Ascending, Contending, or Pretending?
Clinging onto our playoff hopes like… [49ers.com]
In Seattle, it rains nine months out of the year, games are required to end with goal-line stands, and quarterbacks 5-11 and under must be handled delicately with velvet gloves. On Sunday, as the unforced turnovers flowed like box wine at a college party, we were once again reminded—as if we needed it—that there is only one constant at (checks new sponsor) Lumen Field: never ever call defensive holding.
If there’s a constant to our 2021 season as a whole, it probably has something to do with pulling out our hair in frustration and making exasperated noises that are incomprehensible to most speaking adults. After the most Seahawks game that ever did Seahawk, we’re now 6-6 and—for all intents and purposes—battling six other teams for the final two wild card spots in the NFC. That’s right, we’re even summoning the number of the beast. Sunday was a bad loss for every reason imaginable but mostly because we now have little-to-no margin for error to make the playoffs. A win would have put us pretty comfortably into the six spot, with a chance to catch the Rams at the five. Now we’re in the muck.
Joining us in said muck are the…
Racial Slurs (6-6): They have the tiebreak over us and are currently in the six seed while in the midst of a four-game winning streak. This could be us. This could be us… They’ve got the Cowboys and the Eagles twice down the stretch. Of the teams listed, this one is playing the best.
Eagles (6-7): Half a game back and winners of three of four. Them playing the Slurs should help us one way or the other. They also play the Boys one more time. We have the tiebreak over them due to head-to-head.
Panthers (5-7): They play the Falcons and the Saints and then the Bucs twice to end the season. No one knows who their quarterback is. They only know they will suck.
Saints (5-7): Speaking of quarterbacks who suck… Despite a five-game slide, their remaining schedule only has one playoff team (Bucs) and they’re better coached than most of this crop. They could make a move.
Vikings (5-7): The second team on this list that we’d beat in the tiebreak cause of our head-to-head win, matchups against the Steelers, Bears (twice), Rams, and Packers, make for a tough schedule the rest of the way. Other than the Slurs, they’re probably the best team of this bunch but the Lions game may have doomed them.
Falcons (5-7): This team sucks and we play them at home in two weeks. If we lose to them, we—by the transitive property—also suck.
As you can see, there’s going to be a lot of cannibalization in that group, which is great for our chances. Unless one team from the NFC East and one team from the NFC South both go on a tear through the last five games, the playoffs are still very much in the picture.
Due to the top-heavy nature of the NFC, a team will most likely sneak into the post-season with a 9-8 record, but assuming that as fact—and that we’d win the ensuing tiebreak with our terrible divisional record—is a risky proposition. Our final five consists of two home games against absolute horrendous teams and then three road games against playoff squads. If we go 4-1 or better down the stretch, we are almost certainly in the playoff field. If we go 3-2, we need some things to fall our way but are probably still in. That means we need to beat two doormats and AT LEAST one playoff squad (preferably two) to have a shot. Any worse than that and we’d need a heavy dose of chaos.
As all who watched last weekend’s debacle can attest, chaos has not been friendly to us this year. So let’s just win some games plz?
Things were (are?) looking up Milhouse. Soured by our loss to the Seahawks—who only exist to play in excruciatingly close games they have no business being in—was the greatly improved play that had us on a three-game winning streak entering the weekend. A number of factors contributed to that turnaround—including the players’ only defensive meeting that Jimmie Ward helmed after the embarrassing loss to the Cardinals—but the biggest keys to our improved play centered around winning the turnover battle, a recommitment to the run game, and—up until Sunday—a highly efficient Garoppolo who was playing the best ball of his career.
While it seems simple, we’re 1-4 when losing the turnover battle, 1-2 when even, and 4-0 when we win the battle and/or don’t turn the ball over. As a physical team that likes to control the clock and lean on our run game, we’ve got less ability than most to get away with sloppy play, and it shows in our record.
