49ers 23, Bucs 20
Hoping for a cathartic post-bye blowout over a banged-up opponent who had just lost three in a row? Best I can give you is three missed field goals and a mild heart attack. This is 2024. Those are the rules.
OFFENSE
Sunday marked the third time in four games that we eclipsed 400 yards of offense. We’re now second in yards per game and yards per play, seventh in scoring, and third in scoring %. In nine offensive drives against the Bucs, we only punted once. The redzone issues are still there (29th in league), and–despite a clean sheet this week–we’ve got to keep the turnovers in check (23rd). But as we round back into health, there’s no reason to believe we can’t become an elite offense down the stretch.
The heart wants what it wants. Much had been made about how Todd Bowles had laid off the blitzing in the Bucs’ last two matchups. Well, anyone who has ever watched a Todd Bowles defense knew that was a situational aberration, not a trend. Bowles was back to his blitzing ways on Sunday, which meant we had to get the ball out quickly and accurately. Purdy started the game 2-for-5 and a bit scattershot with his accuracy, but he settled in to throw for a season-high 353 yards and two scores.
There’s the beef. Outside of an absolute gashing in Brock Purdy’s first start two years ago, we typically don’t run the ball all that well against Bowles’ defenses. The nearly 800 pounds of mass that they deploy on the interior in Vita Vea and Greg Gaines makes it hard for our interior line to move or climb anywhere with ease, letting Lavonte David aggressively shoot gaps as he sees them. Plus, there’s the blitzing.
We had sporadic success running outside, but we averaged 3.4 yards per carry; this game would have to be won through the air. Which made it extra funny when Tom Brady kept suggesting that once we entered the redzone we should hand the ball off three times in a row to CMC because that’s “what was working.” There’s still a way to go to fix our redzone offense (we were 1-for-3 in this game), but it won’t be as simple as “just run more.”
Aerial assault. While McCaffrey was largely bottled up on the ground in his long-awaited return, he made an instant impact in the passing game–corralling 6 catches for 68 yards on a mere 7 targets. He was a much-needed safety valve against the Bucs’ extra rushers and–after dicing them underneath all game–he was able to leverage that success to spring open for a gorgeous 30-yard grab midway through the fourth quarter.
Here we are in the third quarter on 3rd-and-5. We’ve set trips to the field side and put Pearsall on a cheat motion to thin out the box and create a two-on-two high-low look to the boundary. The idea is to widen and lengthen the defense and hit CMC or the late-releasing Kittle inside.
The Bucs have loaded the line of scrimmage but are in a sim blitz and dropping into Cover 1. I don’t know if we knew based on film that they were more likely to drop the end away from trips to the short side of the field (theoretically hedging the amount of space they’d have to cover), but—based on alignment—it doesn’t really matter. Either guy would have been in terrible position to guard CMC in space.
We’d been hitting them with the drift route to this point, so the rat defender keys Deebo. While the edge drops to defend CMC, who beats him easily at the breakpoint and scampers for the first down.
We come back to a similar look in the fourth quarter to jumpstart our go-ahead touchdown drive.
We once again have set trips to the field side and used a cheat motion to send Juice out wide before the snap, opening space for high-lows across the board. The big difference is that CMC is faking the option route and going vertical down the sideline.
This time the Bucs are in a five-man pressure with no rat defender and a linebacker on CMC rather than a defensive end.
Tired of getting chipped to death by CMC’s option routes, the linebacker breaks down on the stutter step and gets roasted over the top. This was a would-be easy completion made more dramatic by the fact that—up front—it seems like we messed up the protection. Trent opens out to the edge because he knows Kittle will eventually be releasing into a route, but Brendel has set the protection to the opposite side of the nose tackle. So an interior rusher goes unblocked.
Regardless, Purdy does a great job of anticipating and releasing the ball before CMC even makes his stutter move, dropping one in the bucket for a big gain.
X Gon Give It To Ya. Jennings hasn’t played since before Aiyuk’s season-ending injury against the Chiefs, so it wasn’t clear how we’d deploy our receiver corps once he returned. Shanahan opted to move Jennings outside to the X position, filling in for Aiyuk but removing his dominant run blocking from the slot. While he’ll be missed in the run game, the move outside paid immediate dividends.
We desperately need a guy who can win outside against man coverage, and while Jennings isn’t the quickest or the fastest, he’s smooth, smart, and a big receiver who plays to his size. He uses his strength and wingspan to wall off defenders and win at the catch point, and his seven grabs for 93 yards paced the Niners. And in a game where every foot mattered for kicking purposes, his last catch of the day–where he deked outside then burst upfield for an extra eight yards–could have easily been the difference between a game-winning field goal and OT.
