Preview: Detroit
one more win for a shot at revenge
this is the most recent photo of us playing the Lions in the playoffs
Opponent: vs. Detroit Lions
Where: Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, CA)
When: Sunday, January 28th , 3:30 PM PT
Weather: Better not be goddamn rain, sheeeeeit
In September of 2021, Dan Campbell opened his first season as head coach of the Detroit Lions against the 49ers. I was in Nashville at the time—sweating alcohol and hungover out of my mind—and I’d wandered into what ended up being a Lions bar. With the Niners up huge in the second half, a man—a regular based on his reception—entered the bar in a custom-made authentic Lions jersey. His jersey number and name? #69, Bukkake. The very next play Jason Verrett blew out his knee to be lost for the season, Shanahan pulled all the starters, and the Lions staged a massive comeback that included fumbles, muffed onside kicks, and nearly the worst blown lead in franchise history. All through this comeback, the Lions faithful gave credit to one thing and one thing only: the jersey and the man who wore it. As the chants of “Bukkake! Bukkake!” rang through the bar and the vacant space where my brain once resided, I contemplated hell and thought it was probably more pleasant (and less hot) than the nightmare I was currently living.
The Niners were able to hold on for an ugly win that day. Now—three years later—we play the fully actualized version of those Detroit Lions. No longer a scrappy underdog but a bonafide contender, they’re competing for their first-ever Super Bowl appearance, while we’re in our third straight NFC championship game and fourth in the past five years.
Health Check
Lions: WR Kalif Raymond seems like a game-time decision, but since he’s yet to practice this week I would say he’s doubtful at best. C Frank Ragnow hasn’t practiced either, but given how banged up he is, I’m going to guess these are more veteran rest days than anything else. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t play. The one player it seems the Lions will definitely be without is starting LG Jonah Jackson, who had a minor knee procedure this week.
Niners: The big question is WR Deebo Samuel, and right now his status is very much in the air. He practiced in limited fashion on Thursday—which is the Niners’ heaviest practice of the week—so he feels like a game-time decision.
OFFENSE
All due credit to Dan Campbell. My undeniable biases led me to believe that Michigan native Robert Saleh should have been hired by the Lions back in 2020, but after Campbell’s amazing intro press conference about biting off kneecaps and hearing his psychopathic coffee order, I quickly came to believe this guy would either be the best or the worst coach ever. As far as instilling a culture and an identity, he’s been much closer to the former, but he’s also had the intelligence to step back, hire well, and let his coordinators handle the X’s and O’s. On offense, that coordinator is Ben Johnson—a mathematics and computer science double major—who has quickly become the league’s most highly sought-after head coaching candidate after building one of the league’s most potent and versatile attacks.
This Lions offense is legit. They’re a top-five unit in the passing game and the running game, are excellent along the line of scrimmage and do as good a job as anyone of shaping their offensive scheme to the strengths of their personnel. That starts up front.
S-Tier Fatties. Dan Campbell’s dictate when he took over in Detroit was installing a culture of physicality and their offense shows that best in their dominance up front. According to both PFF and adjusted line yards, this is the best offensive line in football, and their play in the trenches allows them to run a style of offense that relies on a power running game and longer developing passing plays.
Frank Ragnow has a legitimate claim to being the best center in football while Penei Sewell is probably the closest thing to a young Trent Williams in the NFL. Both are ranked 1st at their positions by PFF. While they’re the headliners, this line has four of their five starting linemen ranked in the top 10(!) or better at their respective positions, so there are no real weaknesses upfront. That is, until this week.
Starting left guard Jonah Jackson—who was already the team’s “weak” spot—got hurt midway through the Buccaneers game. They replaced him with Kayode Awosiki, who—on 28 pass protection snaps—allowed a team-high seven pressures. That is decidedly NOT elite, and while it’s hard to target a single lineman in a unit that is so strong as a whole, we’re certain to try just that—particularly in the passing game.
The Lions are so O-line friendly that they even play Dan Skipper—a sixth offensive lineman—with decent regularity when they want extra heft in short-yardage and goal-line situations. He was the subject of the declaring eligible snafu at the end of the Cowboys game, so he does go out for the occasional route out of unbalanced sets.
[Trope about a hard hat or something]. On the back of their talented offensive line, the Lions have what is probably the most diverse running game in football. While we have a ton of different ways to get into a relatively small number of actual run game concepts, the Lions could have double-digit rushing concepts that they use to deploy their running back duo of David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs.
Committe RBs are almost always called thunder and lightning, even if they often feature two backs whose skill sets have more overlap than that nickname would imply. But Detroit’s duo lives up to that moniker. Montgomery is their bigger power back and Gibbs is their speedier outside threat and space player. Yes, both guys can run inside or out, but if you want to see how they typically deploy them, look no further than the run charts of Gibbs vs Montgomery in weeks 16 and 17, respectively.
The Lions are an aggressive team—both in play-calling and in 4th down decisions—but the run game is their comfort food. When things are going awry or they start to believe they’re drifting too far from their identity, they’ll lean heavily on the run game to get their offense right and reassert their personality.
Leverage and Long-developers. When Ben Johnson took over as OC, one of the first things he did was sit down with Jared Goff, determine which throws he was the most comfortable making, and shape the playbook around those concepts. This led to an offense that loves crossers, vertical stems, and bending routes inside or out underneath deep coverage—i.e. long-developing routes that attack the second level.
To get their wideouts vertical and horizontal without impediment, the Lions love stacked and bunch formations, switch releases to confuse coverage responsibilities, and pre-snap motion to further stress man responsibilities and to get their smaller-framed wideouts away from press coverage. These motions also lead to a ton of extra blockers in the run game, as tight ends and wideouts will quite often be tasked with kicking out edge players or leading up to the second level off of pre-snap motion.
The result is a bunch of pass concepts that use built-in leverage and long swooping routes to stress coverages horizontally and vertically, which opens up big spaces in the middle of the field and on the second level. Despite the constant vertical stems, this is a team that lives in the intermediate zones. They love shallows, crossers, digs, and options (a Cooper Kupp holdover). They can throw the quick game but prefer to get bigger chunks out of their pass attempts. But not TOO big. They throw deep balls at a lower rate than any other team in the NFL.
The Goffaissance. Turns out a guy plays a lot better when the fans are supporting him and chanting his name instead of blaming him for every single loss while giving his head coach all the credit for his successes. Who knew?
Once considered a salary dump who the Rams basically paid the Lions in draft picks to include in the Matt Stafford trade like some sort of Brock Osweiler-level cap burden, Goff has thrived in the system that Ben Johnson built around him and the culture that Dan Campbell fostered in this locker room.
Goff has always been one of the better pure throwers in football. When in rhythm, he throws as nice a ball as anyone. It’s when shit gets hectic—when defenders get into his body or he has to move off his spot—when the valleys would come. In Los Angeles, those valleys were low enough and regular enough that they shipped him out of town. In Detroit, they’ve raised his floor tremendously by helping him reach a new level of comfort and confidence—thus heightening his ceiling.
Inside Out. It’s at least worth noting the difference in the Lions’ offensive output when they play outside vs. inside because the drop-off is—as much as anything can be with such a small sample size—statistically notable. Over the past two years—including their two post-season games this season—here are the Lions’ inside and outside scoring and yardage splits, including where those figures would rank nationwide:
There’s some obvious statistical noise in these figures due to scheduling variance, because the Lions were bad for the first half of 2022, and since they play their home games in a dome and usually teams score more points at home. Plus, the average NFL game played inside scores four more points than one played outside so you can basically spot all teams ~2 points when they’re inside. But even if we give the Lions an additional two-point bonus when indoors, they’re still putting up about a touchdown less when playing in the elements.
To be clear, their yardage numbers when playing outside this year are still quite potent, and I’m not saying this is an offense we should expect to whither in the oppressive 70-degree weather of Santa Clara, but the scoring figures had enough of a difference that it was worth mentioning. In both 2022 and 2023, four of the Lions’ six lowest-scoring games were played outside.
POTENTIAL DEFENSIVE KEYS
Yes, we looked far from elite against the Packers, but I flip back and forth between how much that game was indicative of our defense’s ability versus a specifically bad outing. The run defense is certainly a concern—and one that was lingering all season—and there was always a baseline level of anxiety about Ambry Thomas’ deep ball ability and a pass rush that sometimes struggles to convert pressures into sacks. Those are all things that stick out due to the overall strength of our defense, but also problems that we’ve seen enough that we can call them repeatable issues.
But at the same time, pass interference calls and defensive players slipping led to at least four of the Packers’ seven successful third down conversions and one of their three offensive touchdowns. Our defense gave up a ton of yards but also stiffened up and allowed just six points in three tries inside our own 15-yard line, picked off Jordan Love twice as many times as he’d been intercepted in the eleven games before, and held the Packers scoreless on their last four offensive possessions.
Are there concerns? Absolutely. There have to be after any performance that was as dicey as last weekend’s. But there are also reasons for optimism. And a date with one of the best offenses (and running games) in the NFL will be a tremendous proving ground for a unit that hasn’t been questioned much over the past few years.
Once More, With Feeling. Stopping the run was a priority last week, and our inability to do so was one of the many reasons why that game was as close as it was. This weekend, stopping the run is even more important. While the Packers were adamant they stay balanced to establish the run and open up the passing game, the Lions are fine with just pounding the rock if we can’t slow it down. This is a team that’s rushed for 200+ yards three times this season and has only been held under 100 four times all year. You’d better believe that after our performance last weekend Dan Campbell is gonna have his guys fired up to play bully on the ground while Ben Johnson is finding all sorts of ways to gash us inside with Montgomery and pin in our defensive ends with wideouts and tight ends to get the edge with Gibbs.
Teams run the ball best against us when their scheme is made to attack our aggressive upfield nature, and the Lions are probably the single best team at attacking defenses in different ways on the ground. Given that, I’d be wary of the many types of traps the Lions employ. And after the success the Packers had crack blocking our defensive ends and how our non-Bosa edges have struggled to set in the run game all year, I would expect to see plenty crack tosses and pin-and-pulls until we prove we can stop it. All that seems to point to this being more of a Gibbs game than a Montgomery game, which means setting the edge, taking better pursuit angles, and tackling in space will be at a premium.
While our 51-game streak of holding an opposing rusher under 100 yards was snapped last week, on a per-play basis, we haven’t done a great job of stopping the run all year. That needs to be more of a focus on Sunday, both to get them out of the run but also to force them into more quick game concepts—an area where they’re certainly capable but less comfortable throwing the ball.
Muddy the Middle. Stacks and bunches are a great way to create issues in man coverage and—when deployed tight enough to the formation—advantageous angles for crack blocks in the run game. However, receivers who are close to one another tighten up spaces pre-snap and allow the defense to play a wider variety of coverages as a result. In short, a defensive back or linebacker can better hide their coverage intentions when they aren’t forced out of the box by wide and spread-out receiver alignments. Given the Lions’ use of these formations and the strengths and weaknesses of Goff and this passing game, hiding and deploying edge blitzes, rotating safeties unexpectedly, and—in general—changing the picture pre- and post-snap will be key.
When kept clean, given time to see the field clearly, and able to operate on script, Goff is as good as any quarterback in the league. But while he’s made strides in the department, he’s never been an elite quick-trigger processor, and if you can speed up his process while muddying the picture pre-snap, his efficiency drops off. The Lions want to throw long-developing intermediate passes because they’re the hardest to guard when they can protect it. The first step to slowing down their passing attack is knowing that and forcing them to do anything but. That means deep linebacker drops, a variety of looks and techniques to wall crossers, and late safety rotations to try and passes attacking the middle of the field.
The Lions throw to the middle of the field more than any other team in football, and they’re damn good at it. However, our middle-of-the-field pass defense is the best in the NFL by a very large margin. That’s what happens when you have the best coverage linebacker duo in the history of football. Something’s gotta give.
Ambry Anxiety. Ambry Thomas probably had his worst game of the year last weekend, but—as a whole—he’s been playing the best ball of his career this season. I’m fascinated to see whether Ben Johnson sticks to what got the Lions here (and what Goff is best at) and goes strength-on-strength targeting the middle of the field against our linebackers or whether he tries to attack us outside. Given one of our cornerbacks is a second-team All-Pro who leads the league in pass deflections and the other is coming off a bad coverage and tackling game last week, you can bet who they’ll be attacking if throwing deep outside the hashes becomes a big part of their gameplan. If that’s the case, Thomas has gotta trust his technique, stay in phase, and not panic when the ball is in the air.
