Offseason All22 Film Study

Originally posted by northoakland510:

What are the rules on motion? I thought the player in motion had to be set before the snap of the ball. The running back is still in motion when the ball is snapped.

A player in motion can be running parallel to the line of scrimmage, or backwards, but cannot be moving forward at the snap.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by northoakland510:

What are the rules on motion? I thought the player in motion had to be set before the snap of the ball. The running back is still in motion when the ball is snapped.

A player in motion can be running parallel to the line of scrimmage, or backwards, but cannot be moving forward at the snap.

Shifts and motion always seems to be a little confusing.



As you said motion is any movement parallel at the snap. Shifts are basically every other form of movement that comes set for at least a second before the snap I believe. You can have as many shifts as the play clock allows (think Harbargh and the parade of shifts on certain plays).

Using your gif as an example.....Juice shifts into the backfield and the back motions out. However, if that back would have set for at least a second it is no longer motion and instead is just a shift of formation. Conversely, had they snap the ball when Juice was going back into the backfield he would have technically been in motion.

Originally posted by Niners816:
Shifts and motion always seems to be a little confusing.

As you said motion is any movement parallel at the snap. Shifts are basically every other form of movement that comes set for at least a second before the snap I believe. You can have as many shifts as the play clock allows (think Harbargh and the parade of shifts on certain plays).

Using your gif as an example.....Juice shifts into the backfield and the back motions out. However, if that back would have set for at least a second it is no longer motion and instead is just a shift of formation. Conversely, had they snap the ball when Juice was going back into the backfield he would have technically been in motion.

Remember during the 2017 preseason there was discussion about why the 49er offense committed so many illegal formation/shift penalties? It then continued into week 1 (two illegal formation penalties). It was "Kyle is a bad coach" vs "it's a tough offense to learn". Those penalties nearly disappeared as the season went on. They had two in week 1, then just two more for the rest of 2017 (both vs HOU).
http://www.nflpenalties.com/team/san-francisco-49ers?year=2017&view=log

A 2017 breakdown of the 49ers personnel usage and how they compare with the rest of the league:
https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/personnel-grouping-frequency.html
(that's a crappy pic, better to view the link with a computer monitor; sortable)

Notable:
- 49ers led the league in 21 personnel (2rb/1te/2wr) usage. I think it's a sign that Kyle wants to show balance with regards to threat of run or pass. It's why he needed a dynamic FB and gave Juice a big contract to get one. In 2016, BAL led the league in 21 usage (also Juice's team).
- 49ers were in the bottom 1/3 of the league in 11 personnel.
- 49ers only ran 18 plays where they fielded 4wr.
- Prior to the 2017 season, there was discussion about how Kyle liked to use 13 personnel with the Falcons in 2016 (third most in NFL). He didn't do much of that in 2017 (fourteen total plays).

Many factors are going to influence personnel usage, such as protecting a lead vs playing from behind, and weekly gameplanning. The 49ers also used 3 QBs and the chart doesn't show whether certain QBs operated out of specific personnel groups more or less than other groupings.

Originally posted by thl408:

A 2017 breakdown of the 49ers personnel usage and how they compare with the rest of the league:
https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/personnel-grouping-frequency.html
(that's a crappy pic, better to view the link with a computer monitor; sortable)

Notable:
- 49ers led the league in 21 personnel (2rb/1te/2wr) usage. I think it's a sign that Kyle wants to show balance with regards to threat of run or pass. It's why he needed a dynamic FB and gave Juice a big contract to get one. In 2016, BAL led the league in 21 usage (also Juice's team).
- 49ers were in the bottom 1/3 of the league in 11 personnel.
- 49ers only ran 18 plays where they fielded 4wr.
- Prior to the 2017 season, there was discussion about how Kyle liked to use 13 personnel with the Falcons in 2016 (third most in NFL). He didn't do much of that in 2017 (fourteen total plays).

Many factors are going to influence personnel usage, such as protecting a lead vs playing from behind, and weekly gameplanning. The 49ers also used 3 QBs and the chart doesn't show whether certain QBs operated out of specific personnel groups more or less than other groupings.

I just downloaded the pic and zoomed in. Nicely illustrated.

We ran only 18 plays with 4 WR's. I might need to ask Niners816 but is that standard for a Shanahan offense? Leading in 21 seems standard to me.

One reason I ask is because of the Pettis pick. I posed the question if we'd run more 4 WR sets or would he eat into more of Taylor's, Goodwin's and/or Garcon's snaps --- trying to gauge how Kyle will utilize this weapon this year and in the future.