On the ground, we’ve done a great job of deploying window dressing, misdirection, and creative formations and personnel sets to average 42 carries and 178 rushing yards through our three-game winning streak. Elijah Mitchell’s (mostly) healthy return has been clutch, as his vision, decisiveness, and elusiveness seem to improve with every passing week.
Meanwhile, Jimmy G has performed exceptionally well on money downs and was PFF’s highest-rated quarterback through the month of November. In the five games since The Shit Show In the Storm (TM) against the Colts, Jimmy G led the league in EPA, DVOA, and (I think) QBR, while also leading the league in EPA and success rate on 3rd and 4th downs. While I’d guess his stinker in Seattle has dropped him down the leaderboard a bit, we’d found a nice balance of running the ball and letting Jimmy pick apart defenses on favorable downs and distances.
The question moving forward is if the Seahawks game is a sign of things to come or just a blip on the radar where everything went wrong while missing key parts? We’ll find out next week when we take on a Bengals team that—on top of being nearly as bipolar as us—could give our cornerbacks fits, especially since Emmanuel Moseley was diagnosed with a high-ankle sprain on Monday.
Doubling Down on Deebo. A recommitment to the run game means fewer passes to go around, so Shanahan has kept one of our best offensive weapons involved by getting Deebo the rock as a running back.
With Deebo, the appeal is simple. He’s one of the best ball carriers and space players in the league and is routinely bigger, stronger, and faster than defenders realize. He is a freight train in the open field, only slowing momentarily to collect the souls of defensive backs before heading to the section of the field that has the big letters painted in it. But his insane efficiency in the run game—203 yards, 5 TDs, 8.1(!) ypc—is aided by how Shanahan creatively uses different formations, motions, and personnel groupings to create marginal advantages all over the field.
One of the most interesting and most effective examples of this is when we deploy Deebo in the backfield with a true running back (usually Jeff Wilson) as a lead blocker to generate run game mismatches on every level.
Here we show up in 21 personnel, but—by putting Deebo in the backfield—we’re basically deploying two lead blocking backs as we run stretch lead.
Wilson goes in motion across the formation so that he can get a head start getting outside the box, while Kittle and Juice work the two edge linebackers.
Every time Deebo is in the backfield, we’re theoretically creating a blocking mismatch with a bigger body on a smaller one. In this instance, the big mismatch is Wilson (a physical running back) on a corner.
Deebo hits the edge, Wilson pancakes his dude into the safety, and the result is a 20-yard touchdown.
This time, we’re once again in 21 personnel but have spread Juice out wide to the formation’s offensive right. The Vikings aren’t buying that we’re looking to throw out of this formation so they keep their seven-man box, but now we’re modifying our edge blocking to leverage positioning and mismatches.
Wilson is once again pulling out onto a cornerback. Compton is pulling outside to the safety. And Juice (off-screen) is cracking down on the linebacker (59). So in two out of three blocks we have a massive size advantage, and in the third, Juice has a good angle. The one block that seems like a TERRIBLE matchup for us is Aiyuk sealing the defensive end. But due to the speed and outside aiming point of the play, Aiyuk only has to wall him from immediately getting outside and chasing Deebo from behind.
Even though Juice misses his block, Deebo does Deebo things, shaking a defensive end in space before accelerating up the field behind a horde of downfield blockers that almost resembles a screen.
Another DB gets ruined. 49 yards.
Against the Rams, we showed a similar look out of 11 personnel, spreading the field just enough for the Rams to deploy a six-man box with safeties creeping up. Unlike our stretch runs against the Vikings, the Rams game saw us pounding zone and split-zone in what was a more grind-it-out, downhill performance.
On this run, we’re running inside zone, but in a way that more resembles a “duo” concept. Wilson will once again go in motion to kick out the wide crashing stand-up DE, while Compton and Kittle will double-team the down lineman over the tackle. Because he’s Aaron Donald.
This play is meant to be a quick hitter, but—and this is the part that most resembles duo—Deebo is given the leeway to read second-level flow and bounce the run one way or the other if he sees fit.
