With no pressure and KB running an outstanding route to get wide open, Jimmy G has to make this throw. It’s literally the ballgame.

And of course it was Jimmy G’s inaccuracy (and a missed block out wide) which led to what was potentially the most important play of the game—the fast screen to Kittle that sailed high and ultimately led to (what has now been diagnosed as) a knee sprain.

Sure, Kittle came back in the second half and finished the game, but he wasn’t targeted once or involved in the game plan. I shouldn’t have to remind anyone how important Kittle is to our offensive success, but here’s a look at what it was like in week 1.

Before the knee sprain: 30 plays, 227 yards, 7.57 YPP
After the knee sprain: 31 plays, 139 yards, 4.48 YPP

Did an emphasis on avoiding turnovers over make Jimmy G gun-shy in this opening week? Did the constant pressure throw off his timing? Did a lack of faith in his receivers make cause him to hesitate? Does he just suck in season openers? I dunno, but he looked skittish in the pocket, was late on a number of reads and passes, and simply wasn’t putting the ball in the right spots with the right velocity this game. He’ll need to right the ship quickly while on the road with an offense that will continue to be undermanned.

DEFENSE

Now you know why I insist on Bill O’Brien keeping up with his steady meal plan of dicks. Think of what this Cardinals offense would have looked like without DeAndre Hopkins. Alas, this is the world we live in, and the Murray to Hopkins combo is a problem we’ll have to see twice a year for many years to come. Hooray.

Stop Routes 4ever: In this game the Niners started flipping Sherman and Moseley depending on what hash the ball was on. Sherm would play the wide or field side of the defense while Moseley would play the short or boundary side. It didn’t do much in the opener as DeAndre Hopkins loves boundary play and simply feasted on stop routes.

The Cardinals repeatedly used alignments and route combinations to pull the flat defender out of the way, creating one-on-one matchups with Hopkins on our corners—who are usually playing zone coverage over top—and vacating the space underneath for all manner of stop routes, outs, comebacks, and back shoulders. It’s not something we weren’t prepared for, but now the Cardinals have one of the best wideouts in the league; thus, in large quantities, these plays became difference-makers and chain-movers.

A big veteran like Sherman—who has the size, length, and ability to bang down the field with Hopkins and break hard on these comeback type routes—at least has a chance to do something about those kinds of plays. Moseley, for as much potential as he has, was out of his element. He had to give cushion to prevent the deep bomb, and that meant he was routinely a half-step short breaking on Hopkins’ stop routes.

This is the kind of problem you run into when you alternate largely between Cover 3 and Quarters. Hopkins had 151 of the team’s 230 receiving yards, but—with the exception of that 33 yard crosser in the fourth quarter against a busted coverage—averaged only 9 yards a catch on what seemed like an endless barrage of variations of what is at its heart the same exact route. These completions—combined with our out-of-sync passing attack—fed the Cardinals’ massive third down conversion advantage, which in turn gassed our defense.

Again, this is nothing new, as we’ve seen these routes repeatedly from the Cardinals, Seahawks, and the Falcons last year. But if we aren’t comfortable with our corners playing more physically at the line of scrimmage to combat it, we need to find ways of employing some kind of change-up coverage to take away those easy completions. At one point in the third quarter it looked like we were toying with exactly that.

On third-and-nine, the Cardinals want to hit Hopkins on the deep out equivalent of a back shoulder fade.

The Niners show a two-deep off coverage, implying some form of quarters/Cover 4.

But on the snap, instead of sitting back deep, Jimmie Ward creeps up towards the LOS while Kwon, instead of widening to play the flat, sprints to undercut any comeback or (potentially) in-breaking route from Hopkins. Now, there’s a chance I’m full of shit and Kwon just widened out to No.1 because he saw the back (No.2 receiver) block down, but given Ward’s reaction at the snap, I feel like this is an intentional split coverage to combat the two-man isolation game from Hopkins.

As you can see from this alternate angle (sorry again, without coaches cam it’s hard to show this smoothly), Kwon and Sherman are running some sort of high-low game on Hopkins. But in this case, the completion was made anyways cause of course it was. Did Kwon go too far down field and not widen enough or was he told to play inside and under? Was Sherman playing too far inside, expecting a more tradition stop route? Who knows, but the two talked this through while en route back to the huddle after the play, so there’s something to this, and we’re one of the few teams that has the speed at linebacker to pull this kind of things off.

While it didn’t work this time, it at least seems to imply that the Niners are trying out change-ups and trap coverages to counteract the teams that try to abuse stop routes against our Cover 3/Cover 4 looks—even if those coverages are still a bit of a work-in-progress at the moment.

Murray scrambles: By the second half we weren’t doing the best job of keeping our lane integrity on pass rushes, and—when that happened—Murray made us pay. 

It also didn’t help that we couldn’t touch him. I’m sorry, but if a quarterback is allowed to slide cleats up into a defender’s knees repeatedly—a move which leads to cleared dugouts and plunked batters in baseball because of how dangerous it is—defenders should be able to hit him when he’s diving forward for extra yardage. And they definitely should be able to lightly tap him on the shoulder. 

A head-first dive means you should be fair game, just like you are on every QB sneak or how every other ball carrier is treated when they dive for extra yardage. If not, you have to at least treat a forward dive like a slide and kill the advancement of yardage at the spot of the ball once they start the movement. You can’t have it both ways.

Anyways, expect to see those same chicken shit calls every time we play the Cardinals and the Seahawks from now until eternity. 

Kwon looked lost: Whether it was missed tackles, bad angles, or just looking hesitant in space—particularly on one long Murray run when Kwon decided to turn and cover a receiver instead of pressure Murray—Kwon had a forgetful game. This was accentuated by the fact that Dre Greenlaw, in less than half as many snaps, was much more sound and impactful—particularly in his batted ball on a Cardinals RPO that turned into Tartt’s interception.

Back-breakingly long drive PTSD: We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Niners offense has a few short and ugly outings, Niners defense gets caught in an exceptionally long drive, and the draining nature of it all saps our defense of its endurance down the stretch. This week, our defense was on the field for more snaps (78) than any game in the past two years. More so than the Super Bowl. More so than the OT loss to Seattle that went the entire extra period. And we felt it.

