Eagles 25, 49ers 20
![Upward pointing emoji [Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e40f3a094d5fa3ebbbedb09/1602025565580-3E2FCZRMIFMN5Q6C0H77/aiyuk+hurdle.jpg)
Upward pointing emoji [Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press]
The second Thomas Middleditch’s voice piped in to narrate a pump-up intro analogizing football with comparative startup valuations, you could tell the night was gonna be off.
If the Giants game was a testament to how far we’ve come as an organization, the Eagles contest was a stark reminder of the issues we still need to iron out to take that next step towards becoming the football murder machine of the Patriots heyday. In short, don’t let the games that shouldn’t be close get close.
Missed opportunities, botched nail-in-coffin moments, and letting overmatched teams hang around late enough that the outcome relies more on good bounces and bad breaks than game-planning and skill are all issues we’ve had in the past; each reared its ugly head on Sunday. Is it fair to criticize a lack of execution and killer instinct on a group piloted largely by backups, including at quarterback? Does it matter? The Eagles were just as banged up as we were. You play with who you’ve got, and we had the opportunities and game plan to win this game. We just needed to execute it.
OFFENSE
Drive Killers: We averaged 6 yards/play and racked up a 417-to-267 yardage advantage but only put 20 points on the scoreboard. While turnovers were the obvious culprit, the overarching problem was a combination of missed and negative plays. Most of them—whether they were his fault or not—centered around our typically unflappable backup quarterback.
Excluding the four plays to end the first half, Nick Mullens quarterbacked the offense for nine offensive drives. This is how they panned out.
In every single drive that didn’t end in a touchdown, Mullens had some combination of a turnover, a missed throw, or a sack for big yardage. Our offense is explosive enough that it can still have success with some losses—we had a toss that was blown up for a five-yard loss in the first touchdown drive—but just like everyone else, we can’t survive with this many major negative plays.
Beat HARD: I’m not sure what it means moving forward when your third quarterback comes in and plays well in the wide-open, come-from-behind, late-game hurry-up offense Beathard piloted for the Niners’ final two drives. That sort of game flow is way different than anything he’d be seeing as a starter so his “fuck it, sling it” play over a small sample size doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the superior option moving forward. But Beathard deserves plenty of credit. He looked considerably better than his last sighting in 2018 and exponentially better than Mullens—who PFF graded as having the single worst performance by any QB in any game this season. Beathard’s only really demerit was the two-point conversion attempt, where a perfect play-call gave him the option to scramble or run, and—when the latter was way more open—he unsuccessfully attempted the former instead.
If Jimmy G can’t go next week against the Dolphins, who gets the nod? I dunno. But this stat is worth remembering: since 2017, the Niners are 22-7 with Garoppolo and 5-21 without him. Jimmy G, get well soon.
Kittle: As expected, our game plan leaned heavily on our non-receivers to exploit potential mismatches on the Eagles’ linebackers and safeties. Consider them exploited. 24 of our 32 completed passes and 252 of our 338 yards passing went to tight ends or running backs (Aiyuk’s acrobatic touchdown counted as a run), while Kittle—also as expected—feasted on his overmatched defenders all night to the tune of 15 grabs for 183 yards and a score. After missing the past two weeks with an MCL sprain, Kittle was a perfect 15-of-15 when targeted. That is unreal efficiency.
Where Art Thou Blocks?: Through four games, our offensive line ranks 31st in the NFL in adjusted line yards, 25th in % of runs stuffed at or behind the line of scrimmage, 29th in sack percentage, and 20th in adjusted sack rate. On Sunday against the Eagles, we allowed 5 sacks and our QBs were hit 15 times (second-most in the Shanahan era), while Jerick McKinnon rushed for 54 yards—57 of them after contact. Needless to say we haven’t been killing it up front. So what’s going wrong?
I’m going to spend the majority of the rest of this piece talking about the run blocking, but in regards to pass blocking the most oversimplified answer to our struggles is individual play—particularly on our right side. Mike McGlinchey, who had pass protection issues as a rookie but seemed to improve late last year after returning from injury, was expected to turn the corner as a pass blocker this season. So far, the opposite has happened. He’s been a liability thus far, and when he whiffs it seems to stick out like a sore thumb. Against the Eagles he missed on two of our three last plays, which led to QB hits as we tried for the go-ahead score, while another major miss contributed to Mullens’ pick on the Eagles’ six-yard line.