Amon-Ra is a genuine alpha and not a guy who is easily shadowed because he motions a lot and plays many snaps out of the slot. If attacking outside is a big part of their gameplan, I’m sure they will try and do so in ways that force Thomas to guard Amon-Ra. Sam LaPorta is a great underneath safety blanket but will be the problem of the linebackers and safeties. Their supporting receivers are more specialty guys. Some have speed, some have size. All are dangerous when deployed in this system but none are a genuine matchup problem against Ambry as long as he plays clean and controlled.
Earn The Big Bucks. In both draft capital and money spent, we have the most expensive defensive line in football. This is the exact type of matchup where they need to earn that money. We don’t need to have a dominant performance (although it would be a lot cooler if we did), but we need our defensive line to at least fight to a standstill. Given how much this Lions offense relies on their offensive line, that would go a long way to slowing down this attack.
Once again, if there’s a weakness along this offensive line it would be at guard, where injury replacement Kayode Awosika has had major problems in pass protection and Graham Glasgow—while a dominant run blocker—is not as strong in the passing game. Both players have an elite center and a good-to-elite tackle helping them on either side, but everyone can’t have double team help forever, and we have to win those matchups when their guards are unprotected.
While Goff is a much more mature, confident, and better player than he was in Los Angeles, he isn’t without warts. He’s improved when under pressure, but getting defenders into his body and moving him off his spot is still the best way to cause his efficiency to plummet. Among players with at least 100 dropbacks, PFF has Goff graded as the 11th-best quarterback in football this season. When pressured, his ranking drops to 24th, sandwiched between Mason Rudolph and Joshua Dobbs. Coming out of their bye week, the Lions had a five-game stretch where Goff’s QBR under pressure was 0.6(!) out of 100. That was, unsurprisingly, the worst mark in the league. He’s rebounded since then—and I do think he’s better versus pressure than he’s ever been in his career—but if you are looking for random stats to show Goff’s drop-off under pressure, well… they’re not too hard to find.
Making Goff move off his spot and messing up his timing is the best way to force Goff into turnovers, and when those turnovers come, they can come in bunches. Goff has four multiple-turnover games this season.
DEFENSE
The second of the Lions’ impressive coordinators is Aaron Glenn, who was just voted by players as the NFL’s top defensive coordinator by a weird NFLPA poll that only let players who were playing for a specific coordinator vote for them. Basically, this just means Glenn’s approval rating on his team is through the roof. That’s not nothing, but it also doesn’t equate to him being the “best” defensive coordinator. Meaningless polls aside, Glenn has done a good job instilling a grittiness and aggressiveness in a unit that has some holes in terms of personnel, which is why he’s getting so many head coaching looks this off-season despite the Lions having more of a middle-of-the-pack defense.
Once Again, The Run Game. Just as on offense, the Lions prioritize stopping the run game over everything else, and they’ve done an excellent job of doing just that throughout the season. This unit is well-coached, excellent in their run fits, and they fill aggressively all over the field. But what puts this unit over the top is that they rarely allow big plays. You may be able to move them and grind out tough yardage, but they’ve only allowed 11 runs of 15+ yards all season. All this adds up to DVOA’s #1-ranked rushing defense.
Solving Problems With Aggression. The Lions have basically dominated every imaginable pass rush stat this season, leading the league in pressure % and hurry % and finishing second in knockdown %. The one stat they haven’t done well at is—oddly enough—sacks, where their mark of 41 is the 10th-worst in the league.
The best player along their defensive line is Aidan Hutchinson, aka Maxx Crosby 2.0. He’s a relentless motor, insane endurance type who never comes off the field, and he’s registered at least a sack and three QB hits in each of his past four games. His 11.5 sacks are more than double that of the second-best on their team, but the guy who holds that mark (Alim McNeil) has had an excellent all-around season in his own right at defensive tackle. Everyone along their DL is solid or better against the run, but the rest of their dudes—save for maybe reserve DE Romeo Okwara—are better run-stoppers than pass rushers.
So how do the Lions get so many pressures with only two defensive linemen who are plus pass rushers? Blitzing. While the Lions aren’t at Brian Flores/Wink Martindale levels when it comes to sending extra bodies, they blitz on 35.4% of downs, which is the 4th-highest mark in the league.
All of their safeties and slot corners are excellent blitzers, but safety Ifeatu Melifonwu is their best overall player in the secondary, and he—alongside rookie nickel Brian Branch—gives Glenn a pair of movable pieces on the back end. Melifonwu basically plays everything from deep safety to slot corner to a rolled-up linebacker and edge blitzer while Branch is their full-time nickel and their best coverage man down the field.
The aggressiveness aligns with Campbell’s very public persona, and my hunch is that the Lions’ blitz-lean is in part because they’d rather be charging forward and ensuring that they stop the run rather than risk hesitation and reactive play defensively. But I also think that aggression and blitz rate are in part because they know their secondary can’t hold up long in coverage.
Dat Forward Pass Doe. After watching some of their film, I came away feeling their pass defense was better than their numbers. I think that’s because their aggressiveness makes them a high-variance pass defense. They’re either forcing incompletions and mistakes with their pressure or they’re kind of getting diced. That said, the numbers aren’t great. The Lions have the 5th-worst play-action defense in the league, are second-worst in yards gained per pass attempt, and third-worst in expected points added per pass attempt. Per DVOA, their pass defense is ranked right in the middle at 16th, but that’s mostly because of the negative plays their pass rush can generate.
To be fair, they’ve gotten a key reinforcement back from injury in safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, a big play guy and an absolutely notorious shit talker and secondary pest who went out of his way to pick a fight with Deebo on IG Live while he was healing up on the IR earlier this year. Deebo may not play this game but few people in the world play better when they’re pissed than our lovable open-field bowling ball of death. Nevertheless, Gardner-Johnson is a boost to their secondary. It’s just worth wondering how much that offsets their absolute lack of talent at outside cornerback.
Starting outside corners Cameron Sutton and Kindle Vildor have been liabilities all season. Over the past four games alone (vs. Dallas, Minnesota, LA Rams, and Bucs) Sutton is credited by PFF as allowing 26 grabs on 32 targets (81.3%) for 467 yards (17.9 ypc) and three touchdowns while Vildor has allowed 13 catches on 21 targets (61.9%) for 342 yards (26.3 ypc) and three touchdowns. Per PFF, they are the 100th and 105th ranked cornerbacks out of 129 qualifiers. And Vildor replaced the now-injured Jerry Jacobs in the starting lineup after he was pulled due to play. For reference, over the 14 games he’s played this season, our much-critiqued corner Ambry Thomas has allowed 44 grabs on 61 targets (72.1%) for 421 yards (9.6 ypc) and three scores. That’s right, Ambry has allowed fewer yards and just as many touchdowns all season as the Lions’ top cornerback has allowed in just the past four games.
Despite their problems outside, the Lions run the 10th-most man coverage in the league, which makes me think that if Glenn had better outside corners (like if Emmanuel Moseley wasn’t hurt) their rate of man coverage would be in the top 5. Regardless, there are matchups to be had outside.
Play-action passes have also been an issue for the Lions—in large part because their linebackers are so aggressive fitting the run. Alex Anzalone has long been an underappreciated player, and he’s their best linebacker vs the pass, but I’m not sure the Lions are particularly confident in any of their other LBs in coverage. First-rounder Jack Campbell has slotted in nicely as a solid tackler and run stuffer, but he’s a part-time player—their third linebacker—and is one of the single worst coverage linebackers in the entire league.
It’s not as easy as looking at PFF numbers in a vacuum and deciphering exactly where you want to target a defense, but—in the Lions’ case—it kind of is.
POTENTIAL OFFENSIVE KEYS
Misdirection and Play Action. Given the Lions’ offensive ability and the clear strengths and weaknesses of their defense, we are going to need to throw the ball well in this game. That doesn’t mean abandoning the run (I can’t imagine when I could ever pitch doing that given our offense and personnel), but success on the ground may look more like four- and five-yard gains rather than the big gains we’ve come to expect. We’re much more likely to find chunk plays through the air, particularly off of play action.
This is a Lions defense that is aggressive and well-coached and is always flying downhill, but I think they’re at their best when their keys are clear and they can simply sprint and effort their way to the ball. They’ve held strong against teams like the Cowboys—who have less motion and more static looks—but have allowed 400+ yards in three straight games against teams who employ some amount of the misdirection and complex looks that have become a staple of our offense.
There are personnel wins to be had in this game, but if we can pepper the defense with misdirection and confusion early then we have a better chance of slowing down their front seven, which would in turn let us matchup hunt in the passing game. Against a defense as aggressive as the Lions, slowing up their read-and-react is incredibly important.
Prepare to Pivot. The worst possible scenario is that we game plan with the assumption Deebo can play and we learn in pregame or early in the first quarter that he can’t. While the splits of our offense with and without Deebo are a testament to his ability, we struggle the most when he’s knocked out of a game early. For all the benefits of Shanahan’s scheme and his horde of Swiss-army knife players, relying so heavily on guys like CMC and Deebo—who are equally important to the rushing and passing game—means when one of them goes down… we lose a big chunk of both our rushing and passing game.
Since Deebo seems like a true game-time decision we need to enter with a gameplan that both utilizes his abilities if he can play and doesn’t hamstring us if he doesn’t. That’s certainly easier said than done, but I’d expect packages with both Elijah Mitchell and CMC to be on the play sheet in case Deebo can’t go, more creative uses for Kittle as a motion guy, and potentially an influx of the two-way versatility of Ray-Ray McCloud on sweep looks and space plays (if Shanahan has forgiven him for messing up that deep route against the Packers). Perhaps we’ll even see a run game that’s a bit of a Shanahan throwback, with deeper under center play actions sprinkled in to really open those spaces behind the linebackers. Whatever the solution may be, Shanahan has to be prepared for a world where Deebo plays and another where he doesn’t. While that may mean our game plan isn’t as meticulously detailed as usual, we can’t risk having as many issues as we did last weekend when he went down.
Always Open. If Deebo doesn’t play it will be harder to force-feed Aiyuk in the passing game, but my god is this a juicy matchup outside. The Lions guard tight ends well—having a strong nickel corner and a good crop of safeties will often do that—but are highly susceptible to outside wideouts and running backs.
If Deebo is out I would assume the Lions shift coverage and safety help toward Aiyuk whenever they can, but there are still ways to get him into solo coverage based on formations and motions and run action away. Due in no small part to the weather and Purdy’s play because of it, Aiyuk had a much quieter game last weekend than he should have. Unless the Lions shift over so much coverage to Aiyuk that everyone else becomes wide open, we can’t have that happen again.
Efficiency > Flashy. The Lions’ blitz-heavy nature has helped them pressure QBs better than anyone else in the league, but—despite the assumption of Purdy haters—the Niners are actually the best blitz-beating offense in the league. Unless you can send extras AND confuse Purdy with underneath coverages, our slants and quick-ins are built to punish extra rushers with YAC yards.
I expect we’ll have some screens and CMC swing pass equivalents ready when they blitz, but—extra rushers or not—our offensive line needs to do a better job in pass pro this week than last. This Lions’ defense lives off of limiting yardage on the ground and creating negatives via their pass rush so that they have a better chance of getting off the field or taking away the ball on long downs and distances. We can have success against a scheme like that when we stay efficient in the passing game, but if the Lions can get home with four and don’t NEED to send extras, we start making things more difficult than they need to be.
As for Purdy? Last week the Packers were dropping deep into the dig areas in an attempt to stop our second-level throws, but in doing so they left the checkdowns wide open. If the Lions do something similar and vacate their linebackers against dropback passing, then Purdy needs to just be smart and take the underneath throw. Staying on schedule and avoiding negatives is how you put up points on this defense, and a checkdown to CMC or Kittle with room to run can easily lead to sizeable gains.
Starting a Change.org Campaign to Reinstate the Drought. How a four-year starter playing out of Ames, Iowa could have so many problems with a wet ball is beyond me, but it’s impossible to argue how a soaked football affects Purdy’s throwing ability. Last week, against Cleveland earlier this year, and in the first half against the Seahawks last post-season were the rainiest games Purdy has played in, and it’s not a coincidence that he was at his most inaccurate in those two-and-a-half contests. As of this writing, there was a 25% chance for rain on Saturday but a 0% chance of rain on Sunday. If there’s a god, the sun will be shining bright.
