Offseason All22 Film Study

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by qnnhan7:
If he can stay healthy, we might have another BY. He kinda look like BY to me with the quickness and power.

I've mentioned numerous times I've followed FSU football for 2 decades. Tank was one of the best if not the best flat-out pass rusher I seen at FSU. I still believe his selection in 2013 is gonna be looked at as one of Trent's best moves. I think he's a difference maker and I hope he remains healthy and continues to craft a role in our 3-4 and uses that combo of power and speed to collapse pockets.

His closing speed is on par with OLB's and at his size? Love it!

I'm sure this has been debated elsewhere, but what do the film guys (and everyone else in here) think about the impact of losing Aldon Smith as it relates to what was seen on 2014 film from the Giants game onward? Can Aaron Lynch, a slimmed down Brooks, and possible rookie phenom Eli Harold handle the job on the outside and provide reliable pressure without Aldon?

Can we scheme some pass rush too with Mangini's moving chess piece philosophy? Or are we basically doomed to have a mediocre or submediocre pass rush with Justin and Aldon both gone?

Hyde the Bush Hunter

Originally posted by Adusoron:
I'm sure this has been debated elsewhere, but what do the film guys (and everyone else in here) think about the impact of losing Aldon Smith as it relates to what was seen on 2014 film from the Giants game onward? Can Aaron Lynch, a slimmed down Brooks, and possible rookie phenom Eli Harold handle the job on the outside and provide reliable pressure without Aldon?

Can we scheme some pass rush too with Mangini's moving chess piece philosophy? Or are we basically doomed to have a mediocre or submediocre pass rush with Justin and Aldon both gone?

Great question/topic.

IMHO, there is a myth out there...that Aldon was doubled a ton and that is why he only had 2 sacks the final 7 games (as an example) and didn't provide much pressure/hits and the lack of health of Justin didn't help his cause either. When I watched film over the years, it was Brooks who'd more often be double-teamed. Some of that is by choice and where teams chose to line up their TE's and what side of the field they prefer to run to (not always 'because' of the scare of a pass rush).

But Aldon does have the ability to draw doubles (unlike Brooks) b/c of his pass rush but most teams won't assign an extra blocker to help in the pass rush unless he's rolling (i.e. already has 2-3 sacks, in the backfield all day, etc.).

To me, "scheme" alone, is going to feel like we added another pass rusher or two to the field (and we will, literally)...whether Aldon is on the field or not. Staley alluded to it yesterday that we now run a defense similar to AZ...lots of 4 safeties (hybrid players) on the field, changing of personnel around for added confusion, pre and post-snap confusion, unpredictable pressure, dictating the offense mindset, etc.

So when you think of AZ, you picture them as leading the NFL in sacks with all the pressure they bring...the reality is that they were 1 sack behind us last year with 35. Yet, they were a defense that was NOT fun to play and game plan for. That is going to be this defense now on so many levels with much better talent and depth (they lost a ton of players last year). In short, they schemed up 35 sacks.

Mangini is huge on "flexibility" - I spoke to that today here: Post #1185 - http://www.49erswebzone.com/forum/niners/181158-eric-mangini-hired-49ers/page79/

His 1on1 is excellent insight as well - http://www.49ers.com/video/videos/Eric-Mangini-Gives-Update-on-Defense/c851bbdd-0c64-4c7a-aa5c-114b20b68273

'4 safety defense' - http://www.ninersnation.com/2015/7/9/8926357/better-rivals-podcast-hybrid-players-and-mangini-s-defense (starts at 13:00 for hybrid players and 18:50 for AZ's defense and how it translates to us)

So at the end of the day, no, you can not replace a player like Aldon but b/c our defense is no longer reliant on just one dominant WILL, and is now 'team defense' oriented, it doesn't affect Mangini's defense as much as many would think. That's not to say he didn't have several packages for Aldon specifically...he'll just have to scheme a bit differently now. If this was Fangio's defense, he'd be s**tting his pants right now.

But it's not so much about getting sacks (Seattle was 20th with 37) as it is creating confusion by being flexible and making life hell on offenses and QB/OC's bu moving personnel around and creating pre and post-snap confusion.

Finally, where the loss does hurt is that Mangini may not be able to relax and just rush the same 4 while running more exotic pattern match schemes on the back end (Fangio). He will have to scheme up more pressure and move personnel more to most likely have a similar effect with a little more risk on the back end from time to time.