This time, the breaking point was the 14 play, 94-yard touchdown drive that took 6:48 off the clock. We rely so much on a fresh rotation of defensive linemen that these kind of stretches are particularly dangerous for our defense. Even more so when the drive is aided by a holding call that just as easily could have been a safety and a total of 33 yards and 3 first downs due to some incredibly suspect penalties.

One way to prevent this in the future is to do better on offense, particularly on third downs, but even after we responded to their score with a 6 play, 78-yard, touchdown drive, our defense was clearly not the same in allowing the go-ahead score on the very next drive.

In the NFC West every loss has the chance to be a substantial one, but I wouldn’t hit the alarm button quite yet. Yes, George Kittle may miss time with a knee sprain; yes, we still have a number of other injured players who we’re awaiting the return of; and yes, we have plenty to clean up on both sides of the ball if we want to contend again this year. But the hardest part of our schedule is in the middle, and this year’s Niners are well aware that they want to start peaking later rather than earlier.

Also, we play the Jets next week. If we lose that game, then it’s time to worry.

Wk1 Preview: vs. Cardinals

Budda Baker enjoying The Kittle Experience [Matt Kartozian]

vs. Arizona Cardinals

Date: Sunday, 9/13
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Kickoff: 1:25 PT
Channel: FOX, or wherever you stream it illegally

Despite placing last in the NFC West a year ago, the Cardinals have ridden a strong finish, the entirely-due-to-luck acquisition of one of the top wideouts in the league (eat a dick Bill O’Brien), and bubbling nationwide hype behind sophomore Kyler Murray to become a popular dark horse playoff candidate in year two of the Kliff Kingsbury era. It’s not an outrageous claim, but... we’ll get the first glimpse as to how realistic it is comes Sunday.

Injury Report

As of Wednesday…

49ers Offense: Mostly good news on the injury front here. Juice (hamstring) was back at practice on Monday, so he should be good to go… Ben Garland (ankle) is back after missing the latter half of training camp, but he was limited. His status for Sunday is up in the air, but if he can go that would be HUGE... Both Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk remained out of practice as of Wednesday. They’re both still considered maybes for week one. While I’d love to see them, I will once again stress not bringing anyone back early from a hamstring injury if they’re not ready.

49ers Defense: Nick Bosa and Dee Ford have both dressed for practice all week. They’ll play... Fred Warner was on the COVID/Reserve list to start the week, but—as of Wednesday—was re-activated. He’s good to go as well... Jason Verrett, who I just praised for staying healthy, is out with a hamstring strain, but it’s minor. This means Ahkello Witherspoon should be our third corner… Ronald Blair was a surprise addition to the PUP list last weekend, meaning he won’t be playing in this game or at least the next five. That will hurt our immediate defensive end depth, and could lead to a game day practice squad promotion for Dion Jordan, or some edge snaps for Kentavius Street or (please no, just keep him inside) Solomon Thomas.

Cardinals: Would-be outside starting corner Robert Alford will miss the season, meaning long-time Bengal import Dre Kirkpatrick will likely start outside... Rookie tackle Josh Jones didn’t participate in practice on Wednesday. As a developmental rookie, I would assume he wouldn’t be starting ready anyways, but apparently he’s been competing for first-team reps… Maxx Williams was a limited participant, as were a few other guys for non-injury related purposes (aka veteran days).

ON DEFENSE

Kliff Kingsbury scraped together a hodgepodge of parts into what was the the 13th-best offense in terms of DVOA in 2019. Now, in Kyler Murray’s second year, with the addition of one of the top wideouts in the game, with the theoretical maturation of at least one of the three wideouts they drafted in the first four rounds of last year’s draft, and with the team more comfortable in the offensive scheme, the going belief is that this unit is prepared to take the next step. 

That will depend mostly on how well Kliff develops his players, if the offensive line—which gained no immediate contributors in the off-season—has improved, and how well Kliff continues to adapt to a league that now has a full season of tape on his offense. Many so-called “offensive gurus” have started hot in the NFL, but it’s how they sustain that matters. Just two years ago Matt Nagy was one of the top offensive minds in football. A few seasons before that, Chip Kelly’s innovative shotgun spread attack was revolutionizing professional football. A year ago to date the Browns were a Vegas favorite to win the Super Bowl based on the coaching ability and explosive offense of Freddie Kitchens. Teams adapt. Sample size is important. 

The task that the Cardinals—and, in a different way, the Ravens—now face is that their collegiate-rooted offense is now on tape, and NFL coaches have had an entire off-season to study film, get tips and pointers from the college coaches who have seen these offenses for years, and scheme up new ways to counteract these looks. Oddly enough, COVID may be something that actually helps both of these offenses, as it’s unlikely NFL coaches were able to take as many (if any) of the types of college visits that they would have otherwise made this off-season. 

Scheme

The Cardinals run an Air Raid offense, which means no-huddle hurry-up sets, more shotgun snaps than anyone in the league (other than the Ravens’ gun/pistol option attack), and an offensive strategy that spreads the field horizontally then exploits the widened alignments and space of the defense.

Despite the scheme name, the Cardinals were actually at their best running the ball in 2019. According to Football Outsiders, they were the second-most efficient rushing attack (to the Ravens) in the NFL, in no small part due to Kyler Murray’s 544 yards and four scores on the ground and the fact that their wide alignments and passing lean meant they ran into the second fewest eight+ man boxes in the league. Also in contrast to Kingsbury’s college history—and his ill-fated attempt to start the season with lots of 11 and 10 personnel sets—the Cardinals did their best work in 12 personnel, when they committed to extra gaps behind Charles Clay and their elite run-blocking tight end Maxx “one x short of a Vin Diesel movie, two short of a porn star, and three short of Vin Diesel playing a porn star who stresses the importance of family and also the crisp light taste of a Corona pale lager” Williams. In the second year of his system and with the addition of DeAndre Hopkins, Kliff likely wants to do a bit more in 10 and 11 this year, but he has shown a schematic flexibility when necessary.

The Cardinals are at their best running inside, where their wide splits and multiple gaps give more room for the elusive Kenyan Drake to make defenders miss and gobble up yardage. At times this seemed to be doubly effective against us, as our commitment to undersized interior linemen and wide alignments seemingly played into their strategy. 