Showcasing how truly rare of a talent he is, Deebo reads the second (and third) level flow as he gets the ball. Immediately, he recognizes that the unblocked run support player (Taylor Rapp, circled in blue) is taking an inside path to meet Deebo in the hole or cut off the path if he stays on the intended track. So Deebo makes one hard step frontside off the hand-off then bounces into the cutback outside of Tomlinson.
Rapp (blue arrow) gets caught inside, and Deebo bounces outside of the trailing defensive end, once again showing that he’s too fast for the big guys…
…and too big for the fast guys, easily stiff-arming the outside cornerback as he walks in for a touchdown.
That’s a good cut and run for a running back, much less your leading receiver. Lots of teams will trust their wideouts on a fly sweep or an end-around, where they can see an outside opening and simply sprint through it before it closes. What makes Deebo so rare is that he could actually be a running back in the NFL.
Despite missing the Seattle game with a groin injury, Deebo has already become just the third player in NFL history to record 1,000+ receiving yards and 5+ touchdowns receiving and rushing. He’s the only receiver ever to accomplish said feat. And he did it in 11 games.
The plus side of this is obvious. Deebo is awesome, he’s one of the funnest players to watch, and our offense is much more creative and harder to defend when he’s healthy. The downside is there is only one of him and, when he isn’t available, we lose a dimension of our offense that is near impossible to replace.
Searching for The Mythical GaroppoLance. Entering the season, I was as guilty as anyone in hoping that we could run a two-quarterback system. If the Saints could do it with a sex criminal and the world’s most overpaid third-string tight end, I was sure we’d be able to bridge the gap between our present and future at quarterback. But I was greedy.
And—based on comments made by Shanahan in the week leading up to the Vikings—it doesn’t seem like the “Lance package” is coming back anytime soon.
“We get into a rhythm of attacking a defense and what fronts they’re playing, what coverages. Every play kind of plays off the next play and you get a feel, our players do and I, kind of what we’re going to …
“What’s been hard on me that I didn’t realize is when you do bring in a quarterback who gets a different set of plays, then it’s almost like it’s the first play I’ve been seeing of a new defense. Because now, yeah, you see what fronts and coverages they’re doing, but they’re doing it completely to a plan as a threat of a runner at the position. And so I don’t know what to anticipate with it. And then I’ve got to stay in it for a while to get a feel for that. And then when you go back, that feels kind off for the last guy.
“So it kind of hurts my rhythm a little bit of understanding what the defense is (doing) and that’s why personally as the year’s gone I’ve gotten a little bit more away from it. ‘Cause I like to get a feel for what the defense is doing.”
In short, Shanahan’s offense is sequential. Plays and formations and looks set up better plays and formations and looks, and every time we switch to quarterback B, we lose information on how to attack defenses with quarterback A. While the bulk of the worry about the two-quarterback system was if the signal-callers themselves would get out of rhythm coming in and out of the game (and, to be fair, Jimmy has played much better now that the Lance subpackage has been shelved), we’d underestimated how much the rotation could throw Shanahan out of rhythm as a play-caller.
Does that hurt our ability to get Lance valuable reps as a rookie? Yes. Does it make the fourth-and-one where we ran a Jimmy G zone read against the Seahawks even more frustrating? Yes. But the Niners decided that they had to make a call on ONE quarterback who was going to lead them out of the bye week, and since the inexperienced rookie with the tantalizing upside had a knee sprain with a then-undetermined recovery timetable (he’d end up missing the bye plus at least one game due to injury), they went with the quarterback who they knew and who they knew would be healthy enough to play out of the break.
Now, if Lance had finished out that Arizona game healthy would that still be the case? At this point, that’s just another fascinating “what if” in a season that’s been full of them. But it doesn’t really matter now. Barring a string of performances similar to the one he had against Seattle—or a late-season stumble that eliminates us from the playoffs—Jimmy is likely our guy for the rest of the season, and we should be rooting for him to do as well as possible so that we can swap him for a draft pick come spring.