SPECIAL TEAMS + OTHER SHIT
1-31. If you thought the stat that “Kyle Shanahan is 0-30 in games when his team is down 5+ points entering the fourth quarter” screamed sampling bias, well then… you were right.
If we exclude games not started or finished (due to injury) by Jimmy G or Brock (aka games piloted by an NFL backup) and take out games where we’re down 14+ entering the fourth because no one wins those games (I’m not scrubbing the data to make this point into a neat statistic but the Cowboys were 195-0 as a franchise with a 14-point lead entering the fourth quarter until last year), the stat is much more reasonable and representative of what it implies.
So… in games where we have an actual starting quarterback and are down 5-13 points entering the fourth quarter, our Shanahan-era record is:
Brock Purdy: 1-2
Jimmy G: 0-3
To Jimmy’s credit, one of those losses includes an 11-point comeback against Seattle where our backup kicker missed a would-be game-winner in overtime back in 2019.
Just like teams who live and die by the three-ball in the NBA, teams built off explosive dropback passing are more likely to come back when down in the fourth quarter. But those teams are—on average—also more likely to be in those positions to begin with because of a lack of defense or complementary football. It’s fun to see a gunslinger take a team back from down big in the fourth quarter, but it’s even more fun to just not be down big in the fourth quarter.
Your everyday key to special teams: (1) kick the ball between the uprights instead of outside of them; (2) just put that shit in the endzone on kickoffs.
TLDR
Coaching is about more than X’s and O’s. Dan Campbell understood that and focused his energy on instilling a culture and an identity in a franchise that had been sorely lacking both for decades. But coaching is also about X’s and O’s, so while Campbell built the team’s identity, he brought in top-tier coordinators to run the show on offense and defense. The only stipulation? They had to be physical and—whether on offense or defense—they had to win in the run game.
If we can slow down the Lions’ run game on Sunday, we win this game. While their passing attack is built to accent the strengths of their personnel and their quarterback, those strengths just so happen to butt up against where our defense is at its best: defending the middle of the field. Those passes get Goff in a rhythm, unlock Sam LaPorta as an underneath safety blanket, and get the supporting receivers involved with easy completions. I just don’t think they can find the success they want through the air against our linebackers if they don’t kill it on the ground, and if that’s the case, they’ll be hard-pressed to keep up with our offense in what I expect to be a strong rebound from a subpar performance last weekend.
This Lions team is dangerous and hungry. The last time they were in this position was 1991, and—as one of four teams (the other three expansion squads) who have never had a Super Bowl appearance—they’re one win away from truly unprecedented territory. They may have left the rowdy confines of Ford Field, but they’ll be plenty prepared and motivated come Sunday. However, I don’t believe that both our offense and our defense will struggle in back-to-back games. We’ve seemed like the class of the NFC all season long, and—rather than jump to conclusions based on recency bias—I expect us to look the part on Sunday.
Go Niners 🏈👍
Preview: Green Bay
good times had by all
Opponent: Green Bay Packers
Where: Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, CA)
When: Saturday, 1/20 @ 5:15 PT
Weather: 60’s with a chance of showers + wind
In the 90’s action thriller/gay rom-com Point Break, police chief Ben Harp (Dr. Cox from Scrubs) refers to the fresh-faced and cocky Keanu Reeves as “young, dumb, and full of cum.” Like many action heroes of this time, Reeves’ character was brash, bold, and too young and stupid to know the seriousness and repercussions of his actions. This impulsive youthfulness came with some growing pains (like Gary Busey’s death, whoops), but ultimately led to the (sort of) apprehension of the bad guys. You can probably guess the analogy here.
The fifth-youngest playoff team since the merger—and the youngest since 1974—these Packers are having fun, keeping loose, and staying dangerous. They just pasted the Cowboys in Dallas—giving the Boys their first home loss since September of 2022—and are peaking on both sides of the ball at the right time. They’re so young and so unheralded that—unlike Packers teams of old—there are no expectations that they must worry to live up to. They’re just here to surf, rob banks, and develop a half-baked romantic relationship with Lori Petty that no one remembers or cares about.
Perhaps, the young underdogs will come through in the clutch. Or perhaps they’ll be left lying on the ground, screaming and firing their gun in the air because they’re just not quite ready to seal the deal.
Health Check
Packers: As of Tuesday afternoon, the Packers’ injury report has plenty of limited and DNP designations, but since they don’t actually practice until Wednesday it’s a pretty fuzzy picture. WR Christian Watson—who played limited snaps in the wild-card round while coming back from a hamstring injury—should be expected to play, but he may still be on a snap count. DE/OLB Preston Smith and G Elgton Jenkins were both listed as DNP, but should be considered likely to play given they played all of last weekend’s game. RB AJ Dillon missed the last two weeks and is a genuine question mark for this weekend. The biggest concern is CB Jaire Alexander, who toughed through an ankle injury against the Cowboys but left the game after re-aggravating it in the second half. He was listed as a limited participant, so at this point in the week that probably means he’s playing.
Niners: The bye week has been kind to us. Except for Trent Williams (who was given a rest day), the only DNPs we registered on Tuesday were Clelin Ferrell, Logan Ryan, and Dre Greenlaw, and the last two at least should practice on Wednesday and be considered heavily likely to play on Saturday. George Odum was limited, which could give our safeties a much-needed boost of depth, and Arik Armstead—who has been sidelined with a lisfranc injury since week 13—returned to practice last week. He’s still a limited participant, but he also seems highly likely to suit up this weekend.
PACKERS OFFENSE
Matt LaFleur has impressed me this year.
Despite starting his head coaching career with a 47-19 regular season record, it was always hard to tell how much of that early success was due to the culture and offense LaFleur installed versus the schemes that Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams were already comfortable with. The 2-3 playoff record—with each of those losses disappointing and underwhelming in their own special way—didn’t help matters.
But now that they’re free from the spectre of Aaron Rodgers, LaFleur has been able to install and pilot the offense that he likely wanted to run from the jump. The result has been a unit that may not put up as many massive individual stat lines as the MVP Rodgers years but is much more cohesive and tailor-made to opposing defenses.
Healthier than they’ve been all season, this is a top-10 unit with a deep roster of versatile weapons, an emerging young star at quarterback, and a playcaller who knows how to play to his roster’s strengths and attack defensive weaknesses.
Same same but different. The Redskins’ and Falcons’ QB coach under Shanahan before hopping over to be the Rams’ OC for a year, Matt LaFleur’s offense has the same bones as the one we operate—with a heavy emphasis on motion, play action, and keeping defenses guessing by making the running and passing game concepts look as similar as possible. They’re all about minimizing tells so that teams can’t key on what they’re doing, which makes it easier to call games sequentially.
Before this year, the offense was a mish-mash of LaFleur’s concepts and the more static, matchup-hunting that Rodgers had become accustomed to with Davante Adams. While the bevy of back shoulder fades and quick hitters that arose from the Rodgers/Adams mind-meld often felt unstoppable, we kind of showed in our last playoff matchup against them how their rules could be reverse-engineered to force them into disadvantageous looks. This year, the offense relies significantly less on those kinds of audibles and hot routes and more on LaFleur’s thoughtful and well-designed week-to-week game plans.
LaFleur has been vocal this year about needing to stay committed to the run, and—with Aaron Jones back healthy—he’s done that better than ever as of late. As crazy as it seems, the Dallas game marked the first time in Aaron Jones’ career that he’s had 110+ rushing yards in four straight games. Staying ahead of the sticks and up on the scoreboard was clearly a massive part of the Packers’ game plan against Dallas, as 10 of the Packers’ first 12 plays were runs or utilized run action. I would expect more of the same against us.
The run game is their best way to rack up consistent short-yardage gains, and when that’s operating smoothly it opens up time and space for Jordan Love and their passing attack to target the second-level throws that this offense feasts on.
Love at second sight. Jordan Love blasted out of the gates in his first season as a starter before cooling off tremendously in the middle of the season, but over his last nine games—seven of them Packers victories—he’s played as well as any quarterback in the league. During that time, he’s completed 70.7% of his passes for 269 yards/game while throwing for 21 touchdowns and only one pick. Those numbers aren’t a mirage.
Despite dealing with numerous injuries to skill players during this closing stretch, Love has grown tremendously throughout the season, as best evidenced by his rematch performances against the Lions and Vikings—two division foes he struggled mightily against earlier in the season. Give credit to LaFleur for adjusting game plans to put Love in advantageous situations, but the Packers seem to have found (yet another) top-tier quarterback. Turns out drafting a dude for his physical tools and letting him set behind an established veteran can still—despite media outcry—be quite an effective method of developing a young quarterback.
You’ve probably seen Love’s “fadeaway” passes on highlights or social media. Given the fact that those passes are basically all to dudes who are wide-ass open and/or are massively underthrown, I wouldn’t get too caught up in all that. People throw from different angles. That’s nothing new. But if anything, those passes off his back foot are a reminder of Love’s athleticism, the size he has that allows him to toss those balls over rushing linemen, and—most importantly—his current comfort level in this offense. This team probably throws more late-opening crossers and deep outs than any in the league, and that’s a testament to Love’s ability to buy time in the pocket and make those throws under duress—whether that’s off his back foot or not.
Guys or Dudes. The Packers likely have the most diverse crop of young receivers in the country, even if none of them has cemented himself as a true alpha. Christian Watson is the dude who most looks the part—and someone who has had the most splash games over the past two years—but he’s been hurt a bunch this year. Jayden Reed is their Deebo light—a fly sweep and gadget guy who they scheme up different ways to get the ball in space. While Romeo Doubs—who just torched the Cowboys for six grabs for 151 yards—is perhaps their most consistent and well-rounded of the bunch (and their leader in receiving touchdowns). At tight end, they employ two promising rookies in Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft. This is a team that likes extra tight end sets, so both get plenty of run. Amazingly enough, all of these options are first- or second-year players.
Even if their only true alpha is running back Aaron Jones, the interchangeability of their wideouts and the creativity of LaFleur’s offense allows this offense to get the best of their young receivers while letting them continue to develop into the players they’ll eventually become. While it sounds counterintuitive in a time when we prioritize star talent more than anything in sports, it’s the depth of the receiving corps that is its best asset. Every good team has some weapons, and every good defense tries to take those weapons away. Few teams have a fourth- or fifth-option as good as the Packers, which is why—in any given game—any one of those options could be a featured player.
Potential Defensive Keys
Stop the Run. Hopefully, Armstead is back for this one because stopping the run (and the pass looks off of the run) is the single most important factor in slowing down this Packers offense. It’s also where we’ve shown some weakness this season. While our raw rushing defense stats are strong, part of that is due to how quickly we’ve jumped on teams on the scoreboard. When it comes to YPC and EPA/rush, our numbers are much less pristine. Now, does that change immediately with one of the single-best run-stoppers in football back in the fold? Yes. To some extent. But we’ll need to be ready to stop the run early and often in this game.
As great as Jordan Love has looked as of late, this offense is built around balance and chunk plays off of play action. Against the Cowboys, they knew that if they could run the ball and run pass actions off of the threat of that run, they could stymy Dallas’ pass rushers. With only a single pressure on 21 passing attempts, their plan worked out better than they ever could have imagined. Given the talent and aggressive reputation of our defensive line, they’ll likely want to employ a similar game plan against us, with the run game, play action, and screens featuring heavily into their attack.
Love was 7-of-9 for 165 yards and a score off of play action against Dallas. The Packers want to get their young wideouts threatening deep then breaking into those second-level windows that open up when the run game is humming. If they can’t get those consistent short-to-medium gains on the ground then they’re not creating those passing windows behind the linebackers and they’ll have to get those short gains through drop-back passing. While Love is certainly capable in that regard, it is not the Packers’ strength, nor what they want to do. Love is at his best in deep drops where he has the time to see windows open down the field, where his athleticism can extend a play, and where his arm talent can put the ball wherever it needs to be. When we shorten down their routes and speed up that process, we have the best chance of preventing him from getting into a rhythm in the passing game.