Originally posted by thl408:

Remember during the 2017 preseason there was discussion about why the 49er offense committed so many illegal formation/shift penalties? It then continued into week 1 (two illegal formation penalties). It was "Kyle is a bad coach" vs "it's a tough offense to learn". Those penalties nearly disappeared as the season went on. They had two in week 1, then just two more for the rest of 2017 (both vs HOU).
http://www.nflpenalties.com/team/san-francisco-49ers?year=2017&view=log

Good times, good times.....I stand by everything I've said about Kyle. We are lucky to have him. He's a special play caller and the thought of him and Jimmy paired together for the next 6 years makes me so f**king stoked.

Originally posted by NCommand:

I just downloaded the pic and zoomed in. Nicely illustrated.

We ran only 18 plays with 4 WR's. I might need to ask Niners816 but is that standard for a Shanahan offense? Leading in 21 seems standard to me.

One reason I ask is because of the Pettis pick. I posed the question if we'd run more 4 WR sets or would he eat into more of Taylor's, Goodwin's and/or Garcon's snaps --- trying to gauge how Kyle will utilize this weapon this year and in the future.

I gave my opinion on the Pettis thread. Basically, if you use last year's numbers there's about 2600 WR snaps to go around.

Originally posted by NCommand:

I just downloaded the pic and zoomed in. Nicely illustrated.

We ran only 18 plays with 4 WR's. I might need to ask Niners816 but is that standard for a Shanahan offense? Leading in 21 seems standard to me.

One reason I ask is because of the Pettis pick. I posed the question if we'd run more 4 WR sets or would he eat into more of Taylor's, Goodwin's and/or Garcon's snaps --- trying to gauge how Kyle will utilize this weapon this year and in the future.

I don't know the specific answer, but I'd bet more of those came with Jimmy at QB, he ran a spread in college and did some for the Pats, might have been to help him get comfortable.

Obviously Kyle loves the play action game and so I still think he'll use a lot of 21 personel, but he also likes mismatches, if he thinks our 4th WR is much better than your 4th CB I'll bet you'll see an uptick.

Originally posted by 49erBigMac:

Originally posted by NCommand:
I just downloaded the pic and zoomed in. Nicely illustrated.

We ran only 18 plays with 4 WR's. I might need to ask Niners816 but is that standard for a Shanahan offense? Leading in 21 seems standard to me.

One reason I ask is because of the Pettis pick. I posed the question if we'd run more 4 WR sets or would he eat into more of Taylor's, Goodwin's and/or Garcon's snaps --- trying to gauge how Kyle will utilize this weapon this year and in the future.

I don't know the specific answer, but I'd bet more of those came with Jimmy at QB, he ran a spread in college and did some for the Pats, might have been to help him get comfortable.

Obviously Kyle loves the play action game and so I still think he'll use a lot of 21 personel, but he also likes mismatches, if he thinks our 4th WR is much better than your 4th CB I'll bet you'll see an uptick.

I agree. I saw more 4-wides with Jimmy than any of the other QB's, but that was just raw eyes, I don't have any real statistics to back that up. Having said that, given the speed of this offense, it could be that we'll be ahead most of the time and will be running a 4-minute offense in the last QTR of most games, and if so, that will skew the personnel groupings to more of a ground and pound based offense vs Kyle's preferred 21 personnel. Imagine Kittle, Celek, and Juszczyk, Garcon and Pettis as the wide-outs. It would be interesting how they defense a play action pass with that kind of personnel grouping.

Originally posted by Giedi:

I agree. I saw more 4-wides with Jimmy than any of the other QB's, but that was just raw eyes, I don't have any real statistics to back that up. Having said that, given the speed of this offense, it could be that we'll be ahead most of the time and will be running a 4-minute offense in the last QTR of most games, and if so, that will skew the personnel groupings to more of a ground and pound based offense vs Kyle's preferred 21 personnel. Imagine Kittle, Celek, and Juszczyk, Garcon and Pettis as the wide-outs. It would be interesting how they defense a play action pass with that kind of personnel grouping.

That's 12 personel but I agree it would be tough.

Our 21 with McKinnon, Juice, Kittle, Garcon and Goodwin is downright scary, if you come out heavy we'll spread you wide, if not we'll run down your throat.

You better have LB's and Safeties who can run and thump or you're in trouble.

