49ers 30, Patriots 13
With so many pre-season darlings stumbling out of the blocks, this could be a year where many of the end-game contenders emerge from what could be a burgeoning middle class. So while our performance was too sloppy and our opposition too horrendous to call it a “get right” game, Sunday was a much-needed victory in a season where W’s may be at a premium.
OFFENSE
With 431 yards on 7.2 ypp, we carved chunks out of the Patriots’ defense like the roast beef guy at Hometown Buffet. But missteps and sloppiness prevented us from truly actualizing our full potential. Is that still good for one of the game’s better offenses? Yes. According to DVOA, we’re the league’s 7th-ranked offense. EPA also has us ranked 7th. And per PFF, we’re the top offense in the country. But there’s potential (and reasonable expectation) for much more. And we likely need to hit those lofty heights if we want to ride this unit to the promised land.
Fuck it, go deep. The Patriots loaded the box against the run and played man across, basically daring us to throw over them to open up the offense. We happily (perhaps too happily) obliged, hucking the ball deep down the field more regularly than we have all season. Purdy finished the game 4-of-7 for 142 yards and a pick on passes that traveled 20+ yards downfield, completing two deep crossers and–once they started keying those–two big posts further down the field. This helped contribute to Purdy’s weirdly low completion percentage (55.5%) and season-high in yards per attempt (10.7).
This was not the cleanest Purdy game, as the aggressive nature of the script seemed to lead to him occasionally vacating the pocket a bit early and locking onto deep receivers a beat too long. But it did help reiterate what we already knew–that a gameplan like this might have slowed down our 2020 offense, but Purdy can (and wants to) sling it deep when the occasion arises. With so many teams loading boxes and stuffing defenders into the middle of the field, the more ways we can beat defenses, the better we’ll be down the stretch.
It’s also worth noting that while the Patriots’ defense is considerably different than the Flores / Macdonald-style systems that are currently permeating the league, the top-down strategy for attacking it might be translatable. After all, one of the biggest weaknesses of Cover 2 is just passing concepts that send three or four dudes vertical. So if you can throw it deep, it may be worth sacrificing some consistency and completion percentage for big chunk yardage. That’s easier said than done against the sort of pressures those teams can apply, but when we can protect upfront, don’t be surprised if we have a few more games where we let it rip in a way that would have seemed unfathomable a few years ago.
More like the “dead” zone (count it). After stalling out inside the Patriots’ ten-yard line on both of our opening drives, we finished the game 2-for-4 on converting red zone opportunities into touchdowns–matching the 50% mark we’ve had this season. That coin-flip figure, which lands us right around the league average, is still miles away from the 68% mark we led the league with last season. But we’re not alone.
Across the NFL, scoring has dropped but redzone scoring has plummeted–in part because passing success rate and on-target percentages have cratered inside the 20s. While the latter has been on a steady decline since 2016, there’s a chance this dip in redzone scoring balances itself as the season goes on. Only time will tell. But if we can up our game inside the twenties faster than average, it could go a long way towards separating ourselves in what has been the lowest-scoring NFL season in a decade.
Bumbling Balls. Clean execution would help up that scoring. With three fumbles (one on special teams) and an endzone pick, our carelessness with the ball let the Patriots stay in the game longer than they should have. The string of penalties (even if a lot of them were trash) didn’t help either. Now there’s an argument that the Patriots are so devoid of offensive talent that they were never truly in this game, but the point stands. Our record when we win the turnover differential is unquestioned. So is the negative impact of penalties that put us behind the sticks and into passing mode. Cleaning up our red zone game may increase our offensive ceiling, but fixing our execution and ball-security issues is the best way to raise our floor.
Lacking YAC. Ever since Shanahan arrived in 2017, even when we’ve sucked we’ve been at the top of the league in YAC yardage. A month into the season, this hasn’t been the case. After placing 1st (2021, 2023) and 2nd (2022) in yards after catch per reception over the past three years, we’re currently ranked 31st. Some of this has to do with CMC, Deebo, and Kittle–three of the top players in the game at generating YAC yardage–missing a combined six games through four weeks. But this is the same scheme that–on a short week with a last-second COVID scratch in 2020–led Richie James to 184 yards receiving on 15 YAC/catch. So what gives?
A lot of this is a product of opposing defenses’ heavy emphasis on two-high shells while crowding the middle of the field. This not only takes away our favorite hot spots in the passing game but funnels passes to the outside, where a receiver’s proximity to the sideline lessens YAC potential. Additionally, with extra bodies in the shallow areas, the passing windows that used to belong to slants, square-ins, and other “on-the-run” routes are now smaller and more likely to be attacked with routes where receivers sit in the zone or curl back to the quarterback.
The result has been less YAC yardage but similar total yardage. Purdy led the league in yards per attempt last year and continues to lead it in 2024 while pacing the NFL in overall passing yards. The passing yardage isn’t gone. It’s just that the point of completion is further down the field with less room to run. Hopefully, as the season goes on, we can find a healthy middle ground. Because I do miss the childlike glee that comes with Deebo catching a slant route in space.
DEFENSE
Neutering this Patriots offense is about as impressive as using your turn signal. Sure, some people can’t do it, but that doesn’t mean it’s impressive. Due to that, all defensive improvements should be considered with a grain of salt. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get excited about a few positive developments in a unit that has struggled early this season.
The Heft. What happens when Javon Hargrave goes down for (likely) the season and Jordan Elliott, his replacement, gets hurt in the first half? Naturally, our interior DL responds with 5 sacks. Rookie UDFA Evan Anderson–in his first call-up NFL game–registered his first career sack on a clean-up play, Maliek Collins added 1.5 sacks of his own, and Kevin Givens registered more sacks (2.5) in this game than he had in any season in his previous 5 years in the NFL.