Bracket the Boot. Based on Love’s physical profile and how the Packers like to attack defenses, it should come as no surprise to learn that they love bootleg concepts. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen what was effectively one throwback bootleg concept work so consistently as it did against Dallas, but the Packers have been springing open receivers down the field off of their bootleg looks all year.
While I’d be shocked to see the Niners have coverage lapses on the scale of what we just saw in Dallas, I do expect the Packers to give us heavy doses of bootlegs in an attempt to get Jordan Love on the move with depth. That way they can slow up our pass rush, buy time for those second level throws, and give easy outlets in the flats to their tight ends, backs, and fly motion guys crossing Love’s face.
We’ve seen teams spam bootlegs before—even when their run game wasn’t productive—as a means of preventing our defensive line from teeing off. So it’s important that we both have a plan to stop the run and the many looks that the Packers can deploy off of run action—regardless of their success on the ground.
Sound safeties. The Packers do a good job of targeting and attacking defensive tendencies and favorable matchups. Against the Cowboys, it seemed like they wanted to avoid their outside corners and target the slots. That led to route trees like this one, from Romeo Doubs.
Here, you can see the multiple throwback bootlegs they completed to Doubs as well as the emphasis on the sort of deep in-breaking routes that avoid outside corners who are playing deep thirds/quarters while out-leveraging them when in man based on where their coverage help is likely to be.
Since we have the best coverage linebackers in the NFL, I expect the Packers will avoid testing Warner and Greenlaw and instead lean more on trying to create one-on-one matchups with our safeties on double moves and deep crossers down the field. If they test us outside it will likely be towards Ambry Thomas, hoping to beat him off a double move or draw a flag if he initiates contact at the top of the route. Thomas has played very well for us since moving into the starting lineup, but he can get grabby on those late-breaking routes and scramble drill situations.
Having solutions and support for our backend players will be key here, but the easiest way to stop them from completing these long-developing routes is, well…
Speed up the process. It’s never a bad time for our defensive line to get in the opposing quarterback’s face, but given the time needed for the Packers’ preferred routes to get open, this would be a particularly good game for our vaunted d-line to pressure Love into getting rid of the ball earlier and less on target than he’d like.
3 < 7. Entering the Cowboys game, the Packers had only been stopped short of a touchdown once all season after getting to a first-and-goal situation—a stat that was the best mark in multiple decades. Despite that, their red zone touchdown percentage as a whole is only 17th-best in the league. So something’s going on between the 20- and 11-yard lines.
I haven’t watched enough of them to know what the problem is, but I assume it has something to do with the condensed field allowing safeties to sit on the goal line and drive on those second-level throws that they like so much. Whatever it is, it’ll be important for us to bow up once they start sniffing the red zone and force field goal attempts rather than touchdowns.
PACKERS DEFENSE
After firing then-embattled DC Mike Pettine in 2021, LaFleur went back to the Rams well with currently-embattled DC Joe Barry—who spent four years working under Wade Phillips, Brandon Staley, and Raheem Morris.
Barry’s had his moments—including holding us to 13 points two years ago in Lambeau—but has been under heavy scrutiny for much of this season as the pilot of a defensive unit that has underperformed for most of the year. That said, the Packers finished the regular season holding the Vikings and Bears to averages of 9.5 points and 201 offensive yards before their starters kept the Cowboys to 16 points through three-and-a-half quarters. So is this a unit that has finally found its way, or have their past few opponents simply been unable to target their weaknesses?
Not the mayor of Titletown. As recently as Christmas, Joe Barry was maybe the most hated man in Wisconsin. To the point where Packers blogs were doing shit like posting long form articles listing the many career games random players had put up against Joe Barry-led defenses. The past few games have quieted the chatter a tiny bit, but he’s still very much on the hot seat, and a bad performance against us could lead to another shuffling of DCs in the off-season.
While I do think the Packers are playing their best defense at the exact right time, this is still a unit with major issues. Yes, they did all they needed to and more against the Cowboys but they also allowed 500+ offensive yards (even if some of that was with their backups in the game). And they’re less than a month removed from allowing 34 points and a season-high 454 yards of offense against the Bucs and 30 points and nearly 400 yards of offense to the Carolina Panthers. For anyone who has watched a second of Panthers football this year, those numbers are unfathomable.
ROI woes. Other than Jordan Love in 2020, the Packers have used every single first-round pick since 2018 on the defensive side of the ball, so there’s no excuse for the cupboard to feel so dry.
This is not a defense that is devoid of talent. Their front seven has players, with Kenny Clark still a disruptive force on the interior and Preston Smith and Rashan Gary making for an impressive-looking pair of book-end rushers. The front—and its ability to rush the passer—is unquestionably the strength of this defense. But there are major personnel question marks at every other level.
After Raheem Mostert gouged them to death in the 2019 playoffs, the Packers invested heavily in the linebacker position, drafting Quay Walker out of Georgia in the first round of 2022 and locking up De’Vondre Campbell on a five-year deal after his breakout 2021 season. But Quay hasn’t lived up to his draft stock and Campbell’s health and play have slowly deteriorated since signing his big deal.
In the secondary, 2021 first-rounder Darnell Savage has played well this season—his pick-six against the Cowboys basically iced that game before halftime—but that’s basically where the feel-good stories end. Jaire Alexander played in the wild card game—corralling Dak’s first interception—and when he can play it’s a huge boost for this secondary, but he’s been in and out of the lineup all season. 2019 first-round corner Eric Stokes has played two games this season—a recurring theme for a young player who hasn’t been able to kick the injury bug. Given the Packers traded veteran Rasul Douglas at the deadline—a trade that feels all the more mind-boggling now that he’s playing at a high level for the #2 seed Bills—they’ve been left with starting journeyman Corey Ballentine and 7th round rookie Carrington Valentine outside for much of the season. That’s a good blueprint to allow Baker Mayfield to drop 350 yards passing and a perfect passer rating on you.
Ballentine and Valentine have had their moments in the past month or so, but it’s hard to tell how much of that is youthful improvement versus a pass rush that is starting to get home more often. Either way, the health of Jaire Alexander’s ankle is a major variable as we head into the weekend.
First thing’s first. So what’s gone right as of late?
The biggest change during the Packers’ late-season surge is that they’ve shown a pulse as a run defense, which has allowed them to lean into the strength of their pass rush, and—in turn—create more negative plays and takeaways. This is a team that allowed four 200+ rushing performances through week 14, including to bottom-dwelling units like the Tommy DeVito Giants and the Matt Canada-led Steelers. Even in the year of the lort 2024, if you can get road-graded on the ground it’s hard to do much of anything defensively, so the Packers adjusted heavily to stop the run in hopes that it would create a trickle-down effect of defensive success.
To key opposing running games, the Packers have leaned more into five-man fronts on early downs to clog lanes, create one-on-ones with their best players along the line of scrimmage, and generate more disruption and penetration in the run game. This has protected the Packers’ struggling linebackers from second-level blockers, given them fewer gaps to cover, and let them run and hit rather than read and stack-and-shed. To make things even simpler for those LBs (particularly Quay Walker), the Packers also started just sending them more on blitzes to muck up the works. Using blitzes to point a struggling or hesitant linebacker in the direction they have to go (rather than trusting them to read and react) is far from a long-term solution, but it can work in a pinch—especially when the linebacker is a plus athlete with minus instincts.
These five-man fronts, timely blitzes, and the friendlier downs and distances that arise from slowing down opposing rushing attacks have allowed the Packers to lean into their greatest personnel strength: their pass rush. Over their four-game winning streak, the Packers are averaging nearly four sacks a game, and—at times—the front looks more like the defense that was promised than the one that they’ve been fielding for much of the year. With their defensive line mucking up backfields and forcing quarterbacks into more hurried throws, the secondary doesn’t have to guard their men as long and the results have led to a few of the Packers’ best defensive performances to date.
Potential Offensive Keys
Take the Packers to P-Town. The Packers’ rushing defense may have bowed up as of late—holding four of their last five opponents under 100 yards rushing—but a run defense can’t be fixed overnight and it takes more than a commitment to heavier personnel to succeed against more sophisticated run games.
A five-man front can cover each gap, but it also allows for chunk yardage on the ground when runners can penetrate the first level or outflank the edges—both specialties in our scheme. While our offense is more balanced than it has ever been under Shanahan, we still hang our hat on a physical and diverse run game. That shouldn’t change in this matchup. I’m not saying we should run blindly into five-man fronts every first down, but we can and should have success on the ground in this matchup, and once that run threat is established there should be plenty of room to throw the ball via play action. The Packers’ linebackers have really struggled in coverage this season—especially off of play fakes, and that plays right into what we do best.
Sketchy math. The Packers often commit to their five-man fronts on early downs and distances and to combat 12 and 21 personnel (i.e. “rushing downs”), but—given what we specialize in offensively—I’m interested to see how much they can and will run a personnel group that intentionally takes away a linebacker or defensive back for a bigger bodied player.
As the only team who can break a huddle with 21 personnel and have our running back on an option route while our fullback runs a wheel, we can easily pop into empty sets against five-man fronts and force man coverage across the board or make one of their edge players drop into a short zone where they have to corral Deebo or Kittle in space. If you’re the Packers, how often are you comfortable with either of those situations?
The other inherent drawback of deploying these looks is that they take away a middle-of-the-field coverage option. The Packers have struggled to guard the middle of the field all year and they’ve routinely been gouged by play action, two major strengths of our offense. While committing to the run game is important, early down five-man fronts could open up opportunities for the kind of explosive first-down passing that quickly puts a defense on its heels.
Clearing the picture. With increased pressure up front, the Packers have been able to muddy passing lanes and generate more turnovers in the past few weeks. But those complex looks are a lot easier against someone like the Cowboys than they should be against us.
While the move to a more traditional West Coast offense unlocked some of Dak’s best play this season, it also—somewhat ironically—tanked the Cowboys in a similar way that Rodgers’ commitment to static formations and matchup-hunting sunk the Packers in the 2021 playoffs. Knowing the massive personnel mismatch, Dak was clearly honed in on getting the ball to CeeDee early, but—instead of relying on pre-snap motion and scheming guys open—the Cowboys felt they could feed their elite wideout by just moving him around and hunting matchups.
Obviously, that didn’t really work. While in theory, it made sense to have their best threat a potential target on every snap, the Cowboys struggled to get into a rhythm early without some schemed-up layups and the lack of window dressing and pre-snap movement let the Packers play aggressively downhill while deploying some trap coverages like on Dak’s pick-six near the end of the first half.
With our exotic formations and heavy use of motion, we’ll be able to create more hesitation for the defense while getting far more pre-snap keys for Purdy and force the Packers to play simpler coverages that they must declare earlier.
Let the Boys Eat. On the simplest level, I think we just have a bunch of great matchups in the passing game. While we want to be more creative and intentional than the Cowboys were with CeeDee in creating those matchups, we also have a deeper core of weapons than Dallas and the Packers won’t be able to key any one player if they plan to slow us down.
Whether it’s motions to empty sets and overload quads, run action away to create singles on backside receivers, or any other number of tools in our toolkit, we have the means to set up mismatches up and down the field. I fully expect us to do just that.
The linebackers in particular should be in the crosshairs early and often. Their coverage issues have been harped on enough by now, but they’re also one of the league’s worst-graded units in guarding running backs in the passing game…
Which, uh… yeah. Good luck with that.
SPECIAL TEAMS + OTHER SHIT
Weather Watch. The weather report is bound to change multiple times before we get to this weekend, but at the moment there’s a chance for both rain and legitimate wind gusts on Saturday. Given we’re the team with the quarterback who had issues handling a wet ball in Cleveland and NOT the team from Wisconsin, we’d prefer those elements stay away.
Ray-Ray Returns. Ray-Ray McCloud got a bunch of run in week 18 as he returned from injury. That gives us a spark in the return game, and—most importantly—means we don’t have to rely on a rookie wideout wearing #10 to make crunch time returns during the playoffs. No offense to Ronnie Bell, who has played great as a rookie (all things considered), but that should be a relief for all of us.
