Offseason All22 Film Study

JG's pocket movement is excellent.
Great work.

Brace youselves, thl408 is back! Now things start to get interesting

Originally posted by asvidzinski:

Brace youselves, thl408 is back! Now things start to get interesting

I guess modding wasn't the career move he was hoping for, dealing with doofus posts and whinny posters

Thanks thl408 for posting this. I love these posts so much.The breakdowns are awesome. As a high school LB and OT, I hardly learned anything about routes and coverages. I wish I would have known more. I really appreciate the time you put into it. Great content. Keep it coming.

One quick suggestion. The program paint.net is similiar to paint in being very simple, but is much higher quality. For example, the arrows on the routes in your cutups look a little pixely. You should try it out. Thanks again.

If a zone dominant defensive team doesn't have the identity of being a single high safety defense (like the 49ers), then they are most likely based around Quarters/Cover 6. Here are a few play designs that Kyle used to beat Quarters and Cover6 coverage.

Cover 2 has holes in the deep middle of the field, and the areas behind the Flat and in front of the safety.
Quarters weakness is that it only has three underneath defenders.


Cover 6 gets its name from being Cover 2 + Cover 4. "Cover 4" will have a different meaning in different playbooks. Quarters has its safeties play more shallow and are asked to pattern match. So Cover 6 is really Cover 2 + Quarters.
Same weaknesses and strengths apply in Cover 6 to the respective sides of the field.


With four DBs each patrolling 1/4 of the deep area, Quarters looks to take away the intermediate/deep plays, but is open to the short game. When playing Cover6, teams will usually play Quarters on the the wider side of the field. This is to protect the Cover 2 safety and give him less area to cover.

12 personnel. Kyle puts a TE out wide to reveal zone coverage. Then motions Celek in line.


Quarters has weak underneath coverage, especially in the flats. The defender being attacked is the Quarters side C/F (blue) with a horizontal stretch. Garcon aligns in a reduced split, close to the formation, so that his quick Out is just a short throw.


Celek releases to the inside of the C/F defender to turn him inwards. No way can the C/F get into the passing lane to Garcon. The deep 1/4 is playing off coverage because he has deep zone responsibility. No way can he contest a quick Out.


Easy pitch and catch with 3 step timing.

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Same idea as the play above but done with 21 personnel.


Juice motions to stack behind Goodwin. Again attacking the Quarters C/F defender (blue).


Horizontal stretch causes the C/F to step towards Goodwin. Deep 1/4 not close due to cushion.


The read for the QB is the same, but it looks different to the defense because of different formation and personnel. Easy 3 step throw. Since Juice came from a reduced split, it gave him some area to work with to get some RAC. West Coast Offense.


Last year Chip would use spread formations against zone coverage to spread the alignment of the defense. Kyle will do that, but he'll also condense the formation into the center of the field in order to attack the edges.
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Quarters is a pattern match coverage and DCs will have the LBs also pattern match. Kyle will use this to his advantage by knowing what a defender is keying on, and using that to mislead him. Many MIKE backers playing Quarters will key the #3.
Orange route quickly wide to get the MIKE (blue) to step to his left. By quickly flaring the #3 out, Kyle can cause movement from the MIKE, away from where Kyle wants to attack.


It's a horizontal stretch on the MIKE to provide a passing lane to the Slant.



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Same concept, different formation


MIKE (blue) reacts to the #3 quickly going wide and opens the area to the Slant.



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The weaknesses of Cover 2 are also seen in Cover 6. If a Cover 2 safety is horizontally stretched to the sideline, it opens up the seam in the middle of the field.
This is a triangle stretch on the Curl defender (red) and the Cover 2 safety. This play was cut up by jd earlier this season in the 2017 film thread.


Goodwin releases to the outside of the Flat defender to horizontally stretch the Cover2 safety over to the sideline. Taylor starts to curl and gets the Curl defender (red) briefly flatfooted.


Taylor's Curl also pulls the MIKE forward for a vertical stretch. Kittles now has room to attack the seam in the middle of the field between the Cover 2 safety and the Quarters 1/4 safety.


With no threat to the Quarters 1/4 safety, this 5 step timing throw must be made on time or else the Quarters 1/4 will creep over to cover the seam.

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Here's the same play, but now it's run to the opposite side of Cover6. I'm not sure what the defense is doing on the wide side, but they are playing Cover2 to the boundary side.
Vertical stretch to the Flat defender. This is a common route combo to bust Cover 2. Just wanted to show how this play works against Cover 6 no matter which side the defense plays Cover 2 or Quarters.