Originally posted by Giedi:

I agree. I saw more 4-wides with Jimmy than any of the other QB's, but that was just raw eyes, I don't have any real statistics to back that up. Having said that, given the speed of this offense, it could be that we'll be ahead most of the time and will be running a 4-minute offense in the last QTR of most games, and if so, that will skew the personnel groupings to more of a ground and pound based offense vs Kyle's preferred 21 personnel. Imagine Kittle, Celek, and Juszczyk, Garcon and Pettis as the wide-outs. It would be interesting how they defense a play action pass with that kind of personnel grouping.

We actually only ran 18 plays last year with a personnel grouping that contained 4 WR (10 and 01 personnel). Just remember, formation doesn't determine personnel grouping. The formula for personnel groups are the following:

HB+TE+WR=5

And when saying the personnel group, you read off the HB and TE as a number. So a group that contains 1 HB and 2 TE by default has 2 WR. It's called 12 personnel. Now you can run something like 12 personnel, but use a spread formation that makes it look like a 2x2 with a HB. So it looks like a traditional 4 WR set, but it's still technically 12 personnel.

Originally posted by thl408:
A player in motion can be running parallel to the line of scrimmage, or backwards, but cannot be moving forward at the snap.

Thanks for the explanation.

I'm not done talking 21 personnel because I think that's something that sets Kyle's offense apart from the majority of the league. For the 2017 season, the 49ers ran '21' the most in the NFL, but a deeper dive shows that when JG came on board, they went crazy with '21' personnel. Nowadays we hear about how defenses spend most of their him in nickel. Kyle is one of the few coaches that use '21' to keep defenses in base.

The 49ers usage of '21' is directly tied to Juice's snapcounts. In the first 9 games he played (he missed a couple due to injury), Juice averaged 24 snaps a game. Starting with the CHI game (Jimmy's first start) till the end of the season, Juice's average snapcount in those 5 weeks jumped to 37 snaps. Many factors contribute to this including the score being close which allows for run/pass neutral game situations, and converting 3rd downs to stay on the field.

All this reading about '21' has me interested in breaking down the 49ers run game from 21, and how they execute so many misdirection/playaction plays from this grouping since the opposing defense has to honor the run game first. We see so many slide concepts from this where the TE or FB goes against the flow of the OL and slips open.


Linked below is an article that is focused on the Jaguars defense and its strength in defending '11' personnel and weakness in defending '21'. It's a lengthy article so I'll mention some of the 49er related stuff below. The article focuses a lot on the 49ers' week 16 win vs the Jags as a preview on how the Patriots will attack the Jags in the AFCCG. Italics are from the article.

• The 49ers were fascinating because, for the first half of the year, they used 11 personnel a lot. Through the first 7 weeks, they used 11 personnel on 62% of offensive snaps, which was 15th most in the league at that time. But in large part due to injuries, they shifted to much less 11 over the rest of the season.
• But in their game against the Jaguars, however, the brilliant Kyle Shanahan had even more devious things in mind to attack the Jaguars weaknesses. Whether this was planned based on 49ers grading of Jaguars pass defense in 11 or not, Kyle Shanahan chose to use 11 personnel on just 21 of 66 offensive plays, or 32% of the time.
• In the 49ers case, they chose 21 more than 12 to attack the Jaguars (44% of their plays came when using 21 personnel).

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2018/the-secret-to-beating-the-jaguars-pass-defense

Originally posted by thl408:

I'm not done talking 21 personnel because I think that's something that sets Kyle's offense apart from the majority of the league. For the 2017 season, the 49ers ran '21' the most in the NFL, but a deeper dive shows that when JG came on board, they went crazy with '21' personnel. Nowadays we hear about how defenses spend most of their him in nickel. Kyle is one of the few coaches that use '21' to keep defenses in base.

The 49ers usage of '21' is directly tied to Juice's snapcounts. In the first 9 games he played (he missed a couple due to injury), Juice averaged 24 snaps a game. Starting with the CHI game (Jimmy's first start) till the end of the season, Juice's average snapcount in those 5 weeks jumped to 37 snaps. Many factors contribute to this including the score being close which allows for run/pass neutral game situations, and converting 3rd downs to stay on the field.

All this reading about '21' has me interested in breaking down the 49ers run game from 21, and how they execute so many misdirection/playaction plays from this grouping since the opposing defense has to honor the run game first. We see so many slide concepts from this where the TE or FB goes against the flow of the OL and slips open.