Week 17
Tank showed a lot of pass rushing ability in this game, and was winning the majority of his battles with the LG. Showing off powerful leg drive, good use of his hands, and play recognition.

Here is Tank playing DE in the 3-4 base front. He will start his rush from a standstill. Not sure if it's because he's two gapping.


Tank gets under the pads and fires upward into the LG, getting him to straighten out his posture.


Tank continues his bull rush with good hand positioning.


Having inside hand positioning allows Tank to disengage from the block when he chooses to.


After not firing up field at the snap from two gapping (I think), Tank still applies the pressure. 3-4 DEs that can do this are special. QB throws it incomplete.

3-4 Over front with Tank as 2tech outside shade.


1v1 with the LG. Tank goes for the inside grab, but his arms are on top of the LG's shoulder pads.


Tank rips downward to get the LG to overbend while he gets low pad level.


Able to push the LG straight back to the QB. Once Tank was able to get into that crouch position, he fired up and into the LG to straighten him up. Then more power.
slow mo

Here's his 3rd career sack and it's more impressive than the first two (week 15).


Tank's left arm is on the outside, but his right arm has inside position.


Tank gives a strong shove that gets the LG slightly off balance.


Rip move. Lean into the LG to get him standing straight up.

Tank did not play the screen pass very well on the play in post#438, although I can't be sure what he was assigned to do.

Here, he shows good awareness and pursuit angle.
Nickel 3-tech.


Engages with the LG.


The LG lets Tank go by a little too easily and Tank is aware of it. Tank holds up and starts flowing to the RB.


Well played as the playside DT. -3 yards.

Originally posted by thl408:
3-4 Over front with Tank as 2tech outside shade.

Able to push the LG straight back to the QB. Once Tank was able to get into that crouch position, he fired up and into the LG to straighten him up. Then more power.
slow mo

Dial and Purcell giving up absolutely no ground to their double teams too. Love it. I'm excited to see the line this year.

Originally posted by Adusoron:
I'm sure this has been debated elsewhere, but what do the film guys (and everyone else in here) think about the impact of losing Aldon Smith as it relates to what was seen on 2014 film from the Giants game onward? Can Aaron Lynch, a slimmed down Brooks, and possible rookie phenom Eli Harold handle the job on the outside and provide reliable pressure without Aldon?

Can we scheme some pass rush too with Mangini's moving chess piece philosophy? Or are we basically doomed to have a mediocre or submediocre pass rush with Justin and Aldon both gone?

From what I saw on film:

We're not going to be able to just plug and play and replace Aldon. When he was on his game, he might have been the most dominant pass rusher in the league. What I mean by that is this: His combination of size, speed, strength and length of arms was downright scary. He had one of the fastest and most powerful hand strikes I've seen out of a pass rusher. He could knock the best and most physically gifted tackles' arms right out of the way. He was a guy that scared the guys he played against because of his potential to take over a game. He was also extremely agile for a 3-4 OLB, which made him very deadly on those stunts. What made him so deadly on those stunts was how quickly he could turn the corner and get to the QB.

That being said. We're definitely going to have to get pass rush done as a committee. Aldon was a guy who was so dominant in his pass rush that he made the coverage better. For example, last year, without Aldon, we had 11 INT's in 10 games. Still a good number. But, we had 12 INT's in 6 games with Aldon, almost twice as many per game - even though he wasn't getting the sacks, he was forcing QB's to make poorer decisions.

What this means is that, for our sacks and pressures to be better, we're going to need our coverage to be tighter just a little bit longer. The coverage had the luxury with Aldon that the pass rush helped the coverage. Now, the coverage is going to need to help the pass rush. So it will take a total team effort to get the rush done. For me, I'm not sold on anything that we can get that done. Jimmie Ward did alright in most situations as a rookie, however, I didn't see a great knack for ball skills or locating the ball in coverage. He did allow a QB rating of somewhere north of 138 when thrown at last year. As quality as our 2nd and 3rd year guys may be, the fact is, they're gonna have to be better than the guys they're replacing - which is going to be tough, it wasn't like we had slouches playing last year. Not saying they can't be, but it'll be hard to do.

My worry is that without Aldon, Brooks won't have the same drive. When it was looking like Aldon, Lynch and Brooks; he was going to have to really show something to stay in the mix and keep his starter role and to have significant playing time(IIRC he has to play 80% of the snaps to qualify for 2 mil escalator in his contract). Now, without Aldon, he doesn't have near the competition to earn the playing time. So, we could see another 2014 Brooks...

