2023 First Quarter Assessment

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 🏈👍