Preview: Wk 7 @ Patriots

The scariest part is after he sees no one downfield and tucks it [Steven Senne/Associated Press]

Opponent: New England Patriots (2-3)
Date: Sunday, 10/25
Location: Foxborough, MA
Kickoff: 1:25 PT
TV: CBS, or wherever you stream it illegally

Highlights from the Patriots look a lot different this year.

There’s no Tom Brady. No dink-and-dunk offense. No Donta Hightower or Patrick Chung. Oh, and also they don’t exist. The highlights that is. Cause there’s nothing attractive about the way these Patriots play football. And that—just like Bill Belichick’s wardrobe and the haircut of his Unabomber look-alike son—is all according to plan.

INJURY REPORT

Tests on Trent Williams lower leg showed nothing broken and that he avoided the dreaded high-ankle sprain. He sat out Wednesday but was limited at practice on Thursday. He’s more likely than not to play… Jaquiski Tartt has yet to be cleared to practice, but if there’s silver lining it’s that this matchup should play well into Marcell Harris’ strengths... Ben Garland and Raheem Mostert are out this week. Garland was placed on IR while Mostert—who was thought to be joining him—hasn’t yet been given that designation. Perhaps that means there’s hope for a recovery under three weeks? Or they’re just putting him on IR later this week... Jeff Wilson practiced limited this week. He’s probably likely to play given Mostert is out, Tevin Coleman won’t be back from injury by Sunday, and we haven’t added any backs... Dontae Johnson practiced in full as of Thursday… last we heard, neither Richard Sherman nor Dee Ford are expected back until, at earliest, after the bye (week 11)... after setbacks in recovery, Ronald Blair and Weston Richburg aren’t expected back until “around” week 13... no word yet on Jullian Taylor’s timetable. He tore his ACL around Thanksgiving last year so, given our luck, we can probably expect him back sometime in 2023.

NEW ADDITIONS

The plus side to our extensive injury list means there are plenty of interesting new roster additions :) [dies inside]

CB, Parnell Motley: Swooped off waivers after the Brian Allen fiasco that shall never be talked about again, Motley was a (mostly) three-year starter at Oklahoma, totaling 39 pass deflections, 6 forced fumbles, and 6 picks in his time in Norman. An UDFA this year, he played only special teams in two appearances for the Bucs but defensively projects as a developmental outside press corner. He has the productivity, functional length and athleticism, and physicality to develop into a potential contributor down the line, but he’ll have to clean up a whole lot of technique and holding issues for that to happen. He’s a stash for the future. In the present, he’s a special teamer. Or maybe we lose all our corners again and he starts next week. Hard to say.

DE, Jordan Willis: In an effort to somehow get worse than they already are, the Jets traded us Jordan Willis and a 2021 7th-round pick for a 2022 6th-round pick earlier this week. Drafted by the Bengals in the third round in 2017, Willis was quickly passed by fourth-rounder Carl Lawson and 2018 draftee Sam Hubbard. Dropped when the Zac Taylor regime took over, he’s been with the Jets ever since. Willis has battled injuries during his four-year career and has as many sacks (3) as he does teams that he’s played for, but he has intriguing present and future value considering the price tag.

Willis totaled 26 sacks in college and was the 2016 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year after recording 11.5 as a senior at Kansas State. At 6-4 275 pounds he obliterated the combine, recording a 4.53 forty, 39-inch vertical, and 6.85 three-cone drill—athletic numbers that were only surpassed on the defensive line by current DPOTY candidate Myles Garrett. Despite the tantalizing numbers, a quick look at his tape makes me believe that he tests faster than he plays and that he lacks the fluidity and bend to ever run the corner as a speed rusher. But that doesn’t mean he can’t present value. In two of his four seasons, on over 500 defensive snaps, he’s graded out in the 70’s in PFF with solid two-way ability. Maybe he won’t beat anyone off the edge but there’s a role for guys who can play the run and generate the occasional pressure with power and inside moves. The Niners are banking that a change of scenery, under Kris Kocurek, on a team that doesn’t suck ass for the first time in his career will better maximize Willis’ ability. 

At best, Willis becomes a second-line guy for the future. At worst, he washes out from the team with his biggest impact being the restructuring of Laken Tomlinson’s contract that opened up the cap space to sign him. But if Willis can land somewhere in the middle and give us solid Dion Jordan-level snaps with our second group, that would give us a major boost to the pass rush. Not because of anything he’d necessarily be providing himself but because it would allow us to slide Arik Armstead inside on passing downs where he feasted (10 sacks) last year. 