Return of the YAC. After much consternation through September, we’ve now put up YAC totals of 141 and 179 in back-to-back games while averaging upwards of 7 YAC/catch in three of the past four contests.
DEFENSE
We held the Bucs to 215(!) yards of offense and 3.7(!!) yards per play. Without Godwin and Evans, they couldn’t throw the ball more than five yards down the field, and–except for when they were forced to–they didn’t even try. This was, for the most part, the exact kind of defensive performance we needed coming out of the bye week.
But one issue once again reared its ugly head, and–like a gun planted in the first act of a movie—its presence looms ominously over our Super Bowl aspirations.
The Ground Game. If you exclude Baker Mayfield’s late game Senzu Bean-inspired Super Saiyan cameo, the Bucs’ most impressive possession was their 10-play, 70-yard touchdown drive that bridged the third and fourth quarters. Seven of those plays and 53 yards were gained on runs, including their touchdown—which was emblematic of several issues we’ve had stopping the run.
The Bucs are running a toss sweep to the field side with fly motion to the boundary. The motion is meant to freeze an unblocked Bosa and take away the will linebacker’s backside pursuit while a pulling tackle and tight end lead a convoy to the perimeter.
On the snap, Warner reads this immediately. Look at the difference in his body positioning (yellow) versus Campbell’s (red). Knowing he’s the last line of defense, Warner’s firing out and trying to knife underneath to attack the toss. This is an aggressive play but one we’re happy with Warner making because he triggers quickly and runs like the wind. Plus, if he tries to run over the top, there’s no inside help for a potential cutback. Unfortunately, Campbell has taken a false hop step to the fly motion so he’s slow out of the gates and…
…Warner collides with him before trying to shove him into the proper lane. Maybe Campbell would have recovered better if he hadn’t gotten shoved, but the damage is done.
The collision has slowed Warner’s inside path. Campbell is about to get washed out of the hole—a hole which is going to be extra large because Mustapha—who should be attacking the outside of the pulling tackle—is too wide and is instead contacting the inside shoulder of the tight end. So while Green was in solid outside position on the edge…
…Mustapha actually pushes the tight end to Green’s outside, allowing him to get hooked. This doesn’t really matter, because Mustapha is now too off-balance and out of position to make a play, Campbell’s too wide and too deep, and the hole is gigantic. This—plus being slowed up by the collision with Campbell—means Warner gets beat to an ever-widening edge, and Rachaad White can walk in for the touchdown.
It’s hard not to watch that drive and get PTSD from losses against the Cardinals and the Chiefs, when hot weather and high play counts allowed passing-deficient offenses to grind out late-game victories against our defense. While the hot weather shouldn’t be a problem come theoretical playoff time, the run defense needs to improve or we won’t stand a chance against grinders like Baltimore and Detroit (and the Cardinals again in Week 17).
Yetur Gross-Matos, Kevin Givens, and–most importantly–Dre Greenlaw are all expected to return to the defense over the next few weeks. Perhaps those additions and continued reps can fix the issue.
SPECIAL TEAMS GAAAAH!
Deebo was all of us on Sunday
Depending on how you calculate it, our special teams were responsible for somewhere between -12 and -16 points on Sunday. In a 23-20 game. Pro Football Reference puts our performance at -15.44 points, which was somehow only our second-worst outing of the season.
Fuck meter: MIDNIGHT 🙃🔫
NEXT UP = SUNDAY (9/17) VS. SEAHAWKS (4-5) @ 1:05 PT
Realistically, a record of 3-1 or better in these first four games out of the bye would put us in a good position for the stretch run. So, with road games against the Packers and the Bills (off a bye) still to come, notching another win against Seattle is critical.
After their 3-0 start, the Seahawks have lost five of six, but they’re fresh off their bye week, have a new starting MLB, and are desperate to climb back into the playoff picture before they get lost in the dust. Expect a highly detailed game plan and tons of designer plays made just for us.
McDonald was in Baltimore when they traded for MLB Roquan Smith–a move that launched their defense to new heights and led to the popularization of their MLB pick blitz. Ernest Jones IV isn’t the player Roquan is, but don’t be surprised if his addition and the extra week off leads to more of the complex looks and sim blitzes McDonald became famous for. After we torched them for almost 500 yards at home a month ago, they know they’ll need to pressure and confuse Purdy in order to slow us down offensively.
Go Niners 🏈👍