Last year the Cardinals were one of the most successful teams when it came to running the ball against our vaunted defense, averaging 144 yards on the ground at a worrisome 6.1 yards per clip. They did this mostly with shotgun power runs that did the brunt of their damage by using double teams to wash out an interior lineman and/or relying on the awkward/delayed timing of their shotgun handoffs to mess up the reaction time and run fits of our linebackers. This led to some larger-than-ideal holes and a few missed tackles, which in turn led to big gains on the ground. In order to prevent history from repeating itself, we’ll need Javon Kinlaw, DJ Jones (who missed one of the Cardinals games last year), and the rest of our interior linemen to hold the line against double teams, our linebackers to trigger downhill faster for proper run fits, and everyone to tackle better in the open field.

Despite their efficiency on the ground, this is a team that wants to pass. Last year, the Cardinals threw on early downs more often than all but three other teams, a tactic that—similar to the tempo of the no-huddle hurry-up offense itself—aims to attack the more vanilla coverages that are often seen on first and second downs so that third downs become easier to convert.

Through the air, the Cardinals are all about getting the ball out quickly, threatening teams horizontally with WR screens, shallow crossers such as mesh, and a litany of short game concepts like snap, stick, spot, that stress tacklers’ angles and form in the open field. When teams get complacent in the short game they’ll threaten over the top with a beautifully thrown deep ball, working the one-on-one matchups created by alignment and in general “throwing to grass” (aka, the open field). No doubt, those deep shots become more dangerous with Hopkins, a physical jump ball beast, now in the fold (keep eating that dick Bill O’Brien). Nuk should also help their red zone offense, which was near the bottom of the league and relied almost entirely on Larry Fitzgerald on the goal line (10 of the team’s 14 targets inside the 5-yard line).

Kingsbury’s air raid is a perfect schematic fit for Kyler’s quick read-and-release skills, his ability to field and throw the ball quickly from different launch points (like a shortstop in baseball), and his tremendous accuracy and touch on deep balls. It also widens out the defense so that Murray can use his legs to buy time and more easily find passing or running lanes despite his 5-9 frame. But there are a few issues in the passing game that have largely been masked by the offense’s high completion percentages and passing game volume. There are some empty calories here that should be unpacked.

Murray had the second-most RPO plays among all QBs last year (unsurprisingly, the Ravens were first). He also threw more wide receiver screens than anyone else in football. In fact, on first downs—when the Cardinals threw all the time—41% of Murray’s completions came at or behind the line of scrimmage. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially since the Cardinals have a very effective screen game, but it also shouldn’t be surprising that—when it comes to average air yards per pass—Murray ranked 32nd in the league. Granted, that was higher than Jimmy G, but when you account for their widely disparate situational efficiency metrics, you can see where this offense fizzled out.

**I was supposed to have a chart for this, but Pro-Football-Reference decided to erase its Advanced Splits today and I didn’t record the data beforehand, so alas, I’ll try to explain it**

While Jimmy G’s efficiency, YPA, and completion percentage stayed pretty stable on down and distance—with a slight dip for third-and-7+ that is expected given its difficulty—Murray’s efficiency decreased exponentially the later the down and the distance. Even if you isolated for air travel, Murray’s efficiency plummeted despite the great touch he throws on deep balls.

Basically, despite being an Air Raid team, when the Cardinals really had to drop back and throw intermediate or deep passes in crunch time, their efficiency plummeted across the board. My guess is that’s due to a combination of three factors: (1) intermediate passing is way more complicated than the pre-snap-heavy, single-read nature of quick game and RPOs; (2) coverages are more complex on third and fourth downs; and (3) there’s no way around the fact that drop back passing means your offensive line actually has to block. In a sense, the Cardinals last year minimized reads for their rookie QB and minimized blocking responsibility for an offensive line that—in conjunction with Murray’s tendency to hold the ball too long—allowed a league-high 48 sacks in 2019 (7 to us in two meetings). That’s smart game planning, but it can only get you so far. 

While the Cardinals’ 8th-best pressure rate allowed as a unit would imply that this OL could be better than I’m giving them credit, I think that statistic has been boosted by screens and quick game. It’s more a product of scheme than talent. Thus, our goal as a defense should be to force this team to get their yards through true drop back passing. If our front seven can eliminate the cheap yardage off of runs and our DL and secondary can stack and stuff screens and minimize YAC in the quick game, then the matchup becomes less about downfield pursuit angles and tackling in the open field and more about a second-year quarterback reading a full defense while a “possibly decent” offensive line goes up against the best defensive line in football. 

ONE PLAY

Taking away the short game means slowing up the QB-to-WR connection, which can be accomplished by (a) jarring receivers off their routes to mess up their timing with the quarterback or (b) confusing the quarterback’s reads to mess up his timing with the receivers.

Unless the mysterious “wrinkles” that new DB coach Tony Oden has added to our arsenal include more man coverage or rolled up/squat corners, our defense is mostly a zone-heavy scheme that oscillates between Cover 3, Cover 4, and a few split-field looks.  That means the majority of our coverage disguises are on the back-end—clouding the vertical game to bide time for our pass rush—rather than the front-end. That means, if we’re trying to trap Murray into a bad read so that he becomes gun shy in the passing game, it will likely be up to our linebackers underneath. Like in the play below:

Here, the Niners show a two-high Cover 4 look but are actually in…

Cover 3 Buzz, where the corners and Jimmie Ward take deep thirds while Tartt and Warner sit underneath, taking away the hook zones.

Warner’s inside alignment is key. By lining up in the box and near the LOS, the Niners prevent the dreaded “auto-check to a QB draw” that happens all the time with athletic quarterbacks when the box vacates. In addition to being a QB run deterrent, Warner’s alignment also acts as the bait...

K’Waun Williams is the read defender here. Seeing the numbers advantage and the apparent space available, Murray knows that if K’Waun follows the No.2 WR on the quick out, he can hit the stick underneath. And If K’Waun sits on the stick, Murray can hit the out. Given the fact that the safety is 15 yards off, the latter is already less likely, and Murray is thinking stick route pre-snap.

Warner knows his responsibility is to take away any interior underneath routes here, but since he sees the receivers’ alignment he’s aware that he can take his drop just by mirroring Murray’s eyes and body.