Fresh fish. It is worth noting that rookie kickers are notoriously sketchy. Nick Folk and Ka’imi Fairbairn—the No.1 and No.2 top kickers in terms of field goal percentage this season—were 20th and 24th, respectively, in field goal percentage during their rookie years. Younghoe Koo, one of the league’s most handsomely paid kickers, was cut by the Chargers after making only 50% of his kicks over the first four games of his rookie season. Even Brandon Aubrey, who set the gold standard for rookie kickers this year (although he’s 28 and played professionally already so not sure if he counts as a rookie), missed two field goals in the season finale and an extra point in the wild-card round. Rookie kickers are sketchy. And this game has two of them.
Our rookie kicker is fresh off missing his first-ever field goal under 40 yards and his first-ever extra point. Not great. But the Packers’ kicking game (and their special teams in general) is even more suspect. Jake Moody has attempted fewer field goals than almost any other full-time kicker and is 20th in field goal % on the year, but Anders Carlson—who the Packers drafted in the sixth round—is 24th in field goal %, barely over .500 when kicking from 40 or more yards, and has missed an astounding six extra points this season (including one in the wild-card round).
Will this settle your nerves at all if this game comes down to a few crunch-time kicks? Probably not. But it’s worth noting.
Your everyday key to special teams: (1) kick the ball between the uprights instead of outside of them; (2) don’t allow back-breaking momentum-changing plays in coverage.
TLDR
The Packers are a young, hungry, and surging squad, which makes for a dangerous divisional-round opponent regardless of their seeding. This team is 8-3 in their last eleven games and their offense and young quarterback are near the top of the charts in nearly every offensive metric (advanced or otherwise) during that run. But the team and the young quarterback right above them in basically all of those offensive categories? The Niners and Brock Purdy.
While this Packers offense is absolutely legit, I’m not nearly as convinced that their defense has turned the corner. This seems like a unit that has improved, but whose improvements may be greatly exaggerated by the dominance they’ve displayed on the other side of the ball. I don’t think they’re as bad as the raw numbers and advanced analytics may say, but I don’t think this is a team strength. If we can simply play our game while preventing negative plays and turnovers, it’s hard for me to imagine a defense that has major issues stopping play action, defending the middle of the field, and covering running backs in the passing game slowing down our offensive attack.
Yes, the Packers can break explosive plays and score points in bunches, and if this game becomes a shootout then anything could happen. But if I had to bet on which defense will hold serve more times against elite offensive competition, I’m betting on the good guys.
Go Niners 🏈👍
NFC Playoff Preview
watching and waiting
With a well-earned No.1 seed locked up, we now have the freedom to treat the next two weeks as byes. Shanahan has already said that they’ll be resting some guys against the Rams. Trent and CMC are the most obvious candidates, and—if there’s no Trent protecting his blindside—I would contemplate sitting Purdy as well. Regardless of how we approach it, NFL rosters are small so there will be plenty of starters suiting up. There’s a chance we practice the week with the ones to keep them sharp then roll out mostly twos. There’s a chance we treat this like a preseason game and play the majority of our starters for a few series before they give way to the backups.
Regardless of who plays, who doesn’t, and for how long, our goal in week 18 is to have a good week of practice leading up to the bye and exit the week healthy. As an added bonus, there’s not a single other team in the NFC that has the same luxury, as all will be vying for playoff entrance or seeding.
NFC
Dallas Cowboys (11-5)
With a win, the Cowboys will lock up the 2-seed and perhaps no team needs it more, as Dallas is 8-0 at home and 3-5 on the road. While that stat is skewed by the fact that they’ve played four of their top five opponents on the road, there’s no denying that this Dallas team—which relies so heavily on their explosive passing offense—prefers turf, domes, and nice weather.
This is an offense that averages 37.4 points and 426 offensive yards per game at home—two figures that would easily be tops in the league if spread out across an entire season—and they’ve done so by unlocking Dak with the west coast offense. One fewer loss and Dak—who leads the league in passing TDs and is top five in every meaningful statistical category, from interception % to completion %—would likely be the front-runner for the MVP, and his emergence after an early season adjustment period means the Cowboys can put up points with anyone.
However, one of the main reasons Dallas struggles on the road is that their passing attack has to take on too much of their offensive burden. A year after running for nearly 2300 yards and 24 scores under Kellen Moore, the Cowboys have only scored 13 times on the ground and have yet to surpass 1800 yards rushing. Simply put, their rushing attack is a shell of what it once was, and that’s most evident on the road. In the six road games since the start of October, the Cowboys have only had a single 100-yard rushing performance, and that was when they narrowly eked out 107 yards against the NFL-worst Carolina Panthers.
They say that defense and rushing attacks are the two things that travel in the NFL playoffs. Luckily for the Cowboys, they hold the tiebreak over both the Eagles and the Lions, so if they can win in Washington this weekend, they won’t have to do any traveling until—at earliest—the NFC Championship game.
Detroit Lions (11-5)
After the absolute shitshow that was the end to the Dallas game, the Lions need a win, a Dallas loss and an Eagles loss to secure the 2-seed. Any other outcome and they’re locked in as the 3-seed. But either way they’ve won their division and will host a playoff game in (at least) the first round, a feat that the franchise hasn’t achieved since 1993. That is absolutely insane. That fanbase promises to be rabid, and I fully expect Detroit to be an absolute nightmare for opposing teams to play in during the playoffs.
The Lions have one of the best young play callers in the business in Ben Johnson and—when they can run the ball and protect Goff—they can score on anyone. They have a physical mindset in the trenches and—with their two-headed running back tandem—they’re fully capable of road grading teams. They’ve only failed to surpass 100 yards rushing twice this season—once in a game where they were torching the Bucs through the air and their starting RB went down in the first quarter, and again the week after when they got so far beyond the Ravens so quickly that they had to abandon the run game altogether. They’re not only committed and capable in the run game, but it’s where they hang their identity.
When they choose to pass, Jared Goff is playing his best ball and Johnson does a great job of catering the offense to his strengths. But he’s still Goff. If you can get into his body, get him feeling pressure, and force him off his spot, he can turn over the ball in bunches. This Lions offense has five games of three or more turnovers. They’ve actually won two of those games, which is a testament to their offensive firepower and their ability to throw the ball down the field, but things can get loose in a hurry.
While Dan Campbell’s coaching style has led to an emphasis on running the ball and stopping the run, preventing rushing yardage is basically the only thing the Lions do all that well on defense. This is a bottom-ten unit in terms of points per game allowed and yards per play allowed and their takeaway numbers aren’t strong enough to offset those figures. Given the competition last week, they’re coming off one of their best defensive performances of the season, but this is a team whose defense has registered in the negatives in expected points added for eight consecutive weeks exiting their bye week. To be fair, this is far from a bottom-dwelling unit, it’s just not a strength. Its highs are solid and its lows are not great. I imagine they have another level of play that they can hit, but they might not have the talent to get there this year.
Philadelphia Eagles (11-5)
Despite losing four of their last five games—including at home to a then three-win Cardinals team who is fighting for a high draft pick—the Eagles still have a legitimate shot at the 2-seed. They just have to beat the Giants this week and have the Cowboys lose to the Commanders. I wouldn’t say it’s a likely scenario, but that’s the silver lining for an Eagles team who’d been skirting by their competition for most of the season before the wheels fell off over the past month.
This is a team that is 8-3 in games decided by one score or less, which is a classic indicator of a team that isn’t as good as its record. While the Eagles could finish the season with the same record as us and may have the most talented roster in the league, the answers have not been there schematically after they basically tried to run it back with in-the-building promotions after losing both of their coordinators in the off-season.
Last year’s defense always felt like a mirage—buoyed by a dominant pass rush and a schedule that faced a never-ending slate of backups and below-average quarterbacks. But under Sean Desai and now Matt Patricia (lol), teams have exposed its back end and the Eagles have been getting carved up. If you include the 394 yards the Cowboys put up on them at home, this Philly defense has allowed 400+ yards on six separate occasions—including four times in its past six games—and now they no longer have their best cover man in Darius Slay. While Slay is expected to be back in time for the playoffs, there are clearly problems with this unit beyond the absence of just one man.
Offensively, the Eagles have had one of the more predictable and least creative attacks in the league. Granted, it’s still a top-ten unit. That’s what you get when the scheme was built specifically to your quarterback’s talents and you have one of the best offensive lines and set of skill players in the country. But Shane Steichen, the actual architect behind the scheme, is gone, and so too it seems is the core understanding of why the scheme was built the way it was and how to attack defenses as they adjust to it. So instead of seeing the Eagles’ offense grow and evolve in what would effectively be year two under this particular offense, the coaching staff has turtled further into its tendencies (shotgun, no motion, few personnel sets, etc) and is basically playing the tribute band version of the offense Steichen ran so well last year. This is an offense that always had things that it simply could not (or would not) do, but at least last year, the man pulling the strings knew that and called games accordingly. In 2023, those shortcomings are now just blindspots.
This is still a team loaded with talent, and that shows in its individual highlights—be they on the defensive line, the offensive line, or in one-on-one matchups with their talented receiver corps. But they’ll need to right the ship in a hurry to be a genuine threat in the playoffs—especially if they can’t secure the 2-seed this weekend. They have the players to do so. Do they have the X’s and O’s? That remains to be seen. But their ability to hit big plays off impressive individual efforts is still around, and—as long as that remains—they’re a threat in a post-season shootout.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8-8)
Ah yes, the NFC South. For a while, the Bucs looked like they were going to run away with the division (which isn’t saying much) and assert themselves as a tier 2 conference contender in the process, but their four-game winning streak came to a screeching halt in an embarrassing home loss to the Saints. Now they must win their final game in order to secure the NFC South title and host a first-round playoff game. Luckily for them, their last game is against… Carolina.
The Bucs—like the Saints team they just lost to—are very much as their .500 record would indicate. Middle-of-the-pack. Their defense has shown flashes, with points allowed and takeaway figures hovering around the top ten, but they’ve also surrendered more passing yards than any team in the country. Their offense has been buoyed by some strong play (at times) from Baker Mayfield and Rachaad White, but they rank—at best—average in most offensive metrics and they have—by far—the worst yards per carry mark in the entire league.
Perhaps the Bucs know as well as everyone else how bad their division is and have simply been sleepwalking through it? There are glimpses of a team that is better than its current 8-8 record, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled off a home upset over whichever NFC East team lands the five seed—especially if its a stumbling Eagles squad—but it’s hard to imagine them making a deep run in the playoffs.
Los Angeles Rams (9-7)
I always felt like Sean McVay had the youth and the energy to be a good candidate for a rebuild, and that seems to be the case in a season in which the Rams started as a top-five pick contender but have now clinched a playoff spot a week out. Yes, it took some luck for the Giants to miss that last-second field goal, but this is a Rams team that is at worst a seven-seed and—with a win against our backups this weekend—would move into the sixth spot in the conference.
Embarrassing showing against the Giants notwithstanding, I actually think this Rams team is pretty good. They’re 6-1 in their last seven games, dropping 36 on the Browns’ vaunted defense before putting up 31 on the road in Baltimore the week after. Yes, shit got ugly when they were banged up in the middle of the season, and this team definitely lacks the depth to have much success if any of their stars go down again, but at full health I think the Rams have an argument for being a top four team in the conference. That makes them especially dangerous if they can pitch an upset in the first round and force a divisional round matchup against us.
Tired of constantly being bullied in the trenches, McVay spent the off-season shifting Los Angeles’ offense away from the wide zone tendencies of the Shanahan scheme and more towards a power-gap scheme. It was a bit clunky to start, but the change proved fruitful when the Rams fully invested in bowling ball dual-threat Kyren Williams, who—despite missing four games due to injury—is second in the NFL in rushing yardage and first in yards/game.
In the passing game, the emergence of another young skill player in Puka Nacua has greatly opened up what the Rams can accomplish through the air. The presence of a genuine second option opposite Cooper Kupp has let the Rams mix and match with their slot receivers in a way that they hadn’t been able to do in the past, and Stafford—while still turnover-happy at times—has taken to the scheme change well in a rebound from his injury-plagued 2022.
Defensively, they still have Aaron Donald, but all-in-all I’d say they just get by on that side of the ball. However, their offense is a top ten-ish unit, and that—paired with a signal caller who can play elite at times, a physical downhill running game, and a smart play-caller who attacks defense’s weaknesses—will make them a difficult out.
