Offseason All22 Film Study

Originally posted by JoeBart324:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
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.

My one question Johnny would be whether Geep/Kap can utilize Reggie effectively. I really hope he doesn't become the token back that is brought out on trick plays because he legitimately could bring another dimension to this offense. Just like I think Torrey Smith will.

I completely agree with your assessment of the receiving corp last year. It was a great wideout lineup on paper, but they all played similar roles and I think Kap suffered because of it. From your's and THL's cutups, it really seems like Kap likes to see the field spread out so he can make a clean read. Smith and Reggie have the potential to make the defense play more on their heels which I think may help Kap in identifying where he wants to go with the ball that much quicker.

We'll never know until the season starts of course, but I think this offense might be making addition by subtraction. with Stevie and potentially Crabs gone, it might open up opportunities for the younger Patton and Ellington who showed flashes near the end of last season. I would really like to see them get some playing time as they seem like they could develop into some solid receiving threats.

Great post you two. Baalke said last year that he'd like to use the whole "53.3 yards" (full width) of the field. It looks like we'll be doing that now. Less sideline go routes and more calculated shots deep but much more now underneath and utilizing the full width. There was also a whole podcast devoted to how little we attacked the middle of the field. Hopefully we can get to that as well now with all the weapons (good fits).

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by JoeBart324:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
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.

My one question Johnny would be whether Geep/Kap can utilize Reggie effectively. I really hope he doesn't become the token back that is brought out on trick plays because he legitimately could bring another dimension to this offense. Just like I think Torrey Smith will.

I completely agree with your assessment of the receiving corp last year. It was a great wideout lineup on paper, but they all played similar roles and I think Kap suffered because of it. From your's and THL's cutups, it really seems like Kap likes to see the field spread out so he can make a clean read. Smith and Reggie have the potential to make the defense play more on their heels which I think may help Kap in identifying where he wants to go with the ball that much quicker.

We'll never know until the season starts of course, but I think this offense might be making addition by subtraction. with Stevie and potentially Crabs gone, it might open up opportunities for the younger Patton and Ellington who showed flashes near the end of last season. I would really like to see them get some playing time as they seem like they could develop into some solid receiving threats.

Great post you two. Baalke said last year that he'd like to use the whole "53.3 yards" (full width) of the field. It looks like we'll be doing that now. Less sideline go routes and more calculated shots deep but much more now underneath and utilizing the full width. There was also a whole podcast devoted to how little we attacked the middle of the field. Hopefully we can get to that as well now with all the weapons (good fits).

I'm in the middle of a very exhaustive offseason film analysis. It's taking quite a while because I'm looking at every single passing play we ran last year. I'm taking the play, diagramming it out, identify the concept at play and then listing the defense played against that play. From this, I'm giving Kap a grade A-F on his decision making for the play, mechanics, footwork and head movement. Once I'm all done - should be another few weeks though as it takes a LONG time to do each game, I'll be able to provide, hopefully, some very helpful insights to our passing offense last year.

All that to say, I'm not sure if we didn't attempt to attack the middle a lot or more that, Kap seemed to be gunshy over the middle. Also, one thing he really, really did not do well last year, was manipulate the defense with his eyes. I know I and Thl mentioned it a lot last year during season, but it's even more glaring since going back and looking at it all; and to throw over the middle against a lot of cover 3, you're going to have to move those LB's with your eyes, as you'll often have 2 middle coverage LB's.

Some of what I've seen so far. Kap really struggles a lot with smash concept designs(among others, while others he does well). He doesn't struggle all the time, but, he has a hard time recognizing when the corner will take the underneath route and how soon to bail on the corner route. One thing Alex did very well when he was with us, was the smash concept. When I was looking back through some film to see how we might use TS based off how we used Moss, I saw several TD's and chunk plays that AS made off the smash concept. The big difference was, AS looked off the FS before throwing the corner route. CK never looks the FS off.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

I'm in the middle of a very exhaustive offseason film analysis. It's taking quite a while because I'm looking at every single passing play we ran last year. I'm taking the play, diagramming it out, identify the concept at play and then listing the defense played against that play. From this, I'm giving Kap a grade A-F on his decision making for the play, mechanics, footwork and head movement. Once I'm all done - should be another few weeks though as it takes a LONG time to do each game, I'll be able to provide, hopefully, some very helpful insights to our passing offense last year.