If we come with more blitz pressures, that puts more strain on an already untested secondary. The best blitzing teams are teams that have guys in the secondary who have played together for while and know the system and each well enough to be able to be very effective in coverage with only 5 or 6 guys(think of the Steelers at the height of their defensive prowess in the 2000's).

Originally posted by WolfTotem:

Originally posted by thl408:
3-4 Over front with Tank as 2tech outside shade.

Able to push the LG straight back to the QB. Once Tank was able to get into that crouch position, he fired up and into the LG to straighten him up. Then more power.
slow mo

Dial and Purcell giving up absolutely no ground to their double teams too. Love it. I'm excited to see the line this year.

not to sound like negative nancy...but.... being that it's a pass play, those lineman can't go more than 1 yard downfield, so they're not trying to move Purcell or Dial back, they're just trying to not give up any ground to Dial or Purcell, which they don't. So really, that's an absolute win for the offense against those 2 guys.

Originally posted by thl408:

Cardinals running back Taylor's takedown of Moody on this play is just funny (better than having your quarterback creamed, I suppose). Very good play by Tank, but if the running back hadn't "tackled" Moody, Moody would have probably nailed the quarterback well before Tank got to him (assuming Moody would have taken the right angle and wrapped up his tackle of the quarterback).

Originally posted by jonnydel:
From what I saw on film:

We're not going to be able to just plug and play and replace Aldon. When he was on his game, he might have been the most dominant pass rusher in the league. What I mean by that is this: His combination of size, speed, strength and length of arms was downright scary. He had one of the fastest and most powerful hand strikes I've seen out of a pass rusher. He could knock the best and most physically gifted tackles' arms right out of the way. He was a guy that scared the guys he played against because of his potential to take over a game. He was also extremely agile for a 3-4 OLB, which made him very deadly on those stunts. What made him so deadly on those stunts was how quickly he could turn the corner and get to the QB.

That being said. We're definitely going to have to get pass rush done as a committee. Aldon was a guy who was so dominant in his pass rush that he made the coverage better. For example, last year, without Aldon, we had 11 INT's in 10 games. Still a good number. But, we had 12 INT's in 6 games with Aldon, almost twice as many per game - even though he wasn't getting the sacks, he was forcing QB's to make poorer decisions.

What this means is that, for our sacks and pressures to be better, we're going to need our coverage to be tighter just a little bit longer. The coverage had the luxury with Aldon that the pass rush helped the coverage. Now, the coverage is going to need to help the pass rush. So it will take a total team effort to get the rush done. For me, I'm not sold on anything that we can get that done. Jimmie Ward did alright in most situations as a rookie, however, I didn't see a great knack for ball skills or locating the ball in coverage. He did allow a QB rating of somewhere north of 138 when thrown at last year. As quality as our 2nd and 3rd year guys may be, the fact is, they're gonna have to be better than the guys they're replacing - which is going to be tough, it wasn't like we had slouches playing last year. Not saying they can't be, but it'll be hard to do.

My worry is that without Aldon, Brooks won't have the same drive. When it was looking like Aldon, Lynch and Brooks; he was going to have to really show something to stay in the mix and keep his starter role and to have significant playing time(IIRC he has to play 80% of the snaps to qualify for 2 mil escalator in his contract). Now, without Aldon, he doesn't have near the competition to earn the playing time. So, we could see another 2014 Brooks...

If we come with more blitz pressures, that puts more strain on an already untested secondary. The best blitzing teams are teams that have guys in the secondary who have played together for while and know the system and each well enough to be able to be very effective in coverage with only 5 or 6 guys(think of the Steelers at the height of their defensive prowess in the 2000's).

Very nice post JD. Agreed.

Can someone with a PFF subscription run a search on #62 of ARI, Ted Larsen? He was getting worked by Tank and I wanted to get a sense for how good/bad he is. He probably lost his job to Iupati, but I wanted to get a gauge for the level of competition that Tank was going up against.

Originally posted by thl408:
Can someone with a PFF subscription run a search on #62 of ARI, Ted Larsen? He was getting worked by Tank and I wanted to get a sense for how good/bad he is. He probably lost his job to Iupati, but I wanted to get a gauge for the level of competition that Tank was going up against.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2015/02/16/2015-depth-charts-arizona-cardinals/

Cant give you a number exactly, but he was rated below average. Supposedly he sucked in pass pro. They give up one s**tty pass protector for another.