Green Bay Packers (8-8)
Similar to the Rams, the Packers have had a resurgent season now that they’re out from under the shadow of Aaron Rodgers. Make no mistake, if you’re an NFL head coach you’d rather have Rodgers than not, but it seemed like things in Green Bay had gotten to a point last season where—especially once they started losing—Rodgers’ happiness or lack thereof became a specter looming over the team. While the Packers didn’t get a crazy return in exchange for their future HOF quarterback, they now get to run the offense they want with young talent that can develop alongside Jordan Love.
Offensively, this is a squad with a lot of young skill players and tremendous potential. Love has been inconsistent and at times streaky in his first year as a starter, but he’s progressed tremendously as the season has gone on and shown more than enough upside to excite the fanbase. Entering the final week of the season, his 30 passing touchdowns are third-best in the league and his physical tools stick out often when you watch their games. Surrounding him are a bunch of B-level young targets with the potential to develop into much more, making them reminiscent of watching a young basketball team go through a rebuild. You know they have solid players on rookie contracts but you wonder how many of them will develop into legitimate stars. In the NBA, a roster full of B-level talent likely gets you a top three pick in the draft. But in the NFL—which is much less star-centric and which admits players at an older age—a bunch of B-level guys working together can get you to about where the Packers are now—a win away from one of the last spots in the playoffs.
This is at least a top 15 offense, and—when Aaron Jones and more of their receiving corps are healthy—they can look more like a top 10 unit, but the defense holds them back. Their raw numbers against the pass are decent, but they have one of the worst run defenses in the league, don’t take the ball away enough, and have had some truly ugly moments on tape. While the offense seems to be cresting at exactly the right time, the defense is less than a month away from getting diced up in the fourth quarter by Tommy “Cutlets” DeVito and two weeks removed from allowing 394 yards and 30 points to the Carolina Panthers—both season highs for a Panthers team that averages 269 yards and 14.75 points scored per game.
I like their talent and love the direction that the team is going, but they’ll likely need to win some shootouts and have some positive turnover luck in order to advance further than a first round upset this year.
NFC South Randos - Atlanta Falcons/New Orleans Saints (8-8)
These guys get clumped together because I don’t really think either of them is any good. Both have their moments defensively—but not so much to put a scare into you—and are—for 75% of the time—completely unwatchable on the other side of the ball.
If there’s something the Falcons offense does well, it’s run the ball, as they’re top ten in attempts and yardage and have one of the more exciting young running backs in the league. If there’s something the Falcons offense doesn’t do well, it’s everything else. They’re best known for not scoring points (19 ppg), murdering fantasy teams with their player usage, and having a quarterback rotation so pathetic that their team has as many interceptions thrown as passing touchdowns on the year. Three weeks ago, they lost to the Carolina Panthers 7-9 in a vintage TNF debacle.
Meanwhile, the Saints under long-time OC Pete Carmichael are one of the few teams still running Sean Payton’s Drew Brees scheme. The only problem? Drew Brees retired three years ago. Their offense involves a lot of stick routes and slants, and—when Derek Carr is playing well—it can be decently effective. But it lacks creativity, is a tough watch, and they haven’t really sniffed any offensive success except when they’ve played a team from either the NFC South or AFC South.
These two teams play each other this week, and—if the Packers or Bucs lose—the winner will slide into the last playoff spot in the NFC. If that happens, I would expect them to go one and done.
Go Niners 🏈👍
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
A new Christmas nightmare
Of course it couldn’t be that easy.
After buzzing through the first four games of our bird-stead with an average margin of victory of 24 points, winning each game by at least two scores, and never really being threatened except for one quarter in Philadelphia, we were two wins away from locking up the No.1 seed in the NFC and being able to rest starters Week 18 against a healthy—and dangerous—Rams team.
But the Ravens game quickly devolved into a swift kick in the nuts and the must disappointing Christmas since your grandma packed a chunky sweater into a gift box that looked suspiciously like a PS2. Now we must win both of our next two games (or get some help from the Cowboys and Cardinals) to secure a first-round bye that—given our banged up state—may be more important for us than most other contenders.
So what happened? How worried should we be? Why has Santa Claus forsaken us despite our best behavior? And what could a potential Super Bowl rematch look like?
OVERALL
The one thing your Pop Warner coach was right about. How do you lose a game by two scores when you outgain your opponent by 80 yards and nearly a full yard per play? Turnovers and penalties. While it may seem overly simplistic, that’s the big story of this game.
The Niners—who to this point led the league in takeaways and were last in giveaways—were an astounding minus-5 in turnover differential against the Ravens. Historically, teams that lose the turnover differential by ONE have a winning percentage of just over 30%. Lose by two and it drops to 15%. By three? 10%. By four? Less than 5%. By five? I have no idea. Because at that point the statistical trend is so obvious and the margin so great that no one has even bothered crunching the numbers into a Google-able stat. The old heads were right. Turnovers will do you dirty.
Penalties are a bit murkier regarding their statistical impact, partly because not all penalties are created equal. But the 49ers were flagged 10 times for 104 yards, and six of those flags either took away one of our first downs or gave the Ravens one. If you cluster those kinds of penalties alongside third/fourth down success (after all, they both give or take away a new set of downs), then the Niners got annihilated in the two statistical categories that matter most in winning: creating and extending scoring opportunities.
Sweet, sweet, specials. The special teams were far from horrid in this game. Mitch had a few nice punts. Deebo had one solid kick return. Moody made his one field goal attempt. But my god did it feel like the mistakes on special teams were absolute momentum killers.
After the safety, we had a chance to easily get the ball back on our own 35-yard line or better and pile on early in a way that has thus far proven insurmountable to overcome, but Ronnie Bell muffed the ball by the sideline and it dribbled out of bounds at our own 20-yard line. You should never gain fewer yards on a safety punt return than a regular kick return. And you should NEVER ever gain fewer yards than you would by simply fair catching.
But the biggest special teams momentum swing happened at the beginning of the third quarter. After Purdy threw at Willie Snead’s inattentive head to snuff out our first series of downs, we outkicked our coverage on the ensuing punt, allowed a fatty return, then fouled the runner out of bounds to tack on an additional 15 yards. Three plays later, the Ravens would score a touchdown. The next offensive play Purdy threw an interception returned to our nine-yard line. The game felt out of reach almost immediately thereafter.
OFFENSE
The Niners’ roster construction—and Shanahan’s deployment of our talent—is not coincidental. Shanahan always likes to zig while other teams zag, so as more and more teams started assembling rosters around an analytics-encouraged theory that builds defenses from the front (defensive line) or the back (secondary) while pinching pennies on linebackers and safeties, we were assembling a roster of Swiss-army knife position-less offensive weapons to attack the very same positions that other teams were neglecting.
In Philadelphia, Nicholas Morrow—despite being a converted safety who has had a good season in coverage—allowed a whopping 6 catches for 175 yards and two scores against us. When hosting Seattle a few weeks ago, Jamal Adams—despite being an actual safety—allowed two grabs for 79 yards and a score. At its core, Shanahan’s offense aims to force linebackers to cover and defensive backs to tackle, and—as odd as it may sound—there are far fewer defenses than you’d think that can do those two things consistently.
Bizarro Baltimore. The Ravens’ defense was always going to be a fascinating litmus test for our offense because—in theory—their roster was made specifically to stop the kind of linebacker and safety abuse that we specialize in.
While built from the back forward with tons of quality corners and safeties, they also have invested heavily in the linebacker position—spending a first-round pick on Patrick Queen and trading a second and a fifth to obtain Roquan Smith and pay him handsomely. With four quality cornerbacks, two excellent safeties, an emerging star at nickel (who can also play all the safety positions), and two rangy linebackers, they’re one of the few teams who can mix and match different cover guys on our many offensive weapons.
I wouldn’t say they can fully cover all of our guys. As we’ll touch on later, there were certainly people open in this game, but the Ravens have enough flexibility and optionality on their roster and in their scheme that they rarely give themselves a genuinely bad matchup. That allows them to present a wide array of coverage and blitz looks that aren’t easily recognized.
The other unique aspect of this Baltimore defense—and the reason why it’s both hard to play against and hard to predict—is the fact that they really coach up and prioritize blitzing technique in their linebackers and defensive backs. That helps them generate considerably more pressure than their pure DL talent would indicate and also slows up the timing and processing speed of opposing quarterbacks.
I don’t want to completely neglect the Ravens’ defensive line, as it too is an interchangeable collection of players who they do a good job of finding the right matchups for, but it’s the depth and quality of their linebackers and secondary that truly differentiates this defense, especially when in the hands of a talented DC such as Mike Macdonald.
Spot Treatment. Everyone knows that the Niners want to chunk play you to death with slants and digs built off of their run game looks, but the extra potential cover man that 3-4 fronts like the Ravens employ innately means there’s one more guy between the tackles or in the alley who is a genuine threat to drop into coverage.
The Ravens have loved mug looks up until this point—where inside gaps are covered by walked-up linebackers, simulating a six- or seven-man front. But knowing how much we like to attack the box in the passing game, they went away from those looks and kept their linebackers back, telling them to drop into the zones that we like to target the most and hoping to throw off the rhythm of an anticipatory thrower such as Purdy.
That led to a couple of plays that ended up looking like this.
Granted, one Tampa 2 defender covering two digs is the single worst example (and there were people open in this game), but by spot-dropping to our most popular areas of attack and moving from mug looks and inside pressure to creative outside edge rushes, the Ravens successfully mucked up the works and forced Purdy to rush out passes before he could get through his progressions.
Dark and Edgy Reboot. Purdy’s second pick was the most glaringly effective use of the Ravens’ edge pressure, as a blitzing corner batted down an attempted screen pass which another edge blitzing corner from the opposite side was able to pick it off, but, in a macro-sense, these outside blitzes were most effective in speeding up Purdy’s process so that he couldn’t get to the open receivers further down his progression.
You can see it as early as our first offensive play. Here, we’re motioning CMC out wide to see how the Ravens adjust to empty, with the idea of throwing a simple spot-dig concept to the three-receiver side.
In response, the Ravens check to an edge blitz to the three-receiver side, gambling that their nose tackle shading the center’s weakside A gap—plus the late showing blitz—will make the Niners open their pass set to the left so that the edge rusher will come free.
The gamble pays off, as it heats up Purdy so quickly that he’s forced to throw a check down to CMC, and the Ravens—in a split coverage with a corner sitting in the flat, are easily able to rally to the ball and make a short tackle for loss.
If Purdy had been able to get through his progression he’d have been able to find a wide-open Kittle, who had enough room to run—and advantageous angles on the secondary—that it the completion would have netted a hefty gain, if not a house call.
Another clear instance of this edge pressure forcing Purdy to make decisions before he can get through his progressions is the pass to Willie Snead noted above. Here, we have an empty set with a simple triple slant inside-out progression to the left and a high-low concept to the right.
Brock will open to the side he thinks he has numbers, which is very clearly the left side given it looks like man coverage across the board. But on the snap, linebacker Patrick Queen—who is lined up way outside on CMC—will basically cat blitz from wide outside…
Triple slants rarely go to the inside slant unless something has gone terribly wrong on defense, so this is really a play designed to hit Deebo in the middle and Aiyuk after him if Deebo doesn’t free up. Willie Snead may be the “first read,” but nine times out of ten he’s just there to run off / wall his defender.
Right off the snap, you can already tell that Snead (in red) won’t be open, while Deebo (in yellow) will be.
Unfortunately, the pressure from the outside makes Purdy chuck the ball at Snead—who is tangled up and not even looking—despite Deebo springing wide open for the play that all defenses dread the most: Deebo on a slant with room to run and one man to beat who is twelve yards off of him.
Does a Purdy who hasn’t thrown three first half interceptions to this point have the confidence and timing to huck that ball into Deebo simply off of how Snead is being covered? Impossible to say, but… probably. It’s something he’s done plenty of times before. But by now he’s hesitating and not trusting his anticipation as much.
The most obvious example of how the outside pressure—and Purdy’s play on the night—started to mess up his timing and willingness to throw anticipatory throws was when we turned the ball over on downs at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Here, we’re trying to run off the short-side defenders and hit a dig-shallow concept behind them, while the Ravens are showing a mug-like look before dropping into man coverage with a rat defender coming off the LOS and a deep zone safety. They’re overloading the short side of the field by sending both overhang defenders, but we have CMC back to block.
Now, if there is one thing that CMC hasn’t absolutely excelled at this year, it’s his pass pro, and he doesn’t kill it on this play. But that doesn’t change the fact that Aiyuk has sprung wide open.