All that to say, I'm not sure if we didn't attempt to attack the middle a lot or more that, Kap seemed to be gunshy over the middle. Also, one thing he really, really did not do well last year, was manipulate the defense with his eyes. I know I and Thl mentioned it a lot last year during season, but it's even more glaring since going back and looking at it all; and to throw over the middle against a lot of cover 3, you're going to have to move those LB's with your eyes, as you'll often have 2 middle coverage LB's.

Some of what I've seen so far. Kap really struggles a lot with smash concept designs(among others, while others he does well). He doesn't struggle all the time, but, he has a hard time recognizing when the corner will take the underneath route and how soon to bail on the corner route. One thing Alex did very well when he was with us, was the smash concept. When I was looking back through some film to see how we might use TS based off how we used Moss, I saw several TD's and chunk plays that AS made off the smash concept. The big difference was, AS looked off the FS before throwing the corner route. CK never looks the FS off.

Just based on the game by game analysis during the season you and Thl put out smash had to be one of our most run concepts. I specially remember the first zona game there being a ton. Harbs and roman use to like mirroring smash concepts in 3x2 sets with the inner most WR kinda settling over the middle.

Specifically concerning the smash, this could be something if the choose to twin up boldin and Torrey smith with smith being the slot guy, his spd should help in either getting that outter CB to bail on the hook or really give kap a nice window on that corner route if the outside CB sticks with the hook.

Anyone not familiar with the smash here is a pretty good pic:

Originally posted by GORO:
There is a play against the New England Patriots in the this year play offs and Ravens fans blame Torrey Smith for the interception, claiming he should of went after the ball. Can TH1408 or Jonnydel review this play and give a none biased view of it.

Here is that play.
Game situation: 4Q 1:46 - NE 35, BAL 31
2nd & 5
BAL: 4 Verticals
NE: cover1 (4 man rush, double team the TE). Torrey is at the top of the screen. The free safety is directly head up on where the ball is placed, center of the formation.


Flacco has not started his throwing motion, but the FS is already ready to break towards Torrey.


Ball was just released. Torrey gets an outside release and is starting to separate.


With Torrey having an outside release, the ball needs to be placed to Torrey's outside shoulder, close to the sideline - where the yellow 'X' is. This ball is severely underthrown. Couple that with how the FS rolled coverage over to Torrey and this ball was meant to be INT'ed.


When a QB looks at the FS, it usually freezes the FS in the middle of the field, but you can see the FS roll coverage towards Torrey regardless of Flacco doing this.


Notice the FS roll towards Torrey immediately after the snap. Flacco did not step into this throw.


My guess is the BAL fans wanted Torrey to go up strong for the ball, instead of giving a half ass shove to the FS. It's very tough to tell, but it seems like Torrey could have played the ball by trying to high point the ball, instead of trying to play cornerback. If he tries to contest the FS by jumping with the FS, perhaps there's a different result. Tough to tell, even in slo mo. But the main point of failure on this play is the poor placement of the throw as well as the decision to throw to Torrey when the FS was pretty much double teaming him. The best option on the play was the slot WR on the Go route. As soon as Flacco saw the FS roll towards Torrey, Flacco should have immediately red lighted Torrey.

Originally posted by Niners816:
Just based on the game by game analysis during the season you and Thl put out smash had to be one of our most run concepts. I specially remember the first zona game there being a ton. Harbs and roman use to like mirroring smash concepts in 3x2 sets with the inner most WR kinda settling over the middle.