TRADE DEADLINE STRATS

GET EXCITED! It’s the minutiae of business and finances in the NFL time. (ham horn)

At 3-3 and with two weeks left before the November 3rd trade deadline, our games against the Patriots and Seahawks will do a lot towards determining if our contention status. If we’re 5-3 and looking at Seahawks and Rams teams with two losses who we hold a tiebreaker over, we’re clearly back in contention. If we’re 3-5 and a solid four or five games behind Seattle then that’s another story.

Either way, I don’t really see us being big movers at the trade deadline, at least not along the lines of the big swing trades that people who follow the NBA too closely keep proposing (Alex Mack on an expensive expiring contract? OBJ still somehow? Sam D’Arnold for a FIRST ROUND PICK???).

Last year when we pulled the trigger on Emmanuel Sanders we were 7-0 and with a gaping hole at wide receiver. In retrospect it would have been irresponsible NOT to have gone after a wideout. We were a clear Super Bowl favorite with a single missing piece, and we were entering an off-season where we had very few key players on expiring contracts. Neither of those are the case now.

While we do have some major roster holes at the moment, those are due to injury, and the guys who are hurt are proven commodities largely locked up beyond this year. Last year, adding Sanders gave a jolt to a woefully undermanned receiving corps and helped develop Deebo and KB tremendously, but there was always the chance of retaining Sanders after the season—especially if the young guys hadn’t developed. This year, throwing out draft capital for a guy on an expiring contract like Ryan Kerrigan—who would be a guaranteed one-year rental—makes considerably more sense for someone like the Seahawks—who straight up lack edge rushers on their roster—than for us. Hedging the future for a season when we’re guaranteed to be missing major pieces—whether at 5-3 or 3-5—makes little sense.

Conversely, I wouldn’t expect a fire sale either. In general, dumping young talent when you’re bad is actually a bad idea in the NFL. Even if you don’t account for injuries or special teams, you’re regularly playing 30+ guys each week. You need depth, and if you’re the guy expected to make that turnaround, then you’d better start developing the back end of your roster with guys who can ball. Regardless, we’re not a bad team nor is our roster in bad shape. So there’s no fire sale incoming.

Lastly, we are absolutely broke. We couldn’t take on a big contract even if we wanted to and why oh why would we want to as we’re entering a COVID-affected cap year with contracts up on tons of our own free agents? As mentioned above, Laken Tomlinson had to restructure his contract in order to give us the cap space needed to trade for Jordan Willis… and Jordan Willis costs less than $600k against the cap. We are eating-ramen-in-sweatpants-in-college-and-then-being-surprised-when-that-turns-off-women-and-no-I-didn’t-just-fart-that’s-just-the-general-smell-of-my-existence poor. But didn’t we just restructure Dee Ford’s contract before the season to open up a ton of cap space? How do we now only have—per Spotrac—$4.5M left under the 2020 cap?

As is the case for most of our issues this year, this problem stems from injuries. Every NFL team has a maximum of 53 players on their active roster but only 46 dress for any given game. That gives you some leeway if someone is hurt as they can be made inactive. However, when you have more than that number hurt or you know someone will be out for a number of weeks, you often put them on injured reserve. Players on the IR don’t count as taking up a roster spot, so you put them there to be able to add a replacement. That will either be a player picked up off waivers (which costs money) or signed off the street (which costs money) or a practice squad promotion (which also costs money). Every time you promote a player from the practice squad to the active roster their pay rate bumps up from their practice squad rate to their NFL minimum (based on their number of accrued seasons). Assuming that player is on the practice squad minimum (they could be getting paid more), that would mean their salary increases by greater than four times.

We currently have—not including Mostert, who could go on IR later this week—a league-leading 14 players and approximately one quarter of our entire salary cap ($53M) stuck on injured reserve—plus an additional $6M on the PUP list. That’s a lot of roster spots to fill and that doesn’t even include the promotions for the multiple games missed by Jimmy G, Kittle, Mostert, Moseley, etc. etc. etc. Basically, our injury issues have been so severe that we’re paying for 15-20 additional players at any given time. While those players are on cheap contracts, the sheer number adds up. Thus, we are broke :(

If there’s any moves coming in the future, I’d expect them to be the kind of mini-transactions we saw with Jordan Willis. Deals that add back-end roster depth with a potential to help in the future and that prioritize ADDING 2021 picks. With the huge number of free agents we have up to bat this off-season, the expectation should be that we net a decent number of compensatory picks due to roster turnover—picks that won’t get realized until the 2022 draft. So, due to impending roster turnover, the year delay of likely comp picks, and the fact that we had FIVE TOTAL PICKS in last year’s draft, the Niners brass will likely prioritize adding picks in 2021.