This ball should be thrown now. Honestly, it could have been thrown a step or two earlier because Aiyuk had basically already beaten his man on alignment and initial stem. And normally, this ball would have been thrown. But by now Purdy’s holding onto the ball a bit too long, playing a bit too cautious, and feeling the pressure a bit too early. So instead of a massive completion, first down, and more, Purdy holds the ball, is contacted and flushed, and by the time he’s free there’s no one open anymore.
The result is a weird flip of the ball over Purdy’s head and a turnover on downs.
Still Don’t Miss Jimmy. The stats make it look worse than it was and there’s a lot of team-wide mistakes that went into this kind of performance, but this was unquestionably the worst game of Purdy’s career.
The first pick is Purdy’s fault in full. The second pick is actually a pretty good check-at-the-line from Purdy (Deebo would have had one safety to beat fifteen yards away at a bad angle if he’d gotten the pass) and just bad luck getting the ball batted in a way that it was intercepted in the backfield. I’d basically not blame him for that one at all. The third pick was also a carom but I would put blame on Purdy, simply because he was throwing across his body, not totally on target, on a play where he expected there was an offensive flag. The ROI on that risk is simply not strong enough to make that throw at that time. And the fourth pick he was hit mid-throwing motion. You could say he should have felt the pressure and slid away. But, at this point, given all that had happened before, we’re picking nits.
We’ve seen Purdy be off-timed or off-target before, but typically that was early in games and he’d adjust as the game went on. This was the first time we’d seen that trend go in reverse. This was very much a game where everything went wrong all at once, so I’m not sure how much there is to really take away from it in regards to Purdy individually. He played poorly. That’s the micro view. The important thing is the macro long lens view. How does he respond from this game in the upcoming games, the rest of this season, and beyond? Based on how he got to the point he currently is, I’m optimistic that his process and professionalism will lead to a strong rebound.
DEFENSE
Despite the score and total yardage, this was not a terrible performance from our defense. But it did raise some questions as to what our overall strategy was in combatting the unique talents of Lamar Jackson.
Hemming and Hawing. Against the Eagles we had our defensive line emphasize containing Jalen Hurts in the pocket because we rightfully believed that he was a person who saw pressure instead of feeling it. When the pocket started to get tight his eyes would leave his downfield options and drop down to the pocket itself, so if you could keep him from exiting that pocket and throwing sideline scramble shit, you could effectively take away a lot of the Eagles’ downfield passing.
Now, Lamar Jackson is better than Jalen Hurts in basically everything other than short-yardage running (and maaaaybe sideline throwing), but—up until this year—you may be surprised to learn he actually struggled with off-script, on-the-run passing. He was still the best off-script, on-the-run runners of all time, but he didn’t do a good job of running to pass. That’s been the biggest change under Todd Monken. Lamar is now much better at running to extend plays in the passing game, while his receivers are much more in sync and prepared for the scramble drill to break out at any moment.
The only reason I bring up this comparison is because the Niners had a clear plan of attack against Jalen Hurts, but against the Ravens, it seemed as if the defensive line was stuck halfway between trying to keep Lamar in the pocket and rushing him like any other quarterback. Unsurprisingly, this led to some notable breakdowns.
Below are the splits of all run and pass plays, separated between plays where Lamar moved outside the pocket versus all other plays. I’d put it in a chart, but for some reason, I can’t do that on Squarespace, so please forgive the formatting.
Designed Runs: 24 carries for 63 yards and 1 TD at 2.6 yards per play (ypp)
Scrambles outside pocket: 2 carries for 39 yards at 19.5 ypp
Passes from inside pocket: 17-of-28 for 116 yards, 2 sacks for -11 yards, and 1 TD at 3.5 ypp
Passes from outside pocket: 6-of-7 for 136 yards and 1 TD at 19.4 ypp
Those inside pocket splits don’t even include the negative 20-yard safety that happened due to a disciplined pass rush that kept Lamar backing up within the pocket. And they do include the two completions for 33 yards off of two outside blitzes that Ji’Ayir Brown whiffed on which allowed Lamar to break contain.
The Ravens offense was an entirely different beast when it was forced to operate from within the pocket.
Assuming the position. One of the many drawbacks of eight billion turnovers is that the opposition’s field position is a lot better than ours. Our average starting field position was our own 23-yard line. The Ravens started a typical drive on their own 40. We never started with the ball past our 36-yard line. The Ravens started five drives with better field position than that, including two drives that began inside our 20. If not for two excellent punts that twice backed the Ravens up within their own ten, the field position battle would have been much worse.
Not my president. Despite the handful of exciting plays he made, the Lamar Jackson MVP chatter was and continues to be beyond annoying. This is a Baltimore team that wins mostly off its defense and Lamar—despite being better in real life than he is on the stat sheet—didn’t surpass Kirk Cousins in touchdown passes until the second half of this game. Kirk Cousins hasn’t played since week 8.
Lamar is currently in a four-way tie for 14th in the NFL in passing touchdowns, and—even when you include his five rushing scores—he only cracks the top ten because the players clustered around him (Stroud, Stafford, Herbert) have all missed games due to injury. He has the #1 scoring defense behind him and has thrown for under 200 yards six times this season, yet the Ravens are 6-0 in those games. Yet somehow the narrative is about how Lamar is a one man offense and everyone else (Dak, Purdy) are the ones who get all the help?
I understand that stats aren’t everything, but they’re certainly worth more than the Instagrammable highlights, media politicking, and the “vibes” that seem to be buoying the campaign to give the MVP to a quarterback—any quarterback—as long as it’s not Brock Purdy.
For the record, I think CMC should get the award.
THE GOOD NEWS
It’s far too early and there are far too many things that could go wrong to start thinking of what a potential rematch against the Ravens might look like in the Super Bowl, but—despite this Christmas nightmare—I think we’d be fine. The Ravens are absolutely one of the best teams in the NFL and one of the few with a defense built to slow down our offense, but everything that could have gone wrong went wrong on Monday and that kind of a shitstorm isn’t likely to make a reappearance if—for no other reason—based on variance.
But if you want something more reassuring than entrusting our success to lady luck, here are a few cliff notes to how we might flip the script come February.
Run the ball. It’s far too easy to look at the stat sheet and say we didn’t run the ball enough, but that would be neglecting how the game actually unfolded. We were moving up and down the field with ease on our first three drives, it’s just that two ended in interceptions—the second pick coming on a called run play.
After running all over them for our last score of the first half, we entered the second half balanced with two passes and two runs. Unfortunately, we had a three-and-out in the first drive and threw a pick on the first play of the second. By that point we were down 18 points. While I think we could have been slightly more balanced in attempting to make our comeback given how much time was left, throwing when down three scores is pretty common.
When a defense employs so many three safety looks, wants to keep their linebackers off the LOS to take away slants and digs, and hopes to scheme up exotic rush looks, they’re naturally going to be a bit susceptible to the run, and we ran the ball very well in this game. Despite our OL’s issues against the pass, we seemed to overpower them on the ground, and I’m sure Shanahan wanted to lean on that running game in the second half. The game flow just didn’t allow us to.
If there’s a rematch, there should be more room (and more opportunities) to churn out yardage on the ground.
Win outside. Clouding the middle of the field to try and take away slants and digs isn’t something new or particularly innovative. Teams have been trying to do that to us for years. The big difference is we now have more answers and—on most days—a QB who can exploit defenses who play our tendencies too heavily.
The Eagles tried their best to take away inside-breaking routes when we played them earlier this year, and our response was to utilize trips and quads formations to isolate a receiver backside—usually Aiyuk—and force the defense to either give that backside player help or have a numbers advantage to the multiple receiver side.
With the inside players keying inside-breaking routes, they inevitably weren’t getting much width, but to make sure that linebacker at the top of the screen would clear out, CMC ran a spot route to the middle of the field and directly into his line of sight. That let Purdy and Aiyuk just chip away relentlessly on one-on-one coverage with no underneath help by throwing quick and intermediate passes outside the hashes.
Even though it seemed like nothing was going right on Sunday, we actually had success doing something somewhat similar against the Ravens—albeit with concepts that created a high-low look to the backside rather than a pure isolation.
Since the Ravens are more likely to drop into something like Cover 2, we used a player coming across formation (or later, a running back) to keep the flat defender shallow, out of the way, and distracted, then basically let Aiyuk cook someone deeper down the field for an easy completion.
After the snap, you can see that the linebackers are looking to take away inside routes and haven’t widened at all. While the true flat defenders must play up to take away the motion man who has immediately threatened their zone (especially when that player is Deebo). The end result is a single corner with deep responsibility covering Aiyuk, and… as we should all know by now…
Aiyuk is always open.
While the Ravens are super deep and versatile in their coverage players, I’m not actually sure if any of their outside guys are true lockdown types, so when we can isolate them on man and protect it, there are wins to be had both to Aiyuk and Kittle—who both roasted people all night.
Layer the middle. The Ravens may have been hedging against our inside breaking routes, but the digs were actually opening up quite well in the second half once we started giving them eye candy—and a YAC threat—with check downs between the hashes. The length of this write-up has gotten out of goddamn control, so instead of diagramming the plays in question I’m just going to show two stills that display how the inside checkdown opened up the second-level passes as the game went on. We just weren’t always able to hit them.
While the Niners love to pair digs with slants and other in-breakers that allow them multiple options to generate big YAC yards and would prefer to put CMC on an option route for the possibility of a bigger gain that is “right every time,” these check downs were more successful in this game because (A) Kittle/CMC/whoever directly in front of a linebackers eyes is hard to ignore, (B) they made for a simpler vertical (high-low) read that required less perfect timing for Brock, and (C) they allowed for a check release if pass pro was going to shit.
Keep Lamar in the pocket. Easier said than done and we still need to pressure him, but I’d rather him run the scramble drill from inside the pocket than outside and rather their offense have to beat us with scheme. That means much better rush lane integrity.
Don’t be afraid to heat him up. The old Ravens offense was so great at option running and so bad at dealing with a defensive scheme that was seemingly too stupid and simple to work: engage eight. There were entire games where teams would just fuckin’ send it and somehow it worked. While this new scheme (and Lamar) are much better at combatting that defense than before, I think there’s still success to be had by sending extra men (as long as they maintain their rush lanes).
The Ravens spammed screens at times in this game in part because I don’t think their offense has a ton of quick-hitting answers other than screens and RPOs. They rely pretty heavily on crossing routes and mesh concepts for their quick game—plays that are flexible against man and zone and hope to create YAC yards but that are slow developing for short yardage completions—and when you take out the scramble drill element of their offense, their receivers are not as effective getting open.
The Ravens receivers had 15 grabs for 109 yards and two scores in this game. Far from paltry numbers, but some of that was off the scramble drill, much of that was from screens, and the 7.3 yards per completion leaves much to be desired. If you can speed up Lamar enough to where they have to rely more on their actual offense, then their receivers will need to win downfield in true dropback passing. I don’t know how consistently they can do that.
Go Niners 🏈👍
2023 First Quarter Assessment
4-0 and not angry about things
As one of only two undefeated teams remaining and with the third-best point differential in the league (+67), the 2023 campaign has started off considerably more stress-free than recent seasons. This is both a welcome relief and not particularly surprising, as each of the past three years saw us lose our starting quarterback to injury in week two, and apparently that’s pretty important. Regardless, the Niners have come out the gates more connected and more in-tune from top-to-bottom than in years past, which has let us largely cruise through the first month of the season as we enter the thick of our schedule.
OFFENSE
Still not a pumpkin. Through four games, Purdy has posted two excellent outings and two starts that were more than good enough but far from perfect. Against the Rams, his accuracy was a bit off, missing on a few big plays down the field (and a few typical lay-ups underneath). Against the Giants, the combination of Wink Martingale’s 80%+ blitz rate on dropbacks and confusing back-end coverages led to a dicey start. Still, Purdy and our offense settled in enough for him to record his first regular season 300-yard passing game. Only the greatest of Purdy haters could call any of his starts this year (or realistically last year) truly “bad.”
Purdy’s deep ball is still a work in progress and you can sometimes see the ball fall off a bit when he has to throw across body in a hurry (also, they really need to get those center exchanges figured out), but his anticipation and understanding of the offense have clearly improved since his rookie season. He’s getting the ball out faster on our slants and quick game while impressing with his timing and placement on the second-layer and second-window throws that open up behind them.