At this point, Murray is past the point of no return. Warner’s path has kept him out of Murray’s periphery, Murray knows he needs to get this ball out early and on time for the concept to work, and—if Warner could just hold onto the ball—this would be the perfect example of the kind of bait plays we need to rattle Murray’s confidence and throw off the timing of the Cardinals’ quick game.

Here it is at normal speed—with an endzone angle where you can really see Warner widen while keeping his eyes locked on Murray’s—posted via the burner account that I use only for posting videos and submitting to competitions that require a Twitter account.

Fred Warner baiting the quick game pic.twitter.com/Fk0jZQW7Q2

— DefinitelyNotEric (@TotallyNotEric) September 9, 2020

ON OFFENSE

More so than anyone else last year, Vance Joseph’s Cardinals defense really dared us to pass. They loaded the box with eight or nine bodies, widened their linebackers to the edges to stop us from flanking them in the run game, and played man coverage across the board. They forced us to throw the ball.

So throw the ball we did.

In two games against the Cardinals, Jimmy G threw for 741 yards and 8 touchdowns with a 75% completion percentage while leading the team to 853 yards of total offense. This was despite missing Juice, McGlinchey, Kittle for one game, Staley for both, and before Mostert took over the primary running back role. Needless to say, the Cardinals knew change was needed.

SCHEME

The Cardinals’ defense is a 3-4 scheme that is hyper aggressive, leaning heavily on man coverage across the board while blitzing the third-most in the NFL. This led to a middle-of-the-pack rushing defense but the single worst passing defense in the league, in part because—despite their penchant for blitzing—they were one of the league’s worst teams in terms of blitzing efficiency. Hoping to improve on that end, the Cardinals went out and made a series of additions to their defense.

In comes Jordan Phillips along their DL, a 6-6, 341-pound behemoth from Buffalo who had largely underperformed until breaking out in a contract year with 9.5 sacks in 2019. While a contract year burst plus an unsustainable sacks-to-QB hits ratio both overstate his true impact and imply upcoming regression, he’s probably still better than whoever he replaced. The reliably above-average Devon Kennard, via the Lions, will start opposite Chandler Jones in an attempt to bolster the pass rush, even though Kennard is actually a better run defender than rusher. Despite the constantly changing schemes and personnel in Arizona, Jones has been an edge-rusher stalwart for years, logging 11+ sacks in six of his last seven campaigns. This includes 19 last year—a half-sack off the NFL lead. He is without a doubt their most dangerous defensive player.

While the additions to the front seven may lead the Cardinals to blitz a bit less than last season, their lean towards man coverage is likely to stick. That’s partly because they have Patrick Peterson, who they expect to rebound from a down year in 2019, and partly because man coverage could ease first-round pick Isaiah Simmons’ transition to the NFL. An absolute athletic freak who made plays all over the field in college, some people had Simmons rated as a top-three prospect, but he slipped to the Cardinals at 8 because his greatest strength—being a position-less uber athlete—made him difficult to project. He played everywhere from corner to safety to linebacker to defensive end in college, a moveable all-purpose chess piece who was big enough and athletic enough to make plays from each position. But in order to optimize his ability in the NFL, the team who drafts him will likely need to do something similar. While his role will be under wraps until the games begin, my guess is that he’s a space linebacker/giant slot who starts out as a linebacker but extends over slots as an all-purpose body who they can throw at their problems. The chief of those problems being George Kittle.

My goodness George Kittle, Budda Baker has a family 😬

🏈 (via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/Dy1D6UD32G

— The Ringer (@ringer) November 1, 2019

This Cardinals defense was near the bottom of the league at guarding both tight ends and running backs last year and consider me skeptical that a rookie in his NFL debut is going to shut down the best tight end in football. But with potentially two of our three would-be starting wideouts out with injury, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Cardinals once again load the box and dare us to pass, hoping they can hold up in coverage long enough to get home against our potentially suspect interior. If that’s the case, the employment of heavy sets with Kittle, Juice (if he plays), and Jordan Reed could be necessary both to establish some kind of run game and to create mismatches with our backs and tight ends in the passing game. Given the circumstances, don’t be surprised if Jet McKinnon’s much-awaited debut is an active one in the passing game. Remember, this is the team that Ross Dwelley had two scores against and that Kittle scorched despite having a broken bone in his ankle during the clip above. The Cardinals will certainly try to take away out matchup bigs with some combination of Simmons and box/slot safety Budda Baker. Despite being the highest-paid safety in the league, leading the NFL in tackles, and being an absolute stud in the run game, Baker is still a guy with zero picks and only 14 pass deflections in three years in the league. He doesn’t move the needle much in pass coverage. Having Samuel/Aiyuk for game time would be awesome, but Shanahan should be able to manufacture some open receivers regardless given how many big, fast bodies we currently employ.

Due to Ben Garland’s precarious injury status, I am genuinely worried about a Daniel Brunskill at center and Tom Compton at right guard interior if it comes to that (or Colton McKivitz at right guard if he’s really unseated the veteran already). Neither have gotten rave reviews during the pass-pro sections of practice, but then again, interior linemen get shafted in those drills and the hope is that—like last year—that’s more a testament to our defensive line dominance than issues along the offensive line. That might not even be the Garland-less fallback plan considering Brunskill has seen snaps and seems more comfortable at right guard. Practice squad center Hroniss Grasu will likely be a game day addition to the active roster. Maybe he’s the starting center if Garland can’t go. But there’s only so much hope that can be garnered from a practice squad call-up. Regardless, I’d expect the Cardinals to move Chandler Jones all over, including along the interior, to test the middle of our OL early and often. Based on our many injury concerns on offense, I’d expect some hiccups, but if our interior OL holds up, so too should our offense.

LARGELY BASELESS PREDICTIONS

1. Fred Warner has a breakout performance

2. Trent Williams has a monstrous pancake block in the run game that is replayed in slow motion, giving us the first glimpse of the kind of power he can bring to our offensive line

3. At least twice, the commentators remind us about how grateful we are that football is even being played during these trying times

4. George Kittle works Isaiah Simmons at least once, which leads to one of the commentators saying “Isaiah Simmons, welcome to the NFL” or “welcome to the NFL, rookie”—potentially during a replay leading into a commercial break

5. Joe Buck sucks

Go Niners 👍🏈

2020 Roster Preview: Defense

Can these two build on breakout seasons? [Getty Images]

Now for a look at the defense, which has—for the most part—been the better unit through training camp. This is far from surprising considering defenses usually gel faster, our D was the better unit for most of last year, and that side of the ball returns every single player from its two deep except DeFo and (kind of) Sheldon Day. 