Specifically concerning the smash, this could be something if the choose to twin up boldin and Torrey smith with smith being the slot guy, his spd should help in either getting that outter CB to bail on the hook or really give kap a nice window on that corner route if the outside CB sticks with the hook.

Anyone not familiar with the smash here is a pretty good pic:

Agreed. The mirrored Smash will be much more effective with Torrey and VD running the Corner routes. Before, VD was the only person that could threaten vertically running the Corner routes. VD needs to make a comeback. If VD plays like 2014, the addition of Torrey just keeps them 'the same' as 2013's speed in a way. Still one vertical threat, albeit from the WR position this time. Perhaps have Torrey and Patton as the slot WRs.

BAL did not use Torrey in the slot much in 2014. Not saying the 49ers can't, just saying BAL didn't.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

I'm in the middle of a very exhaustive offseason film analysis. It's taking quite a while because I'm looking at every single passing play we ran last year. I'm taking the play, diagramming it out, identify the concept at play and then listing the defense played against that play. From this, I'm giving Kap a grade A-F on his decision making for the play, mechanics, footwork and head movement. Once I'm all done - should be another few weeks though as it takes a LONG time to do each game, I'll be able to provide, hopefully, some very helpful insights to our passing offense last year.

All that to say, I'm not sure if we didn't attempt to attack the middle a lot or more that, Kap seemed to be gunshy over the middle. Also, one thing he really, really did not do well last year, was manipulate the defense with his eyes. I know I and Thl mentioned it a lot last year during season, but it's even more glaring since going back and looking at it all; and to throw over the middle against a lot of cover 3, you're going to have to move those LB's with your eyes, as you'll often have 2 middle coverage LB's.

Some of what I've seen so far. Kap really struggles a lot with smash concept designs(among others, while others he does well). He doesn't struggle all the time, but, he has a hard time recognizing when the corner will take the underneath route and how soon to bail on the corner route. One thing Alex did very well when he was with us, was the smash concept. When I was looking back through some film to see how we might use TS based off how we used Moss, I saw several TD's and chunk plays that AS made off the smash concept. The big difference was, AS looked off the FS before throwing the corner route. CK never looks the FS off.

I can't wait for that thread. Hopefully we will see a huge improvement with Kap and being able to manipulate defenders with his eyes. I'm sure this is something Kurt Warner has pinpointed in his film study with Kap. I think this year with Kaps offseason training we will see a lot of changes in his mental game because we know his physical game is just about as good as it can be for a QB. I also think having Logan in the film room will only continue that progress throughout the season. Thanks again Johnny and Thl for these posts, doesn't get any better than this on any 49er website.

Originally posted by thl408:
Agreed. The mirrored Smash will be much more effective with Torrey and VD running the Corner routes. Before, VD was the only person that could threaten vertically running the Corner routes. VD needs to make a comeback. If VD plays like 2014, the addition of Torrey just keeps them 'the same' as 2013's speed in a way. Still one vertical threat, albeit from the WR position this time. Perhaps have Torrey and Patton as the slot WRs.

BAL did not use Torrey in the slot much in 2014. Not saying the 49ers can't, just saying BAL didn't.

We also used Manningham fairly well in the slot for the Smash when AS was here - and Manningham was healthy. Where A. Smith did a great job with it, he would identify the coverage pre-snap, and know that the corner route is open, if he looks the defenders off. So, at the snap, he would look to the right, then on his plant foot, he would turn and throw the corner route - it really was a thing of beauty. He had the footwork and the wherewithal to be able to know the corner route would be open, and look the safety off, all while throwing with perfect rhythm in his feet.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by JoeBart324:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
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.

My one question Johnny would be whether Geep/Kap can utilize Reggie effectively. I really hope he doesn't become the token back that is brought out on trick plays because he legitimately could bring another dimension to this offense. Just like I think Torrey Smith will.