I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was firing out low in order to sell run on the play fake because otherwise I have no idea what happened. Regardless, protection takes precedence over the fake and when you lunge like this in pass pro, it’s a recipe for disaster. Also, FWIW…
That’s really obviously pass interference. Last time I checked you can’t two-hand block a receiver as he’s crossing the field while the ball’s in the air. And no, looking for the ball doesn’t count when you only look and don’t actually turn or disengage from the receiver. Luckily for the Eagles the throw was so ill-advised and destined to be a pick that the refs could see nothing else. Which… fair I guess.
Next to McGlinchey, Daniel Brunskill has regressed greatly since his super sub run in 2019. For a guy who made multiple starts at tackle last year, his issues in interior pass pro have been the most surprising. While the lack of snaps at guard during training camp surely didn’t help, he performed considerably better with NO expectation of playing last year so a massive regression was unexpected to say the least.
But what’s going on in the run game?
(1) Loaded boxes + Wide-ass Edges: It’s almost as if people don’t respect our passing game… teams thus far have been loading the box with 7- and 8-man fronts then keeping their defensive ends wide to prioritize beating hook blocks in our stretch game and containing our quarterbacks on bootleg passes.
Even if we were an option team, which we so clearly are not, we wouldn’t have the bodies to consistently block these fronts in the run game. This has forced us to motion wideouts into tighter splits—which I believe we did in both of these plays before snapping the ball—and has largely clouded up the bidness so there’s little room to run.
(2) Vertical instead of horizontal play on the edge: Defending the stretch running game usually means relying on your defensive front to maintain its gap integrity as it slides laterally with the offensive line. The edge defender tries to beat the hook block, keep his outside arm open, and prevent the bounce at all costs as he waits for backup from the inside.
Due to our speed in the backfield and edge rushing reputation, it seems like teams have started to get more aggressive at the point of attack—committing fully to jumping that edge and getting penetration. They’d rather not risk each of their defenders having to maintain gap integrity every play so they’re trying to get vertical push on the edge, which forces the running back to rush a cut upfield. Their alignment is so wide and their path so aggressive that even if the running back can bounce outside, their hope is that they’ve got enough penetration to tackle him or slow-up his bounce outside.
LOS is 35-yard line. Here the penetration on the edge has caused Jet to juke outside in order to bounce, which will slow up his momentum so much that he’ll get caught from behind for a gain of three (which is then called back on a hold).
This messes up the path and the timing of the running back—who’d rather slow-play his cut to set up the second-level defenders for bad angles and his linemen for easier blocks—and also allows a linebacker corps that wouldn’t necessarily have the speed to chase down our backs an easier point of attack. Now these linebackers can shoot to the hole inside the offensive tackle without worry that they’ll take too aggressive of an angle and get outflanked on a bounce.
Shanahan has used different looks to force the issue on the edge, including tosses and sweeps. While our sweep and reverse game has worked well, the tosses have been hit-or-miss.
LOS is 33-yard line. There’s so much penetration that McKinnon once again has to shuffle juke outside—killing his momentum and allowing inside defenders to catch him.
Tosses have their value (see: Jets game), but are a mix-up rather than a staple. You can’t live off toss sweeps unless you’re a Pop Warner coach with the most athletic eight year-old in the league. Plus, they present considerably less play action value. It’s nothing revolutionary that teams are doing here, but we need to find ways of punishing their full commitment to the outside run—both on the edges and inside—in order to keep them honest and open up our stretch running game again.
(3) Missing Mostert: I think last week against the Eagles was Jet’s best game as a runner. Earlier in the season he seemed a little rusty in his paths and was missing some cutback lanes. In this matchup, he really seemed to hit every hole and made a few gains out of nothing where he made a guy miss in a phone booth.
That being said, the speed and explosion of Jet versus the injured Raheem Mostert is pretty striking. How many times have you seen Mostert in the open field and not thought touchdown? None? And while it’s unfair to compare Jet to the fastest and biggest homerun running back in the NFL, there are a couple instances where Mostert’s absurd burst through the hole or even Coleman’s explosive physical short-yardage style could have been a nice mix-up for the defense.
