Seattle Seahawks week 11 coaches film analysis

Here's the 2nd play of the first drive in the 3rd QTR.


Sorry for the jumlbed looking play-art, it's a deep crossing concept, sort of, lol.


We run PA out of a "13" personnel. This draws the LB's up and it looks like a slide concept out of the gates.


Gabbert turns his head and keeps his head down the middle of the field. This is really important because it's what's going to draw all the defenders to that side of the field.


As Gabbert looks downfield you see the defenders react to that side. On the backside, our RB turns to receive a pass, this occupies the underneath flat defender on that side. With the corner trailing the TE it's going to open up that side of the field for Celek who's been hiding out.


With a defender running full speed at him, Gabbert delivers the ball downfield to Celek.


It's a completion for 33 yards. Gabbert did a really good job of waiting to look to that side until he had moved the defense with his head. That's something that we've needed against Seattle's zone defense.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
I think a breakdown of the early pass to Ellington would be a good play to cover. People were upset that Gabbert overthrew it pretty badly but to me it looked like Ellington cut the route short and that Gabbert expected him to keep going.

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Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
I think a breakdown of the early pass to Ellington would be a good play to cover. People were upset that Gabbert overthrew it pretty badly but to me it looked like Ellington cut the route short and that Gabbert expected him to keep going.

I'll try and show that after I get done showing a few other things - There were a couple things. 1. I think Gabbert may have been playing safe against Sherman's side, so he didn't lead Ellington too far that way. Ellington was expecting the pass to be led more across the field, and Gabbert threw it more vertical - that's expected for Ellington because that's usually what Kaep did. He didn't lead receivers more vertical very often. Another thing is, Gabbert was under HEAVY pressure on that play. He got nailed right after he threw it, so he didn't really have an opportunity to step up into the throw. I think if he's got a cleaner pocket, they deliver that throw.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's one of the moments where Gabbert and his receiver weren't on the same page. It's the 2nd drive of the game - 3rd and 6, 8:41 1st QTR. I'm not in love with this playcall given the situation in the game. It's going to be a 3 receiver route with max protection.


Seattle shows a cover 2 man look at before the snap. It could be a press 4, but the LB's show a man-alignemnt. The miscue here is that TS - because he's engaged with Sherman, never see's the post-snap change. If Seattle were in a man-2, he's going to run this streak more up the numbers to draw the attention of the safety to open up the middle for Boldin.



At the snap, the safeties split - Seattle is running a cover-1 "robber". It's a trap defense, you show the cover 2 man - inviting the post route(which is what Boldin is running). I remember Rod Woodson getting a pick six on MNF, years ago, running cover 1 "robber" against a nearly identical offensive play.


You see how the safeties are in more of a stacked defense to protect the middle of the field. Gabbert reads Thomas and the change in the safeties and is going to look to the only other real option on the play. The streak/fade to TS on the wide side of the field. TS gets an outside release but continues to run his route more up the numbers, not realizing the safety has rotated down.


The red is how Gabbert throws the pass, the yellow is how TS runs his route. Gabbert is trying to throw the pass to the sideline, leading TS away from Sherman and work all the space they have. TS doesn't react the same way though.


You see how much room TS had to work with Sherman to the boundry, but, probably because they haven't played a whole lot together, TS doesn't realize the throw is coming outside til it's too late to adjust.


Gabbert put the ball on the money on the sideline, it landed just out of bounds, meaning, the receiver would be catching it a yard or so in bounds. They just weren't on the same page.

That play just looked like a crap pass watching it live. Didn't realize it was catchable seeing it from the endzone camera. Might have led Torrey a bit too much, but there was room for Torrey to work if the pass wasn't so close to the sideline. Gabbert could have also looked off the robber then hit Boldin, but that might be asking for too much.

Originally posted by vrabbit:

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
I think a breakdown of the early pass to Ellington would be a good play to cover. People were upset that Gabbert overthrew it pretty badly but to me it looked like Ellington cut the route short and that Gabbert expected him to keep going.

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Well, since 2 of you asked for it....


We're going to take a shot running a 7 man protection off PA out of "21" personnel.


We run PA to pull the underneath defenders up.


Seattle is running a cover 3 zone, you see Sherman dive off on the TE though.


There's two angles Ellington can take here, either he can cross the face of the defender or go over-the-top, he crosses the face.


From here, there's also 2 angles he can take, one more vertical and one more horizontal. He goes very horizontal. He comes almost straight across the field. You see Gabbert has thrown the ball and is plastered. The red is how Gabbert throws it, the yellow is how Ellington ran.


If Ellington runs more vertical, I don't think Thomas can make a play, Ellington's body would've shielded it and it wouldn't be an outstretched catch.


You see Gabbert as he's throwing the ball - so he was never able to shift his weight, which could've also been the culprit. Either way, it was a missed opportunity for a number of reasons. But, real, real close.

Hey JD you got the one of when Celeck was open for a TD but gabbert checked it down instead ?

I really thought Ellington lost track or missed judged of the ball for a second, making it look like an overthrow. If you look at where Gabbert is all he's doing is throwing it pretty much down the hashes to where Ellington should be after he took his angle.

Originally posted by susweel:
Hey JD you got the one of when Celeck was open for a TD but gabbert checked it down instead ?

I know the commentators said that, but I'm not so sure he was open. It was a real small window. Basically, it was a flood concept, Gabbert got under pressure and was flushed out of the pocket and hit the intermediate route, if he'd been allowed to stay in to make that throw sooner, the intermediate route would've been a catch and run for a first down.