I completely agree with your assessment of the receiving corp last year. It was a great wideout lineup on paper, but they all played similar roles and I think Kap suffered because of it. From your's and THL's cutups, it really seems like Kap likes to see the field spread out so he can make a clean read. Smith and Reggie have the potential to make the defense play more on their heels which I think may help Kap in identifying where he wants to go with the ball that much quicker.

We'll never know until the season starts of course, but I think this offense might be making addition by subtraction. with Stevie and potentially Crabs gone, it might open up opportunities for the younger Patton and Ellington who showed flashes near the end of last season. I would really like to see them get some playing time as they seem like they could develop into some solid receiving threats.

Great post you two. Baalke said last year that he'd like to use the whole "53.3 yards" (full width) of the field. It looks like we'll be doing that now. Less sideline go routes and more calculated shots deep but much more now underneath and utilizing the full width. There was also a whole podcast devoted to how little we attacked the middle of the field. Hopefully we can get to that as well now with all the weapons (good fits).

I'm in the middle of a very exhaustive offseason film analysis. It's taking quite a while because I'm looking at every single passing play we ran last year. I'm taking the play, diagramming it out, identify the concept at play and then listing the defense played against that play. From this, I'm giving Kap a grade A-F on his decision making for the play, mechanics, footwork and head movement. Once I'm all done - should be another few weeks though as it takes a LONG time to do each game, I'll be able to provide, hopefully, some very helpful insights to our passing offense last year.

All that to say, I'm not sure if we didn't attempt to attack the middle a lot or more that, Kap seemed to be gunshy over the middle. Also, one thing he really, really did not do well last year, was manipulate the defense with his eyes. I know I and Thl mentioned it a lot last year during season, but it's even more glaring since going back and looking at it all; and to throw over the middle against a lot of cover 3, you're going to have to move those LB's with your eyes, as you'll often have 2 middle coverage LB's.

Some of what I've seen so far. Kap really struggles a lot with smash concept designs(among others, while others he does well). He doesn't struggle all the time, but, he has a hard time recognizing when the corner will take the underneath route and how soon to bail on the corner route. One thing Alex did very well when he was with us, was the smash concept. When I was looking back through some film to see how we might use TS based off how we used Moss, I saw several TD's and chunk plays that AS made off the smash concept. The big difference was, AS looked off the FS before throwing the corner route. CK never looks the FS off.

This is terrific and I applaud your efforts in advance!

It should really help to see where his development is at...maybe even help tease out scheme vs. QB decisions. I with we could evaluate QB coaching...maybe we can (i.e. is the QB making the same mistake over and over and over again? Tendencies corrected/not corrected? Not attack the middle of the field b/c higher probability for an INT?).

But the work you are doing is gold so thank you!

BTW: Totally agree with you re: manipulating defenders with their eyes, body language, etc. to target the middle of the field.

Here's some stuff I wanted to show, partially, just to keep the thread going, but to also showcase something I really hope CK can add to his game this year.

This is from back in 2012 from the game against the Lions on Sunday night football.



We're at the 21 Yard line. we come out with 22 personnel, so the Lion counter with 4-3 "under" formation with single-man coverage, so they'll have an extra blitzer on the play.

In the shift, AS recognizes the man coverage as the outside LB on the side of the shift moves out to maintain leverage on Miller.

Once he recognizes the man-coverage he sends Miller out wide(another one of those moments where people always gave a bunch of crap about us motioning Miller out wide - it's because our personnel groups force a specific defense).


You can see the LB alerting the motion to make sure the other defenders know to pick him up in man-coverage. This now puts a LB on Miller and the safety on Davis.


Here, we just run a "Smash" concept. Miller runs the curl, Davis the corner route. If it's man-coverage, you look for the corner route, if it's zone, you read the defender to see if his takes the hi or lo route as it creates a vertical stretch of the defense.


At the snap of the ball - AS knew he was seeing man-coverage with a single safety, so, he first looks to his right; you see the safety holding in the middle of the field, he can't slide over to help on Davis because he has to respect where Smith is looking.


