49ers 24, Rams 16

The only completion thrown towards Verrett all night [Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle]

The reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

With their backs against the wall, the Niners turned in an absolutely masterful game plan on Sunday night. While the execution wasn’t perfect—those two third down drops and the Juice overthrow made the game more interesting than it had to be and Cooper Kupp had some chances that he didn’t convert—it was more than enough to close out the Rams with only a few heart palpitations. 

The win also keeps us very much in the running for the playoffs.

OFFENSE

The Niners found an offensive identity on Sunday and it looked a lot like the one we had to finish last year: a diverse, run-heavy game plan with tons of misdirection, a commitment to forcibly out-leveraging the defense on the edges, and a passing attack that got the ball out of Jimmy G’s hands quickly on short-to-intermediate passes.

Our opening drive was a Shanahan Special—accomplishing our goals of minimizing drop back passing, making the defense run side-to-side against our run and screen game, and using misdirection to prevent them from keying any one concept too heavily. We went scored on a six-play 84 yard drive; those plays were outside run, fly sweep, inside run, screen, screen, fly sweep. 

At first look, our newfound commitment to the run game seemed to be a case of quantity over quality—our raw stats showed 37 carries for 122 yards on a mediocre 3.3 yards/carry. But if you exclude the two kneel downs to end the game and add in the shotgun fly sweeps—which count as touch passes in the box score—our line was 39-185-1TD on a healthy 4.7 yards/carry. 

By jumping out to a lead and controlling game flow, our offense was able to stay varied throughout the game. We had 167 yards and two scores passing, 38 yards on screens, 124 yards on handoffs, and 63 yards, one touchdown, and a game-icing bulldozer of a first down on touch passes. That amounted to 390 yards of offense and 24 points against a Rams defense that came into the game ranked 7th in Defensive DVOA.

Jimmy “Greatly Inflated Stats But I’ll Take It” Garoppolo: Despite a bum ankle and a game plan built to protect him, Jimmy G—save the one overthrow of Juice—did nearly everything we could have asked from him. His accuracy and zip weren’t there on every throw and we didn’t ask him to handle too large of a burden, but his career-long streak of never losing two starts in a row continues, and he comforted a lot of very very anxious 49ers fans on Sunday. It’s still TBD on whether he and this passing attack can get to the point where they can succeed in mandatory drop pack passing situations; thus, it’s still TBD on whether he’s the QB of the Niners after this yea. But it’s a good first step towards both under less-than-ideal conditions.

Appropriately Aggressive: Outcome be damned, I’ve liked Shanahan’s more aggressive lean in crucial situations this season—even if the fourth down TD to Kittle was one of the first times it’s actually paid off. 

Trying to score before the half against the Dolphins made sense, even if it led to a Jimmy G pick. “Regrouping at halftime” when down twenty and with Miami set to receive is an excellent way of losing by less but doesn’t do much to help you win. The game is about possessions and opportunities for points. The same goes for our fourth-and-short attempts near midfield against the Dolphins and on the goal line against Arizona—even if we converted neither of them. Critique the play-calls all you want, but going for it was the right decision. 

While this slight shift in aggressiveness may not be paying off in full quite yet, it’s a good sign of things to come. A team that excels at running the ball (which hopefully, we can consistently be) becomes considerably more dangerous if they’re willing to go for it on fourth-and-short. Not only because their run prowess could mean that they’re more likely to convert those fourth downs on the ground but because they—like we did in this game—can then run against light boxes on third downs to set-up those fourth downs in the first place.

Oddly Quiet Aaron: All-world DT Aaron Donald entered Sunday’s game in the league-lead with 7.5 sacks, but was oddly quiet throughout this contest. Part of that was game planning—as the Niners had no interest in calling drop back passes where Donald could potentially tee-off on our recovering quarterback—but appropriate props should go to Daniel Brunskill and Ben Garland, who were admittedly the players the Rams had singled out as Donald’s would-be targets but stymied him all game. While there were plenty of double teams and other snaps where we chipped or bluffed a double team to throw Donald off, Brunskill in particular really held his own against the All-Pro defensive tackle—which is a great sign to see for the starting offensive lineman who’s struggled the most this season. The Rams entered this game leading the league with 20 sacks. The exited with 0 sacks and 3 QB hits.

DEFENSE

The Rams and their top 5 offense saw a stark drop in efficiency on Sunday night. While part of that could be attributed to Jared Goff’s streaky accuracy, we did a few things schematically to take him out of his comfort zone early and elicit those problems.

The Rams entered this game with the league’s #1-ranked rushing DVOA, so we committed from the jump to take away their outside run game. Both Arik Armstead and Kevin Givens—who has quietly played very well in his second year in the league—were disruptive on the interior, whiles free-running Fred Warner snuffed out everything that made it out of the tackle box for minimal gain. While the Rams would adjust and find success with their interior run game off of misdirections such as counters and other runs against flow, by the time they were doing so consistently, they were trailing by multiple scores. But we also did another thing that threw off the Rams’ rushing attack AND confused their passing game:

Hello old friend…

By loading the LOS we took away the Rams’ ability to double team in the run game, and—just as importantly—confused Goff’s pre-snap reads. By starting the game with tons of fronts like this—including five-man blitzes out of five-man fronts on the first two snaps—and man coverage on the backend, we pretty much dared Goff to beat us with the deep ball from the jump.