Shanahan took a lot of flak for not starting Mostert all of last year, but his strategy of softening teams up with Coleman then springing Mostert on them for huge gains clearly worked. While Mostert should still get the start and the majority of the carries once he returns, presenting a variety of backs makes it harder for run defenses to get settled which in turn makes it easier for us to get bigger chunks of yardage.
(4) Missed second-level blocks: Realistically, this is what’s killed us the most. Shanahan’s playbook has answers to all of these issues and—as we’ll see shortly—he’s already deployed some of them. We just haven’t blocked them, particularly on the second-level. We’ve known for a while that we’re a more feast-or-famine type of run game. Our concepts are more complex to execute because their upside for big gains is higher. Due to that, a missed block here or there hurts us more than most teams’ running games. Even with loaded boxes and teams selling out to stop the outside running game, we’ve had a number of 3-to-5-yard runs that could have gone for big gains if not for a single missed block on the second level.
Some of this is on our wideouts. Trent Taylor has missed a few blocks. Brandon Aiyuk has, at times, committed too long to pulling the corner then is late peeling off to block the safety. But there’s plenty of blame to be put on the offensive line as well, in particular our interior, and especially Brunskill. For a converted tight end, he hasn’t looked great in space, either missing his blocks or not holding them long enough to allow our small runs to become big ones. Based on his play last year, I’m still bull-ish on his ability. The hope is that he can continue to improve with more snaps at guard. Helping him work through it may be our best/only option considering the alternative is throwing in Tom Compton or fifth-round rookie Colton McKivitz.
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS?
(1) Pass game improvements: Having any threat of a passing game will limit the eight man boxes, which in turn will clear out space for more second-level blocks and inside runs. For that to happen our pass protection needs to improve, but simply getting healthy again is equally as important. Through four games our starting quarterback has played less than a single half alongside our top target, only a handful of snaps with our promising rookie wideout, and zero snaps (during the season or in training camp) with last year’s leading receiver. A return to health will do wonders for opening up boxes.
(2) More gap schemes: This isn’t the first time teams have committed to taking away our outside running game, so we actually have a variety of gap schemes that we have run pretty well in the past as a counterattack. With teams committing so heavily to stopping stretch, it’s probably worth employing them more regularly to keep defenses honest.
Power runs could make defenses regret their wide alignments as they try to condense to combat kick out blocks, or open up big holes if we have the guard lead through and the play-side tackle lock on. Same with our same-side power/counter concepts. I’d also think that—while not gap runs—our split zone and bend-back split-stretch could be useful. Anything that creates that fast flow and overcommitment to stopping stretch before attacking inside should be on the table. Misdirection is key. Whether that’s in the backfield or while using…
(3) More fly/reverse action: Making teams commit to the outside threat with plenty of fly sweeps and reverse action should open up running holes underneath. Of all teams, we have the horses now—with Deebo and Aiyuk, and even Kittle—to actually hand off the ball and get non-running back rushing yards on a regular basis. And while that many wideout handoffs could seem gimmicky, it’s clearly something that Shanahan has no problem employing on a regular basis. Deebo averaged two carries per game over his last six games last year, including three for 53 yards in the Super Bowl. Think of our wideouts like halfbacks in a wing T offense. If teams are fast-flowing our backfield run game and/or not playing the edges on non-traditional handoffs, then we have the dudes to make them pay. Regularly.
To Sean McVay’s credit, one of the things he does really well is fully commit to something, even if it would traditionally seem to be a counter rather than a staple. In week 16 against us, the Rams did nothing but bootleg passes to free up Goff. Two weeks ago against the Eagles, the Rams receivers had six carries on sweeps and reverses because of Philadelphia’s fast flow. Now that Deebo is back to health and Aiyuk is breaking into the offense, we can punish teams who don’t play them honestly. And when teams believe we can handoff the ball—and are scared of the results when we do—we open up tons of space underneath.
Such as in this play to start the second half:
We’re lined up in our gun split-backs look with our strength to the top of the screen. Expecting a loaded box and man coverage across the board, the Niners have dialed up a play that will use the decoy of Kittle (who has already been torching them) to threaten the edges while attacking the soft interior.
