Originally posted by bzborow1:
Thanks guys for giving 49ers fans some comfort given the tumultuous off-season the team has had thus far. It refreshing to think that the 49ers might finally have a guy who can help spread defenses out a bit. It was getting tiring and repetitive in recent years to see teams play man with a single high safety and crowd the line all day without being able to do much about it. Kaepernick didn't have a good year last season but those WR's sure weren't helping him out either.
A lot of that had to do with the lack of a true SE or X receiver. Last year, to me, the receiving corps didn't make any sense - on paper it looked great, but from a strategic and schematic standpoint, it wasn't ideal. We had 3 Flankers or Z receivers, who are commonly referred to as the "possession" receivers. Whereas, you generally want an SE, Flanker and Slot guy. Your SE is going to be a bigger body, fast player who can defeat 1-1 matchups(Moss, Rice[the caveat is, Rice did play Flanker as well], megatron, Dez Bryant, Brandon Marshall). Brandon Lloyd was the closest thing we had to that last year. He was the guy who, if in a bind, you could throw it up to him - but his age and declining speed kept him from being a true every down reliable option.
Your Flanker is going to be the bigger body, catch in traffic guy. Mainly because you're going to be utilizing him for a lot of concept designs because having the TE on that side makes those concepts available even out of a 2 RB 1 TE set. He'll be running more "drive" or shallow cross(just a couple different names for them) routes in conjunction with the TE on short to mid in routes for your "drive/levels/mesh" concepts. So, you want a bigger guy who can catch in traffic and run after the catch amidst LB's. He'll also run more "spot" routes and mid-in routes. All these routes take that receiver over the middle of the field so, again, you want your bigger body guys doing that. Anquan Boldin is probably your prototypical "Flanker"(Rice played Flanker fairly frequently as well, but, as he got older, they phased him out of his Flanker position for fear of running him into LB's - he did not agree haha).
Your "Slot" receiver is going to be a shorter base, quicker than fast, great COD player. Mainly, because, from the slot, the defender will almost always have safety help on any vertical routes because no matter if it's cover 1,2,3 or 4, there's a safety in range for a vertical route. So, it's not very logical to put a speed guy in the slot. You want a guy who can stop on a dime and change direction, mainly because, where the defender has the advantage for the verticals, they have to defend either direction so it's tough for them to use leverage in any way. So, if you have a super quick guy in the slot, you can defeat the defender very easily. This is why Wes Welker is the ideal "slot" guy but doesn't work well on the outside.
If anything, I could see us utilizing Reggie Bush in the "slot" now with some 2 RB sets - that would give us the ideal SE, Fl, Slot, TE matchup across the board - ala the Saints over the past many years.