Purdy’s average time to throw (TTT) is nearly three-tenths of a second faster than last year, while his average intended air yards (IAY) are up by .8 of a yard over that same time period. While those improvements may sound minuscule, that TTT improvement moves him from 25th- to 6th-fastest in the league at speed of release, and the IAY puts him above players such as Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Trevor Lawrence, etc. Neither of these stats is inherently an indicator of success—after all players like Mahomes and Allen often hold onto the ball the longest and the current leaders in IAY are Jordan Love, Jalen Hurts, and Ryan Tannehill—but there are few scenarios where you want your QB with subpar arm strength holding onto the ball longer. And if you’re getting rid of the ball quickly while still pushing it further down the field at the 72% completion percentage Purdy currently carries, you’re doing something right. Other statistics that point to Purdy doing something right include that he currently leads the league in adjusted yards per attempt (10), QB rating (115.1), and QBR (84.6). And he still hasn’t lost a game.
Purdy—like all NFL quarterbacks—will eventually have an actually bad game, and he will eventually lose. But I think we can comfortably say that Purdy’s floor is much higher than Garoppolo’s. Bad Jimmy games would almost always include a mind-boggling interception (or two), and a play-calling shift to protect him in a way that made us much more one-dimensional and conservative on offense. Purdy has for sure thrown some interception-worthy balls both this season and last, but his valleys are not nearly as deep or as long as his predecessor’s, and—nearly as importantly—Shanahan seems to have trust that he’ll climb out of those holes in a hurry.
Increasingly aggro. Going hand-in-hand with Purdy’s raised floor is Shanahan’s belief in his quarterback and—by proxy—our passing attack. This has led to a noticeable increase in aggressiveness dating back to last season, which has continued into 2023. With two fourth-down attempts (both called passes) and a QB sneak that ended the first half against the Rams (and would prove pivotal in that game), Shanahan clearly trusts Purdy’s decision-making in high-pressure situations, and the Niners have benefited from that.
Shanahan isn’t the most aggressive coach (nor do we want him to be given the most aggressive coach is probably Brandon Staley), but the subtle increases in the likelihood that we’ll go for it on fourth down or call a pass in high-leverage situations late in games greatly improve our ability to both secure and retain leads.
So that trade worked. Ten days after we traded for CMC, he threw, ran, and rushed for a touchdown in a crucial win against a division rival. He is considerably better now.
While Christian McCaffrey was a spark plug and a force multiplier for our offense from the second he landed in the Bay, his increased comfort level in our scheme (in particular our run game) is apparent this season. Last year there were times when Elijah Mitchell’s burst, speed, and experience in the offense made him the better option as a pure runner. With an off-season to get used to the many nuances of our blocking schemes, CMC is making sure that is no longer the case.
Through four games, CMC is on pace for a record-breaking 2,550 yards from scrimmage and 30 touchdowns. And while stating pace marks four games in is basically pointless, CMC leads the league in yards from scrimmage, missed tackles, and touchdowns from scrimmage, while his 323 rushing yards after contact are more than every other running back other than De’Andre Swift has in total rushing yards.
The only potentially worrisome stat attached with CMC is that he leads the league in touches, but hopefully, the healthy return of Elijah Mitchell will allow us to split up the touches more in a way that keeps everyone healthy and fresh into the post-season.
The wobbly right. Things today look much better than they did three weeks ago, when TJ Watt abused Colton Mckivitz into three sacks and the entire right side of our line seemed like a potential weakness. Now, on an offense that’s performing this well, that right side is… still a potential weakness, but one that’s been trending upward and is coming off its best performance of the year.
Trent is and will continue to be our best lineman (and the world’s best lineman), and Banks—while not spectacular—has become a reliable running mate beside him. It should come as no surprise that CMC—over the past two years—has his highest YPC running between those two guys. At center, Brendel doesn’t fly outside and make second-level blocks like some of our past point men and he’ll occasionally get beat in pass pro, but he seems to get the boys to the right assignments the large majority of the time, and—given the issues we’ve had at the center position over the years—we’ll take that.
At right guard, the hope was that Spencer Burford would go from part-time starter last season to—at least—somewhere around where Banks was in his second year. Perhaps he still will, but Burford was a turnstile in pass pro the first two weeks (and had three penalties in week one) before settling in a bit as of late. Burford has great tools and upside for the position so the hope is that he can continue to ascend throughout the season to a level where—seemingly for the first time—we won’t have to worry about the right guard position late into the year.
Out wide, Colton McKivitz took over for Mike McGlinchey at right tackle. While letting Big Mike walk for a huge payday in Denver (and a third-round comp pick) was unquestionably the right move, McKivitz didn’t win over any doubters after the debacle against TJ Watt. But, like Burford, he’s coming off his two best games of the season and held up well in pass pro against the Giants’ “blitz everyone, all the time” approach.
After an inauspicious start, the arrow’s pointing up on both Burford and McKivitz, and we can safely consider this potential red flag something more of an orange-ish one. That said, we’ll know for sure this weekend what kind of weakness our right side may be as we go up against potentially the best and most athletic pass rush we’ll face all year.
DEFENSE
The inside has arrived. Unsurprisingly, adding one of the best interior pass rushers on the planet will make the inside of your D-line considerably better at rushing the passer. Who knew?! Through four games, Javon Hargrave—whose “Gravedigger” nickname is both excellent and fitting—has already matched last season’s positional total in sacks with three. The dude looks and plays like a cannonball.
But Hargrave isn’t the only reason our interior is generating so much more pressure this season. Arik Armstead is healthy again beside him, and the second-line rotation of Kevin Givens and (gasp) Javon Kinlaw has been a terror for teams to deal with. While Kinlaw is in the fourth year of his rookie deal and his fifth-year option was declined this off-season, it’s nice to see him finally healthy and making an impact in a way that we’ve all been hoping for.
On the outside, Drake Jackson and his go-go-gadget arms racked up three sacks in the opener but none since. While he wasn’t going to keep that pace and double the NFL’s single-season sack record, he’s been hustling and making his presence felt. We’ll want more production opposite Bosa as the season continues, but Jackson and Clelin Ferrell—who have split snaps almost evenly thus far—have had their moments this season, and—in Omenihu last year and Key the year before—Kocurek has often found a way to get complementary pieces to step up as the season goes on.
As for Bosa, he only has one sack in our first four games, but all signs point to that being an aberration. Per PFF, he’s graded out as the highest edge defender in the league through the first month of the season—this despite him missing all of training camp and needing some time to re-acclimate his body to football. Against the Cardinals he looked as disruptive as he has all season, and his 10 QB hits on the year are good for third in the NFL and—on average—would result in 4.5 sacks. For reference, the two dudes with more QB hits (TJ Watt and Myles Garrett at 13 each) have totaled 6 and 5.5 sacks, respectively. All this to say, Bosa has been the victim of variance and bad luck, and the floodgates should open soon when it comes to his sack numbers.
The corner carousel. Through four games, we’ve had four cornerbacks playing major snaps across three starting positions. How much of that is due to match-ups, inconsistency, or pure numbers is up for debate, but it’s probably some combination of all of the above.
In terms of numbers, fifth-round pick Darrel Luter got hurt in July and hasn’t been able to play since. While he’s expected to be back soon(ish), he’s a fifth-round rookie from a small school who missed all of training camp, so anything he can give us this season would be gravy. Samuel Womack on the other hand very well could have been a part of our rotation (maybe even a major one) if he hadn’t injured his MCL in week 1. He’s currently on short-term IR and we should expect to see him later this season. Finally, promising undrafted free agent D’Shawn Jamison got poached by the Panthers after cutdown day and is on their active roster, while Qwuantrezz Knight—who is really more of a safety—was one of the three practice squatters whom the Cardinals swooped from us earlier this year.
That means we only have four healthy cornerbacks to choose from for three positions, and with Ward and Lenoir set in stone, Isaiah Oliver and Ambry Thomas are competing for that third spot. So far, Steve Wilks has flipped back and forth between packages with Lenoir outside and Oliver inside and Thomas outside and Lenoir inside.
Some of the shuffling has been matchup-based. For instance, Oliver started inside last week but Lenoir moved into the nickel when the speedy and smaller Rondale Moore started getting more snaps in the slot. While Lenoir saw a season-low three snaps inside against the Giants, who use bigger receivers and often tight end Darren Waller in the slot. But some of it’s performance-based as well. Namely, neither guy has played outstanding for a long stretch of time and distanced himself from the other. Oliver has put up plenty of good tape in the nickel over the past five years, but he hasn’t looked amazing against the quicker guys since arriving in the Bay. Whereas Thomas has good tools and has flashed well (end of 2021, anyone?), but also has been more susceptible to brain farts and double moves than our other options outside.
The wildcard in the race is Anthony Brown, who we signed just a few days ago off the street as he recovers from an Achilles tear suffered last December. Brown has played a lot of good football, starting 28 straight games in Dallas opposite Trevon Diggs before his injury, and—if healthy—should give us at least insurance outside, if not another starting option that lets us slide Lenoir into the nickel.
I have to think part of the constant shuffling to this point is just Steve Wilks trying to figure out exactly what he has and who he can lean on when we start lining up against elite offenses—as well as him trying to prepare as many players as possible for extended roles in case there’s injury attrition down the road. If either Thomas or Oliver really steps up their game and their consistency (or Womack or Brown force their way into the equation), then maybe we’ll see a starting three that is set in stone at some point this season. But if not, there’s a strong chance that—for better or worse—this rotation will continue indefinitely.
A delayed blitz? Much of the talk surrounding Steve Wilks entering his first season as our DC was that he’d like to blitz more than his predecessors did. So far, that hasn’t been the case. Through four games, our 20.1% blitz rate is bottom ten in the league and a few notches below the rate DeMeco sent extra rushers last year. But there are a few signs that our blitz rate might increase over the course of the season.
Anecdotally, it seems like we’re sending more men in the second halves of our games, which is typically when we’ve played our best defense. In the four second halves this season, we’ve allowed a grand total of 18 points, and never more than six in a single contest. If heavier blitzing is simply where Wilks is most comfortable, then it’s safe to say we might see more of it as the season continues.
The other reason why our blitz rate may increase this year is that most of our opponents have deployed an offensive game plan around quick passes and screens to nullify our pass rush. This was never more evident than in our matchup against the Rams, where rookie sensation Puka Nacau racked up 15 catches and 147 yards on 20(!) targets—almost entirely on hitches, curls, and short crossers. Since we’re predominantly a zone team, there’s no easy way to take away that quick game when teams can execute it efficiently enough, so the direction Wilks has often leaned on is showing blitz, sending an extra man, dropping someone else into a passing lane, and hoping that our added rush gets home, our hidden underneath coverage baits a bad pass, or—ideally—all of the above.
I think we’ve all been pleased with how few transition costs we’ve incurred in the move from Ryans to Wilks, but I’m definitely interested to see what our defense looks like once Wilks is fully settled into how he wants to deploy our personnel.
SPECIALS
Money Moody. Hats off to the rookie. Despite announcers trying to jinx him at every turn, a shaky pre-season, and weird Steelers shit on his first-ever field goal attempt (which was technically blocked by five dudes who were all off-sides), our rookie kicker’s only blemishes through four games are two kickoffs kicked out of bounds.
On kicks that directly result in points, he’s been a perfect 14-of-14 on extra points and 9-of-9 on field goals, including a 57-yarder on the road in the second half of our closest game to date (it was in LA, so only technically on the road, but still).
We still need to see him in game-winning and high-pressure situations, but so far it looks like that shaky preseason had more to do with an NFL adjustment period and the injured quad he didn’t know he had than his long-term ability.
The next four games will surely tell us more than the first four did, as we’re through the softest part of our schedule and the rest can be considered legitimately difficult. Every quartet of games features at least one current or pre-season Super Bowl contender as well as matchups against one or more teams with—according to aggregate playoff predictor models—a 50%+ chance of making this year’s playoffs. That starts Sunday night against a Dallas team that is one of the top 3 teams in the conference and has realistic Super Bowl aspirations.
Nevertheless, it feels good to—for the first time in years—start the season strong so that we’re not playing catch-up from the jump.
Go Niners 🏈👍