This play design is a MOFO buster. (Middle Of Field Open)


Next part Cover3

Originally posted by Niners816:
I think you might have posted the link to me months ago....but have you seen any of the adjustments Kyle does on his Pin concepts? I'm having a hard time remembering if it was the post or the dig that would get broken off. I want to say it was the post that got converted to a post-out to counter act defenses squatting on that concept.

Maybe the Dig became a Deep Curl? I'll keep an eye out. You posted this in the 2017 film thread.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Niners816:

I think you might have posted the link to me months ago....but have you seen any of the adjustments Kyle does on his Pin concepts? I'm having a hard time remembering if it was the post or the dig that would get broken off. I want to say it was the post that got converted to a post-out to counter act defenses squatting on that concept.

Maybe the Dig became a Deep Curl? I'll keep an eye out. You posted this in the 2017 film thread.

It was different than this. I just can't remember if the post or the dig was adjusted.

Here's what it would look like if it was the post adjusted (I marked up the 2002 mike Shanahan playart of their notes pin concept)


And here's what it would look like if it was the dig adjusted (I marked it in green)


This video broke down how Kyle's has done this for a while now and it all looks like the patterned pin right up until that slight adjustment.

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Niners816:

I think you might have posted the link to me months ago....but have you seen any of the adjustments Kyle does on his Pin concepts? I'm having a hard time remembering if it was the post or the dig that would get broken off. I want to say it was the post that got converted to a post-out to counter act defenses squatting on that concept.

Maybe the Dig became a Deep Curl? I'll keep an eye out. You posted this in the 2017 film thread.

It was different than this. I just can't remember if the post or the dig was adjusted.

Here's what it would look like if it was the post adjusted (I marked up the 2002 mike Shanahan playart of their notes pin concept)


And here's what it would look like if it was the dig adjusted (I marked it in green)


This video broke down how Kyle's has done this for a while now and it all looks like the patterned pin right up until that slight adjustment.

Ok....this wasn't the specific video I remember watching but this discription explains what is going on. This is from that Espn article illistrating Kyle's go-to plays leading up to the SB vs NE.




This playart shows a pistol form, but he runs it out of everything. The key is the WR selling the route as either a post/dig and then working it into an out(I boxed the part that said that in the article). It's a great compliment to his tried and true Pin concept plays.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by SoCold: Speaking of FB catches. The coolest catch by a FB was when Tom Rathman caught a FB Out and Up from Steve Young for a touchdown in a rainy game at Miami. He dives to catch the ball and does a dolphin wiggle slide into the endzone.lol
Jerry Rice tied Steve Largent's TD reception record that day also. I have the complete game on vhs haha

You can see the catch in this video starting at 1:30

Originally posted by Niners816:
Here was probably our biggest FB-centric pass play in our hey day. These are from 1994.

Texas style plays

And the offshoot of the Texas/angle route (FB whip/arrow route)

In each case the FB was the first progression.

.

I'm drooling over what Mckinnon can do in this offense.

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Niners816:
I think you might have posted the link to me months ago....but have you seen any of the adjustments Kyle does on his Pin concepts? I'm having a hard time remembering if it was the post or the dig that would get broken off. I want to say it was the post that got converted to a post-out to counter act defenses squatting on that concept.

Maybe the Dig became a Deep Curl? I'll keep an eye out. You posted this in the 2017 film thread.

It was different than this. I just can't remember if the post or the dig was adjusted.

Here's what it would look like if it was the post adjusted (I marked up the 2002 mike Shanahan playart of their notes pin concept)

And here's what it would look like if it was the dig adjusted (I marked it in green)

This video broke down how Kyle's has done this for a while now and it all looks like the patterned pin right up until that slight adjustment.

Ok....this wasn't the specific video I remember watching but this discription explains what is going on. This is from that Espn article illistrating Kyle's go-to plays leading up to the SB vs NE.

This playart shows a pistol form, but he runs it out of everything. The key is the WR selling the route as either a post/dig and then working it into an out(I boxed the part that said that in the article). It's a great compliment to his tried and true Pin concept plays.

Oh I wasn't even close posting that Goodwin 80 yard TD. I know I saw a Goodwin run a Post-Out route but I forgot what was going on on the other side of the field. Kyle is good with finding complimentary plays that work off of his staple plays.

Originally posted by thl408:

Oh I wasn't even close posting that Goodwin 80 yard TD. I know I saw a Goodwin run a Post-Out route but I forgot what was going on on the other side of the field. Kyle is good with finding complimentary plays that work off of his staple plays.