Naturally, one way to add picks is to be sellers. There’s a chance that someone on an expiring contract could get shipped off to a contender to accelerate their comp pick return, but there’s not a lot of likely candidates. Ahkello Witherspoon gets floated every time anyone talks about Niners trades but are we in the position to trade cornerbacks right now? Also, it’s not without question that Witherspoon—given the impending turnover at the position and the Niners’ prioritization of familiarity within their system—is actually re-signed in the off-season to a cheap short-term deal (ala Jimmie Ward 2019). Perhaps Dante Pettis, who has been inactive for multiple games this year and still has two seasons left on a rookie deal. But what’s the market for a guy who hasn’t played in practically a year? If you get into veterans on expiring deals you could float the idea of Richard Sherman, as his ten years in the league means he could net us only a fifth-round comp pick, but he’s a captain who’s also on IR. Maybe K’Waun, one of the better nickel corners in the league? But he’s currently on a massive deal of a contract, would probably be a cheaper re-sign than someone like Sherm, and is also… on IR.

Again, this is purely conjecture, and the Niners’ salary cap situation, .500 record, and commitment to maintaining locker room chemistry likely means that if there are any other moves on the horizon, they’re more like Jordan Willis-level ones—with the 2021 draft and the 2021 season in mind.

OFFENSE

Gimme five if half of your season’s yardage was from a single game [Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire]

November 3, 2019 marked a monumental shift for two AFC Powers. For the upstart Ravens, their shellacking of the then 8-0 Patriots cemented themselves as a legitimate contender. While the Patriots would only win one more game by more than a single score before getting ousted in the Wild Card round and saying goodbye to their future Hall of Fame quarterback. But this wasn’t a changing of the guard so much as a wake-up call for Bill Belichick. He saw what John Harbaugh did in Baltimore and realized that it was indeed still possible to be a supremely run-heavy team in 2020, but only if you had a running threat at quarterback. 

In this year’s draft the Patriots selected zero receivers, two tight ends, two run-blocking offensive linemen, and signed former MVP Cam Newton off the street. In came the zone read and inverted veer concepts that you naturally add to your playbook when you have a 6-5 245-pound battering ram at quarterback. While the offense doesn’t rely as heavily on those option concepts as the Ravens, adding the threat of the QB run has opened up the rest of their rushing game.

Cam’s 11.5 carries per game—combined with tons of two-running back sets, reverses, and fly sweeps to anyone and everyone who could ever threaten to hit the edge—makes for a ground game that rides on the power of its offensive line and the incredible diversity of its rushing schemes. They can hit you with a fly sweep off a zone look, a quick pitch off motion away, a counter trey out of double tight, then an inverted veer keeper with a leading fullback all on the same drive. This makes for a considerably less explosive and exciting offense than Baltimore’s, but provides many of its other benefits. The power run game limits negative yardage and makes the Patriots more dangerous and more willing to go for it on fourth-and-short, the constant use of play action makes for much easier to read defenses and inflates passing statistics with easy completions, and that same play action means the offensive line can maul in the run game and rarely has to engage in drop back pass protection—where potential weak spots could be exposed. That’s the theory at least.

Through the air they’ve discarded much of the short-to-intermediate pinpoint timing routes that Brady thrived on for the better part of a decade in lieu of different high percentage throws. They still run their “long handoff” equivalent screens and work levels concepts over the middle off the field, but focus more on passing through play action—particularly on the concepts Cam is most comfortable with: floods, reading deep ball-to-shallow crossers, and deep outs and crossers that accent his arm strength while mitigating his quick recognition skills and accuracy.

Cam’s completion percentage is at an all-time high, but aside from the wild end to the Seahawks game (against one of the worst passing defenses in the league), he is still—as he’s been for years—an inaccurate passer who forces the ball into bad spots too often. He hasn’t made major strides since leaving the Panthers. The difference now is that the Patriots have done a good job of shaping the offense around the threat of his legs, making the passing game filled with concepts he’s comfortable with, and minimizing the load he needs to carry. Through four starts, Cam’s only thrown the ball more than 28 times once and completed more than 17 passes just as many times. As a team, they’ve only thrown for greater than 172 yards once. This is a low-volume, below average-efficiency passing attack.

Their wideout talent is middling at best—although this would have been a really nice game to have K’Waun Williams manning the slot. They gain very little separation and—with the exception of 2019 first-rounder N’Keal Harry—have little size as well. This is still the roster of tons of slot receivers that Brady would throw to on pivot routes and shallows, with Julian Edelman being the alpha dog and the closest thing to a No.1 receiver. He’s not to be underestimated and can pick you apart in the middle of the field, but—despite what everyone who has worn an Antoine Walker jersey out in public in the past ten years says—he’s no otherworldly talent. In the passing game, they’ll throw to their backs just as often as their wideouts and honestly those backs are probably just as dangerous. As long as we tackle well, we should have the speed on the second level to keep their YAC yards to a minimum.