If only we could play ourselves on defense… Emmanuel Moseley has been a stud this season, stepping into the No.1 role after Verrett went down and allowing only a 47% completion rate while keeping wideouts out of the endzone on his past 51 straight targets. Now, he’s out with a high-ankle sprain. Considering the injury and the position he plays, that could easily mean he’s out the rest of the season.
If our starting cornerbacks weren’t already the worst in the league, they most certainly are now. Josh Norman mans one side cause he leads the league in forced fumbles. He also just happens to lead the league in crippling pass interference calls and (if this were a stat) times dusted deep down the field. I wanna say I remember him making one good play at the catch point this season, but I couldn’t tell you when that was, and I only remember it because it was such an outlier from the mean.
Opposite him will probably be Dontae Johnson, who honestly could have replaced Norman weeks ago if he hadn’t run into his own nagging injuries and wasn’t needed in the slot while K’Waun was out. He’s played solid in limited reps. Perhaps with an increase in snaps he can maintain that rate of play. Perhaps he can’t. But did you read the thing I just wrote about Norman? As long as Dontae’s a warm body that can contest the occasional go route, he’ll see plenty of play moving forward.
As for our rookies, things are just moving a bit too fast for them at the moment. Thomas has the athleticism and top-end speed to develop into a starter, but he needed a transition year after opting out of last season and only being a one-year starter in college. He’s just not seeing things quickly enough and has been living in the trail technique in the limited snaps he’s seen. Deommodore Lenoir has more of a chance to pull a starting spot away from one of the veterans above, but he’s smaller and less athletic than Thomas and—whether he’s breaking on short passes or covering deep down the field—he seems just a step too slow. Both have potential down the road. But for now, teams are gonna dump the ball underneath them in off coverage and target them deep whenever they press. We’ve seen it in garbage time. We saw it last weekend against the Seahawks. If the rookies get major snaps moving forward, we’ll see it some more.
That said, it’s probably still worth giving them some run here and there. That’s how bad our cornerback situation is. So bad that it might wind up the nail in the coffin of our playoff hopes.
Special, but not in the way you want. Our special teams have been about as bad as possible. So much so that you could make the very legitimate argument that our special teams units ALONE have lost us AT LEAST two games this season. Or you don’t have to make the argument because, according to David Lombardi of The Athletic, advanced stats can for you:
But the 49ers’ total lack of awareness on special teams doesn’t enjoy the benefit of the doubt this time, not when we consider how Seattle won, 28-21, back in the first meeting. The 49ers’ special teams accounted for a staggering negative-14.3 expected points in that game. That was the losing difference. Coordinator Richard Hightower’s unit also nearly blew last week’s game against Minnesota, losing 6.1 expected points in a tight contest.
Last weekend, a missed extra point, a fumbled kick return, and the most successful fake punt of all time would be the difference in yet another disappointing loss to our division rivals.
I get that every time an offensive or defensive player goes down, a special teams unit loses another dude to promotion up the depth chart and that keeping a rotating crop of bench players and practice squadders in lockstep is a tall task. But our inadequacy in this department has gotten out of control, and we’ve been paying for it dearly.
It gets the people going. Lance will take over next year. We’ll (theoretically) address the cornerback position in the off-season. But the biggest thing stopping us from being a Tier 2 or better team is consistency. We know when we play our best we can compete with the best. But how in the world can we stop playing our worst so regularly? If we can’t figure that out, we’ll never be a legitimate contender. At least not for the long haul.
Right now, it’s nearly impossible to predict how we’re going to look on any given week. When we play clean—without turnovers and a slew of penalties and mistakes—we look like a team that can do real damage in the playoffs. When we don’t, the wheels fall off. While I do believe the changes we made mid-season will result in more consistent play moving forward, we may have dug a hole so deep that it doesn’t matter. We’re down our best two players at our thinnest position and everyone in our remaining schedule knows that. If there’s a time to circle the wagons, it’s now. Otherwise, we’ll be looking at back-to-back seasons missing the playoffs, and this year—unlike in 2020—we’d have no good excuse as to why.
Go Niners 👍🏈