On the edges, Nick Bosa demolished the poor tackle he was matched up against, Leonard Floyd registered three QB hits, and Sam Okuayinonu–in limited but growing snaps–continues to look like a potential diamond in the rough–registering two pressures, a QB hit, and a forced fumble. This was both a promising and a sobering reminder of how we structure our defense. When the pass rush is eating, the timing of everything else falls into place.
Blitz Boys. But was our upfront dominance more a product of our talent on the defensive line, the terrible Patriots OL we were facing, or our foray into blitzing? Despite entering this game last in the NFL in blitz rate, we took a page from the Jets’ playbook a week ago and ramped up our blitz rate closer to the league average (~30%). 10 hits, six sacks, and 168 yards of passing allowed would indicate that the blitzing worked. But was this a one-week aberration that we committed to after seeing it work against the Pats a week ago or a sign of things to come?
Youth Movement. The silver lining of injuries is you get to give the kids some run, and this was a great “transition game” to test the readiness of some of our younger defenders. We talked about Okauyinonu and Anderson, who both played 19 snaps on defense, but Malik Mustapha started and played every snap at safety in place of Hufanga, Dee Winters played in three linebacker sets (they were likely still holding him out from big snaps for health reasons), and–for the first time this season–Renardo Green got more snaps with the first-team defense than Isaac Yiadom. Even Tatum Bethune played a handful of snaps late when Flannigan-Fowles got banged up.
All-in-all the kids performed well. Both the d-linemen played great. Mustapha got shook bad on a third-down completion but otherwise seemed comfortable playing major snaps. And Green was only targeted once (on the deep ball that Ja’Lynn Polk almost caught), so we may have to wait until next week to get a better read on whether he should replace Yiadom in the starting lineup.
Glasses and fake mustaches. Over the past two games, I’ve been on the Niners’ about telegraphing pressure and man coverage on crucial downs and then getting promptly burnt as a result. So it was nice to see Sorensen go to what initially looked like a similar look before backing off into a fire zone blitz to tremendous effect.
On this third-and-5, the Patriots are in trips and we’ve lined up in what looks like Cover 1 with six-man pressure.
To counteract this, the Patriots are trying to run what is functionally a weak side three receiver over concept with a strong side shallow underneath.
The thought is that one of these crossers will open against man and the shallow will either free up due to a natural pick or create a pick for someone else.
But we’re not in man. We’re dropping Campbell and Warner off the line of scrimmage and playing Cover 2 behind it. I’ll be honest, I don’t love straight Cover 2 against trips, but I do love the general idea of showing pressure and letting Warner use his unique set of skills to patrol and make plays in the middle of the field on critical downs.
The result was a lot of (sometimes clunky) hand-offs in the middle of the field, a confused picture for Brissett, and a highly enjoyable exclamation point to cap it all off.
All-Pro Fred. Granted, the play call above is only a good one and not an exceptional one if we had a mere mortal playing Mike linebacker. It’s been ten years since an off-the-ball linebacker won DPOTY, and during that stretch, only one non-lineman (Stephon Gilmore, 2021) has taken home the award. But Fred Warner is making quite the case for himself. He didn’t play in the second half after hurting his ankle late in the second quarter, but as of now, he’s listed as day-to-day.
HolyShitThoseSpecialTeamsThough. If it wasn’t for the last two weeks we might be able to write off some sketchy punt coverage and a fumbled kickoff return on injury depletion. Alas, the last two weeks did indeed happen. And man do our special teams suck.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why our special teams are so horrid. It would be too easy to say it’s our coordinator since he was one of the better special teams coordinators in the NFL for a decade with the Seahawks. It’s unlikely he’s just lost his touch. Maybe it’s not enough of an emphasis during practice? Maybe it’s not enough of an emphasis in our roster decisions?
It’s impossible to say from the outside. But mother of god is it a problem that needs fixing. There’s a very real argument that, with just adequate special teams play, we could be 4-0 right now. That kind of special teams ineptitude is how you guarantee an early (and likely devastating) playoff exit.
NEXT UP: SUNDAY VS. ARIZONA (1-3) @ 1:05 PT
For no reason whatsoever, the Cardinals have been kind of a pain in the ass for us over the years, tallying tough outs and random upsets with regularity (even when they suck). This year they probably(?) don’t suck, as they’ve had one-score losses against the Bills and the Lions and whupped a Rams team we just lost to. Then again, they just got blown out at home against the Commanders. So… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
These Cardinals are schizophrenic even by Cardinal standards, but offensively we know they start hot (35 points in opening quarters this year), we know Kyler is off his two-year Call of Duty sabbatical and playing well, and we know James Conner continues to be difficult to tackle. Marvin Harrison Jr and Michael Wilson make for an intriguing young wide receiver corps, even if they don’t seem to be utilized that creatively, and Trey McBride—if he’s healthy—helps them tremendously as an underneath safety blanket.
Defensively, Gannon hails from the Fangio coaching tree, and his 3-4 base defense features a heavy dose of disguised coverages, sim blitzes, and just blitzes in general. Some of these complex defensive schemes elevate their personnel (Vikings) while others shape a creative and disruptive shell to showcase it (Ravens ‘23). In the case of these Cardinals, I’d argue the scheme mostly masks an overall lack of talent. They have a couple of players (Budda Baker comes to mind), but a whole lot of randos who feel ripe for the picking as long as we can sift through the smoke.
Go Niners 🏈👍