Injury Report :(

Thankfully, the majority of our injured defenders seem to be dealing with more “day-to-day” concerns that could be cleared up come game time. Here they are, separated into designations based on projected return dates.

Players Unable to Perform (PUP) List

These players will be inactive for at least the first six weeks of the season.

DT, Jullian Taylor: After a late-November ACL tear, Taylor’s recovery has been progressing faster than anticipated. There’s an outside chance he could suit up for week 1, but—considering the severity of the injury and our depth along the interior line—it’s more likely that he’s put on the PUP list to start the year. That way the Niners can play it safe, try out some young guys in the interim, and Taylor can provide a big-bodied reinforcement midway through the season.

Early season return

These players will be expected back early in the season, perhaps as soon as week 1

DE, Ronald Blair: Our second ACL tear along the D-line, Blair’s recovery has also been progressing faster than expected. He’s been running and doing agility work, and there’s a chance he could play week 1—although I would highly doubt it considering the risk vs. reward. That being said, the odds are he’ll stay off the PUP list, meaning we’ll get back our top off-the-bench edge rusher sometime during the first few games.

Expected back by week 1

CB, K’Waun Williams: Our starting nickel corner suffered a calf strain two weeks ago, but is expected to be back in a week or so. Jamar Taylor has been getting the reps inside in his stead, but if Williams can’t go week one, the duties may fall to someone else (as Taylor may not make the active roster).

DE, Nick Bosa: The reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year, Bosa missed the last week of training camp with what started as a “maintenance day” due to leg soreness, but—after an MRI was taken—revealed a muscle strain that has him listed as “week-to-week.” He apparently has been moving around fine around the practice field, so—at the moment—there doesn’t seem to be anything concrete that should keep him from suiting up week one. 

DE, Dee Ford: Ford, who had a clean-up surgery in the off-season and entered training camp fresher than he’d been since week 2 of last season, suffered a calf strain just before Bosa was injured. He seems to be in the same boat as Bosa, although the team is probably even more cautious with Ford due to his lengthy injury history. When talking earlier this week about injuries, Shanahan said he’d be “very surprised” if Bosa and Ford weren’t available week one. 

Similar to Deebo, Aiyuk, and really anyone else whose week one status is up in the air, the practice reports next week should give us a clearer picture of who’s suiting up September 13th. Although there has been some good injury news on the offensive front, both Kittle and Ross Dwelley were back at practice yesterday and seem to be full go.

COVID/Reserve List

This list is reserved for players who must be isolated from their team because they either tested positive for COVID or have come in contact with someone who tested positive

LB, Fred Warner: Just Monday, Fred Warner was put on the COVID/Reserve List. Teams don’t report if the list assignment was the result of a positive test or simply coming into contact with someone who tested positive. If it’s the latter, he’s only out until he receives a negative test result; if it’s the former and Warner is asymptomatic, he could be back as soon as 5 days from now (pending two negative tests within a 24-hour time frame and team physician approval); if he’s symptomatic he’ll need to wait at least ten days from the outset of his symptoms to return to the team. 

Hopefully, Warner isn’t sick, cause—you know—having COVID sucks and it’s not something you should wish on anyone—and that he’ll be back healthy and on the field in no time. While he’s gone, Kwon Alexander will likely fill his role as the Mike linebacker, which would slide Dre Greenlaw back to the starting Will position.

Rehab Warriors

As a testament to how many injuries we’ve suffered over the years, we have this category for both offense and defense. 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.

By all accounts, Jason Verrett has looked like an entirely different player this year. He’s been making plays during practice, his speed is back to where it was during his All-Pro days, and he’s been rotating in with the first-team defense opposite Richard Sherman. While he may or may not win that starting position, he seems to have all but secured himself a roster spot and given us much-needed depth at the CB position.

We’ve yet to see what Kentavius Street can do in the NFL, as he took a “redshirt” year in 2018 after an ACL tear and his attempted return to the fold in 2019 was snuffed out after three games and only a handful of snaps. This year, Street has been making an impact, transferring his incredible weight room strength to the field and giving the team a bit more confidence in its interior DL rotation in a post-DeFo world. We’ll get to Street a bit more later, but until then, remember he’s the dude behind this absurd viral video.

NC State's Kentavius Street has a 40 inch vertical and just squatted 700 lbs. 😳 (via @ironwolfpack) pic.twitter.com/xF18xSBNi9

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 22, 2017

Earl Thomas Watch? 

Lol. Absolutely not. 

I’ll admit, I really wanted the Niners to pursue Thomas last off-season (although not at the price tag he eventually signed for), but—as the old adage goes—one orgy with your brother during a pandemic that ends with your wife tracking you to a hotel via Snapchat and pointing a loaded gun at your head really goes a long way. Throw in that with a practice ejection, fines for being late to practice cause he “had to get his car washed,” and the quick exit from Baltimore even though the Ravens will have to take a hefty dead cap hit, and this is just not a tree we need to shake. Like at all. Besides, Jimmie Ward was arguably better than Thomas last year. 

Position Breakdowns

DEFENSIVE END

Our top three edge defenders return in Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, and Dee Ford. While each of the three has missed camp time due to injuries, expectations are high entering their second year together. Despite his calf injury, Ford seems to be in a better position to play more snaps this year than at any point in 2019. Bosa has struggled against Trent Williams in their one-on-one pass pro matchups, but he’s made plenty of splash plays throughout camp. There’s no reason to expect a sophomore slump. 

Behind them, Ronald Blair is the best fourth edge rusher in the league, a guy who would start on most teams, and one who will provide a much-needed burst off the edge once he returns from injury. He was in the midst of a career-year and would have commanded free agent money if he hadn’t gotten hurt during a contract year. Once he returns, he’ll be hungry to make some money next off-season.

Up for Grabs: Second-line edge rusher. Blair’s locked up one of those spots once he returns, but what about until then? And who pairs with him when the team’s top three are off the field (or Armstead has slid inside)? 