Kittle motions across the field, taking his guy with him.
Here we’re faking both Kittle fly sweep/touch pass and Kittle play action dump-off left while running inside zone right. While the Eagles are in a 5-man front, their wide alignments to stop stretch make for easy angles for each of our offensive linemen on the inside-hitting zone play.
Juice will jab step right to feign a stretch/zone lead, before bending back and kicking out the end—or most dangerous / whoever doesn’t bite on the fake/comes first.
Seeing zone blocking and Juice stepping right initially, the Eagles linebackers creep inwards and upwards, expecting to fill play-side against the zone run.
Meanwhile, the backside end looks to close down his wide alignment and play cutback…
The fly motion makes him hesitate once (maybe Kittle got the handoff?) then twice as he realizes that since they’re in man coverage and Kittle is going across the line of scrimmage, he needs to try and slow Kittle’s release to the flat. If not, Kittle could get an easy dump-off pass and a full head of steam against a single trailing cornerback.
The end stops and tries to reach out to grab Kittle but fails, while the trailing cornerback follows over top (he’s getting run out of the play), and the linebacker nearest Kittle starts to think the same thing as the defensive end: they’re getting out-flanked on a play action and they’re about to have to tackle Kittle in space. Thus, the linebacker gives up on the zone look and starts to widen outside.
Juice makes a game-time decision and figures the DE is still dangerous enough that he should kick him out instead of leading up to the linebacker. Ultimately, it may not have mattered either way, as the result is the following:
Both the defensive end and the linebacker widen to play Kittle, who is now all the way out near the numbers. Meanwhile, Jet hits the cutback lane on the inside zone and there is a gigantic hole up the middle of the defense.
In this frame, the defensive end is fully discombobulated and also getting kicked out, while the linebacker is running AWAY from the ballcarrier as he tries to hedge his bets on Kittle. No one within five yards is even LOOKING at the guy with the ball, much less in a position to stop him.
Here’s the view from the press box. What is the likelihood that Mostert—if healthy—would be blasting through that hole then eviscerating the angle of the deep safety for yet another 75-plus touchdown? High. Very High.
Instead, the linebacker recovers and gets McKinnon down before he can break into the open field.
These kinds of plays, which thread in multiple layers of deception and misdirection to threaten outside while attacking inside, can be very effective against teams that commit to stopping the outside running game.
(4) Make blocks: Well, yeah.
If we block well, we can still get the edge on anyone. We have the skill and the diversity of run looks to do so. Here’s an example of a way that Shanahan maneuvers to take the edge from a team that’s trying to do nothing but stop that exact thing and how close we were—again—to breaking a big run.
Here we are against another seven- or eight-man box (depending on how you count #34). Deebo is going to motion across to the weak side, both bringing the defender he has in man coverage with him and causing the strong-side defensive end and linebacker to switch gap responsibilities.
This will be crucial to help Kittle’s block on the edge.
We’re running what is kind of like the zone variation of counter trey. Basically we’re faking inside zone left with our backfield and our offensive line, then using Kittle and Taylor to seal the right-side edge while Deebo loops around behind like a pulling guard to lead up on the cornerback.
On the snap, Mullens opens to the left as it sells the idea of an inside zone left and it threatens the potential for a sweep handoff to Deebo the other way. The line blocks just like they would with an inside zone, with Garland (#63) and Brunskill (#60) planning to work up to the second level.
Their blocks are made easier by the fact that the linebackers are—rightfully—expecting inside zone. Thus they’re flowing to the left side of the formation and creeping forward with hopes of meeting Jet in the hole. On the backside, you can see how the inside zone look away helps Kittle—as the defensive end tries to get inside and play the C gap—and Taylor—as the linebacker is sliding inside as well.
Remember, the goal of this play is to go OUTSIDE of Kittle and Taylor, so the flow of the defense helps set up better blocking angles.
As Garland and Brunskill work up to the second level, let’s look at the play-side edge blocking. Deebo is heading up to the cornerback while Kittle is riding the defensive end out wide, working to front him while preventing him from shooting across his face outside.