Originally posted by qnnhan7:
I really thought Ellington lost track or missed judged of the ball for a second, making it look like an overthrow. If you look at where Gabbert is all he's doing is throwing it pretty much down the hashes to where Ellington should be after he took his angle.

yeah, it comes a little inside, one thing, it's hard to tell from the camera angle, but the ball takes a weird flight too. It may have been the camera angle - like when a golf ball looks like it flies off to the right, but it looks like the ball veers to the left from the endzone view. Almost like it caught a major cross breeze or something.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Well, since 2 of you asked for it....


We're going to take a shot running a 7 man protection off PA out of "21" personnel.


We run PA to pull the underneath defenders up.


Seattle is running a cover 3 zone, you see Sherman dive off on the TE though.


There's two angles Ellington can take here, either he can cross the face of the defender or go over-the-top, he crosses the face.


From here, there's also 2 angles he can take, one more vertical and one more horizontal. He goes very horizontal. He comes almost straight across the field. You see Gabbert has thrown the ball and is plastered. The red is how Gabbert throws it, the yellow is how Ellington ran.


If Ellington runs more vertical, I don't think Thomas can make a play, Ellington's body would've shielded it and it wouldn't be an outstretched catch.


You see Gabbert as he's throwing the ball - so he was never able to shift his weight, which could've also been the culprit. Either way, it was a missed opportunity for a number of reasons. But, real, real close.

I saw a common theme the 49ers were trying to use and that's double moves off of common route combinations. This play was one (three level flood), there was another on a deep throw to Celek (fade-out), and then the TD to Vance (spot). In all three of these instances, the 49ers looked to be running a very frequently seen concept, but they added a double move to (try to) fool the defense.

I saw this as a three level flood where instead of running the usual Go route to clear the deep1/3 defender, Ellington put on a double move to attack the middle of the field. We've seen this many many times as the 49ers try to bust cover3. Red clears the deep defender for yellow and orange to vertically stretch the curl/flat defender.


Ellington head fakes to the outside to get ET leaning.


Then he cuts back to the inside. jonney with the nice breakdown of which angles Ellington could have taken and the pressure Gabbert was under.


This double move off commonly seen concepts shows up again later in the game. This is adjusting to the opponent and using scouted tendencies against the defense. SEA is a very smart defense and understands the concepts that the 49ers like to use.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by susweel:
Hey JD you got the one of when Celeck was open for a TD but gabbert checked it down instead ?

I know the commentators said that, but I'm not so sure he was open. It was a real small window. Basically, it was a flood concept, Gabbert got under pressure and was flushed out of the pocket and hit the intermediate route, if he'd been allowed to stay in to make that throw sooner, the intermediate route would've been a catch and run for a first down.

Yah it looked if he led him to the sideline he could have had him. Not sure I just wanted to see if you had the pic.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Well, since 2 of you asked for it....

We're going to take a shot running a 7 man protection off PA out of "21" personnel.

We run PA to pull the underneath defenders up.

Seattle is running a cover 3 zone, you see Sherman dive off on the TE though.


There's two angles Ellington can take here, either he can cross the face of the defender or go over-the-top, he crosses the face.


From here, there's also 2 angles he can take, one more vertical and one more horizontal. He goes very horizontal. He comes almost straight across the field. You see Gabbert has thrown the ball and is plastered. The red is how Gabbert throws it, the yellow is how Ellington ran.


If Ellington runs more vertical, I don't think Thomas can make a play, Ellington's body would've shielded it and it wouldn't be an outstretched catch.


You see Gabbert as he's throwing the ball - so he was never able to shift his weight, which could've also been the culprit. Either way, it was a missed opportunity for a number of reasons. But, real, real close.

I think this was ALL Gabbert's fault and it is mainly because of our TE. The TE pulling Sherman away from that right side means NOBODY is deep on the right side of the field. Gabbert should have recognized that and led Ellington across the field instead of upfield. These are the kinds of plays Russell Wilson is great at. He is very good at throwing to the open field with enough air to let his receiver run to the ball.

The difficult part of this is that Gabbert threw the ball just before Ellington broke. Either way, he should have read Sherman and that right deep side being wide open.

FYI, Sherman with a lot of blown coverage this year. He tried to predict the underneath throw for the INT. We would have crushed them if Gabbert threw to the right.

Yah Gabbert totally led Ellington into the coverage on the one had thrown across the field it would have been a big gainer. Also he's very lucky the seahawks dropped two pick six's or we'd be talking about a whole different story.

Ellington open on that play. The safety looked like he over committed. The play almost happened behind him. He was able to recovered.

Originally posted by susweel:

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by susweel:
Hey JD you got the one of when Celeck was open for a TD but gabbert checked it down instead ?

I know the commentators said that, but I'm not so sure he was open. It was a real small window. Basically, it was a flood concept, Gabbert got under pressure and was flushed out of the pocket and hit the intermediate route, if he'd been allowed to stay in to make that throw sooner, the intermediate route would've been a catch and run for a first down.

Yah it looked if he led him to the sideline he could have had him. Not sure I just wanted to see if you had the pic.

after going to the replay - the ruling on the field is over-turned. You're right, he could've either gotten the first down or TD if he'd been able to get the ball out just a second sooner.


He is on the run, so it's a tough throw. But, I think he could've gotten it to either one. He took the easier throw, but again, if it's there a little sooner, probably a first down. It doesn't help that we tried to take a shot on 1st down - he had to check it down. It was 3 vertical routes and they were all covered and then the checkdown went for no gain. Then, we ran for no gain. So, it was 3rd and 10 and I think he may have been trying to not force a pass when you have 3 points secured.