That’s where new signing Dion Jordan (theoretically) comes into play. Jordan was the the first and the highest-selected of the mid 2010’s wave of Oregon defensive linemen that the Niners have now all had on roster at one point or another. Coming out of college at 6-6 248 pounds and running a 4.60 forty, Jordan was taken #3 overall by the Dolphins and now, having bulked up to 270 pounds, presents a tantalizing option as a depth rusher with high upside and flashes (mainly on limited snaps in 2017 for the Seahawks) of living up to at least some fraction of his potential.

So what has limited him to this point? So many failed drug tests. In 2014, just his second year in the league, he was given a 6 game suspension for two failed tests of the NFL’s performance enhancing drug (PED) rules. In 2015, a diluted sample led to full year’s suspension. In 2017, he moved on to the Seahawks, and—after a short stint on the PUP list due to a knee injury—appeared in five games and amassed a 85.8 PFF rating. The following year he was less productive and had his season interrupted by—you guessed it—another failed drug test. Although in his defense, it was for Adderall, which he takes for his ADHD and had a medical waiver for; he just accidentally let the waiver lapse. He served the remainder of his 10 game suspension on the Raiders last year, where he was a decent performer, and now he’s here.

If healthy and clean, Jordan has the physical profile and has flashed the ability to provide a very nice spark off the bench. Think of a Dante Fowler-like impact (but for free instead of for a third and fifth round pick) with a smaller and more specific role and the upside to get a more efficient performer because of that. Jordan also give us another edge guy with some juice if Dee Ford’s injury issues limit him again this year. If we get the 2017 Dion Jordan this is obviously a major steal, but even if we get the 2018-19 Jordan this is a valuable acquisition. While him staying clean will always be a question, the drug tests were for PEDs, not recreational, and seeing as his last positive was a legitimate mistake for a prescription of Adderall, he actually hasn’t had those issues for what would now be 5 years.

That was the thought going into camp, but now? Jordan is likely on the roster bubble. Despite his physical tools, he hasn’t made a huge impression at camp—the majority of his splash plays coming with pure speed against second tackles. Turns out, it’s the Niners earlier and less heralded pickup who seems more likely to have solidified a rotational role.

Playing under Kris Kocurek in Detroit, Kerry Hyder was a rising star—accumulating 8 sacks and 19 QB hits in only two starts (and 16 total games played) in 2016–before an achilles rupture took out his entire 2017 season. He returned to the Lions as a rotational player in 2018 and spent last year in the Cowboys’ stacked defensive edge room. With an achilles tear often a two-year injury, perhaps he was still getting up to speed in 2018 then simply got buried in Dallas last year? The 29 year-old has only started 2 games in his career, but is an intriguing fit due to familiarity and past production. He also has the size and game to moonlight a bit on the inside on passing downs. 

Despite an underwhelming camp, Jordan’s juice off the edge could make him hard to move on from considering Dee Ford’s injury history and the Niners’ struggles once they ran out of edge speed in the latter part of the season. But most beat reporters seem to agree, Jordan’s been outplayed by the other guys on this list and the tackles we’re about to discuss. Could Jordan, a former #3 overall pick, be able to get stashed on the practice squad with the COVID/veteran exemption? Perhaps. But if not, and we need edge rush help later in the season, Damontre Moore is still available... just sayin. 

DEFENSIVE TACKLE

The monster snap counts and Herculean durability of DeFo are now gone, and the Niners will look to replace him with an upside-heavy first-round pick and a defensive tackle rotation that could prove surprisingly deep.

First, the proven commodity. Nose tackle D.J. Jones had a breakout year in 2019, showcasing great quickness and activity on the interior despite his 305-pound frame. He was a terror against the run, but was less impactful against the pass—in part due to a lack of snaps to prove himself. That being said, he certainly flashed when given the chance...

DJ Jones just DOMINATED for this sack 💪 pic.twitter.com/QBrfZylLrX

— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) November 12, 2019

This off-season, Jones has talked about trying to improve as a pass-rusher this year so that he can stay on the field more often. While it’s always nice to have more pass-rush capable players, how much we need him on passing downs may come down to the development of this year’s 14th overall pick. 

First-round pick Javon Kinlaw has had an uneven first training camp. He’s huge, strong, and has a great motor, but there’s a lot of polish needed before he projects as a difference-maker—particularly against the pass. Throughout college, he always showed more promise and potential than polish, so that shouldn’t be particularly surprising, and when competing in pass-rush drills this camp against Laken Tomlinson—one of the stronger players on the team—Kinlaw has mostly been stone-walled. It’s a good matchup for Kinlaw, who will need to develop beyond his pure athleticism and power while matched up against a player of similar strength. While some are already pointing to Kinlaw as a disappointment, this is actually right where we should have expected him to be based on his tape. He is a high-ceiling player picked for his long-term projection. The thought going in was that if he was going to make a major impact as a rookie it would be later in the season as he improved his technique and savvy, and with one of the top DL coaches in the league behind him, that’s not out of the question. Regardless, Kinlaw should be expected to start in our base packages where he can use his strength to anchor against the run, but the Niners may need more rotational help in nickel packages if they’re looking for four pass rushers on the field. Some of that could come from Jones, but we have other options as well.

Jullian Taylor, our third defensive tackle over three bills (305 pounds), played well before going down to injury last year. When he’s back, he’s got great strength and is suited for battling on the interior. 

Finally, finally, finally Solomon Thomas will be playing inside and only inside, and he’s responded by beefing up from 265 last season to 280+ this year in order to handle the extra blockers. Getting a bunch of first-team snaps while Armstead was nursing back tightness at the beginning of camp, Thomas has looked good at his more natural position, winning with quickness and anchoring with power while being active along the DL. While talk of a full-on breakout would be optimistic (although not impossible considering Armstead and Ward’s recent trajectories), the weight gain and Saleh’s commitment to keeping Thomas “inside at all costs” should lead to his best year as a pro.

Also on the rebound, Kentavius Street has been one of the bigger surprises of camp. While his quick exit from the 2019 season made it seem like his Niners career may have fizzled out before it even got going, it turns out he just needed more time to rehab. Now fully healthy, he’s been getting constant mentions for his explosive power.