This is an offense that’s ranked 27th in passing DVOA and 3rd in rushing DVOA. The scariest part of their passing game is Cam Newton scrambling. They’ll throw plenty of short passes to the flats to chip away at our Cover 3 and Quarters coverages, but they don’t have the personnel to kill us with that. The focus should be on stopping the run. With the sheer quantity of looks they have in the run game, the Patriots could find sporadic success outside, but I don’t think this team has the speed to regularly get to the edge against our defense. More likely, the crux of this matchup lies in stopping the Patriots’ QB option and interior run game. They’ve got a lot of size on the interior and run 21 personnel third-most in the league to get extra blockers and gaps with just enough misdirection to slow up reads on the second level. DJ Jones, Javon Kinlaw, and Kevin Givens will be important—and our linebackers will need to commit to their reads and quick trigger against the run. If our interior run defense looks more like it did the first four weeks and less like it did against the Rams, we’ll be in good shape defensively.

DEFENSE

A few Pro Bowls shy of a Head & Shoulders endorsement [Getty Images]

On defense, the Patriots aren’t nearly what they were a year ago but they’re still a Bill Belichick coached side that will play sound football and not beat themselves with mistakes. While the advanced stats paint a picture of an average unit, this is a bend-don’t-break defense that is opportunistic in creating turnovers. It—like the rest of this team—does a good job of mitigating risk and keeping the Patriots within striking distance regardless of opponent. 

The Pats run a man coverage-heavy, multiple 3-4 that stresses versatility in their front seven so that they can be flexible in shaping their front based on their opponent. While COVID opt-outs from Donta Hightower and Patrick Chung have sapped some name recognition from this defense, they still have a number of plus performers and—just as importantly—few genuine weak spots. Everyone, even their lower-end roster types, at least does their job. Second-year edge/linebacker Chase Winovich has emerged as their go-to pass rusher while they get the majority of their other pressure off of schemed up fronts similar to the ones we saw—and were depressingly effective against us—two weeks ago versus Miami. Last year’s DPOTY Stephon Gilmore has had a down year but is still a top tier corner, while JC Jackson opposite him has emerged as a potential star. Devin McCourty brings his typical strong veteran play to free safety. 

Through Belichick’s decades-long reign of terror, the Patriots defense has been known for presenting wildly differing looks from week-to-week, with schemes made specifically to take away what you do best. But more accurately, they want to take away whatever you rely on most. They effectively clamped down the Raiders and Chiefs in back-to-back weeks by using a variety of coverages and alignment bluffs to limit their high-volume star tight ends from being the offense’s primary chain-mover. I’d expect the same sort of looks on George Kittle, as well as wide edges and a variety of fronts that are made to stop our stretch game. 

In guarding Kittle, the Patriots may chip with their edges or linebackers but they’ll use their rotating crop of safeties as their primary coverage guys. Kittle presents an athleticism and speed advantage that neither Waller nor Kelce possess, but it will be tough sledding with the amount of shit they’re gonna throw at him. While Kittle always needs to be a big part of our gameplan, it would be smart if we have counterattacks set up with our other playmakers. Bunch formations, motions, and condensed sets are always on the docket against man coverage and could provide an added bonus in opening up some edge space for our running game as well. 

Against our run game the Patriots will rely on power, scheme, and alignment to offset their lack of speed. They are not a fast defense. Regardless of the fronts they show us, we should push the issue outside and find ways—whether it’s with tosses, condensed sets with crack blocks, and/or reverses—to get our speed advantage out on the edges. Using motion and alignment to clear out the edges for sweeps and reverses should also be in play given the Patriots’ commitment to man coverage. This strategy would have been way cooler with the unreal speed of Mostert in the lineup, but it should remain the game plan nonetheless. Expect Deebo Samuel to get his name called in the running game again this week and every week moving forward.

This game could be an absolute slog. This is the weakest Patriots teams in years, but it’s still the Patriots—they thrive on your mistakes and we’ve had a lot of those to date. It’s also worth noting that their losses have been to the Seahawks in a shootout, the Chiefs while starting Brian Hoyer, and to the Broncos after a week where they had minimal in-person practice due to COVID. This is a team that’s better than its 2-3 record. If we minimize mental errors and turnovers we matchup well, but we have to do that for all four quarters. Otherwise this is a Pats team that thrives on hanging around into the fourth and pulling out opportunistic victories.

Go Niners 👍🏈