While this would seemingly be the worst possible plan against the high-flying Rams aerial attack, this year’s offensive shift towards a quick-release short-yardage passing game meant the Rams were wildly out-of-sync on downfield passes. And after an entire week spent prepping soft zone coverages and underneath passes, the Rams basically spotted us their first two drives—their only possessions of the first quarter—before they figured out what was happening. 

It didn’t help that Saleh was gaslighting them throughout the first half. After those first two snaps of man coverage and five-man blitzes, the Niners slowly shifted away from the former and quickly from the latter—rarely sending extra men the rest of the game. But by continuing to show those loaded lines, the Niners bluffed extra rushers and man coverage for most of the first half. They were able to do so because (A) they trusted their linebackers’ speed and ability to make up a lot of ground and still get in good position in coverage even when lined up on the LOS, and (B) they knew the Rams’ short-yardage passing game was based off of play action bootlegs and leak outs rather than the sort of one-step throws Jimmy G feasts on. Basically, they knew the Rams couldn’t beat them to the spot on quick-hitters so they were fine with starting in a position where they’d have to make up ground in coverage. So when Goff saw man coverage and extra rushers, he’d think deep shots or hot routes pre-snap only to see something entirely different once the play was underway.

For instance, that frame shown above—on third-and-eight—ended up being a four-man rush with a Cover 3 Mable variation on the back end. Both linebackers dropped off the LOS, taking away Cooper Kupp—Goff’s first read—and slowing him up just enough that he was a hair late on the curl, which allowed Verrett to break up the pass.

Cornerbacks, it’s nice to have them again: Speaking of which, Jason Verrett has been an absolute monster after stepping into the starting lineup. In three-and-a-half games (including three starts), he’s allowed a grand total of four catches for 24 yards while breaking up three passes and registering his first pick against the Rams. According to PFF, he’s graded out as the third-best among all corners in the NFL this season. Pairing him with the oft-underrated Emmanuel Moseley—who gave up a long TD late and was on the wrong end of a ticky-tack PI call but otherwise played a great game—gave us a formidable cornerback duo for the first time since week one. When Sherman returns in (what is hopefully) a week or two, it’ll be very interesting to see who starts and plays where, especially with K’Waun Williams out at least another few weeks. Regardless, you can never have too many good cornerbacks, and Verrett’s re-emergence has been one of the positives of this season and a great option to have as we move into an off-season where big decisions will have to be made at the position. 

Pass rush, it would also be nice to have again: While we held the Rams’ pass rush to 0 sacks and 3 QB hits, our defense tallied an equally underwhelming 0 sacks and 2 QB hits. To be fair, some of that seemed to be by design. While there’s no such thing as a game plan that would prefer to have LESS pressure on a quarterback—particularly one with Goff’s scrambling ability—the Niners purposefully blitzed less in lieu of more defenders in coverage. This made it harder for Goff to find open passing windows and mitigated potential damage from bootlegs, play action passes, and screens. It’s hard to claim the strategy didn’t work, but getting no pressure isn’t really a repeatable scheme. It would be really nice to get Dee Ford and Ronald Blair back as soon as possible.

Cold water / boner killer of the week: Unfortunately, this is 2020 and the Niners—just like the world— simply can’t have good things. We came away with an important victory but finished the game with four more starters shelved, two of whom are expected to be put on IR this coming week.

Raheem Mostert was once again one of the most impressive players on the field. But once again, we’ll be without him for at least the next few weeks after he suffered our team’s fourth high-ankle sprain. It should go without saying that having Mostert healthy is a major boost to our running game. Even PFF—who has him ranked the #1 running back in the entire NFL—thinks so. We all know about Mostert’s homerun ability—he has the two fastest ball carrier run times in the NFL this year despite missing the equivalent of three entire games and his top speed was the fastest of the past five years—but his work running for tough yards inside has been just as valuable. While McKinnon has played well in his stead and the rookie JaMycal Hasty continues to show a level of burst and vision that will make him harder and harder to stash on the practice squad for an increased role in 2021, Mostert’s explosive speed and power regularly net 5-to-7 yard gains out of runs that could have been stopped for 3-or-4. Those add up in a hurry. All we can hope is that he’s only shelved for the next three weeks.

Also going on IR is Ben Garland, who suffered a calf injury very late in the contest. With Weston Richburg not set to return from the PUP list until “around Week 13,” that means Hroniss Grasu will be taking over for the foreseeable future. Grasu is not nearly the athlete and run-blocker in space as Garland, but he at least held his own in his one start this year.

Jaquiski Tartt went down at some point in the second half with a groin injury and Marcell Harris replaced him at strong safety. Harris is a well-seasoned backup, but it would be real realllll chill if the checkup on Tartt’s injury came back positive. 

Finally, Trent Williams left the game with an ankle injury in the fourth quarter, giving way to second-year man Justin Skule. Like Tartt, the team is currently unsure of the severity of the injury.

Injuries notwithstanding, there was a lot to be pleased about on Sunday night. Whether we can sustain that type of performance moving forward will be up to the team’s ability to withstand (yet another) wave of major injuries. At the very least it was a critical win against a division rival and a statement of our team’s identity. In a season like this, that’s something to build upon.

Go Niners 👍🏈