Right as he hits his plant foot, he turns to look at Davis to make the throw - this is just how Bill Walsh would've wanted it. you see now how the safety isn't in position to help on Davis.


From here, you see how the Smash opens up the corner route and how the safety has no chance of helping on that throw.


When Davis catches it, it's pretty much as Bill Walsh wanted all of his throws, "1 foot in front of the numbers".

That's when a QB has all the little things down in a play - from pre-snap through the snap with identifying the defense, footwork, manipulating the defense with your eyes and accuracy on the throw. If CK can put these things in his game and get to that level, that's when he'll be truly scary as a QB.

^^^^That was a beautifully designed and executed play. Alex was playing at such a high level in 2012 before the injury.

Also I agree with your sentiment regarding miller, those that b***h about flexing him out needs this clip stapled to their forehead. If memory serves,Boldin scored a td vs Wash this year using smash and flexing miller. Got him single coverage on a saftey.

Originally posted by Niners816:
^^^^That was a beautifully designed and executed play. Alex was playing at such a high level in 2012 before the injury.

Also I agree with your sentiment regarding miller, those that b***h about flexing him out needs this clip stapled to their forehead. If memory serves,Boldin scored a td vs Wash this year using smash and flexing miller. Got him single coverage on a saftey.

we ran that play a bit this last year. Through the first 6 games I think I saw it at least 3 times.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by JoeBart324:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
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.

My one question Johnny would be whether Geep/Kap can utilize Reggie effectively. I really hope he doesn't become the token back that is brought out on trick plays because he legitimately could bring another dimension to this offense. Just like I think Torrey Smith will.

I completely agree with your assessment of the receiving corp last year. It was a great wideout lineup on paper, but they all played similar roles and I think Kap suffered because of it. From your's and THL's cutups, it really seems like Kap likes to see the field spread out so he can make a clean read. Smith and Reggie have the potential to make the defense play more on their heels which I think may help Kap in identifying where he wants to go with the ball that much quicker.

We'll never know until the season starts of course, but I think this offense might be making addition by subtraction. with Stevie and potentially Crabs gone, it might open up opportunities for the younger Patton and Ellington who showed flashes near the end of last season. I would really like to see them get some playing time as they seem like they could develop into some solid receiving threats.

Great post you two. Baalke said last year that he'd like to use the whole "53.3 yards" (full width) of the field. It looks like we'll be doing that now. Less sideline go routes and more calculated shots deep but much more now underneath and utilizing the full width. There was also a whole podcast devoted to how little we attacked the middle of the field. Hopefully we can get to that as well now with all the weapons (good fits).

I'm in the middle of a very exhaustive offseason film analysis. It's taking quite a while because I'm looking at every single passing play we ran last year. I'm taking the play, diagramming it out, identify the concept at play and then listing the defense played against that play. From this, I'm giving Kap a grade A-F on his decision making for the play, mechanics, footwork and head movement. Once I'm all done - should be another few weeks though as it takes a LONG time to do each game, I'll be able to provide, hopefully, some very helpful insights to our passing offense last year.

All that to say, I'm not sure if we didn't attempt to attack the middle a lot or more that, Kap seemed to be gunshy over the middle. Also, one thing he really, really did not do well last year, was manipulate the defense with his eyes. I know I and Thl mentioned it a lot last year during season, but it's even more glaring since going back and looking at it all; and to throw over the middle against a lot of cover 3, you're going to have to move those LB's with your eyes, as you'll often have 2 middle coverage LB's.

Some of what I've seen so far. Kap really struggles a lot with smash concept designs(among others, while others he does well). He doesn't struggle all the time, but, he has a hard time recognizing when the corner will take the underneath route and how soon to bail on the corner route. One thing Alex did very well when he was with us, was the smash concept. When I was looking back through some film to see how we might use TS based off how we used Moss, I saw several TD's and chunk plays that AS made off the smash concept. The big difference was, AS looked off the FS before throwing the corner route. CK never looks the FS off.

I'm looking very forward to this! IMO you are the most objective and knowledgeable poster in the film analysis threads.