It’s worth noting, Street was named SI’s biggest athletic freak leading up to the 2018 NFL Combine, beating out calf-god Saquon Barkley and Leighton Vander Esch for top honors with some absurd testing projections.

Street is expected to weigh in at 6'2" and around 285 pounds, and don’t be surprised if he’s clocked in the 4.5s in the 40-yard dash. At 281 pounds last year, he ran an electronically timed 4.58, vertical jumped 40 inches, benched 475 pounds and squatted 700. He’s also the most flexible guy in the NC State program according to strength coach Dantonio Burnette. “It’s almost like a big receiver,” says Yo Murphy, a former NFL wideout who has helped train Street for the combine over the past two months.

That would be one very, very big receiver.

While the vertical and forty-yard dash times sound like they’ve got rather strong hints of home-cooked stopwatch propaganda, Street is nevertheless a guy who’s impressive on the hoof and has incredible raw power and athleticism. He was expected to be a second round pick until—just three weeks before the draft—he blew out his knee during a workout with the Giants. Based on the timing of the injury, his “redshirt” year was a given. Now, it seems, he’s ready to deliver on the Niners’ multi-year investment.

Meanwhile, Kevin Givens, who flashed a ton of potential in last summer’s preseason and was promoted to last year’s active roster after Jullian Taylor was put on IR, has continued on his upward trend. At 6-1 285 pounds, he’s a one-gap shooter with nice explosiveness and burst. Unless they’re a high draft pick, it’s usually hard to give that guy meaningful snaps as a rookie due to their potential for getting washed out in the run game. But, in year two, Givens has continued to turn heads and provides some very intriguing potential considering fellow three-techs Jones and Thomas are UFAs after this season. While keeping Givens on the active roster would likely bump Dion Jordan from the first 53, it seems the likely move considering the former’s youth and potential. 

Intrigue: While Kinlaw is a massive human, the Niners have clearly committed to a smaller, gap-shooter type elsewhere along their interior line. This makes sense given the aggressive principles of the Wide 9 front as well as its nose tackle alignment—at a “2i” instead of a “1-technique” so that he’s further from the center and thus harder to double team—but that doesn’t mean there’s no place for a big run-stuffer if he can move. 

That’s where undrafted free agent Darrion Daniels comes into play. At 6’3 311 pounds (listed at 325 his final year of college), Daniels is built like a tank and has used his strength to toss around the Niners’ many undersized backup centers in pass pro drills. But he’s also shown enough quickness in camp to make people think he could have a D.J. Jones-like trajectory as an active interior run-stuffer. Also, he’s apparently a big anime fan?

I hate to admit it.... but The Legend of Korra lowkey go harder than The Last Airbender

— Darrion Daniels (@DarrionGolden79) August 28, 2020

While our logjam along the defensive line likely means Daniels will be on the practice squad this year, he—like Givens—could become building blocks for our interior DL in the coming years. With a COVID-lowered cap next year, you can’t have too many young guys on the practice squad who you’re prepping to step into future roles.

LINEBACKER

Our top three are set in stone. Fred Warner has arguably been the biggest star of training camp and looks poised to take another gigantic leap forward into truly elite linebacker territory. He’s routinely been making splash plays and leading the defense. If  he can continue to develop his quick-trigger against the run and improve his open-field tackling, he could be in for a major breakout season. That is, if his COVID scare is minor.

Kwon Alexander was named the starter at Will very early in training camp. That means he’ll take over the full-time starting role and look to improve upon a hot start to a season that ended on a sour note with his playoff struggles. He too needs to work on improved open-field tackling, but the arrow is still pointing up.

That means Dre Greenlaw, one of our rookie gems from last year, will be a part-time starter as the Sam linebacker, coming off the field in nickel sets. While I was hoping for a full-on competition for the Will spot, Greenlaw at Sam makes a lot more sense than Kwon would. After all, Greenlaw was the second-most efficient tackler in the NFL last year, so it makes sense that one of our surest tacklers can man the most run-heavy position of our linebacker corps.

Combine Greenlaw’s strong tackling with the flashes he’s shown in coverage…

WHAT A PLAY.

Rookie LB Dre Greenlaw gets the interception on Russell Wilson to save the game for the 49ers.

(Via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/5HBNgMfCF6

— USA TODAY NFL (@usatodaynfl) November 12, 2019

…and whether it’s later this year, next season, or further down the road, Greenlaw seems to have a bright future whenever he becomes a full-time starter for us again. Which is as good an excuse as any to show this clip again.

Awesome view of Dre Greenlaw’s game-saving tackle vs. Seahawks pic.twitter.com/f5pjNh4Rbv

— KNBR (@KNBR) May 15, 2020

The fourth linebacker spot seems destined for Azeez Al-Shaair. The speedy second-year man from FAU is now a full year removed from the ACL tear that took away most of his final college season and led to him falling out of the draft. The Wide 9 requires speedy, aggressive linebacker play, and we probably have the fastest LB corps in the league. Retaining Al-Shaair, who will only get better after seeing a decent number of snaps last year, makes sense, both as a sub and as a potential 2021 starter in case the team moves on from Kwon after this year. 

Up for Grabs: Final (5th) LB spot. Mark Nzeocha doesn’t get many snaps on defense but he’s been a stalwart for Richard Hightower’s special teams unit, which has seen some amount of “attrition” with former gunners Raheem Mostert and Emmanuel Moseley moving into major snaps on offense and defense, respectively. Continuity and Hightower’s affection towards him will surely help Nzeocha’s case. His competition, Joe Walker, is a new add this off-season who also plays on all the special teams units. While less experienced in the Niners system, he started 11 games at linebacker for the Cardinals last year, giving him a potential edge if they decide this position based more on who could play defense in a pinch rather than special teams prowess.

CORNERBACK

Richard Sherman enters the last year of his contract coming off an All-Pro selection and entrenched as our left boundary corner. Despite a disappointing finish to last year’s playoffs, he seems like the same old Sherman in training camp, picking off Jimmy G a handful of times in team sessions. 

Once he returns from injury, perennially underrated K’Waun Williams will man the nickel spot again, where he’s one of the league’s best. With DJ Reed swooped up by the Seahawks (sad), Williams’ backup is TBD. Jamar Taylor has filled in well while K’Waun has been out, but he may not even make the active roster. That means the nickel spot could be some combination of safety Tarvarius Moore and whoever doesn’t start from the battle below.