We talked earlier about missed blocks on the second level. Here’s the first of them on this play. In pink, you can see that Taylor took a path that was too flat and that allowed his man to beat him outside.
Taylor’s defender has now set the edge outside of Kittle, forcing the run inside. The defensive end slips off Kittle to the inside, which isn’t Kittle’s fault as Kittle was prioritizing sealing the edge in hopes of an outside run, but that’s far from a deal breaker because of how much space we’ve created inside by stringing out the defense.
With the flexibility of the stretch scheme and the successful inside fake, Jet has a giant hole to run through and Taylor, to his credit, is looking upfield to try and block someone else after missing his first attempt. However, this is where our second missed block—in pink—comes in. Brunskill hasn’t kept his defender inside, and the linebacker is now closing down space as McKinnon starts to cut up field.
The linebacker lunges for the tackle and drags down Jet for a short gain—snuffing out a play that could have been much more. If either Taylor OR Brunskill missed their block the play still would have worked—McKinnon would have outrun the linebacker while bouncing outside or cut upfield into an unoccupied hole—but since they BOTH missed their blocks, a big gain on the ground became an innocuous five-yard gain on the box score.
The plays are there, we just have to execute better.
The good news? We’ve put up 400+ on back-to-back defenses despite starting our backup quarterback, our third-string running back, and getting the equivalent of two games out of our top two receiving targets. Despite all that we’re still ranked in the top 10 in every major statistical offensive category. We’ll get healthy and get things sorted out. Also, young Brandon Aiyuk looks more athletic every day.
So there’s that.
DEFENSE
Through four weeks the Niners have the second-lowest average depth of target in the NFL (6.0 yards) after finishing first (6.5 yards/target) in that figure last year. Part of that is the offenses they’ve faced, but give Robert Saleh the credit he deserves. With the Niners decimated by injuries along their front and back lines, the depth of this defense has shown through and Saleh has adjusted the team’s pressure techniques accordingly. While we were one of the least blitz-happy teams in the league last year, we’ve blitzed the 8th-most in 2020, yet we’ve still maintained top 5 marks in hurry, knock down, and pressure rates and have allowed the third-fewest passing yards in the NFL. Yes, tougher tests are to come, but accomplishing that down your top three defensive ends and top five cornerbacks is quite an achievement.
Option Runs: As expected, the Eagles showed plenty of option looks both from Wentz and second-round pick Jalen Hurts, and—just like last week—those runs were more successful than their handoffs in getting yardage and first downs. If you exclude that ill-advised reverse that got blown up for a 12-yard loss, the Eagles’ running backs carried the ball 17 times for 50 yards (2.9 ypc). Their quarterbacks carried the ball 10 times for 55 yards (5.5 ypc).
A team that relies on multiple fronts, position-less front seven players, and tons of blitzing presents more confusing alignments and run fit responsibilities for on offense, which in turn can make running option plays more difficult. While a team like the Ravens or Cardinals that includes zone read as a foundational part of their offense will be prepped to run those plays against such a front, a team that deals more casually in zone read might avoid it all together in lieu of something that takes less practice time. Since we typically rely on a four-man front and rarely drop our DL into coverage it’s a little bit easier on standard downs to determine our gap responsibilities and read keys. That, and the fact that we’ve done so well against standard run plays this year, means any QB with some athleticism is likely to try it a few times per game against us.
We’ve gone over the slate of dual-threat quarterbacks we’re about to face. While we’re not going to change our defensive philosophies to combat this one style of play, we need to get better at defending it or we’re going to get gashed later this year.
Edge Speed: We lacked it. For the first time this year we really saw what losing Bosa and Ford does to our ability to corral quarterbacks inside the pocket. Even when Carson Wentz wasn’t hurting us with designed runs, he was getting outside the pocket on bootlegs and scrambles—turning potential incompletions or sacks into short yardage runs and completions down the sideline. While Dion Jordan showed his athleticism in bursts, having either Bosa or Ford really would have neutered the Eagles’ ability to get outside the pocket and thus limited their ability to do much of anything on offense.