Originally posted by aTx49er:
I'm looking very forward to this! IMO you are the most objective and knowledgeable poster in the film analysis threads.

Thanks, although, I think Thl is pretty darn good too.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's some stuff I wanted to show, partially, just to keep the thread going, but to also showcase something I really hope CK can add to his game this year.

This is from back in 2012 from the game against the Lions on Sunday night football.



We're at the 21 Yard line. we come out with 22 personnel, so the Lion counter with 4-3 "under" formation with single-man coverage, so they'll have an extra blitzer on the play.

In the shift, AS recognizes the man coverage as the outside LB on the side of the shift moves out to maintain leverage on Miller.

Once he recognizes the man-coverage he sends Miller out wide(another one of those moments where people always gave a bunch of crap about us motioning Miller out wide - it's because our personnel groups force a specific defense).


You can see the LB alerting the motion to make sure the other defenders know to pick him up in man-coverage. This now puts a LB on Miller and the safety on Davis.


Here, we just run a "Smash" concept. Miller runs the curl, Davis the corner route. If it's man-coverage, you look for the corner route, if it's zone, you read the defender to see if his takes the hi or lo route as it creates a vertical stretch of the defense.


At the snap of the ball - AS knew he was seeing man-coverage with a single safety, so, he first looks to his right; you see the safety holding in the middle of the field, he can't slide over to help on Davis because he has to respect where Smith is looking.


Right as he hits his plant foot, he turns to look at Davis to make the throw - this is just how Bill Walsh would've wanted it. you see now how the safety isn't in position to help on Davis.


From here, you see how the Smash opens up the corner route and how the safety has no chance of helping on that throw.


When Davis catches it, it's pretty much as Bill Walsh wanted all of his throws, "1 foot in front of the numbers".

That's when a QB has all the little things down in a play - from pre-snap through the snap with identifying the defense, footwork, manipulating the defense with your eyes and accuracy on the throw. If CK can put these things in his game and get to that level, that's when he'll be truly scary as a QB.

Very nice example of a QB using his eyes to manipulate the deep safety. I would venture to guess that AS knew presnap that he was going to target the VD vs Strong Safety matchup when presnap motion gave away man coverage. From there, it's just helping VD out by removing the FS from the equation using his eyes.

I want to say Kap does this fine when it comes to freezing the safeties. What I don't think he does enough of is moving the LB level zone defenders with his eyes to open up passing lanes over the middle of the field. There was one play versus DAL where I thought he did this and was excited to see more of it from him (it was cut up, I'll find it). It just didn't unfold that way as the season progressed. For Kap, it's not so much about trusting what he sees, it's trusting what he doesn't see.

If he has high confidence in his presnap read, he should trust that this particular route(s) will be his best chance to get a WR the ball on a particular play. Just as important, also understanding which routes have little to no chance versus the coverage he determines presnap. We saw a lot of this last season when he faced cover3. Whenever he looked, and remained looking, to see if a vertical route against a bailing CB will be open, I questioned why. There is almost no chance that Crab/Boldin is going to defeat a CB up the sideline when the CB is bailing. Kap shouldn't even bother looking that direction expecting to throw the ball. He should be looking towards routes that break behind the LBs, for example.

He needs to understand which routes have a high probability of being open and from there, use his eyes to move defenders, to increase the chances of that route being open. Zone coverage is conceptually easy to bust because the concepts work. He needs to trust the concepts. This is also why we see him go backside so much. He sees 1v1 man coverage on the backside and that's easy to understand and read presnap. Then he over-trusts his arm and his WR to make the play.

That play I referred to in the post above where Kap used his eyes to give himself a nice passing lane to the slant. By first looking to his right, he freezes #52 (weakside LB). You can tell Kap knew he was going to go to SJ, but he used his eyes to freeze the LB level defender. This gave SJ's slant a bigger window to throw into. When I saw this I was very encouraged. Just didn't continue as 2014 progressed.