His dad was good at that too. Check out these 2 plays from the 1994 playbook. Hell, they are even on the same page besides each other.

I've put a red box around what I'm talking about. The TE's route on both releases and starts the same and has the same 10 yards seem. It then squares it off for the drive concept and corners it out for the smash. Same goes for the Z, it starts the same for both. It drags for drive and whips out or returns for the smash.

The final coverage of the frequently used zone defenses is Cover3. Our 49ers defense major in this coverage. 3 deep, 4 underneath.


This play attacks a pattern match Cover3. The diagram for this coverage was posted on page 62 (Mable). The weakside Hook defender is to match any crossing route. Knowing this, Kyle schemes a way to attack that defender.
Red will clearout the weakside Hook for yellow Dig to attack.


Red must run right by the defender's ear to attract him.


Red weakside Hook sees the crosser and will match - that's his assignment on this coverage. Brieda flashes to make the strongside Hook step forward to further to make the passing lane clear. QB is mid windup throwing to #18 (LMurphy).


The ball is caught directly in the area that the weakside Hook just vacated with the defender having his back turned due to matching the clearout route.


This is breaking a coverage. Defense all perform their assignments and still give up a large gain.

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Here's a play that uses formation to skew defensive alignments, to earn space to work with. This was a blowout game so to add context, this is the first pass play of the game.
49ers put 2 WRs to the wide side of the field. This causes the middle deep safety to cheat over since that's the side that presents a greater deep threat.
This play is designed to horizontally stretch the boundary deep 1/3.


Purple flares out to widen the purple C/F defender. This allows yellow to break to the inside of purple Hook.
Since Red aligned inside the numbers, the boundary deep 1/3 (blue) will play with outside leverage. When red starts to stem outside, the deep 1/3 widens to keep outside leverage. The more spacing Red and yellow (Celek, Kittles) have between each other, the more stretched the deep 1/3 will be.


Kittles has pushed the deep 1/3 outside the numbers. Garcon flashes to pull the weakside Hook. With the middle 1/3 pulled to the 2WR side, all that earns a window over the underneath defenders into the seam.


3 step timing to attack the seam of Cover3. This was a beauty design to open the game.

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Switch Verticals is a known concept to bust Cover3 but here Kyle does it in an odd way here.
A pattern matching Cover3 will ask their sideline deep 1/3 to match any vertical route from #1. This is a horizontal stretch to the sideline deep 1/3. Red will occupy the deep 1/3 for yellow to attack.


Playaction to pull the underneath zones.


Once the Goodwin goes vertical, the deep 1/3 matches (blue). Goodwin is to stem inside to create the horizontal stretch - pull the deep 1/3 away from the sideline. At that same moment, there is a new #1 (Juice).


Switch Verticals with a fullback. Defenses don't practice against that.

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Kyle will use unbalanced formations to dress up common concepts. Trips with a standup inline TE in pistol. By having the Yellow route and the red route align behind one another (in terms of width) it's easier to get the horizontal stretch from a Curl-Flat concept.


When the weak C/F (orange) sees Hyde flare out to gain width, the C/F steps to mirror. This stretches the C/F and frees up the Curl.


QB takes the snap and holds the strongside Hook with his eyes earning more space for the Curl. As basic a concept as it gets but run from an unbalanced formation skews the defensive alignment with the weak C/F defender having so much room to defend.

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By placing Juice inline, it creates another gap for the defense to tack account for. This puts the C/F defender up near the line of scrimmage. Remove the C/F defender and the Slant-Flat concept is easy pitch and catch.


The FB widens and since the C/F defender was so close to the line at the start of the play, the C/F defender decides to smother the Flat route. That frees up the Slant. QB holds the Hook (Orange) by looking opposite side.


Deep 1/3 is hung out to dry with no underneath help.

Originally posted by Moses:
....
One quick suggestion. The program paint.net is similiar to paint in being very simple, but is much higher quality. For example, the arrows on the routes in your cutups look a little pixely. You should try it out. Thanks again.

Used it for one of the cut ups. It's cool. Thanks.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Moses:

....
One quick suggestion. The program paint.net is similiar to paint in being very simple, but is much higher quality. For example, the arrows on the routes in your cutups look a little pixely. You should try it out. Thanks again.

Used it for one of the cut ups. It's cool. Thanks.

No problem. Your gifs look great. What do you use to make the gifs?

jonny, thl, and the other film guys, how good are you at predicting plays during the game?