Linked below is an article that is focused on the Jaguars defense and its strength in defending '11' personnel and weakness in defending '21'. It's a lengthy article so I'll mention some of the 49er related stuff below. The article focuses a lot on the 49ers' week 16 win vs the Jags as a preview on how the Patriots will attack the Jags in the AFCCG. Italics are from the article.

• The 49ers were fascinating because, for the first half of the year, they used 11 personnel a lot. Through the first 7 weeks, they used 11 personnel on 62% of offensive snaps, which was 15th most in the league at that time. But in large part due to injuries, they shifted to much less 11 over the rest of the season.
• But in their game against the Jaguars, however, the brilliant Kyle Shanahan had even more devious things in mind to attack the Jaguars weaknesses. Whether this was planned based on 49ers grading of Jaguars pass defense in 11 or not, Kyle Shanahan chose to use 11 personnel on just 21 of 66 offensive plays, or 32% of the time.
• In the 49ers case, they chose 21 more than 12 to attack the Jaguars (44% of their plays came when using 21 personnel).

http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2018/the-secret-to-beating-the-jaguars-pass-defense

44% of the time vs Jax is almost like the old days. Of course there's really not data that I could find but I'd be willing to bet that in the latter part of our dynasty (think '92-'98) we were in base at least 50% of the time. Prior to that I'd say the base was more in that 60-65% range.

The league as a whole runs it 7% if that one personnel grouping chart is correct and we led with 28% I seem to recall. Now if we were more in that 40-45% with Jimmy that is bucking a league wide trend and makes us an outlier offense that the league really doesn't see week to week.

Kyle showed a clear preference for '21' last season. In 2017, teams like JAC and BAL showed a clear preference for 12 (1rb/2te/2wr). Both force the defense to stay in base (4 defensive backs).

21 (2rb/1te/2wr)


12

This is from the Hoodie himself as he discusses the differences in '21' and '12'. There's a lot of nerdy X&Os stuff in his answer. Below are snippets.
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http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots_nfl/the_blitz/2013/08/bill_belichick_dishes_on_differences_between_12_and_21
Bill Belichick was asked today to explain the different advantages in sets with two running backs and one tight end ("21" personnel) instead of one running back and two tight ends ("12"). Both sets also include two wide receivers.
- "Well, I think when you, just fundamentally, when you have one back in the backfield (12) and you have four on-the-line receivers, that gives you an ability to get into the defense potentially with four people," Belichick said. "Or even if it's three of them, sometimes the defense isn't sure which three of them it is. One tight end could be in it and the other guy could be in protection, that type of thing."
- "But as far as your running gaps, I mean, you can put more width at the formation by having a guy on the line, whether it's four on one side and two on the other side of the center, or three and three. You just have a wider front, which there are some advantages to that. By having them in the backfield, you can create that same four-man surface or three-man surface after the snap so the defense doesn't know where the four-man surface or three-man surface is. The fullback has to –- he can build that from the backfield."
- "And then there are also, let's say, a greater variety of blocking schemes with the fullback in the backfield (21) because he can block different guys and come from different angles. He's not always behind the quarterback. He could be offset one way or the other and create different blocking schemes and angles that it's harder to get from the line of scrimmage."
- "Also, depending on who your tight end is, it can be a little bit easier to pass protect seven men because two of them are in the backfield (21) instead of us having one in the backfield. I think fundamentally it's a little easier to pick them up when you a have a guy in the backfield that can step up and block him from the fullback position (21) as opposed to a tight end in the line of scrimmage (12)
- "Obviously when you have a guy in the backfield (21), it's harder to get those two receivers vertically into the defense in the passing game. They're usually running shorter routes to the flat or checking over the ball or those kind of things, short crossing routes, versus having that fourth receiver on the line of scrimmage who can run some downfield routes,"
------------------
So what Hoodie is basically saying:
- In the passing game: '12' allows for the 2TEs to get into their routes faster since they are closer to the line of scrimmage when compared to a FB in the backfield ('21'). So '12' allows the offense to threaten vertically easier than '21'.
- In the run game: '12' with two inline TEs will spread the defensive box wider. But '21' allows the FB to move and set the strongside after the snap. After the snap allows the offense to be more unpredictable with unbalanced formations. More variety in run game concepts with a FB.
- In blitz pickup: '21' puts two potential blockers in the backfield which is easier to pass protect because they can see blitzers coming - as opposed to '12' where TEs are inline.