Up for grabs: Starting right boundary corner. The Niners have opened the competition to start opposite Sherman to all three of our returning veteran corners. Emmanuel Moseley, the former UDFA who legit came out of nowhere to play a huge role in our defense, seems to have the upper hand coming out of camp. That makes the most sense given how he finished last year and the fact that he is young and is just now in his first training camp where he’s been getting major snaps outside.

Nipping at his heels is Jason Verrett, who has been getting rave reviews from players, coaches, and reporters alike. A consensus top 5 corner both of his first years in the league, multiple injuries have sapped Verrett’s 4.38 speed, but—according to GPS speed tracking technology in practice which has clocked him at 22.2 mph (as a rookie he hit 22.5 mph with the chargers)—that speed has finally returned. Seemingly, so has his confidence and burst. Even if he doesn’t secure a starting spot, having him as a strong backup option will be a nice boost to our secondary.

The third player competing for the starting position, but the one that reporters seem to agree is the least likely to win it, is Ahkello Witherspoon. He hasn’t looked bad in camp, but he hasn’t stood out in the way Moseley and Verrett have. Despite understandable frustrations with Witherspoon and his tremendous physical talent, if he’s more like last year than the year before, that means the Niners’ depth at cornerback is actually better than it was a year ago. There’s been some positing that Witherspoon—as the team’s fourth corner but someone who doesn’t play inside—could be moved before the roster cut down date to free up room for one of the names below, but at the moment, that is pure speculation.

Now... all five of the guys mentioned above are free agents after this season (although Moseley is an RFA, so if he plays well he’s coming back at a discount). So what about the future of the cornerback room? Are we setting ourselves up for a brutal 2021 filled with scrounging for replacement parts in a COVID cap? That’s where questions about Jamar Taylor and last year’s sixth-round development project Tim Harris come in.

At 6-2, 205 pounds, Harris certainly looks the part of a starting NFL corner, and he seems to have had a decent training camp. But not making a splash while each of the five names above him are starting or competing for starting positions means he is highly unlikely to make the active roster. That doesn’t mean he wont develop into a contributor in 2021—when our secondary is certain to see major turnover—but it does mean that—pending a surprise trade like the one mentioned above—we’ll have to stash Harris and Taylor on the practice squad this year. 

It’s almost impossible to predict how much waiver wire and practice squad movement there will be in a year without a preseason to showcase players’ talents, but Taylor—who could only be retained with one of the COVID-year veteran practice squad exemption slots—may be difficult to stash considering he was a full-time starter as recently as 2017 and has played in 26 games over the past two years. Harris on the other hand—a second-year sixth-round pick who was on IR all of his rookie year and has yet to play an NFL snap—should (hopefully) be safe on the practice squad. That would allow him more time to develop within our system so that he could try for an active roster spot—and an important role—in 2021.

SAFETY

Jimmie Ward is back with a new contract. The hope is that his incredible string of bad injury luck was just that—bad luck—and that it’s all out of his system now that we’ve committed serious money to him. Yes. Let’s hope that.

Opposite him is Jaquiski Tartt, who has had as strong a training camp as anyone as he enters a contract year. We really missed Tartt when he was out last year, and it would be just so very chill if both of our safeties could—for the first time ever—stay healthy this year. 

Behind Ward is third-year safety Tarvarius Moore, who played every snap at free safety for the first three games of 2019 before rarely seeing the field on defense the rest of the year. He was last spotted being the single most active player in the Super Bowl, playing only five defensive snaps, and in that time totaling two pass deflections, a pick, and a defensive PI that gave the Chiefs the ball on the two-yard line. With Ward re-signed for the long haul, it’ll be interesting to see what the team’s long-term plan is for Moore, who has two years left on his rookie deal.

Moore has a lot of physical talent and—after playing mostly corner as a rookie before shifting to safety after Ward went down in training camp of last year—may have just finished his first training camp entirely at safety. There’s room for growth. But where does he wind up?

Tartt is in the final year of his contract, but Moore—whose biggest weakness at safety last year seemed to be deep-field tackling angles—doesn’t seem to be the next man up at strong safety, even if the two positions are more interchangeable now than ever. Moore was seen playing some nickel corner late last season; perhaps they envision him as a semi-big nickel? Or maybe they’re looking at a few more three safety-type alignments to counteract the spread out dink-and-dunk air raids of the world? Whatever the plan is, the last thing we want to see is a hurried “let’s put him back at boundary corner in his contract year” move next year; that’s the kind of thing we’d do in years past and which, in part, greatly hindered Jimmie Ward’s development.

Up for grabs: Fourth safety position. Incumbent strong safety backup Marcell Harris returns after what was—despite a few pronounced coverage mishaps—a better starting run to end last year than he’s likely given credit for. While he’s still better at the more physical side of safety play, he hasn’t yet reached his ceiling and the team likes his physicality and energy.

The staff would likely prefer to keep Harris as the fourth safety but brought in former first-round pick and long-time Jags starter Johnathan Cyprien to offer some competition. Cyprien has delivered some nice plays in camp, at the same time when Harris was nursing an ankle injury, but—if Harris is healthy—I’d expect the Niners to go with him on their active 53. While Cyprien has nice experience in the Niners’ scheme (the Jags ran the Seattle 3), the Niners have shifted more and more away from that scheme in the past year, and would surely prefer if Harris—and his two remaining years on a rookie contract—continues as Tartt’s backup.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Robbie Gould will kick. Mitch Wishnowsky will punt. Kyle Nelson will long snap. 

The only real competition will be in who returns kicks and punts. Athletically, someone like Mostert could be perfect for kicks (in fact, he averages 24.2 yards/return over his career), but he’s way too crucial for our offense to put back there. Considering kick returns are getting less and less important every year, I’m game to put back whoever is fast, won’t shit the bed, and doesn’t see major snaps on offense or defense back there.

As for punts, Trent Taylor seems like he’s leading the pack, but if Tavon Austin does indeed make the team, returning punts could be the perfect place for him. His averages the past three years (none over 5.8 yards/return on limited returns) haven’t been great, but he also has three career punt return TDs to his name.

That is all. 

Have a good Labor Day everyone!