Considering Ezekiel Ansah—just signed last week to help offset the loss of Bosa and Ford—tore his biceps in the first half and is getting put on (real) IR later this week, this is a problem that’s gonna get worse before it gets better. We’re certainly adding another defensive lineman at some point this week, but the pickens are slim indeed (shakes fist at the fact that Damontre Moore is now with the Seahawks). We’re pretty much down to super-old dudes (Clay Matthews, Cameron Wake) or super-young developmental dudes (Alex Barrett from the practice squad?). While the latter category may sound more exciting, a high potential dude who isn’t playing four weeks in is likely quite rough around the edges. If the Niners go the young route, perhaps they comb over the practice squads of defenses with strong, deep, and healthy fronts for someone who might be buried due to lack of need.
Well look who it is... I don’t wanna rag on the dude too much. Dontae Johnson’s deep on the depth chart for a reason, he’s only playing due to massive amounts of injuries, he himself had a groin tweak in this game but played through it cause we ran out of bodies, and I know the majority of my memories of him are from 2017 when we were terrible and everyone got burnt; thus I suffer from an innate and personal PTSD bias. But goddammit can we please get healthy soon?
What’s that? K’Waun Williams was just put on short-term IR with a lower body injury? Well I guess I’ll just fuck myself then. Jamar Taylor—who Saleh brilliantly blitzed on his first snap of the game—will almost surely be added to the active roster to replace Williams. Witherspoon, Moseley, and Sherman should all be back soon (although there’s talk that Sherman and Mostert are more likely to return against the Rams). At full strength, there’s a chance Moseley could play in the nickel while Verrett plays outside? Neither really played there during camp but it seems pretty clear who our top three corners are with Williams out.
KYLE SHANAHAN’S “FUCK YOUR COUCH” PLAY OF THE WEEK
Somewhat fitting considering how this game turned out, but this week’s play ended up an incomplete pass. But mother of god was it open.
Let’s take a look.
This one’s more play-calling than play-structuring. It’s a simple concept, just dialed up at exactly the right time against exactly the right defense and (mostly) executed to perfection.
This is the second play of the game. Knowing Jim Schwartz would likely be aggressive on the outsides with our backup quarterback in and with the ball at our own 11-yard line, he went Cover 1 to load the box on a second-and-10. The Niners presented an I-Form look that implied inside handoff, then sent Bourne across the formation in motion. This made clear that the Eagles were indeed in man coverage and put him away from the single-side receiver to create as much space on the left side of the field as possible.
Shanahan’s dialed up a deep play action lead ISO fake that will become a max protect play action pass with two receivers on routes. This is the definition of a shot play. After the fake, Mullens will look inside-to-outside, first at the deep post and then at the wheel out of the backfield (in red).
Unless the deep safety bites so incredibly hard on play action that Aiyuk can get over top of him, this ball is going to Juice.
On the snap, the run fake works to perfection. All three linebackers and the deep safety rush forward thinking inside run, while Kittle and Bourne protect backside to ensure a blitzing man doesn’t get through.
Aiyuk—with a mandatory inside release in order to get the attention of the deep safety—absolutely roasts his cornerback off the line of scrimmage then quickly gains a step on him down the field. While we haven’t seen the rookie’s downfield ability yet, this is a good sign of things to come.
The free safety notices Aiyuk blazing open down the field and turns to help over top, while Juice fakes his lead block so well that the play-side linebacker slips out of his way in order to stagger into the hole. Both linebackers (#57 and #40) are stacked up on the line of scrimmage as Juice leaks down the sideline uncovered.
There is no one for miles.
Darius Slay (#24) starts to see it but he’s all the way across the field while both the play-side corner and free safety are busy with Aiyuk, who—to his credit—seems to have actually beat both of them despite the double team. If completed, this is a bare minimum of a forty yard gain. With that much space, it could go much longer.
By now Jim Schwartz, circled in blue, has seen it. Thus he has crouched down in the universal “I’m gonna shit myself and then pretend I tweaked something so I can sneak off to the locker room” squat. He won’t rise back up until the ball is safely over Juice’s head and incomplete.
Hitting this shot could have opened the floodgates and turned this game into a much different affair. Alas, we’re now 2-2, nearing the meat of our schedule, and playing catch-up in the NFC West. We have the means to patch up our issues, but we need to do so quickly.
Go Niners 👍🏈